{"title":"Short Stories","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781783787388","title":"Life Ceremony","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eFrom the author of international bestseller \u003ci\u003eConvenience Store Woman\u003c\/i\u003e comes a collection of short fiction: weird, out of this world and like nothing you've read before.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAn engaged couple falls out over the husband's dislike of clothes and objects made from human materials; a young girl finds herself deeply enamoured with the curtain in her childhood bedroom; people honour their dead by eating them and then procreating. 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Three of the stories, 'The Page Turner,' 'The Third Generation,' and 'Dedicated to the Dead,' are animated by the long-term fallout from the Holocaust generational trauma, abuse of memory, competitive victimization, and more. In the midst of all this is the story 'The House of Love and Prayer,' which, in its way, encompasses the entire spectrum. The novelist Howard Norman has said, 'Few contemporary writers are truly original. Tova Reich is one of them.' 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The stories included in West Jerusalem Noir could not have taken place anywhere else. They reflect national, religious, and socioeconomic tensions inherent to the city and sketch an image of a concrete, contemporary, and complicated Jerusalem.' FEATURING BRAND-NEW STORIES BY: Yiftach Ashkenazi, Ilana Bernstein, Emanuel Yitzhak Levi and Guli Dolev-Hashiloni, Liat Elkayam, Assaf Schurr, Yardenne Greenspan, Ilay Rowner, Zohar Elmakias, Ilan Rubin Fields, Nano Shabtai, Yaara Shehori, Tafat Hacohen-Bick, Nadav Lapid, Tehila Hakimi, and Oded Wolkstein. West Jerusalem Noir is being published simultaneously with East Jerusalem Noir, edited by Rawya Jarjoura Burbara. 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From the collection's title story, a long meditation on history and war, power and poetry, to its concluding tale, a strangely quiet vision of a tree floating in a Damascus stream, Etel Adnan's painterly vision, her cosmopolitan flexibility, and her philosophical bent are on full display. This is a woman, after all, trained in philosophy at the Sorbonne, Harvard, and the University of California at Berkeley, who became a painter, and then a poet. 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Kindly open it to reveal the secrets of Jerusalem and its people, who wake up to the sound of a forgotten rooster from a previous era to declare the beginning of a new dawn, so that life will not stop recording its new diary entries.' FEATURING BRAND-NEW STORIES BY: Nuzha Abu Ghosh, Ibrahim Jouhar, Osama Alaysa, Rahaf al- Sa'ad, Ziad Khadash, Mahmoud Shukair, Iyad Shamasnah, Rafiqa Othman, Dima al-Samman, Majid Abu Ghosh, Muhammad Shuraim, Jameel al-Salhout, and Nuzha al-Ramlawi. East Jerusalem Noir is being published simultaneously with West Jerusalem Noir, edited by Maayan Eitan. 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In 'Hazel \u0026amp; Christopher,' two childhood friends reconnect as adults after one of them has transitioned. In 'Perfect Places,' a woman grapples with undesirability as she navigates fetish play with a man. In 'Couldn't Hear You Talk Anymore,' the narrator reflects on past trauma and what might have been as she recalls tender moments with another trans woman. 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Berry has said it's taken a lifetime for him to learn to write like an old man, and that's what we have here, stories told with grace and ease and majesty. Wendell Berry is one of our greatest living American authors, writing with the wisdom of maturity and the incandescence that comes of love.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThese thirteen new works explore the memory and imagination of Andy Catlett, one of the well-loved central characters of the Port William saga. 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His work ranged from the light-hearted comic tales of his early years to some of the most achingly profound stories ever composed, and this variety of tone and temper is collected in this essential new collection.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eChekhov wrote stories throughout his writing career, and this selection has been chosen from amongst his life’s work, including many of his greatest works, alongside unfamiliar discoveries, all newly translated. 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As ever, the townsfolk, divided by their respective allegiances to the hot-headed Catholic priest and his equally pugnacious adversary Peppone, the communist mayor, are relieved of their prejudices by the gentle humour and insights emanating form the crucifix high above the altar of the village church...","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43205618466994,"sku":"9781900064187","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781900064187_d893cbe7-cdf7-457e-b5f1-da5c941caaf1.jpg?v=1786029519"},{"product_id":"9781911231356","title":"Bliss Montage","description":"What happens when fantasy tears through the screen of the everyday to wake us up? Could that waking be our end? 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Somerset Maugham was also famous for his novels and plays, it has been argued that in the short story he reached the pinnacle of his art and it was his true métier. These expertly told tales, with their addictive plot twists and vividly drawn characters, are both galvanizing as literature and wonderfully entertaining. In the adventures of his alter ego Ashenden, a writer who (like Maugham himself) turned secret agent in World War I, as well as in stories set in such far-flung locales as South Pacific islands and colonial outposts in Southeast Asia, Maugham brings his characters vividly to life, and their humanity is more convincing for the author's merciless exposure of their flaws and failures. 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But as the nation celebrates Trump's visit and copes with the pandemic, it ends up becoming a prophecy of endless haunting. This sets the agenda for a series of stories that delve into fracturing or broken lives in small-town India over the past fifty years. In the novella-length 'Night of Happiness,' pragmatic entrepreneur Anil Mehrotra has set up his thriving business empire with the help of his lieutenant, Ahmed, an older man who is different in more ways than one. Quiet and undemanding, Ahmed talks in aphorisms; bothers no one; and always gets the job done. But when one stormy night, Mehrotra discovers an aspect to Ahmed that defies all reason, he is forced to find out more about his trusted aide. What will he discover: madness or something worse? In a series of three linked stories, 'The Corridor,' 'The Ubiquity of Riots' and 'Elopement,' Khair traces, through the eyes of an adolescent, the tensions of living as a liberal Muslim in India in the 1970s and 1980s, tensions that isolate families, break friendships, and point to the violence to come. The narrator of these stories, now a busy professional, returns in the third person in another story, 'Olden Friends are Golden,' about belonging and exclusion on WhatsApp. Then there is 'Scam,' a flippantly narrated story about a crime that can only be comprehended as a scam perpetuated by the victim, and in 'Shadow of a Story' violence returns to a village family in an unimaginable shape. 'The Thing with Feathers' is perhaps about hope, but it is hope beyond despair, hope perhaps gone mad: or, is all hope mad now? Finally, 'The Last Installment' narrates two farmers, a father and a son, in a village of North India, caught in a corporate vice: the breathless sentences of the story making the reader sense the desperation of the central character as he finally fights to breathe, to live. By turns poetic, chilling, and heartbreaking, ranging from understated realism to gothic terror, this is a book of stories about precarious lives in a world without tolerance.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43206199607474,"sku":"9781623717483","price":16.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781623717483_90aeb0d8-b51b-429d-a09c-4a50e3c758fa.jpg?v=1786023660"},{"product_id":"9781838858483","title":"Walking Through Clear Water In a Pool Painted Black","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eWalking Through Clear Water in a Pool Painted Black\u003c\/i\u003e is the only story collection from the legendary writer, actress, ex-biker and columnist Cookie Mueller, published in the UK for the first time.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMueller chronicles her high-risk, high-reward life in glorious technicolour, from becoming a part of John Waters' legendary acting troupe to becoming a mother, from describing the hedonism of 1980s New York to critiquing the government's dire response to the AIDS epidemic. Cookie's voice is fresh, wise, freewheeling and unafraid of darkness. Like a lysergic Nora Ephron, she is the candid flipside to the idealistic hippie dream. Whether good, bad or ugly, her stories are fiercely entertaining and reliably honest.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eFeaturing a new introduction by Olivia Laing, this edition collects Mueller's stories, columns and writings, and presents a testament to a life lived courageously and well.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43206270648498,"sku":"9781838858483","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781838858483_ee263e65-60eb-4161-aba6-1840346a4453.jpg?v=1786028437"},{"product_id":"9781900064071","title":"The Little World of Don Camillo","description":"In Don Camillo's Little World, where eternal forces grapple with the absurd drama of everyday life, hilarious and unearthly things can happen. If you keep this in mind you will have no difficulty in getting to know the village priest and his adversary, Peppone, the communist mayor. Nor will you be surprised when a third person watches the goings-on from a big cross in the village church and not infrequently intervenes...   These enchanting, wise and strangely moving tales of life in Italy's Emilia-Romagna continue to enthral millions of readers of all ages around the world. In this newly translated volume, many are available in English for the very first time.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43206284705970,"sku":"9781900064071","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781900064071_a924873d-a67c-49f0-9659-254fbcc4349c.jpg?v=1786029517"},{"product_id":"9781844080717","title":"The Rendezvous And Other Stories","description":"Mary Farren went into the gun room one morning about half-past eleven, took her husband's revolver and loaded it, then shot herself. The butler heard the sound of the gun from the pantry...The fourteen haunting stories in this collection span the whole of Daphne du Maurier's writing career and explore every human emotion: an apparently happily married woman commits suicide; a steamer in wartime is rescued by a mysterious sailing-ship; a dull husband breaks loose in a surprising fashion; a con woman plays her game once too often; and a famous novelist looks for romance, only to meet with bitter disappointent. Each meticulously observed tale shows du Maurier's mastery of the genre.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43399481163954,"sku":"9781844080717","price":10.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781844080717_ece3aa50-ee9f-4577-9427-561c0df9f7f5.jpg?v=1786028441"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/short-stories.oembed?page=4","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}