Years before the publication of "Catch-22" ("A monumental artifact of contemporary literature" -- "The New York Times;" "An apocalyptic masterpiece" -- "Chicago Sun-Times;" "One of the most bitterly funny works in the language" -- "The New Republic"), Joseph Heller began sharpening his skills as a writer, searching for the voice that would best express his own peculiarly wry view of the world.
In "Catch As Catch Can, " editors Matthew J. Bruccoli and Park Bucker have for the first time collected the short stories Heller published prior to that first novel, along with all the other short pieces of fiction and nonfiction that were published during his lifetime. Also included are five previously unpublished short stories, most reflecting the influence on Heller of urban naturalist writers such as Irwin Shaw and Nelson Algren.
The result is an important and significant addition to our understanding and appreciation of Joseph Heller, showing his evolution as a writer and artist. For those unfamiliar with his work, it will serve as an excellent introduction; for everyone else, "Catch As Catch Can" is a chance to explore a new aspect of Heller's remarkable career.

DISCOVER THE SHORT STORY COLLECTION THAT GAVE THE WORLD DRIVE MY CAR, THE BAFTA AND OSCAR WINNING FILM A dazzling Sunday Times bestselling collection of short stories from the beloved internationally acclaimed Haruki Murakami. Across seven tales, Haruki Murakami brings his powers of observation to bear on the lives of men who, in their own ways, find themselves alone. Here are vanishing cats and smoky bars, lonely hearts and mysterious women, baseball and the Beatles, woven together to tell stories that speak to us all. Marked by the same wry humour that has defined his entire body of work, in this collection Murakami has crafted another contemporary classic. 'Supremely enjoyable, philosophical and pitch-perfect new collection of short stories...Murakami has a marvelous understanding of youth and age' Observer 'Murakami at his whimsical, romantic best' Financial Times

Five close friends in their 90s meet - as they have for decades - for their monthly 'ladies lunch', to puzzle, and laugh at, the enigmas and affronts of ageing. When one of their number is placed unhappily in a home the others conspire to spring her. Lore Segal's witty, yet poignant, short story, Ladies' Lunch, appeared in the New Yorker in 2017, when she herself turned ninety. It was followed by four New Yorker sequels. For this sparkling collection, Segal returns to her group of erudite, sharp-minded nonagenarians in Upper Manhattan offering startling insights into friendship and mortality. In the book's Other Stories, Segal includes tales from her acclaimed and prizewinning oeuvre to illuminate the hinterland of her characters - one of whom, like her, was a Kindertransport refugee. Beautifully crafted and profound, these stories distil the spirit of one of America's great authors to show us what a long life might bring.

A wife is suspended in a bird cage; a thirteenth-century visionary senses the foreskin of Christ on her tongue: Fleur Jaeggy's gothic imagination knows no limits. Whether telling of mystics, tormented families or famously private writers, Jaeggy's terse, telegraphic writing is always psychologically clear-eyed and deeply moving, always one step ahead, or to the side, of her readers' expectations. In this, her long-awaited return, we read of an 'eerie maleficent calm, a brutal calm', and recognise the timbre of a writer for whom a paradoxical world seethes with quiet violence.

"Without a doubt, Christi Nogle is one of my favorite new voices in horror. Her fiction is by turns devastating, horrifying, and beyond beautiful. With her collection, The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future, she's created something truly remarkable, the kind of horror that's filled with grit and heart. Don't miss this book; it's sure to be one of the very best collections of 2023."- Gwendolyn Kiste, Bram Stoker Award-winning author of The Rust Maidens and Reluctant Immortals The Best of Our Past, the Worst of Our Future collects Christi Nogle's finest psychological and supernatural horror stories. Their rural and small-town characters confront difficult pasts and look toward promising but often terrifying futures. The pieces range in genre from psychological horror through science fiction and ghost stories, but they all share fundamental qualities: feminist themes, an emphasis on voice, a focus on characters' psychologies and a sense of the gothic in contemporary life. Stories here may recall Charlotte Perkins Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper," Shirley Jackson's "The Renegade," or Kelly Link's "Stone Animals."

"The modest size of Jason Schwartz's first collection is misleading, since his fiction turns out to be grandly intrepid. Schwartz writes of family events and historical tragedies, evoking a nameless consciousness whirling through remembered facts, letters, memories - and he does so by recording not the narrative events but the traces of them that pulse within the words and memories and objects left behind ...Unlike much so-called experimental fiction, Schwartz's work contains genuine passion and invention - and an enormous appetite for challenging himself and his audience." - The New York Times

Shedding profound natural light on the inner lives of migrant workers, Jaime Cortez's debut collection ushers in a new era of American literature that gives voice to a marginalized generation of migrant workers in the West. The first-ever collection of short stories by Jaime Cortez, Gordo is set in a migrant workers camp near Watsonville, California in the 1970s. A young, probably gay, boy named Gordo puts on a wrestler's mask and throws fists with a boy in the neighborhood, fighting his own tears as he tries to grow into the idea of manhood so imposed on him by his father. As he comes of age, Gordo learns about sex, watches his father's drunken fights, and discovers even his own documented Mexican-American parents are wary of illegal migrants. Fat Cookie, high schooler and resident artist, uses tiny library pencils to draw huge murals of graffiti flowers along the camp's blank walls, the words "CHICANO POWER" boldly lettered across, until she runs away from home one day with her mother's boyfriend, Manny, and steals her mother's Panasonic radio for a final dance competition among the camp kids before she disappears. And then there are Los Tigres, the perfect pair of twins so dark they look like indios, Pepito and Manuel, who show up at Gyrich Farms every season without fail. Los Tigres, champion drinkers, end up assaulting each other in a drunken brawl, until one of them is rushed to the emergency room still slumped in an upholstered chair tied to the back of a pick-up truck. These scenes from Steinbeck Country seen so intimately from within are full of humor, family drama, and a sweet frankness about serious matters - who belongs to America and how are they treated? How does one learn decency, when laborers, grown adults, must fear for their lives and livelihoods as they try to do everything to bring home a paycheck? Written with balance and poise, Cortez braids together elegant and inviting stories about life on a California camp, in essence redefining what all-American means.

It collects the winner and shortlist together with stories written at the Celtel Caine Prize Writers Workshop in early 2007. The shortlisted authors are: Sefi Atta from Nigeria, Darrel Bristow-Bovey from South Africa, Muthoni Garland from Kenya, and Laila Lalami from Morocco.

A collection of the year's best stories selected by celebrated two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn WardIn her introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2021, guest editor JesmynWard says that the best fiction offers the reader a "sense of repair."The stories in this year's collection accomplish just that, immersing the reader in powerfully imagined worlds and allowing them to bring some of that power into their own lives. From a stirring portrait of Rodney King's final days to a surreal video game set in the Middle East, with real consequences, to an indigenous boy's gripping escape from his captors, this collection renders profoundly empathetic depictions of the variety of human experience. These stories are poignant reminders of the possibilities of fiction: as you sink into world after world, become character after character, as Ward writes, you"forget yourself, and then, upon surfacing, know yourself and others anew. The Best American Short Stories 2021 includes GABRIEL BUMP - BRANDON HOBSON - DAVID MEANS- JANE PEK - TRACEY ROSE PEYTON - GEORGE SAUNDERS - BRYAN WASHINGTON - KEVIN WILSON - C PAM ZHANG and others

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'You won't find a more thrilling winter read this year, or a better line up of writers who have mastered the gothic and ghostly.' SARA COLLINS, Costa Award-winning author of The Confessions of Frannie Langton Featuring new and original tales from: Bridget Collins Sunday Times bestselling author of The Binding | Imogen Hermes Gowar Sunday Times bestselling author of The Mermaid and Mrs Hancock | Kiran Millwood Hargrave Sunday Times bestselling author of The Mercies | Andrew Michael Hurley Sunday Times bestselling author of The Loney | Jess Kidd International award-winning author of Things in Jars | Elizabeth Macneal Sunday Times bestselling author of The Doll Factory | Natasha Pulley Sunday Times bestselling author of The Watchmaker of Filigree Street | Laura Purcell Award-winning author of The Silent Companions ______________ Long before Charles Dickens and Henry James popularized the tradition, the shadowy nights of winter have been a time for people to gather together by the flicker of candlelight and experience the intoxicating thrill of a ghost story. Now eight bestselling, award-winning authors - all of them master storytellers of the sinister and the macabre - bring the tradition to vivid life in a spellbinding new collection of original spine-tingling tales. Taking you from the frosty Fens to the wild Yorkshire moors, to the snow-covered grounds of a haunted estate, to a bustling London Christmas market, these mesmerizing stories will capture your imagination and serve as your indispensable companion to the cold, dark nights. So curl up, light a candle, and fall under the spell of winters past . . .

This seventh edition of "one of the premier literary anthologies in the country" (Richmond Times-Dispatch) continues the tradition of diversity established by its predecessors. Ravenel looks for the unexpected and for the immediate. The result is a series that has "now established itself as an essential read for short story fans".--Kirkus Reviews.

The new and selected stories in this collection, written over a period of thirty years, are firmly entrenched in the culture and people of rust belt cities and rural Appalachia. These stories are often set against large, significant events like the Cold War, Vietnam, and the Kent State shootings, but are always uniquely local. A mother fends off the police by brandishing copperhead snakes. A woman cares for the dog of an alleged double murderer. A husband who has lost his job works at trying to save his wife from a debilitating phobia. This extensive collection by Gary Fincke, an accomplished poet and writer of fiction, gives rise to ordinary people living lives made fascinating by attention to the particulars of voice, place, and character. With precise language, surprising imagery, and sharp, evocative dialog, these stories deepen beyond the oddities of their characters, who are scarred and defeated by circumstance and choice, but also attain moments of grace, compassion, and generosity of the spirit.

A magazine of new writing featuring fiction, essays and art by NICOLE TRESKA, GARY LUTZ, VICTORIA LANCELOTTA, JASON SCHWARTZ, KATHRYN SCANLAN, RUSSELL PERSSON, CATHERINE FOULKROD, ROBB TODD, ROSIE SNAJDR, DARYL SCROGGINS, JULIE REVERB, STEPHEN MORTLAND, KATE WYER, GORDON LISH, WAYNE HOGAN, LILY HACKETT, MICHAEL CUGLIETTA, CATHY SWEENEY, BRAD PHILIPS, CARRIE COOPERIDER, CHRIS KOHLER, NICOLETTE POLEK, BABAK LAKGHOMI, NATALIE FERRIS

In a pink-walled motel, a teenage prostitute brings a grown man to tears. A lovestruck young boy holds the dismembered hand of his crush, only to find himself the object of a complex menage a trois. A naked body falls from the window of a twenty-storey building, while two female office workers offer each other consolation in the elevator... In these wry and unsettling stories, Prabda Yoon once again illuminates something of the strangeness of modern cultural life in Bangkok. Disarming the reader with surprising charm, intensity and delicious horror, he explores what it means to have a body, and to interact with those of others.

This is a collection of nine short stories by one of Britain's best-loved writers. This edition is part of a series of pre- and post-1914 works chosen especially for 14-18 year olds. The series features fiction, anthologies, poetry, plays and non-fiction.

Fourteen years after the monumental publication of the international bestseller The Raw Shark Texts, Maxwell's Demon heralds the triumphant return of Granta Best Young British Novelist Steven Hall. Thomas Quinn is having a hard time. A failed novelist, he's stuck writing short stories and audio scripts for other people's characters. His wife, Imogen, is working on a remote island halfway around the world, and talking to her over the webcam isn't the same. The bills are piling up, the dirty dishes are stacking in the sink, and the whole world seems to be hurtling towards entropic collapse. Then he gets a voicemail from his father, who has been dead for seven years. Thomas's relationship with Stanley Quinn--a world-famous writer and erstwhile absent father--was always shaky, not least because Stanley always seemed to prefer his enigmatic assistant and protege Andrew Black to his own son. Yet after Black published his first book, Cupid's Engine, which went on to sell over a million copies, he disappeared completely. Now strange things are happening to Thomas, and he can't help but wonder if Black is tugging at the seams of his world behind the scenes. Absurdly brilliant, wildly entertaining, and utterly mind-bending, Maxwell's Demon triumphantly excavates the ways we construct meaning in a world where chaotic collapse looms closer every day.