'INTENSE SEXUAL DESIRE IS THE GREATEST THING IN THE WORLD' A tale of art, sex, blood, junkies and whores in New York's underground, from cult literary icon Kathy Acker Penguin Modern: fifty new books celebrating the pioneering spirit of the iconic Penguin Modern Classics series, with each one offering a concentrated hit of its contemporary, international flavour. Here are authors ranging from Kathy Acker to James Baldwin, Truman Capote to Stanislaw Lem and George Orwell to Shirley Jackson; essays radical and inspiring; poems moving and disturbing; stories surreal and fabulous; taking us from the deep South to modern Japan, New York's underground scene to the farthest reaches of outer space.

“Jonathan Carroll is a cult waiting to be born, a novelist of rare and terrifying power.”—Pat Conroy Ricocheting between Vienna and Los Angeles, between the worlds of desires and dreams, Sleeping in Flame is a hypnotic literary novel with irresistible elements of fantasy and magic. “I envy anyone who has yet to enjoy the sexy, eerie, and addictive novels of Jonathan Carroll.”—The Washington Post Book World “Jonathan Carroll is a master of sunlit surrealism.”—Jonathan Lethem

Beyond the Pale -- winner of the Lambda Literary Award -- tells the stories of two Jewish women living through times of darkness and inhumanity in the early 20th century, capturing their undaunted love and courage in luminous and moving prose. The richly textured novel details Gutke Gurvich's odyssey from her apprenticeship as a midwife in a Russian shtetl to her work in the suffrage movement in New York. Interwoven with her tale is that Chava Meyer, who was attended by Gurvich at her birth and grew up to survive the pogrom that took the lives of her parents. Throughout the book, historical background plays a large part: Jewish faith and traditions, the practice of midwifery, the horrific conditions in prerevolutionary Russia and New York sweatshops, and the determined work of labor unionists and suffragists.

Based on the remarkable true story of G. H. Hardy and Srinivasa Ramanujan, and populated with such luminaries such as D. H. Lawrence, Bertrand Russell, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, The Indian Clerk takes this extraordinary slice of history and transforms it into an emotional and spellbinding story about the fragility of human connection and our need to find order in the world. A literary masterpiece, it appeared on four bestseller lists, including the Los Angeles Times , and received dazzling reviews from every major publication in the country.

The second volume of Jane Yolen's fantasy anthology series contains original stories and poetry by Ursual K. Le Guin, Barbara Hambly, Carol Janes Bangs, Marvin Bell, Patricia McKillip, Delia Sherman, Susan Solomont, Richard Kearns, Diane Duane, and Barbara Can Noord, and 26 others. A diverse collection of the best in original short fantasy.

Deborah Eisenberg is almost unmatched in her mastery of the short story form. In this, her seventh collection, she demonstrates her virtuosic abilities in precisely distilled, unflinchingly honest studies of human connection and disconnection. From a group of friends whose luxurious Manhattan sublet becomes a front-row seat to the catastrophe of 9/11; to the Roman holiday of a schoolteacher running away from the news of her ex-husband's life-threatening illness; to the too painful love of a brother for his schizophrenic sister, Eisenberg evokes painful and tender truths, both poetic and deeply political. 'The stories are, in their masterly crosshatching of light and dark, concentrated bursts of perfection’ The Times ‘Wonderful . . . written with a ruthless, compassionate eye and a subtle humour' Guardian ‘Further confirms her reputation as one of the most imaginative and exquisitely perceptive of today’s short story writers' Scotland on Sunday 'She makes you smile as much as she haunts with stark truths . . . In the US, many people consider Eisenberg to be up there with Alice Munro, the female monarch of the short-story form. It’s time the UK considered putting her up there too’ Financial Times

Deborah Eisenberg is nearly unmatched in her mastery of the short story form. Now, in her newest collection, she demonstrates once again her virtuosic abilities in precisely distilled, perfectly shaped studies of human connection and disconnection. From a group of friends whose luck in acquiring a luxurious Manhattan sublet turns to disaster as their balcony becomes a front-row seat to the catastrophe of 9/11; to the Roman holiday of a schoolteacher running away from the news of her ex-husband's life-threatening illness, and her unlikely guide, a titled art scout in desperate revolt against his circumstances and aging; to the too painful love of a brother for his schizophrenic sister, whose tragic life embitters him to the very idea of family, Eisenberg evokes, in brooding passionate and brilliant prose, a brutally honest portrait of our lives today, showing us truths which are both poetic and deeply political. 'Like Alice Munro, virtually her only equal in the field, Deborah Eisenberg seems incapable of writing a bad short story . . . Eisenberg's writing at times approaches the beauty of a line of poetry. She manipulates her readers with a master's blend of humor and poignancy. Her stories are wondrous' San Francisco Chronicle

Raised in Japan by American expatriates, Karen Leith now lives a reclusive life in New York, known chiefly for her highly regarded novels, of which the latest has won a major American literary award. When she is found on the floor behind her desk, surrounded by blood, it looks like foul play. But the only possible suspect is Leith's future daughter-in-law, Eva, who has recently become engaged. Eva swears by her innocence, even though she was the last to hear Leith alive and the first to find her dead. Eva was waiting outside Leith's office to share the happy news and maintains that no one entered through that door, while the room's other possible exit was locked. The only one who can help her clear her name is mystery writer Ellery Queen, an acquaintance of the victim through New York's literary circles. Queen intends to unravel the locked-room mystery, but with no murder weapon and too many incriminating fingerprints, this case just might be one even he can't solve.

'Brisk, smart, witty, elliptical ... Recalls the directors of the New Wave ... Bracing and brilliant' Independent When Patrick Modiano was awarded the 2014 Nobel Prize for Literature he was praised for using the 'art of memory' to bring to life the Occupation of Paris during the Second World War. Born in 1945, Modiano's brilliant, angry writings burst onto the Parisian literary scene and caused a storm. His first, ferociously satirical novel, La Place de l'Étoile , was remarkable in seriously questioning both Nazi collaboration in France and the myths of the Gaullist era. The Night Watch tells the story of a man caught between his work for the French Gestapo and for a Resistance cell. Ring Roads recounts a son's search for his Jewish father, who disappeared ten years previously. These brilliant, almost hallucinatory, evocations of the Occupation attempt to exorcise the past by exploring the morally ambiguous worlds of collaboration and resistance.

Lew Bascom is an idea man, and he has quite an idea. To put his career on the fast track, Bascom plans to pen a film about Hollywood's longest-running theatrical feud--Blythe Stewart and her daughter Bonnie's rivalry with Jack Royale and his son Ty. The twist? Bascom wants the four actors to play themselves in the film. The film's producer insists on bringing Ellery Queen, a successful New York writer, out to Hollywood to help close the deal. Only problem is that Bascom - a notorious procrastinator - isn't interested in outside help. So beautiful gossip columnist Paula Paris offers Queen an in by explaining the specifics of the feud ranging back to when Blythe and Jack were in a hot and heavy romance, throughout their unexpected separation, and into their subsequent marriages to other people. Meanwhile, the deepening hatred of their adult children has become the latest tabloid fodder. But when Blythe Steward and Jack Royale turn up dead, Queen must go from screenwriter to mystery solver before more Hollywood superstars become Hollywood casualties.

"Totempole is Sanford Friedman's radical coming-of-age novel, featuring Stephen Wolfe, a young Jewish boy growing up in New York City and its environs during the Depression and war years. In eight discrete chapters, which trace Stephen's evolution from a two-year-old boy to a twenty-two-year-old man, Friedman describes with psychological acuity and great empathy Stephen's intellectual, moral, and sexual maturation. Taught to abhor his body for the sake of his soul, Stephen finds salvation in the eventual unification of the two, the recognition that body and soul should not be partitioned but treated as one being, one complete man"--

"Claudio Bianchi has lived alone for many years on a hillside in Southern Italy's scenic Calabria. Set in his ways and suspicious of outsiders, Claudio has always resisted change, preferring farming and writing poetry. But one chilly morning, as though from a dream, an impossible visitor appears at the farm. When Claudio comes to her aid, an act of kindness throws his world into chaos. Suddenly he must stave off inquisitive onlookers, invasive media, and even more sinister influences" -- provided by publisher.

"After discovering photography as a teenager through her high school's photo club, Lillian rejects her parents' expectations of college and marriage and moves to New York City in 1955. When a small gallery exhibits partially nude photographs of Lillian and her daughter, Samantha, Lillian is arrested, thrust into the national spotlight, and targeted with an obscenity charge. Mother and daughter's sudden notoriety changes the course of both of their lives and especially Lillian's career as she continues a lifelong quest for artistic legitimacy and recognition. Narrated by Samantha, Feast Your Eyes reads as a collection of Samantha's memories, interviews with Lillian's friends and lovers, and excerpts from Lillian's journals and letters--a collage of stories and impressions, together amounting to an astounding portrait of a mother and an artist dedicated, above all, to a vision of beauty, truth, and authenticity"--Provided by publisher.

In its third volume, this annual collection of 10 previously unpublished works takes an exclusive look at the country's most promising new writers. Selected by New York Times -bestselling author Lev Grossman, each story of extraordinary literary merit represents a showcase of talented writing through original pieces. This anthology speaks to a readership with an appreciation of short literary fiction and compelling narrative nonfiction.

Dreams and nightmares-what Ambrose Bierce called "visions of the night"-are the basis of some of the greatest weird fiction in literary history. The unruly images that torment us in sleep are usually dispelled by the coming of day-but can they be dismissed so easily? Do nightmares have some impalpable reality that can affect our daily lives, the lives of those around us, and perhaps the very fabric of the universe? Who can say that the nightmare is merely a wisp of fancy engendered by our own minds? After all, it was Edgar Allan Poe who said: "All that we see or seem is but a dream within a dream." All original nightmares by David Barker, Jason V Brock, Ramsey Campbell, Gemma Files, Richard Gavin, Caitlín R. Kiernan, Nancy Kilpatrick, John Langan, Reggie Oliver, W. H. Pugmire, Darrell Schweitzer, John Shirley, Simon Strantzas, Steve Rasnic Tem, Jonathan Thomas, Donald Tyson and Stephen Woodworth. This volume is edited by S. T. Joshi, a leading critic and anthologist of weird fiction.

"This groundbreaking collection brings together 28 stunning stories by literary talents never before assembled in a single volume. With contributions from both established and bright new voices in lesbian fiction, 'Women on Women' ranges from the subtlety and restraint of Willa Cather's 'Tommy, the Unsentimental' to Sapphire's daring and highly erotic 'Eat' and Valerie Miner's suspenseful 'Trespassing.' Some of the stories are universal in theme - the joy and excitement of new romance, the ageless problems of family life, and the pain of lost love and of death. And many are written by or about members of racial, ethnic, and other minorities within the gay community. These are stories that offer stirring, eloquent, often passionate insights into the lesbian experience in a long-overdue collection that represents the best of lesbian short fiction from past to present"--Amazon.com.

With the sixth volume of the acclaimed annual series, Best Gay Stories, editor Steve Berman has chosen compelling fiction that ranges from the pragmatic to the surreal from such acclaimed authors as Mark Ameen, Jameson Currier, Alex Jeffers, and William Sterling Walker, as well as moving and provocative essays by Peter Knegt and Eddie Safarty. No other anthology explores the breath and scope of today's diverse gay literary field.

An Indie Next PickA BOMC SelectionIt is summer, 2012. Charlie, a wealthy banker with an uneasy conscience, invites his troubled cousin Matthew to visit him and his wife in their idyllic mountaintop house. As the days grow hotter, the friendship between the three begins to reveal its fault lines, and with the arrival of a fourth character, the household finds itself suddenly in the grip of uncontrollable passions. As readers of James Lasdun's acclaimed fiction can expect, The Fall Guy is a complex moral tale as well as a gripping suspense story, probing questions of guilt and betrayal with ruthless incisiveness."A taut and cerebral literary thriller. . . . Matthew delights the couple with his culinary talents but tension soon boils over in this exquisitely paced, unbearably suspenseful morality tale. Lasdun's elegant prose serves up an unsettling dish of obsessions and jealousy seasoned with keen social observations of class and privilege while simmering with plots of revenge. For fans of Ian McEwan and Herman Koch." -- Bill's Bookshelf Selector, Bill Kelly

"Jacob Appel's acrobatic imagination is always a thrill to watch in action. These stories fly through the air and grip your heart. Appel's naturalness as a storyteller makes The Liars' Asylum a total pleasure, a collection in a league of its own. Each story-- there are no duds here-- engages and entertains. Each is beautifully measured and composed, populated by characters I worried for, crushed on, and hoped with."-- Kelly Luce "In this excellent collection of stories, Jacob Appel mines everything for what it is and what it might be: the ordinary, the bizarre, the poignant. The voice, regardless of the narrator, is always crisp and exuberant, in ways subtle and fresh. I could say he is a writer to watch, but actually he is publishing well and frequently. He's a writer to read."-- Fred Leebron "While the plants and ponds might be aggressively artificial in Jacob Appel's newest collection of stories, there's not a single false note when it comes to Appel's characters and their intertwined lives. Romance blooms despite vast differences in ages and circumstance, and near connections plunge into a unique melancholy optimism that will propel readers from one story to the next."-- Suzanne Greenberg "Jacob M. Appel's brilliant new story collection manages to pull off the rarest of literary feats-- delivering eight fantastic stories, each as entertaining as it is philosophically rich. A book of laugh-out-loud wit braided with intellectual fearlessness, The Liars' Asylum offers delights for the mind on every page. Best of all, these irreverent, lovingly subversive stories upend dusty assumptions about what it means to be alive and allow the reader to experience her own existence with a fresh eye. A stunning book that will remain with you long after the last page is turned."-- Alethea Black "Across eight compelling stories, Jacob Appel offers us glimpses into the lives of people keeping secrets, broaching taboos, and testing the limits of their relationships. From a former teacher's suicide to an epidemic of storms that forces those caught in them to tell the truth, The Liars' Asylum beautifully and artfully exposes the mysteries and longings of the human heart."-- Anne Valente "Jacob M. Appel new collection, The Liars' Asylum , confirms his status as one of our most skillful, and appealing, practitioners of short fiction. Indeed, Appel is one of those blessed and nimble writers who, like Chekhov, can find a story anywhere. On ample display are his trademark first-person narrators (often young women), his deliciously light touch, his mastery of the 'reversal of fortune' moment. His new cast of characters includes a girl tasked with ensuring her aunt a 'beau, ' an immigrant Finn who teaches us the meaning of endurance, and a ER psychiatrist dealing with a mass hysteria of truth-telling. Appel's fiction is a brilliant and reassuring example of Horace's maxim: The role of the artist is to inform and delight."-- Catherine Browder

Since emigrating to the U.S. from his native Romania in 1966, Andrei Codrescu has blazed a rocket-bright trail across the cultural landscape of his adopted country, gaining a national audience as public radio commentator, television personality and editor of the radical literary journal Exquisite Corpse. He has also commanded considerable critical recognition for his poetry (Alien Candor, Black Sparrow, 1996), and fiction (most notably, his novel about his Transylvanian homeland, The Blood Countess, 1995).