Short Essays

The theme of trust, betrayed or fulfilled, runs through this collection of short stories: Parents lead children into peril, husbands abandon wives, wives manipulate husbands, and time undermines all. Love pangs, a favorite subject of the author, take on a new urgency as earthquakes, illnesses...

Before writing his memoir of madness, Darkness Visible, William Styron was best known for his ambitious works of fiction–including The Confessions of Nat Turner and Sophie’s Choice. Styron also created personal but no less powerful tales based on his real-life experiences as a U.S. Marine...

At times when you feel let down due to the lack of self-confidence, you must read the book The Habit Of Winning: Stories To Inspire, Motivate And Unleash The Winner Within for a boost. This motivational book is a wonderful collection of short and inspirational stories and facts, which have the...

What is the right thing to do? How could he ever have imagined he’d know the answer to a question like that? Daniel, an expatriate Australian who has lived in Paris for more than forty years, has made a mess of his life and is trying to atone, to become the ‘good man’ his friend Marcelline...

From Little Nell to Miss Havisham, Dickens’ Women tells the story of Charles Dickens’ life through his beloved characters. Co-written and performed by Miriam Margolyes, best known for her role as Professor Sprout in the Harry Potter films, this one-women show is a celebration of her...

Jonathan Lethem's new collection of stories is a feast for his fans and the perfect introduction for new listeners-- a smorgasbord of fantastic, amusing, poignant tales written in a dizzying variety of styles. Lethem is a trailblazer fo a new kind of literary fiction, sampling high and low...

The journeys of Paul Theroux take place not only in exotic, unexpected places of the world but in the thoughts, reading, and emotions of the writer himself. A gathering of people, places, and ideas in fifty glittering pieces of gold...

"From nothing to nothing is no time at all." (John Steinbeck) Two men discuss their New Year's resolutions shortly after midnight on December 31, 2014. The discussion is inspired by a piece of minimalist piano music by Steve Reich and turns to the meaning and nature of time, drawing on John Steinbeck's famous quote.

Charles Dickens was a writer and social critic who created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. THE SHORT-TIMERS: Within so many yards of this Covent-garden lodging of mine, as within so many yards of Westminster Abbey, Saint Paul's Cathedral, the Houses of Parliament, the Prisons, the Courts of Justice, all the Institutions that govern the land, I can find must find...

In the Adirondacks, short carries are portages between waterways, and this book is a collection of short essays about wilderness, outdoor adventures, natural history and small town life - all of which connect with each other through the author's voice and deep sense of place.

Through a collection of intimate reflections (on art, punctuation, eyeglasses, color, dreams, celebrity, corpses, porn, and translation) and assignments that encourage pleasure, attentiveness, and acts of playful making, poet, artist, critic, novelist, and performer Wayne Koestenbaum enacts 26 ecstatic collisions between his mind and the world. Figure It Out is both a guidebook for, and the embodiment of, the practices of pleasure, attentiveness, art, and play.

Named a Most Anticipated Book of 2026 by Literary Hub The best in short fiction from around the world, from celebrated anthologist and author John Freeman and award-winning novelist Rabih Alameddine In The Penguin Book of the International Short Story, writers from different nations, languages...

Blistering and deeply personal, I Am Sorry to Think I Have Raised a Timid Son records Russell's quest to understand, through his journalistic subjects, his own appetites and urges, his persistent alienation, and, above all, his knotty, volatile, vital relationship with his father.

Linguist is a collection of 101 short stories, essays, and insights to improve your communication skills. A linguist is someone who is highly skilled with words. The stories in this book will teach you how to effectively use words to create opportunities in your life.

When Paul Auster was asked to join NPR's Weekend All Things Considered program to tell stories, he turned the proposition on its head: he would let the stories come to him. He invited listeners to submit brief, true-life anecdotes about events that touched their lives. And so the National Story...

Collected for the first time, the New York stories of John O'Hara, "among the greatest short story writers in English, or in any other language" (Brendan Gill, Here at The New Yorker) Collected for the first time, here are the New York stories of one of the twentieth century’s definitive...

Edgar Allan Poe (1809-1849) var en amerikansk digter og forfatter, der er kendt og elsket verden over for sine gyserhistorier og digte. Ved siden af virket som forfatter arbejdede Edgar Allan Poe som skribent, redaktør og anmelder. Edgar Allan Poe udmærker sig ved at blande romantikken og den gotiske litteratur i sine digte og noveller, hvilket giver dem en helt særlig plads i den amerikanske litteraturhistorie.

This is the story of an unforgivable con man. Vulnerable families were his prey. His promise was an impossible dream and a lie. Peter Candlewood understood the system. That’s how he could commute prison sentences and reunite hopeless families with incarcerated loved ones. For a price. Except there was no Candlewood. No hope. Just a lowly Texas con artist who bet on the desperate - and won. And he wasn’t working alone. The multimillion-dollar deception cost the betrayed more than their savings.

The early fiction of one of the nation’s most celebrated writers, Truman Capote, as he takes his first bold steps into the canon of American literature Recently rediscovered in the archives of the New York Public Library, these short stories provide an unparalleled look at Truman Capote...

Ein kleines Buch über Kummer, das erstaunlich gute Laune macht. "Alle wirken innerlich blitzblank, nur in unserem Inneren sieht es aus wie bei Hempels unterm Sofa", denkt sich Kioskbesitzer Armin, als er vergeblich versucht, erfolgreich zu meditieren. Und auch im Inneren der anderen Figuren dieser literarischen Kolumnen herrscht Unordnung: Frau Wiese kann nicht mehr schlafen, Herr Pohl ist nachhaltig verzagt, Lisa hat ihren ersten Liebeskummer, Vadims Hände zittern, Frau Schwerter muss ganz dringend entspannen, ein trauriger Patient hat seine Herde verloren, und Psychoanalytiker Ulrich legt sich mit der Vergänglichkeit an.