The nation's favourite annual guide to the short story, now in its tenth year. Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover - or, more accurately, by its title. This new series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editor's brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazines, newspapers and web sites, looking for the best of the bunch to reprint all in one volume. Featuring: Richard Lawrence Bennett, Luke Brown, David Constantine, Tim Etchells, Nicola Freeman, Amanthi Harris, Andrew Hook, Sonia Hope, Hanif Kureishi, Helen Mort, Jeff Noon, Irenosen Okojie, KJ Orr, Bridget Penney, Diana Powell, David Rose, Sarah Schofield, Adrian Slatcher, NJ Stallard, Robert Stone, Stephen Thompson and Zakia Uddin.

Kings, lords, liars, usherettes, goal-hangers, gun-men and prostitutes, Whether or not these stories bear any relation to life as it is lived in Endland (sic) is not my problem and good riddance to all those what prefer to read about truly good, lucky and nice people - you won't like this crap at all. A comical and brutal weave of parables gone wrong, Endland holds a broken mirror to England. In its garish but strangely familiar world of empty tower blocks, 24-hour cyber cafes and bomb sites, a motley collection of misfits, wanderers and charmed drunks do their best to survive. Nothing is stable in Endland and what's more, the gods have started drinking at lunchtime, which can only lead to trouble. Conjured in a mix of slang, pub anecdote, folktale and science fiction, Endland is the nightmare unfolding just outside the window - a glitchy parade of aging bikers and ghost children, cut-price assassins and witless wannabe celebs. The world fashioned by Thatcher, Google, NATO, ICANN, Brexit, Big Brother, Bin Laden and Trump needs new narratives to make sense of it. In Endland, with feverish wit and a broken compass, Etchells unpicks the myths and strange realities we're caught up in.

'Certain Fragments . . . illuminate[s] . . . the more interesting aspects of contemporary British theatre.' - David Pattie, New Theatre Quarterly

How can an understanding of theatre in the city help us make sense of urban social experience? Theatre& the City explores how relationships between theatre, performance and the city affect social power dynamics, ideologies and people's sense of identity. The book evaluates both material conditions (such as architecture) and performative practices (such as urban activism) to argue that both these categories contribute to the complex economies and ecologies of theatre and performance in an increasingly urbanised world. Foreword by Tim Etchells

Tim Etchells' "Dream Dictionary for the Modern Dreamer is at once a mischievous glimpse into the contemporary subconscious and a playful, irreverent portrait of twenty-first-century life. The dictionary concentrates on those aspects of contemporary life and dreaming, which other dictionaries have neglected. Rather than concentrate on those archetypal features of human existence (chairs, tables, fire, love and falling), "The Dream Dictionary is the first significant reference work devoted to explaining the particular, the transitory and the specifically contemporary as in may appear in the world of our dreams. What is the meaning of a dream in which one touches, without meaning to, the hand of a fellow traveler on an underground train? What does it mean to dream of a telethon, a modem, or the former Soviet Union? Or that someone you love dearly is trying to barcode-scan your eyes? "The Dream Dictionary will answer all these questions and more.

Known for both its industrial roots and arboreal abundance, Sheffield has always been a city of two halves. From elegant parks and gardens to brutalist high-rise estates and the hinterland nightclubs of 'Centertainment', it is a city caught between the forges of the past and the melting pot of the present. Bringing together new short stories from some of the city's most celebrated writers, The Book of Sheffield traces the contours of this complex landscape from both sides of the economic dividing line. From the aspirations of young creatives, ultimately driven to leave, to the more immediate demands of refugees, scrap metal collectors, and student radicals, these stories offer ten different look-out points from which to gaze down on the ever-changing face of the 'Steel City'.

Drawing together the work of 10 leading playwrights, this National Theatre Connections anthology features work by some of the most exciting and established contemporary playwrights. Gathered together in one volume, the plays collected offer young performers between the ages of 13 and 19 an engaging selection of material to perform, read or study. Each play has been specifically commissioned by the National Theatre's literary department with the young performer in mind. The anthology contains 10 play scripts; notes from the writer and director of each play, addressing the themes and ideas behind the play; and production notes and exercises for the drama groups. This year's anniversary anthology includes plays by Suhayla El-Bushra, Anders Lustgarten, Robin French, Tim Etchells, Patrick Marber, Kellie Smith, Lizzie Nunnery, Harriet Braun and Alistair McDowall.