Sooty Stevens receives an unexpected visit from a barely-remembered acquaintance. Jim Christ finds redemption in the unlikeliest of places. An attempted break-up goes terribly awry. And a boy attempts to enforce law and order in wild Wales. A set of stories by the author of Wankers, combining tenderness, wit, and often unlikely pathos, sometimes in the same paragraph.

Chardonnay and shopping trolleys. A visit to the psychiatrist and a trip to another planet. A famous footballer and a hitman who reads Hemingway. A church, a supermarket and the legend of King Arthur. A man from Riga who wears his shoes on the wrong feet. An art gallery security guard watches the world go by. Planes, trains and a space elevator. Kitchen appliances, satellite TV and a fully equipped chips irrevocator.

Six stories from Phillip Mann, taken from his long and varied career. Includes stories from the Out of Time Cafe, a very unusual refuge from reality. It attracts people afflicted with a deep malaise. It offers what seems from the outside to be sanctuary, but it can be subversive too, for on entering the cafe, one gives up a certain amount of independence, and before one knows it one is trapped. There is no escape... save one: the lift which services the cellars descends... but no one who has used the lift has ever returned. On a brighter note, the cafe has a will of its own, and travels different dimensions with ease and every journey is a new beginning. Also featured are The Gospel According to Mickey Mouse, originally produced as a hugely successful radio play; Maestro;Lux in Tenebris, a cautionary tale about a medieval stonemason's encounter with an anachronism and the effect it has on his culture; and An Old Fashioned Story, wherein Jody is having problems with his Sythno companion Elizabeth, who head butted him without warning. He is attempting to repair her. Then Elizabeth and her Sythno Joseph from next door drop in...

The writing of Boris Mozhaev, available in English for the first time ever in this volume, stands out in terms of narrative style and bold sincerity amongst contemporary Russian writers. The translator provides a wealth of background information and copious notes.

Witty and acute, this daring collection of stories is a sharp-eyed look at modern relationships and the pressures and delights of everyday life. With control and humor, this ensemble of fables, satires, notes to self, snapshots, and vignettes from one of New Zealand's finest authors offers beautiful yet disquieting views of contemporary living in easy, conversational tones.

Three narratives and an essay by New York Times bestselling author Richard Leigh. Mr. Leigh is co-author, with Michael Baigent and Henry Lincoln, of Holy Blood, Holy Grail, the controversial international bestseller. With Michael Baigent, Mr. Leigh has co-authored The Messianic Legacy, Secret Germany, The Inquisition, and The Elixir and the Stone. Here Leigh weaves three tales of magic and timeless mystery. Two nouvellas, 'Erceldoune' and 'The Oisin Society', one short story, 'Druidesse', and an essay 'Mythic Logic', explore the forces at play where the past, present, and future of Ireland intersect.

Short stories by Ernest Hemingway.

The ideal introduction to the genius of Ernest Hemingway, The Snows of Kilimanjaro and Other Stories contains ten of Hemingway's most acclaimed and popular works of short fiction. Selected from Winner Take Nothing, Men Without Women, and The Fifth Column and the First Forty-Nine Stories, this collection includes “The Killers,” the first of Hemingway's mature stories to be accepted by an American periodical; the autobiographical “Fathers and Sons,” which alludes, for the first time in Hemingway's career, to his father's suicide; “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber,” a “brilliant fusion of personal observation, hearsay and invention,” wrote Hemingway's biographer, Carlos Baker; and the title story itself, of which Hemingway said: “I put all the true stuff in,” with enough material, he boasted, to fill four novels. Beautiful in their simplicity, startling in their originality, and unsurpassed in their craftsmanship, the stories in this volume highlight one of America's master storytellers at the top of his form.

In these six exciting stories, Branwell, the Bronte boy who ruled an imaginary childhood world, has failed as poet and painter and slips down the road of drink and despair; passionate Alice, searching for a man she can love as she once loved her father, ignores the desperate struggle of her daughter Maudie to make a life of her own; idealistic Mr Berry, trapped in a dead-end job in a failing boys' school, discovers the secret of an illiterate 11-year old, and is forced to re-examine his own life; John Poulson, corrupt Yorkshire architect imprisoned for bribing his way to success, determines to write a book to clear his name and identify the guilty men; simple-minded Mel recalls his best pal Adrian, killed in an accident, but fails to grasp the relationship between Adrian and his own wife Beatrice; and 50 years ago in Dallas, John F Kennedy narrowly escapes an assassin's bullet - and goes on to change the course of history.