Magical Realism Short Stories

From Mexico’s preeminent man of letters, "a Balzacian novel in nine masterly stories" (Vanity Fair) that explores the "uneven and painful meshing of two North American cultures" (Washington Post Book World). A New York Times Notable Book of the Year. A Los Angeles Times Best Book of the Year. Translated by Alfred Mac Adam.

This collection of eight stories paints a vivid image of people who don't do what you might expect them to living on the fringes in America. Not stories of triumph over adversity but something completely other. Described in language that is brilliantly sardonic, Woods' characters return repeatedly to places where they don't belong - often the places where they were born. In the background are the endless American wars and occupations and too many early deaths of friends and family. This is fiction that is fresh and of the moment, even as it is timeless.

A girl born in a small unnamed pueblo is blessed—or cursed—with the ability to produce valuable gems from her bodily fluids. A tired wife and mother escapes the confines of her oppressive life and body by shapeshifting into a cloud. A girl reckons with the death of her father and her changing familial dynamics while slowly, mysteriously losing her physical senses. Infused with keen insight and presented in startling prose, the stories in this dark, magnetic collection by newcomer Rebecca Hirsch Garcia invite the listener into an uncanny world out of step with reality.

Written between 1943 and 1984 and masterfully translated by Tim Parks, the fictions in Numbers in the Dark display all of Calvino's dazzling gifts: whimsy and horror, exuberance of style, and a cheerful grasp of the absurdities of the human condition. Here are speculative stories on life in the digital age, genre-bending wonders, and “impossible interviews” with the likes of Montezuma and a Neanderthal.

Three magical romances set in the contemporary English countryside and the fight for good versus evil....

A man who receives life-changing financial advice from the talking fruit in his breakfast bowl...a girl whose thoughts incinerate her family over and over again...a house that wants nothing more than to please its occupants, and will do anything at all to make sure they’re happy. From enchanting to troubling to downright disturbing, This Is Why We Can't Have Nice Things explores the notion that sometimes even the most promising of magic can go askew, through an array of characters whose outcomes can be horrifying, hilarious, or heartbreaking.

Master storyteller David Almond presents a beautiful collection of short fiction interwoven with pieces that illuminate the inspiration behind the stories. May Malone is said to have a monster in her house, but what Norman finds there may just be the angel he needs. Joe Quinn's house is noisy with poltergeists, or could it be Davie's raging causing the disturbance?

A surreal love letter to this private side of the Met, Metropolitan Stories unfolds in a series of amusing and poignant vignettes in which we discover larger-than-life characters, the downside of survival, and the powerful voices of the art itself. The result is a novel bursting with magic, humor, and energetic detail, but also a beautiful book about introspection, an ode to lives lived for art, ultimately building a powerful collage of human experience and the world of the imagination.

En Un lugar inadecuado, descubrirás diez relatos extraordinarios, basados en hechos reales, que transitan la delgada línea entre lo que entendemos como realidad… y lo que aún no podemos explicar. Estas historias cortas, íntimas y cautivadoras, revelan sucesos que podrían parecer fantasía o ciencia ficción, pero ocurrieron aquí, en nuestra tierra, en el corazón de una familia marcada por lo inexplicable.

Set against the tropics and megacities of the Americas, Maria, Maria takes inspiration from wild creatures, tarot, and the porous borders between life and death. Motivated by love and its inverse, grief, the characters who inhabit these stories negotiate boldly with nature to cast their desired ends. Brimming with sharp wit and ferocious female intuition, these stories bubble over into the titular novella, "Maria, Maria"—a family drama set in a reimagined California rainforest that explores the legacies of three Marias, and possibly all Marias.

More absurd, horrifying, and downright inexplicable shorts from the author of The Man Who Stands in Line. Included are such soon-to-be classics as Buzz-Saw Bob, the sport of pendulum watching, yet another secret to ultimate success, the art of gasping, a neighbor who is definitely not Mr. Rogers, and Buddha's morning commute. I legally can't promise that this book will transform you into the demiurge you were meant to be. All I can say is that no medical studies have proven otherwise, and the FDA moves very slowly.

Un viaggio lungo 10 racconti attorno alle più comuni angosce e riflessioni della vita di tutti i giorni. Viste da prospettive davvero inconsuete.

Un gruppo di viaggiatori che, per un complesso di circostanze diverse, hanno perso la parola si ritrovano in un castello. L'unico mezzo che hanno per comunicare è rappresentato da un mazzo di tarocchi. Un romanzo affascinante composto da tante storie intrecciate.

The fate of seven kingdoms is at stake during an epic card game. A runner flees her broken marriage and barrels straight into her high school reunion. A housebroken husband trades his beloved beagle for a sad, gray donkey. And, a brother and sister chase a ghost down a long and lonesome highway into the haunted forest of their past. Young men and the difficult women who save them, old men, and the dream girls who keep them up at night - join these eight heroes in unearthing the startling truth of what rests under the world.

In this classic novella, harried human explorers must try to figure out the lifeways and motivations of some extremely strange and enigmatic alien creatures on one of the strangest planets ever portrayed in science fiction - and do it all before the clock runs out...

Auf einem Markt verkauft Jule dornenlose Rosen, Miroslav Insektenpräparate aus aller Welt. Was passiert, wenn die in Kunstharz erstarrten Insekten erwachen und die Dornen doch noch sprießen?

Keenan, a guide at Daylight Chasers, is hired to lead Isabella through a day that "nearly" never ends. As the top agent, he excels at calming the excitable and inspiring the timid, as they journey across the globe one time zone at a time. Despite his years of experience, Keenan soon realizes that he is going to need a lot more than his familiar script when it comes to Isabella's expedition.

Three sons send their father to Valhalla in his old jalopy. A rusted robot waits on the stone wall by a child’s bus stop. An undertaker is one coin short at the river Styx. And in the bookending stories “Anything But Pure” and “Receding,” a soldier seeks to unbury stories once lost to a winter of war. Fathers and the daughters they find, girls and the dogs they've loved, and a woman from Kansas with a cyclone in her heart — each discovers what happens when people go too far, love too hard, and take too much on their way Out of the Woods.

"Narrator Janina Edwards's compelling tone draws listeners into Wilson's searing narrative as a family reckons with a supernatural legacy...A stark and enduring listen, well told and unforgettable." -- AudioFile Magazine, Earphones Award winner Scant years after the Civil War, a mysterious...

In this Martian adventure story, two men fly to the highest mountain on Mars, and in the process learn more about Mars and about themselves. Bova's work is premeated by the idea of space as a new frontier, and of SF settings as opportunities for explorers and entrepreneuers, the classic Heinlein...