The Old Child Other Stories

"The one novella and four stories in The Old Child go beyond the limits of the expected, the real. Somber, nostalgic and often mystical, these marvelous fictions provide glimpses into the minds of outcasts and eccentrics. The parable-like novella The Old Child describes a girl's mind seemingly blank: picked up off the street with no discoverable past, she is brought to a children's home where she finds she can "succeed by her silence." In another story, "Siberia," the heroine smuggled out of a Russian camp vigorously re-establishes herself in her old home. In "Hale and Hallowed," a woman pays a surprise nighttime visit to her friend with whom she shared a hospital room when their two sons were born."--BOOK JACKET.

This acclaimed post-apocalyptic novel of hope and terror from an award-winning author "pairs well with 1984 or The Handmaid's Tale" and includes a foreword by N. K. Jemisin (John Green, New York Times). When global climate change and economic crises lead to social chaos in the early 2020s, California becomes full of dangers, from pervasive water shortage to masses of vagabonds who will do anything to live to see another day. Fifteen-year-old Lauren Olamina lives inside a gated community with her preacher father, family, and neighbors, sheltered from the surrounding anarchy. In a society where any vulnerability is a risk, she suffers from hyperempathy, a debilitating sensitivity to others' emotions. Precocious and clear-eyed, Lauren must make her voice heard in order to protect her loved ones from the imminent disasters her small community stubbornly ignores. But what begins as a fight for survival soon leads to something much more: the birth of a new faith . . . and a startling vision of human destiny.

From the Pulitzer Finalist and universally beloved author of the New York Times best sellers Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove, a stunning new collection of short fiction that showcases Karen Russell’s extraordinary, irresistible gifts of language and imagination. Karen Russell’s comedic genius and mesmerizing talent for creating outlandish predicaments that uncannily mirror our inner in lives is on full display in these eight exuberant, arrestingly vivid, unforgettable stories. In“Bog Girl”, a revelatory story about first love, a young man falls in love with a two thousand year old girl that he’s extracted from a mass of peat in a Northern European bog. In “The Prospectors,” two opportunistic young women fleeing the depression strike out for new territory, and find themselves fighting for their lives. In the brilliant, hilarious title story, a new mother desperate to ensure her infant’s safety strikes a diabolical deal, agreeing to breastfeed the devil in exchange for his protection. The landscape in which these stories unfold is a feral, slippery, purgatorial space, bracketed by the void—yet within it Russell captures the exquisite beauty and tenderness of ordinary life. Orange World is a miracle of storytelling from a true modern master.

The First Person and Other Stories is the fourth collection of short stories by Ali Smith. The First Person and Other Stories effortlessly appeals to our hearts, heads and funny bones. Always intellectually playful, but also very moving and funny, Smith explores the ways and whys of storytelling. In one, a middle-aged woman conducts a poignant conversation with her gauche fourteen-year-old self. In another, an innocent supermarket shopper finds in her trolley a foul-mouthed, insulting and beautiful child. Challenging the boundaries between fiction and reality, a third presents its narrator, 'Ali', as she drinks tea, phones a friend and muses on the relationship between the short story and - a nymph. Innovative, sophisticated and intelligent, the stories in The First Person and Other Stories are packed full of ideas, jokes, nuance and compassion. Ali Smith and the short story are made for each other. 'Smith's is a profoundly optimistic vision. These stories are frightening yet funny, and the sheer exuberance and playfulness of her language endows dark matters with a lightness of touch' New Statesman 'She's a genius, genuinely modern in the heroic, glorious sense' Alain de Botton 'Terrific . . . hurrah for Ali Smith . . . The best short-story writers make it look as easy as making a cup of tea. Ali Smith is one of these . . . A bold and brilliant collection of stories by a writer unafraid to give it to us as it is' Times 'A glorious collection that celebrates and subverts the short story form' Independent

The Old Child & Other Stories introduces in English one of Germany’s most original and brilliant young authors, Jenny Erpenbeck. Written in spare, highly concentrated language, "a sustained feat of verbal economy" (Die Zeit), the one novella and four stories in The Old Child go beyond the limits of the expected, the real. Dark, serious, often mystical, these marvelous fictions about women’s lives provide glimpses into the minds of outcasts and eccentrics, at the same time bearing out Dostoevsky’s comment that hope can be found so long as a man can see even a tiny view of the sky.

A timeless collection of stories for younger children. In the eponymous The It-Doesn't-Matter Suit, little Max Nix is on a quest to find the perfect suit he can go ice-fishing, cow-milking and town-walking in. There's magic afoot in Mrs Cherry's Kitchen and children will love to find their perfect Nighty-night little / Turn-out-the-light little Bed! in The Bed Book.

The fifteen stories contained in The Power of Horses portray, each in a different way, the sensitive and enduring culture of the Dakota of the Upper Plains and convey many of the basic truths that have sustained Elizabeth Cook-LynnÕs people for countless generations. Though the stories are often filled with violence and grief, they are also brimming with beauty, gentleness, charm, and humor. In these striking and memorable tales of Dakota country, Joseph grieves that the body of his middle son will never be returned to his native shores from the distant World War I battlefields where he was killed; family members gather to bury their father and barely survive their own weaknesses and bickering; a grandmother takes her grandchild for a walk and imparts to the child some of the old wisdom of times past; a whining hound dogÑprimordial to the DakotaÑcompetes unwittingly with Reverend TilestonÕs efforts to bring the word of the Christian God to a tight-knit family, and wins; Magpie is a poet but is also on parole, and just as his friends have begun to rethink the finality of justice, he is ÒaccidentallyÓ shot and killed in the white manÕs jail. Cook-Lynn writes unsparingly yet compassionately of reservation life in the last century. In each of these gemlike stories she reveals something of the mystery and essential toughness of the Dakota people.

A collection of award-winning science fiction written by two-time Nebula award winner, Gardner Dozois. Here youll find Dozois short stories "Morning Child" and _The Peacemaker,Ó both winners of the Nebula for best science fiction short story. Also includes Dozois classics "A Dream at Noonday," "Chains of the Sea," "The Hanging Curve," "The Bride" (with Jack Dann), and "Ancestral Voices" (with Michael Swanwick). From the introduction: The stories in this collection were published between 1970 and 2003, and thus represent a considerable chunk, perhaps a majority share, of not only my career but my life. . .when some critic asks me what was in my mind when I came up with a certain trope in one of those stories, or what some bit of symbolism really means, why I chose some word or image instead of another, or sometimes even just what the specific inspiration for a story was, often I just cant tell him¾Im not that kid anymore. . .So, perhaps its an odd way to review your career, by the places where youve lived. Probably not very satisfactory to the critics. The most disgruntled among them will just have to get that time-machine and go back and ask that bright-eyed young twenty-year-old kid about his work. If you see him, say hi for me. Gardner Dozois is known for his beautiful evocation of setting and emotional intensity within a truly alien and often austere vision of the future. He is a science fiction master of the first order¾a fact fully on display in this outstanding collection. At the publisher's request, this title is sold without DRM (Digital Rights Management). _Lyric, haunting, heartbreaking¾this is science fiction at its best.Ó¾George R.R. Martin Science Fiction Hall of Fame Inductee Gardner Dozois is the winner of two Nebula awards for fiction. _My generation of writers has produced relatively few authentic masters of the short form. Gardner Dozois is one of them.Ó¾William Gibson