Magical Realism Short Stories

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.

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.

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?

Spanning decades and landscapes, from the forests along the Black Sea to the streets of Istanbul, Kenan Orhan’s ​playful stories ​conjure dreamlike worlds—of talking animals, flying houses, and omniscient prayer-callers—to ​examine humanity’s unfaltering pursuit of hope in even the darkest circumstances.

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

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.

And what if in each universe there reigned other Black woman gods? One million versions of god, and one million saints to watch over us? And what if this Black woman god were placed here on earth? These are just a few of the questions Anastacia-Reneé asks in this daring and mind-bending hybrid collection. Hers is a universe of striking variety—monsters, nontraditional saints, witches, zombies, the couple in the apartment next door, the wise elders from down the block, and gods watching over us all—as well as community and connectedness.

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.

Estamos en Macondo y su región una vez más, entre personajes y episodios reconocibles, pero ahora caen pájaros muertos sobre el poblado, rompiendo mosquiteros y alambradas, un cura ve al diablo o afirma haber encontrado al judío errante, y visitar la tumba de un ser querido supone un riesgo impredecible. Y hay que enterrar a la Mamá Grande, soberana absoluta de este mundo, que falleció en olor de santidad a los noventa y dos años, tras haber conservado la virginidad durante toda su vida, y a cuyos funerales acude el presidente de la República y hasta el Sumo Pontífice en su góndola papal.

Semi-autobiographical in nature, these 14 stories span the period from the author's childhood to the present. We are introduced, in a series of beautifully imagined and crafted cameos, to the author's family, friends, and various other people who left a lasting impression on him. In other stories we revisit Bond's beloved Garhwal hills and the small towns and villages that he has returned to time and again in his fiction.

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.

Scant years after the Civil War, a mysterious family confronts the legacy that has pursued them across centuries, out of slavery, and finally to the idyllic peace of the town of Rosetree. The shattering consequences of this confrontation echo backwards and forwards in time, even to the present day.

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?

Este libro de cuentos de Roberto Burgos Cantor lo conforman pequeñas historias - la del mecánico, la modista, el cantante, la reina, el obrero y líder sindical, la prostituta y otros personajes típicos de un barrio popular- que hacen parte de una gran historia, la de un lugar donde se entrecruzan destinos y donde la vida desgranan amores, sueños, fracasos.