Wonderfully wide-ranging and enjoyable, this outstanding collection features highly acclaimed short stories by Tolstoy who is regarded as one of the greatest writers in history. Among Russian writers, Leo Tolstoy is probably the best known to the Western world, largely because of War and Peace, his epic in prose, and Anna Karenina, one of the most splendid novels in any language. But during his long lifetime, Tolstoy also wrote enough shorter works...

With her own special brand of delicate, elliptical, and humorous fiction, Abigail Thomas offers another extraordinary visit with people she knows far better than they know themselves. There's Walter, newly abandoned by his wife; there's Edith, a fiftyish virgin; there's Bunny, taking care of her mother and her mother's boyfriend; and there's Belle, whose married lover dies in the hallway wearing her dead husband Herb's pajama top. Blindly, they encounter...

Set in Africa the novel tells the story of three lions and the humans who encounter them. The first lion is called "Umslopogaas" and is a fierce warrior who is feared by all who know him. He is also known as the "Lion of the Zulu" and is said to have killed more lions than anyone else in Africa. He is a skilled hunter and fighter, and his reputation is such that even the mighty king of the Zulus, Cetewayo, fears him. "A Tale of Three Lions" is a thrilling...

Excerpt: "From the extreme West of the Indo-European world, we go this year to the extreme East. From the soft rain and green turf of Gaeldom, we seek the garish sun and arid soil of the Hindoo. In the Land of Ire, the belief in fairies, gnomes, ogres and monsters is all but dead; in the Land of Ind it still flourishes in all the vigour of animism. Soils and national characters differ; but fairy tales are the same in plot and incidents, if not in...

"The remarkable stories in Born Into This are eye-opening, razor-sharp, and entertaining, often all at once. From an Aboriginal ranger trying to instill some pride in wayward urban teens on the harsh islands off the coast of Tasmania, to those scraping by on the margins of white society railroaded into complex and compromised decisions, Adam Thompson presents a powerful indictment of colonialism and racism. With humor, pathos, and the occasional sly...

Love is back in the air as Valentine's Day grows closer, but one young cat-shifter named Roam is in danger of not receiving any Valentine's Day cards this year! The Dragonling girls are on a mission, which of course leads to chaos, heart-warming adventures, and our favorite alien dads worrying again! I hope you enjoy this Valentine's Day story from the Dragonlings of Valdier and The Worlds of S.E. Smith. Wishing you all a happy Valentine's Day! ~Susan...

A collection of stories that grapple with mother-daughter dynamics, grief, exes, and the complexities of friendship in settings ranging from competitive call centers to Chinatown restaurants.

"Jack Finney is thirteen, alone, and in desperate trouble. For two years now, someone has been stalking the boys of Galesberg, stealing them away, never to be seen again. And now, Finney finds himself in danger of joining them: locked in a psychopath's basement, a place stained with the blood of half a dozen murdered children. With him in his subterranean cell is an antique phone, long since disconnected . . . but it rings at night anyway, with calls...

"Joyce Carol Oates is renowned for her rare ability to "illuminate the mind's most disturbing corners" (Seattle Times). That genius is on full display in her new collection of seven feverishly unsettling works, DIS MEM BER and Other Stories of Mystery and Suspense. In the title story, a precocious eleven-year-old named Jill is in thrall to an older male relative, the mysterious, attractive black sheep of the family. Without telling her parents Jill...

Illustrated with beautiful chapter headings that match the book cover! In the days when hunger could be cultivated and practiced as an art form, the individuals who practiced it were often put on show for all to see. One man who was so devout in his pursuit of hunger pushed against the boundaries set by the circus that housed him and strived to go longer than forty days without food. As interest in his art began to fade, he pushed the boundaries...