Showing titles in Short Stories

On a road trip through Africa, two English people - Bobby, a civil servant with a guilty appetite for African boys; and Linda, a supercilious "compound wife" - are driving back to their enclave after a stay in the capital. But in between lies the landscape of an unnamed country whose squalor and ethnic bloodletting suggest Idi Amin's Uganda. And the farther Naipaul's protagonists travel into it, the more they find themselves crossing the line that separates privileged outsiders from horrified victims.

In the near future, where America has become a police state, one hundred boys are selected to enter an annual contest where the winner will be awarded whatever he wants for the rest of his life. The game is simple - maintain a steady walking pace of four miles per hour without stopping. Three...

There is a book that is shrouded in mystery. Some even say it's a myth. Within its pages is a play - one that brings madness and despair to all who read it. It is the play of the King in Yellow, and it will haunt you for the rest of your days. The King in Yellow is a collection of stories interwoven loosely by the elements of the play, including the central figure himself.

An offshoot of the oral tradition of storytelling, the short story shot to prominence in the latter half of the 19th century due to an increased demand for short fiction in magazines and journals. Over time, it established itself as an important and popular genre. From PU Songling's classic Painted Skin, Edgar Allan Poe's sensational The Purloined Letter to Guy de Maupassant's poignant Two Friends, 51 Great Short Stories presents some of the finest works of short fiction.

Andrew Sachs reads these four classic stories of suspense - "The Signalman" by Charles Dickens, "The Haunted Doll's House" by M. R. James, "The Room in the Tower" by E. F. Benson, and "The Bus-Conductor" by E. F. Benson. These spine-tingling tales, from the golden age of the ghost story, are sure to leave you with a creeping sense of dread.

Manisha Kulshreshtha is a popular Hindi writer. She has written four novels and six short story collections and has received several awards and fellowships. In Kirdar, Manisha Kulshreshtha exposes listeners to a variety of narratives but there is a central theme that underlies these stories and binds them together.

The correspondence between Carrie Allsop and David Mayer reveals, piece by piece, the painful details of a devastating affair between their spouses. With each commiserating scratch of the pen, they confess their fears and bare their souls. They share the bewilderment over how things went so wrong and come to wonder where to go from here. Told entirely through the letters of two comforting strangers and those of two illicit lovers, Evidence of the Affair explores the complex nature of the heart. And ultimately, for one woman, how liberating it can be when it’s broken.

An enchanting collection of stories from the heartland of India Ruskin Bond’s simple characters, living amidst the lush forests of the Himalayan foothills, are remarkable for their quiet heroism, courage and grace, and age-old values of honesty and fidelity. Residents of nondescript villages...

READ BY PALLAS ERDRICH “Pulitzer winner Erdrich dives deep into the American psyche in this spectacular collection. . . . A staggering sense of empathy infuses the stories. With its range of voices and styles, this puts Erdrich’s powers on full display.” — Publishers Weekly (Starred...

Mansarovar 2 is the second volume in Munshi Premchand’s celebrated collection of stories, offering a rich tapestry of human emotions, social issues, and the complexities of life in pre-independent India. Known for his deep empathy and sharp observation, Premchand’s tales highlight the struggles of the common man, portraying themes of love, poverty, sacrifice, and morality.

Sometimes a journey can be of discovery. And in this compilation, Ruskin Bond has discovered hair-raising stories of other people's journeys taken many, many years ago. Bond describes the old track from Rajpur to Mussorie, surrounded by oak trees and colonial buildings in 'The Kipling Road'. Braving blizzards and bandits, M. Huc takes a momentous journey to Ladakh in 'Journey to the Forbidden City', while Osa Johnson, the only woman adventurer in the book, gives her awe-inspiring account of cannibals in 'A Woman Among Cannibals'.

Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Andrew Scott, star of Sherlock, Fleabag and Black Mirror, also known for his on-stage roles in Present Laughter and Hamlet. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by Terence Brown. Joyce's first major work, written when...

STREAMING ON NETFLIX FROM JANUARY 2025: Stephen King's 'The Life of Chuck' is a 'phenomenal' (USA Today) tale of life and legacy - and now a feature film directed by Mike Flanagan and starring Tom Hiddleston, Mark Hamill, Chiwetel Ejiofor, and Karen Gillan. Available in a beautiful standalone...

Sachchidananda Hirananda Vastyayana ‘Agyeya’ (Ajneya) is an important poet and writer of the ‘adhunik kaal’ (modern period) of Hindi literature. Meri Priya Kahaniyan (My Favourite Stories) is an anthology of 12 of his selected stories, where after 15 years of hiatus, he revisits his old writings as an exercise to reflect on questions of audience reception, truth and the position of a writer vis-à-vis the world he inhabits and the world that he creates.

அப்பா பிள்ளை வாழ்வின் ஓட்டத்தில் தந்தை மகனாகவும், மகன் தந்தையாகவும் மாறும் சூழல் ஏற்படுகிறது. எதனால்? இந்த அப்பாவும் பிள்ளையும் கற்பனையல்ல. நிஜம். இரத்தமும் சதையுமாய் வாழ்பவர்கள். அன்பு நிறைந்ததே வாழ்க்கை.

Hailed by The New York Times as "a marvel of storytelling", The Things They Carried’s portrayal of the boots-on-the-ground experience of soldiers in the Vietnam War is a landmark in war writing. Now, three-time Emmy Award winner-Bryan Cranston, star of the hit TV series Breaking Bad, delivers an electrifying performance that walks the book’s hallucinatory line between reality and fiction and highlights the emotional power of the spoken word.

In Nocturnes, a sublime story cycle, Kazuo Ishiguro explores ideas of love, music and the passing of time. From the piazzas of Italy to the Malvern Hills, a London flat to the "hush-hush floor" of an exclusive Hollywood hotel, the characters we encounter range from young dreamers to cafe musicians to faded stars, all of them at some moment of reckoning. Gentle, intimate, and witty, this quintet is marked by a haunting theme: the struggle to keep alive a sense of life's romance, even as one gets older.

Are people really what they appear to be? Is there more to Aparna than her unusual childhood and her seemingly idyllic life? In this dark, gripping short story, Preeti Shenoy’s uncanny ability to get under the skin of her characters shines through.

From the story of a young bride whose fairy-tale vision of California is shattered when her husband is murdered and she must face the future on her own, to a proud middle-aged divorced woman determined to succeed in San Francisco, Divakaruni's award-winning poetry fuses here with prose for the first time to create 11 devastating portraits of women on the verge of an unforgettable transformation.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More by Roald Dahl, read by Andrew Scott. Roald Dahl turns his pen to anything, twisting everyday life into powerful, and sometimes terrifying fantasies. Seven superb stories, full of Roald Dahl's usual magic...