American Short

It’s a New Jersey summer in 1967, and thirteen-year-old Ravi Ramanathan has the makings of a tennis prodigy. His surgeon father encourages his ambition, while his mother dreams of their only child following his father’s path. Surrounded by his parents’ love, Ravi chafes a bit at their daily routines and little traditions. Then one unexpected day, everything changes. Realizing how much he took for granted, Ravi must grow up overnight and find a new role in the life of his family.

Blackfoot storyteller Alex Soop plunges us into a shocking well of imagination in this collection of short stories, Midnight Storm Moonless Sky. From hauntings on the Highway of Tears to fearful gatherings of ghosts and the sorrows of racism, Soop combines the social anxieties of Indigenous life with spellbinding flights and frights of speculative fiction. Through these enthralling stories of reality mixed with terror, listeners get a wicked glimpse into the genre of Indigenous horror.

No one more vividly captures the rugged majesty and enduring spirit of the American West than Louis L'Amour. Now, collected for the very first time, here are seven unabridged frontier tales from a legendary master of the genre. Volume One celebrates this remarkable voice in American fiction with...

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

In this exuberantly praised book - a collection of seven pieces on subjects ranging from television to tennis, from the Illinois State Fair to the films of David Lynch, from postmodern literary theory to the supposed fun of traveling aboard a Caribbean luxury cruiseliner - David Foster Wallace...

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.

WINNER OF THE 2021 JOYCE CAROL OATES PRIZE NAMED A BEST BOOK OF 2020 BY O MAGAZINE, THE NEW YORKER, THE WASHINGTON POST, REAL SIMPLE, THE GUARDIAN, AND MORE FINALIST FOR: THE STORY PRIZE, THE L.A. TIMES BOOK PRIZE, THE ASPEN WORDS LITERARY PRIZE, THE CHAUTAUQUA PRIZE “Sublime short stories of...

How do tons of people already learn several languages and have fun doing so? While you're probably hustling your way through boring dictionaries or old-school language learning books (and still no hablas español?), there are tons of people who already speak several languages and have fun while learning them.

Set in a Native community in Maine, Night of the Living Rez is a riveting debut collection about what it means to be Penobscot in the twenty-first century and what it means to live, to survive, and to persevere after tragedy.

Joey Morales was the last recruit of the government's full black operation, the Orphan Program. Trained to be an assassin until she washed out, she was rescued by Evan Smoak, the former agent known as Orphan X. Now Joey, a world-class hacker, starts training for one of her biggest challenges yet...

"There's no way not to suffer. But you try all kinds of ways to keep from drowning in it." The men and women in these eight short fictions grasp this truth on an elemental level, and their stories, as told by James Baldwin, detail the ingenious and often desperate ways in which they try to keep their heads above water.

With more than 120 titles still in print, Louis L'Amour is recognized the world over as one of the most prolific and popular American authors in history. Though he met with phenomenal success in every genre he tried, the form that put him on the map was the short story. Now this great...

Mr. Davenheim, a wealthy financier, leaves his home to mail a letter, then fails to return. The story fills the newspapers and intrigues Hercule Poirot, who challenges Inspector Japp with the claim that he can solve the case before the police, and without leaving his flat...

Mosley presents distinct characters as they struggle to move through the world in each of these stories - heroes who are awkward, nerdy, self-defeating, self-involved, and, on the whole, odd. He overturns the stereotypes that corral black male characters and paints a subtle, powerful portrait of each of these unique individuals.

Annie Proulx, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Shipping News and Barkskins, showcases her “gritty and gleaming” (The New York Times Book Review) writing in Close Range, one of the most celebrated story collections of all time—includes “Brokeback Mountain.” Annie Proulx’s...

“If you read just one book about economics, make it Andrew Leigh's clear, insightful, and remarkable (and short) work.” —Claudia Goldin, recipient of the 2023 Nobel Prize in Economics and Henry Lee Professor of Economics at Harvard University A sweeping, engrossing history of how economic...

Karlie Houston hasn't seen a raise in forever, but the payday loan office she manages is raking in the cash. So why not get what she's rightfully owed by masterminding a heist? Once her lover Sidney's boys hit all the company's locations at one time, there's a fortune to split. But suddenly bodies start dropping - and Karlie better devise the perfect plan to survive.

A Wall Street Journal Bestseller Pulitzer Prize­­­–winning and New York Times bestselling financial journalist Gretchen Morgenson and financial policy analyst Joshua Rosner investigate the insidious world of private equity in this “masterpiece of investigative journalism” (Christopher...

In The Memory Librarian: And Other Stories of Dirty Computer, singer-songwriter, actor, fashion icon, activist, and worldwide superstar Janelle Monáe brings to the written page the Afrofuturistic world of one of her critically acclaimed albums, exploring how different threads of...

An audio original novella from the bestselling author of Ordinary Grace and This Tender Land, The Levee is a powerful, captivating story of a family, a storm, a complicated rescue, and the true cost of survival. “A masterwork…Full of heart and a spellbinding plot, Krueger packs a powerful...