2004 Grand Prix de l’Imaginaire winner Peter S. Beagle’s The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche and Other Odd Acquaintances celebrates the beginning of Beagle’s extraordinary career as a fantasist. Widely available for the first time and with a new preface by the author, this delightful book contains seven short stories and three essays by one of the most popular authors in the history of the fantasy field. The Last Unicorn, Beagle’s most beloved novel, was an underground best-seller in the late 1960s and 1970s and is still in print and enchanting new readers today. It reached an audience far beyond the market for fantasy books, tying in with an emerging counter-culture and selling hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of copies. The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche contains two of Beagle’s popular unicorn stories, ?“Professor Gottesman and the Indian Rhinoceros” and ?“Julie’s Unicorn,” as well as “?Lila the Werewolf” (anthologized in the Oxford Book of Fantasy) and a tribute to J. R. R. Tolkien, ?“The Naga.”

A collection of essays, poems and short stories by Jewish authors most published between 1994-2000.

Vladimir Jabotinsky (1880-1940) was a man of huge paradoxes and contradictions and has been the most misunderstood of all Zionist politicians--a first-rate novelist, a celebrated Russian journalist, and the founder of the branch of Zionism now headed by Benjamin Netanyahu. This biography, the first in English in nearly two decades, undertakes to answer central questions about Jabotinsky as a writer, a political thinker, and a leader. Hillel Halkin sets aside the stereotypes to which Jabotinsky has been reduced by his would-be followers and detractors alike. Halkin explains the importance of Odessa, Jabotinsky's native city, in molding his character and outlook; discusses his novels and short stories, showing the sometimes hidden connections between them and Jabotinsky's political thought, and studies a political career that ended in tragic failure. Halkin also addresses Jabotinsky's position, unique among the great figures of Zionist history, as both a territorial maximalist and a principled believer in democracy. The author inquires why Jabotinsky was often accused of fascist tendencies though he abhorred authoritarian and totalitarian politics, and investigates the many opposed aspects of his personality and conduct while asking whether or not they had an ultimate coherence. Few figures in twentieth-century Jewish life were quite so admired and loathed, and Halkin's splendid, subtle book explores him with empathy and lucidity

Robin Lakoff gets to the heart of one of the most fascinating and pressing issues in American society today: who holds power and how they use it, keep it, or lose it. In a brilliant and vastly entertaining discussion of news events that have occupied an enormous amount of media space--political correctness, the Anita Hill/Clarence Thomas hearings, Hillary Rodham Clinton as First Lady, O. J. Simpson's murder trial, the Ebonics controversy, and the Clinton sex scandal--Lakoff shows that the struggle for power and status at the end of the century is being played out as a war over language. Controlling language is a basis for all power, she says, and therefore it is worth fighting for. As a result, newly emergent groups, especially blacks and women, are contending with middle- to upper-class white men for a share in "language rights." Lakoff's introduction to linguistic theories and the philosophy of language lays the groundwork for an exploration of news stories that meet what she calls the UAT (Undue Attention Test). As the stories became the subject of talk-show debates, late-night comedy routines, Web sites, and magazine articles, they were embroidered with additional meanings, depending on who was telling the story. Race, gender, or both are at the heart of these stories, and each one is about the right to construct meanings from languagein short, to possess power. Because language tells us how we are connected to one another, who has power and who does not, the stories reflect the language war. We use language to analyze what we call "reality," the author argues, but we mistrust how language is used today--witness the "politics of personal destruction" following the Clinton impeachment. Yet Lakoff sees in the struggle over language a positive goal: equality in the creation of our national discourse. Her writing is accessible and witty, and her excerpts from the media are used to great effect.

Publication of Xanadu marks the beginning of an original anthology series that will include brand-new stories by some of the finest writers in the world. This volume opens with "The Poacher" by Ursula K. Le Guin, a fairytale in the grand tradition. Xanadu also includes "It Comes Lightly Out of the Sea, " a new poem by William Stafford, one of the best-known poets in America; "The Hound of Merlin" by Eleanor Arnason, who won both the Philip K. Dick Award and the Tiptree Award in 1992; "The Perfectly Round Bagel" by Robert Abel, who won the Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction in 1989; "To Scale" by Nebula Award winner Nancy Kress; "Still Life with Woman and Apple" by Leslea Newman, author of Heather Has Two Mommies; "Unnalash" by Tanith Lee; "The Pale Thin God" by Hugo and Nebula award winner Mike Resnick; "Gravity" by Pat Schneider, poet and playwright; "Time Travel, The Artifact, and A Famous Historical Personage" by Minnesota Book Award-winner Will Shetterly; and a dozen other ventures into the realms of magic, including stories by Lisa Tuttle, Steven Brust, Anna Kirwan-Vogel, Gardner Dozois, and a new poem, "The Ring at Yarrow, " by Jane Yolen herself.

Fiction. Named one of Kirkus Reviews' Best Fiction Books of 2014. Each of the characters in SCOUTING FOR THE REAPER faces an unanticipated challenge: transporting a truckload of penguins across the country, arranging a proper Jewish burial for the remains of Gregor Samsa, and selling tombstones dressed as a Girl Scout. These stories explore the domestic and professional adventures of people in over their heads, while leavening their struggles with humor. "Jacob Appel's stories echo with secrets. There are the secrets we keep from those closest to us, of course. Our parents, our doctors, our clergy, our ex-wives and unrequited loves. Any run of the mill story has those. Good stories traffic in the kind of secrets we keep from ourselves. Why, for instance, what and who we love are so close in content and character to what we can't abide. Appel's that kind of trafficker. Even better, throughout this fine collection, he is most concerned with still another kind of secret: that which, when revealed, doesn't solve anything. Like the very best stories, they carry the mystery forward. Revelation, in the end, isn't an end at all. It's a beginning. SCOUTING FOR THE REAPER is full of such revelations. Here's hoping it signals the beginning of a long string of books penned by this talented polymath."--TJ Beitelman

"Things That Cause Inappropriate Happiness is Danila Botha's third collection of short fiction. In these thirteen brilliant stories, she observes with her signature vulnerability and humour what it's like not to fit in. From a photographer teaching English in the Middle East ("Sometimes I Like to Shoot Kids") to a chalk eating South African immigrant teen, who struggles to fit in ("Nothing My Parents Taught me Turned Out to be True") to a neurodiverse travel agent who is tired of pretending to be like everyone else ("Congratulations on Everything") to a woman who fakes a pregnancy ("All Good Things Take Time") and an artist with a desperate need to communicate during the pandemic ("There's Something I've Been Meaning To Say To You"), these stories pulse with the empathy and originality Botha has become known for. As in her previous collection, the Trillium and Vine nominated For All the Men (and Some of the Women) I've Known, Things That Cause Inappropriate Happiness will make you laugh, and cry but above all, it will make you feel less alone"--

Seven stories from South Africa's finest living writer that distil the essence of what has been happening in that country in recent years, through people and landscapes so intensely and evocatively drawn that they seem to burn a hole in the page. --

For the first in over 50 years, Harlan Ellison's second novel returns to print in a substantially revised and expanded form. Also included are three of Ellison's best long-form stories. This 336-page paperback features: The Sound of a Scythe, Harlan Ellison's never-before-republished second novel-appearing for the first time under the author's preferred title (the original publisher renamed it The Man With Nine Lives without Ellison's consent)-expanded by 25% from its 1960 publication and extensively rewritten by Ellison for this appearance. Virtually every page has been finessed by the author. "Mefisto in Onyx"-The Bram Stoker Award-winning novel of a telepath who's asked by his best friend to journey into the mind of a serial killer on death row. "All the Lies That Are My Life"-Ellison's novella about a world-famous writer who overshadows his best friend from beyond the grave. "The Resurgence of Miss Ankle-Strap Wedgie"-A Veronica Lake-inspired tale of a rediscovered silver-screen star's brutal return to Hollywood. An introduction by Emmy-nominated tv writer Ronald D. Moore, creator of the reimagined Battlestar Galactica and writer/producer of Star Trek: The Next Generation, Roswell, and HBO's critically acclaimed Carnivale. And a beautiful new cover by World Fantasy Award-nominated artist Jill Bauman.

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

Peter S. Beagle is the author of the beloved fantasy classic The Last Unicorn. Now, with Janet Berliner, he has gathered fantastic tales of unicorns combined with the theme of immortality by of the finest writers in the genre, including Karen Joy Fowler, Charles de Lint, Ellen Kushner, Tad Williams, Robert Sheckley, Dave Wolverton, and Elizabeth Ann Scarborough. New in this edition is Julie's Unicorn, a story written especially for the anthology Beagle himself. Each tale celebrates the myth and mystery of one of fantasy's most enduring, and bestselling, subjects: unicorns!

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.

The present collection marks an attempt to bring together outstanding examples of the Short Story as it has been practiced by writers of almost every race, from the earliest days of civilization down to the present century. Its purpose is not to show, by a series of texts chosen on academic grounds, how the form developed, but to bring together the best examples of every form by which men have endeavoured to entertain and instruct their fellows. No art is more spontaneous than that of the short story, also it is certain that stories of some sort were told as soon as man became articulate. The period covered in the present collection embraces nearly five thousand years, but there can be no reasonable doubt that the Egyptian tales that open the volume, the first of their kind known to us, are the finished products of an art that was practised thousands of years before these were written. And since the beginning of civilization as we know it, there has been no break in the tradition of tale-telling: the demand for stories is as strong and insatiable in man today as it was before he discovered how to make stone weapons. The editors of this collection have approached their task of selection with open minds: they have not allowed themselves to be influenced by any theory of what a short story should be, except that which requires that it be interesting of its kind. So, without confining themselves to any theory of classification, the editors have chosen a wide variety of stories designed to appeal to the general reader and perhaps to the student as well, in the belief that what has delighted the Indians and Chinese from time immemorial, the ancient Egyptians, the Jewish shepherds and warriors of Biblical times, the Greeks of Homer`s days and the Romans of Caesar`s, will appeal with equal force to the inhabitants of the civilized world of today. These stories were written not for critics and historians, editors of anthologies and specialists, but for all mankind. They have tried to bear in mind that the Short Story is a tale which 'holdeth children from play and old men from the chimney corner.'

"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

"A couple adopts a depressed hedgehog; a stranger shows up, claiming to be the father of a girl's imaginary friend; a woman kidnaps her ex-husband's turtle; a family is evicted from their home, but was it ever really theirs? Heartbreaking and hilarious, the eight stories of Einstein's Beach House examine how we deceive ourselves and others, all to arrive at something far more real."-- back cover.

This collection of thirty-nine stories celebrates the diversity and unity of gay love and experience in the twentieth century.

"Selected by Cynthia Ozick from a dozen books written across more than fifty years, the essays and short stories gathered here constitute a summing-up of her remarkable literary career. In such classic essays as 'Who Owns Anne Frank?,' 'What Helen Keller Saw,' 'Dostoevsky's Unabomber,' and 'Transcending the Kafkaesque,' Ozick examines some of the world's most illustrious writers and their work, tackles compelling contemporary literary and moral issues, and looks into the wellsprings of her own lifelong engagement with literature. In her short stories, including 'A Hebrew Sibyl,' 'What Happened to the Baby?,' 'Dictation,' 'The Biographer's Hat,' and 'The Conversion of the Jews,' Ozick demonstrates again and again her stylistic brilliance and the originality of her distinctive interweaving of the strands of history and myth." -

The renowned author of nine books for adults, including The Chosen, turns his writing toward young adults in this collection of six stories in which children face moments of crisis or grief and see their world anew. In the title story, Zebra learns to use his crushed right hand and leg in an art class.