Helmut Schwab's stories reflect the diversity of life through human encounters, observations, visions, or just stories?romantic, funny, serious, or just so?from Provence to Munich, San Francisco, or the gardens of Princeton?from Arizona to biblical Galilee, a bombing night in Afghanistan, a vision in Jerusalem, or some hope in prison?or by describing the funny small animals in the garden?or a children's ball rolling along the road.

A clear vision of reality renders the stories colorful and lively?based on sensibility for joy, sorrow, suffering, love, or humor?written at times with a smiling, at times with a crying face. For computer reading see ?www.schwab-stories.com?

No author perfected the twist in the tale better than Roald Dahl. His stories – many of which were filmed as Tales of the Unexpected – take us into a world that is shocking, cruelly funny and always has a sinister edge. What if plants could feel pain? What kind of father would bet his daughter in a wager? And what is the secret behind that delicious lamb dinner…?

There are three ways to tell if a Low Country lady is a hurricane sister: if she has a hurricane tracking map, an ax in the attic, and a hell or high water box in her possession. In September of 1959, Hurricane Gracie barreled down on Beaufort, South Carolina, with enough violence to change the lives of the Low Country ladies forever.

With a hurricane forecast to arrive any minute, Mrs. Forester fi nds it hard not to worry. As she nervously scans the gray skies, rain spatters on her window. A few hours later, she and her family cower in bed as debris shatters windows. But Mrs. Forrester is not the only one who frantically searches the skies every time a hurricane is forecast. Prudence Seabrook is just a girl in 1964 when she first considers death. As thunder shakes her house, she clings to her sister, hoping no evil will pass. This time she goes unscathed, for all the hurricane sisters know that only years ending in "9" portend disaster.

This charming collection of short stories highlights an eclectic group of characters that prove that Low Country ladies of a certain age have every reason to scan the skies from June to November-waiting, watching, and wondering.

Cool for America is bookended by the misadventures of Leslie, a young woman first introduced in Early Work, who moves from New York to Missoula, Montana, to try to draw herself out of a lingering depression and, over the course of the book, gains painful insight into herself through a series of intense friendships and relationships. Other stories follow young men and women, alone and in couples, pushing hard against, and often crashing into, the limits of their abilities as writers and partners. In one story, two New Jersey siblings with substance-abuse problems relapse together on Christmas Eve; in another, a young couple tries to make sense of an increasingly unhinged veterinarian who seems to be tapping, deliberately or otherwise, into the unspoken troubles between them. In stories that follow characters as they age from punk shows and benders to book clubs and art museums, and the promise of community acts, at least temporarily as a stay against despair. Running throughout is the characters' yearning for a transcendence through art: the hope that, maybe, the perfect, or even just the good- enough sentence, can finally make things right.