The Penguin Book of the Contemporary British Short Story

Author: Philip Hensher
Publisher: Penguin Books Limited
ISBN: 9780141986210
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
'Sometimes - not often - a book comes along that feels like Christmas. Philip Hensher's timely, but timeless, selection of the best short stories from the past 20 years is that kind of book. His introduction is as enriching as anything that has been published this year' Sunday Times A spectacular treasury of the best British short stories published in the last twenty years We are living in a particularly rich period for British short stories. Despite the relative lack of places in which they can be published, the challenge the medium represents has attracted a host of remarkable, subversive, entertaining and innovative writers. Philip Hensher, following the success of his definitive Penguin Book of British Short Stories, has scoured a vast trove of material and chosen thirty great stories for this new volume of works written between 1997 and the present day. Includes short stories by A.L. Kennedy, Tessa Hadley, Kazuo Ishiguro, Jackie Kay, Graham Swift, Jane Gardam, Ali Smith, Neil Gaiman, Martin Amis, China Miéville, Peter Hobbs, Thomas Morris, David Rose, David Szalay, Irvine Welsh, Lucy Caldwell, Rose Tremain, Helen Oyeyemi, Leone Ross, Helen Simpson, Zadie Smith, Will Self, Gerard Woodward, James Kelman, Lucy Wood, Hilary Mantel, Eley Williams, Sarah Hall, Mark Haddon and Helen Dunmore.

The Penguin Book of Modern British Short Stories

Author: Malcolm Bradbury
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141965150
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 544

Book Description
This anthology is in many was a ‘best of the best’, containing gems from thirty-four of Britain's outstanding contemporary writers. It is a book to dip into, to read from cover to cover, to lend to friends and read again. It includes stories of love and crime, stories touched with comedy and the supernatural, stories set in London, Los Angeles, Bucharest and Tokyo. Above all, as you will discover, it satisfies Samuel Butler's anarchic pleasure principle: 'I should like to like Schumann's music better than I do; I daresay I could make myself like it better if I tried; but I do not like having to try to make myself like things; I like things that make me like them at once and no trying at all ...'

The Penguin Book of the British Short Story: 2

Author: Philip Hensher
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141979291
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 784

Book Description
TELEGRAPH, INDEPENDENT, FINANCIAL TIMES AND OBSERVER BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2015 Hilarious, exuberant, subtle, tender, brutal, spectacular, and above all unexpected: these two extraordinary volumes contain the limitless possibilities of the British short story. This is the first anthology capacious enough to celebrate the full diversity and energy of its writers, subjects and tones. The most famous authors are here, and many others, including some magnificent stories never republished since their first appearance in magazines and periodicals. The Penguin Book of the British Short Story has a permanent authority, and will be reached for year in and year out. This volume takes the story from the 1920s to the present day. Edited and with an introduction by Philip Hensher, the award-winning novelist, critic and journalist.

The Penguin Book of the British Short Story: 1

Author: Philip Hensher
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141979283
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 873

Book Description
TELEGRAPH, INDEPENDENT, FINANCIAL TIMES AND OBSERVER BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2015 Hilarious, exuberant, subtle, tender, brutal, spectacular, and above all unexpected: these two extraordinary volumes contain the limitless possibilities of the British short story. This is the first anthology capacious enough to celebrate the full diversity and energy of its writers, subjects and tones. The most famous authors are here, and many others, including some magnificent stories never republished since their first appearance in magazines and periodicals. The Penguin Book of the British Short Story has a permanent authority, and will be reached for year in and year out. This volume takes the story from its origins with Defoe, Swift and Fielding to the 'golden age' of the fin de siècle and Edwardian period. Edited and with an introduction by Philip Hensher, the award-winning novelist, critic and journalist.

The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories

Author: Bruce Fulton
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0241448522
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 514

Book Description
‘An ever-surprising and stylistically diverse anthology that will surely stand as the touchstone collection of Korean literature for decades to come’ Literary Review This eclectic, moving and wonderfully enjoyable collection is the essential introduction to Korean literature. Journeying through Korea's dramatic twentieth century, from the Japanese occupation and colonial era to the devastating war between North and South and the rapid, disorienting urbanization of later decades, The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories captures a hundred years of Korea's vibrant short-story tradition. Here are peddlers and donkeys travelling across moonlit fields; artists drinking and debating in the tea-houses of 1920s Seoul; soldiers fighting for survival; exiles from the war who can never go home again; and lonely men and women searching for connection in the dizzying modern city. The collection features stories by some of Korea's greatest writers, including Pak Wanso, O Chonghui and Cho Chongnae, as well as many brilliant contemporary voices, such as P'yon Hyeyong, Han Yujoo and Kim Aeran. Curated by Bruce Fulton, this is a volume that will surprise, unsettle and delight. Edited by Bruce Fulton With an introduction by Kwon Youngmin

The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story

Author: John Freeman
Publisher: Penguin
ISBN: 1984877828
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 497

Book Description
A selection of the best and most representative contemporary American short fiction from 1970 to 2020, including such authors as Ursula K. LeGuin, Toni Cade Bambara, Jhumpa Lahiri, Sandra Cisneros, and Ted Chiang, hand-selected by celebrated editor and anthologist John Freeman In the past fifty years, the American short story has changed dramatically. New voices, forms, and mixtures of styles have brought this unique genre a thrilling burst of energy. The Penguin Book of the Modern American Short Story celebrates this avalanche of talent. This rich anthology begins in 1970 and brings together a half century of powerful American short stories from all genres, including—for the first time in a collection of this scale—science fiction, horror, and fantasy, placing writers such as Ursula K. Le Guin, Ken Liu, and Stephen King next to some beloved greats of the literary form: Raymond Carver, Grace Paley, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, and Denis Johnson. Culling widely, John Freeman, the former editor of Granta and now editor of his own literary annual, brings forward some astonishing work to be regarded in a new light. Often overlooked tales by Dorothy Allison, Percival Everett, and Charles Johnson will recast the shape and texture of today’s enlarging atmosphere of literary dialogue. Stories by Lauren Groff and Ted Chiang raise the specter of engagement in ecocidal times. Short tales by Tobias Wolff, George Saunders, and Lydia Davis rub shoulders with near novellas by Susan Sontag and Andrew Holleran. This book will be a treasure trove for readers, writers, and teachers alike.

The Penguin Book of First World War Stories

Author: Ann-Marie Einhaus
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141916494
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 534

Book Description
An anthology of Great War short stories by British writers, both famous and lesser-known authors, men and women, during the war and after its end. These stories are able to illustrate the impact of the Great War on British society and culture and the many modes in which short fiction contributed to the war's literature. The selection covers different periods: the war years themselves, the famous boom years of the late 1920s to the more recent past in which the First World War has received new cultural interest.

The Golden Age of British Short Stories 1890-1914

Author: Philip Hensher
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141992212
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 640

Book Description
'Excellent, entertaining and ingenious ... from Oscar Wilde to Arthur Conan Doyle, this fine anthology celebrates one of the richest moments in Britain's literary history' Sunday Times The quarter century between 1890 and the outbreak of the First World War saw an extraordinary boom in the popularity and quality of short stories in Britain, fuelled by a large, eager new magazine readership. The great writers of the age produced some of their finest work, and literary genres - the ghost story, science fiction - took shape. This richly varied, endlessly entertaining anthology brings together authors from Katherine Mansfield to Rudyard Kipling, James Joyce to Saki, H. G. Wells to Rebecca West. It celebrates a teeming, innovative world of literary achievement. Edited with an introduction by Philip Hensher

Death and the Penguin

Author: Andrey Kurkov
Publisher: Melville House
ISBN: 1612190766
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Book Description
"No summary can do justice to the strange appeal of this unusual, short book, which is at once a crime novel, a comic novel and a serious political satire on contemporary Ukraine." —Anne Applebaum, The Wall Street Journal With the collapse of the Soviet Union, newly-free Ukraine is a shell-shocked land . . . In poverty-and-violence-wracked Kyiv, unemployed writer Viktor Zolotaryov leads a down-and-out life with his only friend, Misha, a penguin that he rescued when the local zoo started getting rid of animals it couldn't feed. Even more nerve-wracking for Victor: a local mobster has taken a shine to Misha and wants to borrow him for events. But Viktor thinks he’s finally caught a break when he lands a well-paying job at the Kyiv newspaper writing “living obituaries” of local dignitaries—articles to be filed for use when the time comes. The only thing is, the time always seems to come as soon as Viktor finishes writing the article. Slowly understanding that his own life may be in jeopardy, Viktor also realizes that the only thing that might be keeping him alive is his penguin.

The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories

Author: Jhumpa Lahiri
Publisher: Penguin UK
ISBN: 0141985623
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 341

Book Description
'Rich. . . eclectic. . . a feast' Telegraph This landmark collection brings together forty writers that reflect over a hundred years of Italy's vibrant and diverse short story tradition, from the birth of the modern nation to the end of the twentieth century. Poets, journalists, visual artists, musicians, editors, critics, teachers, scientists, politicians, translators: the writers that inhabit these pages represent a dynamic cross section of Italian society, their powerful voices resonating through regional landscapes, private passions and dramatic political events. This wide-ranging selection curated by Jhumpa Lahiri includes well known authors such as Italo Calvino, Elsa Morante and Luigi Pirandello alongside many captivating new discoveries. More than a third of the stories featured in this volume have been translated into English for the first time, several of them by Lahiri herself.