Short Family

A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR “As impeccable as [the] title story is, every entry astonishes” (The New York Times), from the National Jewish Book Award-winning author of A Play for the End of the World "Whether in Brooklyn, Kolkata, upstate New York or elsewhere, these characters...

A New York Times bestselling author’s gripping account of a Chicago community coming together to save a group of teenagers from gun violence. In the tradition of works like Random Family and Behind the Beautiful Forevers, Sudhir Venkatesh’s The Tomorrow Game is a deeply reported chronicle of...

Created over a generation of Christmases, these stories express the spirit of Yuletide as found in ordinary times and places. Ranging from Australia to Brooklyn, from sad to sweet, with people from all corners of life, they are accessible to all ages.

This “gorgeous, electric” collection of short stories is about the inner lives of young women during their transformative twenties, navigating relationships, nostalgia for the past, and the uncertainty of the future (Mary-Beth Hughes, author of The Ocean House). With this sharp and witty...

From the author of the Oprah Book Club Pick Dream State, a riveting and profoundly moving story collection by a writer “uncannily in tune with the heartbreak and absurdity of domestic life” (Los Angeles Times). A boy on the edge of adolescence fears his mother might be a robot; a...

B.J. Harrison reads Louisa May Alcotts famous novella "Behind a Mask", which is widely considered to be Alcotts masterpiece in sensation fiction. A wealthy Victorian-era family recruits Jean Muir as sixteen-year-old Bellas governess. But soon enough, Jean Muir appears to have everyone under her spell, and to have the power to do everything as she pleases. This novella from the late 19th century was initially published under Louisa May Alcotts pseudonym A. M. Barnard...

Chickpeas to Cook is the story of the woman of the tribe, women from some of the smallest of communities, often no more than a few hundred families in Singapore. How do these women live, think, breathe? What does the Dawoodi Bohra woman answer, for instance, when she’s asked if her daughter...

Deeply humane, in turn wry and humorous, the stories in this collection haunt readers with their searing honesty.Lalitha, abused by her own mother, learns that bullies carry emotional traumas that scar everyone’s lives.Shiva Das confronts the truth of his own culpability when his adult special...

Four blistering novellas, drawn together by themes of strife, violence, and humanity, from esteemed crime fiction writer George Pelecanos; "Like his hero Elmore Leonard, Pelecanos finds the humanity in the lowest of lowlifes."(Chicago Tribune) When the son of the Carusos is involved in a hold up...

C'è chi è pronto a traslocare, chi sceglie a chi somiglierà da grande, chi vorrebbe che il figlio nato troppo presto torni nella pancia, chi dimentica la figlia in macchina e poi si reca al lavoro, chi si dimentica il gas acceso, chi ha un segreto che potrebbe far crollare un’intera casa, chi cerca di non farsi capire dai più piccoli, chi ha perso un figlio. Dieci racconti possibili e, in quanto tali, quasi veri, che parlano di famiglie, di madri e bambini, di coppie, di quotidianità, di cose difficili e dolorose; che parlano a ognuno di noi.

From some of your favorite best-selling and critically acclaimed authors - including Sandhya Menon, Anna-Marie McLemore, and Rin Chupeco - comes a collection of interconnected short stories that explore the intersection of family, culture, and food in the lives of 13 teens.

The recipient of the Journey Prize and Edna Staebler Award, Heather Birrell made a splash in the literary world with her first collection, I Know You Are But What Am I? In Mad Hope, Birrell employs her keen insight into the human condition to present tales featuring a complex array of characters, including a gay man caring for a friend and a science teacher faced with a shocking request.

In such acclaimed novels as The Photograph, Family Album, and How It All Began, Penelope Lively has captivated readers and listeners with her singular blend of wisdom, elegance, and humor. Now, in her first story collection in decades, Lively takes up themes of history, family, and relationships across varied and vividly rendered settings.

Gates' characters, young or old or neither, are well educated, broadly knowledgeable, often creative, and variously accomplished, whether as a doctor or a composer, an academic or a journalist. And every one of them carries a full supply of the human condition: parents in assisted-living - or assisted-dying - facilities, too many or too few people in their families and marriages, the ties that bind a sometimes messy knot, age an implacable foe, impulses pulling them away from comfort into distraction or catastrophe.

In New York City, an art student finds an unexpected subject when she moves in with a grandmother from Xi’an, and boundaries are put into question. When a newlywed couple moves to Arizona, adapting to unfamiliar customs keeps their marriage from falling apart. A woman grapples with what it means to care for another, and the limits of that care, when her dying husband returns from Beijing years after abandoning her. And during a rainy summer in Texas, a visitor exposes the unspoken but unburiable history that binds two families together.

Über 50 Jahre lang lieben sie sich, teilen ihr Leben. Doch nun ist der Mann schwer krank. Seit Jahren palliativ umsorgt, wird sein Radius immer eingeschränkter, der Besuch weniger, die Abhängigkeit größer. Entlang der Stunden eines Tages erzählt Helga Schubert davon, wie man selbst den Verstand und der andere die Würde behält, wie es ist, mit einem todkranken Menschen durch dessen Zwischenwelten zu wandeln. Und davon, wie Liebe zu Erbarmen wird. Die Erzählungen mäandern in der gemeinsamen und der eigenen Vergangenheit, sind von zartem Humor und frei von Pathos.

Travesuras en Tlaquepaque reúne quince historias encantadoras, divertidas y conmovedoras basadas en las vivencias reales de Tere y Anita Pelayo Topete entre 1923 y 1934. A través de la voz cálida y evocadora de Rosa Elena Sánchez Pelayo, la autora nos transporta a un Tlaquepaque lleno de calles empedradas, tradiciones familiares, travesuras inocentes y la fuerza inquebrantable del amor entre hermanas.

Joshua and Daniel Duncan love Halloween. The unhealthy snacks, gory horror films, and corny decorations warm their teenage hearts like no other holiday ever could. However, on this Halloween night, someone special is at their front door. Someone they've known their whole lives. There's always room for family.

"La sangre y la tierra, el mejor legado, sentenciaba el abuelo Pancho. Y allá debe ir, a mojarse los labios en la sangre y poner los pies en esa tierra seca, abonada con el orgullo ciego, con los huesos calcinados por el odio, los secretos y los amores ocultos." Pilar Montero vuelve a su Córdoba natal luego de un largo exilio por amor en la campiña francesa. Atrás quedan sus dos hijos, Irina y Noah, y, el recuerdo de los años compartidos con Ari, su esposo trágicamente fallecido.

In this powerful and virtuosic collection of interlocking stories, each one "a marvel of concision and compassion" (Washington Post), Peter Orner, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist and "master of his form" (New York Times), takes the short story to new heights. Through forty-four...