A couple's cat leaves offerings of dead birds freighted with mysterious import. A foreign worker helps construct a concert hall that reawakens his musical longings. A young diver hunts venomous cone snails for a lovelorn researcher. With disarming simplicity, Barrie Sherwood charts how the complex bonds between lovers are unravelled to the point of breaking, and the often strange and touching ways we define ourselves and our relationships in a fluctuating world.

The power of love within families; the complexities of relationships; the rites of passage for birth, coming of age, marriage, and death-these are some of the themes covered in this wonderful volume. Author and storyteller Lindy Soon Curry offers us 25 enchanting tales that foster understanding of Korean culture and Korean Americans. Humorous tales, teaching tales, tall tales, classics, and a section of stories about tigers are included. Written in a style that easily lends itself to read-alouds as well as to silent reading, these stories reflect unique cultural traditions and values of Korea as well as universal symbols and themes. Curry's tips for storytelling give educators insights in how to effectively present or perform the tales. In addition, Dr. Chan-eung Park discusses the wisdom to be found in the stories and the cultural continuity of the collection. A color plate section illustrates some of the traditional arts, customs, landscapes of Korea.

The thirty-two stories in this new collection reflect the differences between man's real self and the various masks he has to wear in a Romanian society that vacillates between nostalgia for its communist past and restrained optimism about its capitalist future. The characters, who are taken from all walks of life, face constant political intrigues, moral dilemmas, and/or family crises. They must find a way to fit their own life stories, however insignificant, within the often ruthless history of their native land. Written in a journalistic style, and based very loosely on incidents that the author encountered while working for a local newspaper, these stories are filled with unexpected twists and turns, pathos, and small glimpses of average and extraordinary people coping with real-life crises. Gripping tales from Eastern Europe!

The best short fiction published by Singaporean writers in 2017 and 2018. The Epigram Books Collection of Best New Singaporean Short Stories: Volume Four gathers the finest Singaporean stories published in 2017 and 2018, selected by guest editor Pooja Nansi from hundreds published in journals, magazines, anthologies and single-author collections. Accompanying the stories are the editor’s preface and an extensive list of honourable mentions for further reading. Reader Reviews "The stories range from intimate family portraits to speculative science fiction, but every piece speaks to universal experiences of love, loss, desire, and disappointment ... If you've either never read Singaporean literature, this would be a good place to start. If Crazy Rich Asians was the last thing you read by a local author, even better." — Wonderwall.sg

Natasza Pelinski is a young Polish Jew taken to Auschwitz. Her childhood stolen from her, she quickly matures and in the process discovers she has psychic gifts. She develops a relationship with the ghost of a professor, who becomes her spirit guide. He in turn enlists her aid on a mission of salvation for the Jewish people. As well as helping her survive in the brutal conditions of the camp, he teaches Natasza the secret of healing and how to move past anger toward compassion. She forms the Sisters of Light, a group of young women who, although they have few medicines to offer, bring gifts of love and forgiveness to their fellow prisoners. They form a bond of the heart that sustains them and keeps them connected through the horror of their daily existence. Author Tarra Light was raised in an East Coast Jewish family but had little knowledge of the Holocaust while growing up. During past-life regression therapy in 1996, she began to access a previous life as an inmate at Auschwitz. Her newly unlocked memories form the basis of this eloquent testimony to the power of the spirit in the most dire circumstances.

Neb wants the girl next door. She only dates vampires. To win her heart, Neb starts a journey into deepest, darkest Ohio, traveling from the shopping malls to the video arcades, determined to win his girl by losing his life. Along the way he is beset by ghosts, werewolves, his mother, a strange girl down the street, and a little brother who is too smart for his own good. Can Neb become a vampire and win his love? Or is he just another teenage idiot over-convinced of his own self-superiority? What would Frampton do? Seven other stories are also included in this collection.

After losing her daughter Charlotte to a rare genetic disorder, life for Sukey Forbes is completely shattered. As devastated as she is, Forbes searches for ways to deal with her grief. She wants desperately to recover a full, meaningful life on the private island of Naushon where she and her family live. Forbes begins exploring her family's rich history of spiritual seekers, including her great-great-great grandfather, Ralph Waldo Emerson, who similarly lost a young child.

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HELEN SIMPSON From familiar fairy tales and legends âe" Red Riding Hood, Bluebeard, Puss in Boots, Beauty and the Beast, vampires and werewolves âe" Angela Carter has created an absorbing collection of dark, sensual, fantastic stories.

2013 Randolph Caldecott Honor Award In this magical bedtime story, the lyrical narrative echoes a Runaway Bunny - like cadence: "Does everything in the world go to sleep?" the little girl asks. In sincere and imaginative dialogue between a not-at-all sleepy child and understanding parents, the little girl decides "in a cocoon of sheets, a nest of blankets," she is ready to sleep, warm and strong, just like a tiger. The Caldecott Honor artist Pamela Zagarenski's rich, luminous mixed-media paintings effervesce with odd, charming details that nonsleepy children could examine for hours. A rare gem.