"Plain Tales From the Hills" is a classic collection of short stories by Rudyard Kipling. Contained here in this volume are the following tales: Lispeth, Three and-an Extra, Thrown Away, Miss Youghal's Sais, 'Yoked with an Unbeliever', False Dawn, The Rescue of Pluffles, Cupid's Arrows, The Three Musketeers, His Chance in Life, Watches of the Night, The Other Man, Consequences, The Conversion of Aurelian McGoggin, The Taking of Lungtungpen, A Germ-Destroyer,...

A collection of stories includes the tales of a student who is entangled in her professor's shadowy past, a dinner party that marks the end of multiple marriages, and a matchmaker who is hired to find a partner for her soulmate.

"When Colin Barrett's debut Young Skins was published, it swept up several major literary awards, and, in both its linguistic originality and sharply drawn portraits of working-class Ireland, earned Barrett comparisons to Faulkner, Hardy, and Musil. Now, in a blistering follow-up collection, Barrett brings together eight character-driven stories, each showcasing his inimitably observant eye and darkly funny style. A quiet night in a local pub is shattered...

Early in Louis L'Amour's career, he wrote a number of novel-length stories for "pulp" Western magazines. "I lived with my characters so closely that their lives were still as much a part of me as I was of them long after the issues in which they appeared went out of print," he said. "I wanted to tell the reader more about my people and why they did what they did." So he revised and expanded these magazine works to be published again as full-length...

In this collection, Orozco leads the reader through the secret lives and moral philosophies of bridge painters, men housebound by obesity, office temps, and warehouse workers. Each story in the collection has a gut-punch impact, softened only by lyricism and black humor.

While T.C. Boyle is known as one of our greatest American novelists, he is also an acknowledged master of the short story and is perhaps at his funniest, his most moving, and his most surprising in the short form. In The Relive Box, Boyle's sharp wit and rich imagination combine with a penetrating social consciousness to produce raucous, poignant, and expansive short stories defined by an inimitable voice. From the collection's title story, featuring...

A profoundly funny—and comically profound—story collection from one of the most original voices in contemporary American fiction
When his dying psychiatrist gives him the tapes to thirty years’ worth of therapy sessions, what else can Michael Goldberg do but listen? It is the story of his life, after all—never mind the fact that it’s narrated by a younger version of himself who has no idea what’s going...

A sharp assassin who has always been cool, confident, and remote finds himself struggling with a mid-life crisis that plunges him into loneliness, and as he continues with his work, he begins to question his choice of careers.

Every little boy dreams about putting on a cape and soaring up, up, and away... but what if one day that dream were to come true? Eric was like every other eight-year-old boy, until a tragic accident changed his life forever. The Cape explores the dark side of power, as the adult Eric–a confused and broken man–takes to the skies... and sets out to exact a terrible vengeance on everyone who ever disappointed him.

A collection of fifteen stories, eleven of which have never been previously published, from the early career of bestselling American master Elmore Leonard. Over his long and illustrious career, Elmore Leonard was recognized as one of the greatest crime writers of all time, the author of dozens of bestselling books--many adapted for the big screen--as well as a master of short fiction. A superb stylist whose crisp, tight prose crackled with trademark...