Akron Public Library

A collection of the twenty best contemporary short stories selected by series editor Laura Furman from hundreds of literary magazines, The PEN/O. Henry Prize Stories 2010 brings to life a dazzling array of subjects: a street orphan in Malaysia, a cowboy and his teenage bride, a Russian nanny in Manhattan, a nineteenth-century Nigerian widow, and political prisoners on a Greek island. Also included are essays from the eminent jurors on their favorite...

In her thrilling new book, Lauren Groff brings the reader into a physical world that is at once domestic and wild-a place where the hazards of the natural world lie waiting to pounce, yet the greatest threats and mysteries are still of an emotional, psychological nature. A family retreat can be derailed by a prowling panther, or by a sexual secret. Among those navigating this place are a resourceful pair of abandoned sisters; a lonely boy, grown up;...

An account of how the author came to be a writer and selections from his writer's notebook augment stories juxtaposing fantasy and truth, and peopled with outrageous and courageous characters.

John Grisham returns to Ford County, Mississippi, the setting of his immensely popular first novel, "A Time to Kill," with this wholly surprising collection of stories.

Edna Pontellier has everything that a woman and mother should want - two wonderful sons, a husband, and good financial fortune. But still, she feels like something may be missing. While vacationing with her family, she meets a young man who shows affection and opens her mind to adventure and freedom. Edna’s desire for freedom and independence begins to fester in her heart, and she finds that she is increasingly disenchanted with the responsibilities...

These stories take place in a variety of locales. They are stories of people living under conditions similar to the way they might have lived on the frontier.

Three previously-published novellas that shed further light on the world of Auggie Pullman, an ordinary boy with an extraordinary face, set before he entered Beecher Prep and during his first year there and told from other characters' points of view. "The Julian Chapter" reveals why the bully dislikes Auggie so much. "Pluto" is about the lifelong friendship between Auggie and Christopher. And, finally, "Shingaling" offers a view of how the girls at...

It is one of the most memorable first lines in all of literature: "When Gregor Samsa woke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed into some kind of monstrous vermin." So begins Kafka's famous short story, The Metamorphosis . Kafka considered publishing it with two of the stories included here in a volume to be called Punishments. The Judgment explores an enigmatic power struggle between a father and son, while In the Penal Colony...

Sixty short stories, arranged chronologically, beginning with "The Notorious Jumping Frog of Calaveras County" and covering the entire span of Twain's writing life, from 1865 to 1916

Inertia — Friends Claire and Matt stopped speaking six months ago. When Matt gets into a car accident and his end looks certain, he requests a visitation, a procedure which allows him and Claire to revisit shared memories and a chance to discover what went wrong. The Spinners — Bounty hunter Atleigh Kent tracks and kills leeches, a predatory extraterrestrial race which illegal absorbs human host bodies. But death begets all death, and Atleigh...