An unforgettable story from one of Brazil's most accomplished and original new voices, this is a profoundly moving portrait of a young woman finding her way back into life. From one of Granta 's Best Young Brazilian Novelists comes a startling and powerful story about returning to one's origins in order to move forward. In Rio de Janeiro, a woman suffering from a mysterious illness, which is eroding her body and mind, decides to accept a challenge from her grandfather: to take the key to the house where he grew up--in the Turkish city of Smyrna--and open the door. As she embarks on this pilgrimage, she begins to write of her progress. The writing soon becomes an exploration of her family's legacy of displacement in Europe, told in several narrative strands. Sifting through family stories--her grandfather's migration from Turkey to Brazil, her parents' exile in Portugal under the Brazilian military dictatorship, her mother's death, and her own love affair with a violent man--she traces her family's history in a journey to make sense of the past and to understand her place in it. With an epic sweep of time and place--traversing Brazil, Turkey, and Portugal--this is a profoundly moving portrait of a young woman finding her way back into life. Spare, heartfelt, and evocative, The House in Smyrna is an unforgettable story from one of the most accomplished and original new voices in Brazil.

From the Inside Flap The Best of Robert Silverberg: Stories of Six Decades is a landmark volume that offers exactly what its title promises: the finest short work of one of the finest writers ever to grace the field of science fiction. Updated and expanded from 2004's Phases of the Moon, this mammoth collection contains twenty-six stories and novellas, along with a generous amount of introductory material. The result is the definitive one-volume overview of an extraordinary career. The earliest story, "The Macauley Circuit," was published in 1957, the latest, "The Prisoner," in 2010. In between these narrative bookends are some of the most astonishing fictional creations of the modern era, many of them winners of major awards. Included among these are "Good News from the Vatican," "Sailing to Byzantium," "Passengers," and "Enter a Soldier. Later, Enter Another," as well as two of the most remarkable novellas you will ever encounter: "Nightwings" and "Born with the Dead." Supplementing these award-winners are such bona fide classics as "Sundance," "Schwartz Between the Galaxies," "Capricorn Games," and "To See the Invisible Man." And the list goes on. Intelligent, exhilarating, and endlessly re-readable, The Best of Robert Silverberg: Stories of Six Decades is an irreplaceable volume, one that no one with an interest in modern science fiction or in serious, ambitious fiction of any sort can afford to miss. Product Description The Best of Robert Silverberg: Stories of Six Decades is a landmark volume that offers exactly what its title promises: the finest short work of one of the finest writers ever to grace the field of science fiction. Updated and expanded from 2004's Phases of the Moon, this mammoth collection contains twenty-six stories and novellas, along with a generous amount of introductory material. The result is the definitive one-volume overview of an extraordinary career. The earliest story, 'The Macauley Circuit,' was published in 1957, the latest, 'The Prisoner,' in 2010. In between these narrative bookends are some of the most astonishing fictional creations of the modern era, many of them winners of major awards. Included among these are 'Good News from the Vatican,' 'Sailing to Byzantium,' 'Passengers,' and 'Enter a Soldier. Later, Enter Another,' as well as two of the most remarkable novellas you will ever encounter: 'Nightwings' and 'Born with the Dead.' Supplementing these award-winners are such bona fide classics as 'Sundance,' 'Schwartz Between the Galaxies,' 'Capricorn Games,' and 'To See the Invisible Man.' And the list goes on. Intelligent, exhilarating, and endlessly re-readable, The Best of Robert Silverberg: Stories of Six Decades is an irreplaceable volume, one that no one with an interest in modern science fiction--or in serious, ambitious fiction of any sort--can afford to miss. From Publishers Weekly Starred Review. This well-chosen retrospective, which adds three stories to the 2004 limited-edition collection Phases of the Moon, spans 56 years of SFWA Grand Master Silverberg's writing life, starting in his early career with 1954's The Road to Nightfall and ending with 2010's The Prisoner. In 26 elegantly conceived and written stories, protagonists travel through time, philosophize, question their morals and faith, and pursue unknowable, elusive women. The narrator of Nightwings endures a crisis of faith over his order's age-old vigil against alien invasion. In The Far Side of the Bell-Shaped Curve a time traveler tries to manipulate his time line to keep the woman he desires. A bereaved husband in Born with the Dead pursues his wife beyond death to her very peculiar afterlife. Francisco Pizarro and Socrates engage in a battle of wits in Enter a Soldier. Later, Enter Another. Thanks to Silverberg's commentary on each decade and story—wry, candid, and unencumbered by false modesty—the anthology also functions as a memoir of a great career in genre literature. (Dec.)

A crisis unlike any other... Like his many of his forbearers, President Jeremy Haines is weighed down by the solemn duties of his post.The threat of both the Soviet Union and China is a precarious situation and one mistake could lead the U.S into another long war.It seems the strain is too much, and unusual for Haines, he decides to take a week long vacation to Palm Springs, California for some R&R.But even more uncharacteristically, Haines declines to bring any reporter with him; the norm for him, while in office.Gunther Damon, news superintendent of the Washington Bureau of International Press is definitely suspicious.While not much a writer himself, Damon knows how to run a well-oiled team of reporters.And his gut instinct has never been wrong.In the early hours of the morning, President Haines' plane goes missing.As the search for bodies goes on, the crew is slowly but surely accounted for; but no sign of President Haines.And then as one of Damon's reporters find out, a body of unknown man is found amongst the wreckage.But it's not President Haines' body.In fact, the body is not of anyone who should've been on that plane. The corpse's identity is a complete mystery.Which raises another mystery - where is the President of the United States?Set in the middle of the cold war, The President's Plane is Missing is a thrilling and suspenseful mystery. Praise for Robert J Serling 'High level of suspense and excitement.' - De Moines Sunday Register 'Serling has spun another winner' - Publisher's Weekly '...keeps you guessing til the end' - Arizona Daily Star 'Aviation buffs will revel in this thoroughgoing chronicle' - Kirkus Robert J Serling was born in 1918 in Cortland, New York and was a novelist and aviation writer. He is the author of a number of airline histories and several novels, including The President's Plane Is Missing, which was adapted in 1973 as a made-for-TV film, and Air Force One Is Haunted.

Dracula! Vampires! The blood runs red under the moon! In late summer of 2009, Moonstone follows up its fang-favorite monster anthology, Werewolves: Dead Moon Rising , with this second installment in the Moonstone Monsters series, this time focusing on those enigmatic creatures of the night, Vampires! Two extra-sized special Dracula stories serve to open and close this collection of ten all-new vampire tales by some of the industry's favorite horror writers. Vampire stories are timeless and continue to dominate horror-fiction in books, as well as the big screen and television. L.A. Banks, P.N. Elrod, and Elaine Bergstrom are all celebrated for the runs of popular Vampire novels, Martin Powell demonstrates his intimate familiarity with the mythos of Count Dracula... these and other stories contained in this gruesome horror anthology are sure to appeal to an audience that can't get enough of these ages-old bloodsuckers!

"This flip book features two separate novellas: In Sickness and In Health: Lily's most cherished goal in life has always been to be "normal," so as an adult she has painstakingly constructed a "normal" life for herself, with family, friends, and career. But her need to keep hidden her invisible disability, due to its stigma and her shame, now threatens to destroy everything she has worked so hard for. Yom Kippur in a Gym: Five isolated strangers in a synagogue on Yom Kippur - a day of intense reflection and soul-searching - are each struggling with a major personal crisis, when unexpectedly they are thrown together by an emergency that, in one hour, changes all their lives forever"--

Reminiscent of the novels of Nora Ephron, this brilliantly written, hilariously touching tale explores a contemporary woman's quirky love life. Katinka O'Toole has discovered that a degree from Harvard does not always lead to fame and fortune. Divorced and struggling to make a living as a writer, the highlight of her day has become the arrival of the mail. Or, more precisely, the mailman. Yes, she hopes for an acceptance letter, but she also has a fierce crush on Louie Capetti, her gorgeous postal carrier, who she hopes will carry her away to romantic bliss. So while she has taken to receiving her mail in "discount Dior", she also has to deal with her pretentious ex-husband (a noted Joycean scholar), her class-conscious mother, the unwanted affections of a corporate lawyer, and various other roadblocks to true love that plague smart women in today's society.

Epstein first introduced Leib Goldkorn in "The Steinway Quintet". In this volume, Goldkorn - Holocaust survivor, flautist, and pianist - is back in an expanded account of the original novella along with two other long tales that continue his richly comic spiral of misadventures that are at once comedies of manners and serious accounts of culture colliding with casual violence.

"HARRY HARRISON IS ONE OF SCIENCE FICTION’S MOST PROLIFIC AND ACCOMPLISHED CRAFTSMEN." —The New York Times Book Review In the midst of Civil War, a stunned North and South join forces to combat a sudden attack of British troops. Though the Americans are victorious, three years later a new threat emerges. Her Majesty’s Army is massing for a possible attack through Texas. Into the gauntlet Lincoln sends his chosen angel of death, General Ulysses S. Grant—while his top soldiers, including Robert E. Lee and William Tecumseh Sherman, plan the most daring naval invasion ever launched: an assault on British soil itself. Stars and Stripes in Peril is the new masterwork from one of the world’s most provocative authors. Venturing beyond a fascinating question of what if? Harry Harrison brilliantly examines the people and passions that make up nations both great and small—and shows how technology and politics had the power to shape history’s first great World War . . . half a century before it began . . . "Lovers of novels of alternate history hold Harry Harrison in high regard and his latest book can only enhance that esteem." —Abilene Reporter News

Gina Berriault had written critically acclaimed stories and novels for decades, but in 1996 she was in the literary spotlight as never before, winning both the PEN/Faulkner Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award for Women in Their Beds. This new collection, compiled by Berriault's daughter and her longtime companion, Leonard Gardner, opens with five stories, including ?The Figure Skater,” the final story she saw to publication before her death in 1999. Berriault's stories have been praised for their elegance, compassion, and psychological intelligence. We are first drawn in by her deep understanding of human emotions and predicaments, and then astounded by her remarkable eye for detail. Essays on topics as diverse as topless dancers and firing squads are also included, together with three rare self-revelatory pieces on why the world needs writers, comprising a sort of ars poetica for Berriault. As a whole, this collection becomes her credo on American culture, politics, and the written word.

Stephen King's chilling novella "Lunch at the Gotham Cafe" leads 22 modern masters of the macabre in carving their own eerie chapters into the Book of Love. Visit a place where ecstasy meets agony, and the carnal and the creepy spawn unholy terror. Other contributors to this all-star anthology include Ramsey Campbell, Stuart Kaminsky and others.

"If Graham Greene's thrillers fascinate you, if Brighton Rock gives you mental fever blisters, don't miss this book. In a desolate underworld setting, Kabbalah generates continuous suspense and a haunting religious intensity. Like Greene, David Scott Milton uses people in danger to illuminate the interior drama of souls in jeopardy. And he goes further than Greene in one way. He ends the book with a vision of redemption which may be uniquely Jewish and is surely ecstatic."- West Coast Review of Books "Will be read by a devoted audience long after other novels have been discarded!"- Chronicles of Culture

Armchair fiction presents extra large paperback editions of the best in classic science fiction novels. "Search the Sky" is by two of science fiction's best known authors--Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth. Ross wanted off. He had been born and had spent his life on Halsey's Planet, far beyond our universe. But something was wrong with the society there, something he couldn't quite name--a feeling of breakdown and detrition. Then one of the rare spaceships came through from Earth, after a journey of several hundred years. When the descendents of the original crew stepped out and told their story, the spark was provided and Ross was off on a mission. Other planets in these outer reaches--also peopled by colonists from Earth--had failed to respond to the spaceship's signals. Maybe the breakdown on Halsey had already affected them. Ross was given the chance to find out. It was an odd mission. He didn't even know what he was looking for. But he had to go.

Four stories of comedy, deception, and revenge (including one previously unpublished) showcases heroes who suffer from willful self-deceit. These not-so-innocents proceed from self-deception to deceiving others, who do not take it lightly. The novella "Dictation" imagines a fateful meeting between the secretaries to Henry James and Joseph Conrad at the peak of their fame. Timid Miss Hallowes, who types for Conrad, comes under the influence of James's Miss Bosanquet, high-spirited, flirtatious, and scheming. In a masterstroke of genius, Ozick hatches a plot between them to insert themselves into posterity.--From publisher description.

The very best short stories and novellas from National Public Radio's Alan Cheuse are brought together in a quintessential collection. Countless listeners depend on the book reviews from Cheuse, America's "voice of books," and many of those listeners also follow his own critically acclaimed fiction and nonfiction. The title story--a flash fiction piece that acts as both prologue and an intriguing look at a writer's inspiration--takes us through a child's eyes into a fantastic land, one that informs, shapes, and travels along with the other stories in this stunning collection. These stories deal with life, death, love, family, work, and a deep exploration of the soul.

The Wooden Sea is the final novel in The Crane's View Trilogy from award-winning British fantasy author Jonathan Carrol. From the moment a three-legged dog limps into the life of Police Chief Frannie McCabe and drops dead at his feet, McCabe finds himself in a new world of disturbing miracles. His small town of Crane's View, New York has long been a haven of harmony and comfort--but now he finds himself afflicted by the inexplicable, by omens that converge to throw his life into doubt. And what he does over the next few days may have consequences for the whole world . . . .

Morton Martin Spell -- a once-brilliant, now-infirm seventy-five-year-old writer -- is sliding into delirium. He thinks Mount Sinai Hospital is an exclusive golf course and his catheter is a gym bag. His only link to reality is his thirty-five-year-old nephew, who makes his living as a hired gun for thirteen softball teams and still goes by the name College Boy. But College Boy's body has begun to betray him -- almost as much as his lack of ambition. (His only legitimate paycheck comes from a gig as a laugher on a morning radio show.) Not only that, the Dirt King, a small-time gangster who controls all the replacement soil in Central Park, is after College Boy. As their lives collide, College Boy takes refuge in the arms of Sheila -- his uncle's cleaning woman and a part-time call girl. And then it gets weird.

Jachin-Boaz is a maker and seller of maps. In his shop are maps that will lead you to whatever it is you most desire: love, inspiration, wealth. But his greatest achievement is a master-map showing the location of everything that has ever been found in the world, which he intends to give to his son, Boaz-Jachin. There is only one thing missing from the map: lions - for there are no more lions left. Or are there? When Jachin-Boaz sets out on a quest to find a lion for his son, Boaz-Jachin will follow in search of his father, and both will discover something wholly unexpected ... Russell Hoban's first novel for adults, The Lion of Boaz-Jachin and Jachin-Boaz (1973) was widely acclaimed by critics and earned comparisons to Tolkien and C.S. Lewis. Both a humorous and light-hearted fantasy and an insightful meditation on the sometimes difficult relationships between fathers and sons, it is a perfect introduction to the work of this brilliant writer. 'A piece of invention as original as any of Tolkien's or C.S. Lewis's.' - New Statesman 'Magic at work ... Funny as well as beautiful.' - Irish Times 'Mr. Hoban is unclassifiable, thank goodness. His narrative is so minutely and compellingly realistic that after a time you cease to notice that he has stood reality on its head.' - Sunday Times 'Of outstanding quality ... unusually vivid imagination ... immensely striking use of words.' - Auberon Waugh, The Spectator

The best kind of mystery, the kind that never stops haunting you. Entertainment Weekly A work of melancholic beauty . . . Sincere, shattering, magnificent. L Express In the stillness of his Paris apartment, Jean Daragane has built a life of total solitude. Then a surprising phone call shatters the silence of an unusually hot September, and the threatening voice on the other end of the line leaves Daragane wary but irresistibly curious. Almost at once, he finds himself entangled with a shady gambler and a beautiful, fragile young woman, who draw Daragane into the mystery of a decades-old murder. The investigation will force him to confront the memory of a trauma he had all but buried. This masterly novel penetrates the deepest enigmas of identity and compels us to ask whether we ever know who we truly are. Moody . . . Lyrical . . . A pleasure. Kirkus Reviews A writer unlike any other and a worthy recipient of the Nobel. Wall Street Journal Patrick Modiano is the author of more than twenty novels, including several bestsellers. He has won the Prix Goncourt, the Grand Prix National des Lettres, and many other honors. In 2014 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature. He lives in Paris. "

A novel on an unusual household in our day and age, three generations of women living together in Boston. They are a lawyer who owns the house, her ailing mother--the mother had no time for the lawyer before she fell ill--and the lawyer's daughter, unemployed and on drugs.

Joseph Roth is one of the least-known, yet easily the most accessible of the great twentieth-century writers. His deceptively light, massively concentrated fables of modern history evoke a world of catastrophic change, of disastrous belief and extreme loss. As the century ends, his stature is increasingly appreciated. And British readers, in particular, will find in his stories of a great empire's fall deep echoes of their own experience. ..Granta Books' major programme of republication of Roth's work continues with his last untranslated novel, Rebellion - the story of a Great War veteran, Andreas Pum, who loses a leg and gains a medal. He marries, plays a barrel-organ, and is happy. But when he is imprisoned after a fight life seems unbearably altered. Then a chance encounter with an old comrade who has made his fortune brings Pum to a world where he has a transfiguring experience of justice . . .