American Literature Anthology

LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD NAMED A NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST A razor-sharp new collection of stories of visionary childhood misfits and struggling adult dreamers from this legendary writer of “perfectly indescribable fiction . . . To read Williams...

Hercule Poirot is joined by the mysterious problem solver Harley Quin in the pages of The Harlequin Tea Set and Other Stories—a collection of ingenious short masterworks of mystery and suspense that showcase the legendary Agatha Christie at her very best. A grand treasure for fans of the...

An arresting collection of short stories, reminiscent of Shirley Jackson and Julio Cortazar, by an exciting new international talent.

A celebration of beloved American author Wendell Berry, the five stories in Fidelity return listeners to Berry's fictional town of Port William, Kentucky, and the familiar characters who form a tight-knit community within.

In Sparkling Cyanide, Agatha Christie seats six—including a murderer—around a dining table set for seven, one year to the day that a beautiful heiress was poisoned in that very room. Six people sit down to a sumptuous meal at a table laid for seven. In front of the empty place is a sprig of...

“Everybody’s Son probes directly into the tender spots of race and privilege in America. . . . With assured prose and deep insight into the human heart, Umrigar explores the moral gray zone of what parents, no matter their race, will do for love.” — Celeste Ng, author of Everything I...

James Welch never shied away from depicting the lives of Native Americans damned by destiny and temperament to the margins of society. The Death of Jim Loney is no exception. Jim Loney is a mixed-blood, of white and Indian parentage. Estranged from both communities, he lives a solitary, brooding...

This superb collection of larger-than-life folk heroes aptly represents America’s robust early days, perfectly capturing the vitality of the men and women who carved a new country out of the North American wilderness. Author Mary Pope Osborne supplies a fascinating introduction to each tale and then gives her own original twist to the telling of it. Scott Snivley takes the listener on a wild ride from sea to shining sea in this classic collection, which includes Davy Crocket, Sally Ann Thunder Ann Whirlwind, Johnny Appleseed, Stormalong, Mose, Febold Feboldson, Pecos Bill, John Henry, and Paul Bunyan.

You've heard him on This American Life! Now read his book! Wherever he is, David Rakoff is a fish out of water. Whether impersonating Sigmund Freud in a department store window during the holidays, climbing an icy mountain in cheap loafers, playing an evil modeling agent on a daytime soap opera...

""Cynthia D'Aprix Sweeney plumbs the depths of marriage, motherhood and friendship with warmth and wit. I devoured it in one gulp! Treat yourself to some Good Company."" —Maria Semple, author of Today Will Be Different A warm, incisive new novel about the enduring bonds of marriage and...

Now Streaming Exclusively on BritBox! When a gathering at a clifftop estate leads to murder troubled detective James Leach and Superintendent Battle must unravel a web of secrets and jealousy—before another victim falls. What is the connection among a failed suicide attempt, a wrongful...

As young widow Rehana Haque awakes one March morning, she might be forgiven for feeling happy. Her children are almost grown, the city is buzzing with excitement after recent elections. Change is in the air. But no one can foresee what will happen in the days and months that follow. For this is...

Widely acclaimed as a progenitor of 20th-century Latin American fiction, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis (1839-1908), the son of a mulatto father and a washerwoman, was hailed in his lifetime as Brazil's greatest writer. His prodigious output of novels, plays, and stories rivaled contemporaries like Chekhov, Flaubert, and Maupassant, but, shockingly, he was barely translated into English until 1963, and still lacks proper recognition today.

Neal Pollack has been the Greatest Living American Writer across six decades, seven continents, and ten wives. He has won the Pulitzer Prize, the Booker Prize, the PEN/Faulkner Award (twice), and the Premio Simon Bolivar for contributions to the people's struggle in Latin America. In 1985...

As a window into the magic and potential of the Northwest Territories, Richard Van Camp's fourth short-story collection is hilarious and heartbreaking. A teenaged boy confesses to a vicious assault on a cross-dressing classmate; Lance tells the sensual story of becoming much closer to his wife's dear friend Juanita; while a reluctant giant catches up with gangsters Torchy and Sfen in a story with shades of supernatural and earthly menace.

Trust was rare and precious in the wide-open towns that sprung up like weeds on America's frontier - with hustlers and hucksters arriving in droves by horse, coach, wagon, and rail, and gunmen working both sides of the law, all too eager to end a man's life with a well-placed bullet. The New...

A Penguin Classic First published in 1938, this volume of stories collected with the encouragement of his longtime editor Pascal Covici serves as a wonderful introduction to the work of Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck. Set in the beautiful Salinas Valley of California, where simple people farm...

“Writing Crooked House was pure pleasure and I feel justified in my belief that it is one of my best.” --Agatha Christie Described by the queen of mystery herself as one of her favorites of her published work, Crooked House is a classic Agatha Christie thriller revolving around a devastating...

Zero at the Bone begins with Wiman's preoccupation with despair, and through fifty brief pieces, he unravels its seductive appeal. The book is studded with the poetry and prose of writers who inhabit Wiman's thoughts, and the voices of Wallace Stevens, Lucille Clifton, Emily Dickinson, and others join his own.

Each working day from January 29 to November 1, 1951, John Steinbeck warmed up to the work of writing East of Eden with a letter to the late Pascal Covici, his friend and editor at The Viking Press. It was his way, he said, of "getting my mental arm in shape to pitch a good game." Steinbeck's...