With the lantern festival close at hand, Old Chan, the master paper lantern maker, must find an apprentice with the talent to continue his work.

A new collection of short stories by a master of the form with a common focus on the turmoils of romantic love Ready! Aim! On command the firing squad aims at the man backed against a full-length mirror. The mirror once hung in a bedroom, but now it's cracked and propped against a dumpster in an alley. The condemned man has refused the customary last cigarette but accepted as a hood the black slip that was carelessly tossed over a corner of the mirror's frame. The slip still smells faintly of a familiar fragrance. So begins "Tosca," the first in this vivid collection of Stuart Dybek's love stories. Operatically dramatic and intimately lyrical, grittily urban and impressionistically natural, the varied fictions in Paper Lantern all focus on the turmoil of love as only Dybek can portray it. An execution triggers the recollection of a theatrical romance; then a social worker falls for his own client; and lovers part as giddily, perhaps as hopelessly, as a kid trying to hang on to a boisterous kite. A flaming laboratory evokes a steamy midnight drive across terrain both familiar and strange, and an eerily ringing phone becomes the telltale signature of a dark betrayal. Each story is marked with contagious desire, spontaneous revelation, and, ultimately, resigned courage. As one woman whispers when she sets a notebook filled with her sketches drifting out to sea, "Someone will find you." Some of Dybek's characters recur in these stories, while others appear only briefly. Throughout, they—and we—are confronted with vaguely familiar scents and images, reminiscent of love but strangely disconcerting, so that we might wonder whether we are looking in a mirror or down the barrel of a gun. "After the ragged discharge," Dybek writes, "when the smoke has cleared, who will be left standing and who will be shattered into shards?" Paper Lantern brims with the intoxicating elixirs known to every love-struck, lovelorn heart, and it marks the magnificent return of one of America's most important fiction writers at the height of his powers.

When future generations come to ask themselves when England lost it and what it lost, they will pick up The Paper Lantern' Michael Hofmann, TLS 'A remarkable achievement in a book that feels at once timely and deeply considered' Irish Times 'A book that speaks powerfully about what it is to be English and about the impact of coronavirus on our national psyche' Observer 'Will Burns is the new Defoe' Adelle Stripe Set in a shuttered pub - The Paper Lantern - in a village in the very middle of the country adjacent to the Prime Minister's Chequers Estate, an unnamed narrator embarks on a series of walks in the Chiltern Hills. As he charts and interrogates the shifts in mood and understanding that have defined a transformative period in his own history and that of the surrounding area, he reveals a past scarred with trauma and a present lacking compass. Traversing local raves in secret valleys, to climate change and capitalism, The Paper Lantern creates a tangible, lived-in complicated rendering of a place, at the moment when the very sense of place itself is being questioned.

Meet Lin Yi — a little boy with a big heart and a talent for bargaining. Tonight is the moon festival and he wants nothing more than a red rabbit lantern; but first he must buy the things his mother needs at the market. This heartwarming story shows the rewards of putting others first, and includes educational notes at the end about the Chinese moon festival, life in rural China, and the legend of the moon fairy.

A compassionate memoir about a father’s relationship with his children, the healing power of a small act of kindness, and the proof that love is everlasting. Love you, Dad. Miss you so much. Steph. A brokenhearted daughter scribbled those words on a sky lantern before sending it off to her father in heaven who had passed away. Halfway across the country, Steph’s lantern landed in Matt Mikalatos’s yard. As a father of three daughters, Matt could not let that heart-wrenching note unanswered, so he posted an open letter to her on his blog, which went viral overnight. Little did he know how that small act of kindness would lead him to the real Steph and change his family’s life in remarkable ways. A poignant and lyrical account of the beauty and wonder found in domestic life, Sky Lantern shows how the miraculous events that followed Matt finding the sky lantern in his yard—and the widespread and lasting impact his letter had—prove that the bond between a parent and their child can last forever.

For his owner's birthday Tubby, the elephant, constructs a huge paper lantern which carries them on a long trip.

From the Gold Rush to the Baby Boom, women struggled against social custom, restrictive laws, and limited career opportunities. Under the Almond Trees is the novelized account of three ordinary women who lived extraordinary lives in early California. One learns independence when she is widowed and must lead men. Another desires a career in a man's field. The third wants only a traditional family--until her husband refuses to pay for their daughter's college education. Their legacy resounds beyond the family. I am proud to be their relative and honored to share their story.

A collection of short stories of love set in gritty urban environments.

"Matt Mikalatos offers a poignant and compassionate look at a father's relationship with his children, the healing power of a small act of kindness, and the certainty that even death can't stop love in a deeply moving memoir inspired by a sky lantern with a scribbled note and the journey to find the child who wrote it: Love you, Daddy. Miss you so much. Steph. Steph scribbled those words on a sky lantern before sending it off to her father in heaven who had passed away from cancer. Halfway across the country, Steph's lantern landed in Matt Mikalatos's yard. As a father of three daughters, Matt could not let Steph's note go unanswered, so he posted an open letter to her on his blog. Matt never could have expected the viral response to his letter that led him on a journey to find Steph--and to bring healing to thousands of others in desperate need of the loving words of a father. Filled with paternal wisdom and reflections on the relationship between a father and his child, Sky Lantern shows how the miraculous events that followed Matt finding the sky lantern in his yard--and the widespread and lasting impact his letter had--prove that the bond between a parent and their child is everlasting"--

Little Mouse loves paper lanterns with their impossible delicate beauty, and the way Old Chen's hands seem to effortlessly cut, paste, and paint his masterful creations. Little Mouse watches and learns until, when Old Chen can no longer make the lanterns, he finds his inner strength and his hidden talent. But more important than Little Mouse's achievement is the bond of friendship between him and Old Chen. The traditions of a culture and the magic of an art form are carefully preserved as they are passed from one generation to the next. Exquisite, bright illustrations, as delicately rendered as the Chinese paper lanterns themselves, draw readers of all ages into this simple story of the power of friendship, patience, and perseverance.