As Madeleine L' Engle once observed, " The great thing about getting older is that you don' t lose all the other ages you' ve been." In 20 Over 60, editors Beth Weinhouse and David Galef showcase twenty brilliant short stories by authors over sixty— including luminaries such as Paul Theroux, Joyce Carol Oates, and Jane Gardam— offering a wide-ranging portrait of life in later years: vibrant, unexpected, and full of humor, wisdom, and surprise. Readers will encounter a retired couple whose ...

In Brevity, David Galef provides a guide to writing flash fiction, from tips on technique to samples by canonical and contemporary authors to provocative prompts that inspire powerful stories in a little space. Galef traces the genre back to its varied origins, from the short-short to nanofiction, with examples that include vignettes, prose poems, character sketches, fables, lists, twist stories, surrealism, and metafiction. The authors range from the famous, such as Colette and B...

Obsession takes over two lives: one brazenly, the other more sneakily in this witty black comedy of lust, academia, and Southern manners. When bachelor history professor, Max Finster, arrives in the university community of Oxford, Mississippi, and moves in next door to Don and Susan Shapiro, all of their lives head for dramatic change. Narrator Don, a professor of English, gradually becomes fascinated by Max, his mysterious past, polymathic mind, chameleon personality and strange sexual ag...

Even Monkeys Fall From Trees: The Wit and Wisdom of Japanese Proverbs, with a foreword by Edward G. Seidensticker, is a collection of the hundred most common Japanese proverbs, with direct translations and their English equivalents.A delightful window into the heart of everyday Japan, Even Monkeys Fall From Trees is an indispensable guide for the traveler, student, or businessman-or anyone curious about the culture of Japan.

Tony Mazza is no stranger to bad days; in fact, they often seem to define his life, including stints at a real estate agency, a bike shop, and a bar. After his latest job, as a hospital orderly, he faces jail time for driving off in a stolen ambulance. " Where did I go wrong?" he wonders as he thinks back on his failed relationships, a disastrous investment, and family challenges dating back to high school and earlier...all the way back to his birth, as recounted by his much-put-upon mothe...

David Galef's stories, whether longer or as tiny one-page wonders, can contain both humor and fear. In this work the ordinary slips easily into the allegorical, into the dream and sometimes into the nightmare, often leaving the reader with moments of narrative that will stick like a sharp-edged image from a memorable poem or painting. Galef's vision blossoms in a twenty-first century America, but its roots stretch back to the terror behind the oldest folk legends.David Gale...

"Destroy a nation, but its mountains and rivers remain."—Japanese proverbThis is a collection of 200 Japanese proverbs with illustrations and explanations for each saying.Japanese Proverbs: Wit and Wisdom is a delightfully illustrated compilation of traditional Japanese sayings and maxims. Some of the classic Japanese quotes and quotations, like "Fall down seven times, get up eight," capture the dogged perseverance of the Japanese heart. O...

A dazzling new anthology of the very best very short fiction from around the world.What is a flash fiction called in other countries? In Latin America it is a micro, in Denmark kortprosa, in Bulgaria mikro razkaz. These short shorts, usually no more than 750 words, range from linear narratives to the more unusual: stories based on mathematical forms, a paragraph-length novel, a scientific report on volcanic fireflies that proliferate in n...

"A deeply beautiful book, with the fierce galloping pace of a great novel."—Liz Rosenberg Boston GlobeInformed by the death of a beloved brother, here are the stories of childhood, its thicket of sex and sorrow and joy, boys and girls growing into men and women, stories of a brother who in his dying could teach how to be most alive. What the Living Do reflects "a new form of confessional poetry, one shared to some degree by other women poets such ...

From the author of the wildly controversial books Liar and Paul's Case comes one of the most anticipated — and perhaps, in some quarters, feared — books of the year. This is author Lynn Crosbie at her most honest, most cutting, most hilarious, and most heartbreaking. The stories told here are at once a cache, a repository, of a seven-year period in the author's life; and, too, a gymnasium, a place where she can flex her prodigious wit and her dazzling stash of literary tricks Deft with mat...

"Another fabulous story—a mystery to solve, danger and romance all wrapped together. If you're not already a fan of Barbara Freethy, this story is sure to make you one." – Susan D., GoodreadsWhen firefighter Hunter Callaway makes a grisly discovery during a scorching fire at the house of his former high school sweetheart, everything he thought he knew about his past is now in question. The girl he'd loved, the one who'd broken his heart when she'd run away...

A must-have for the fans of the #1 bestselling author of Me Talk Pretty One Day, David Sedaris, a collection of his favorite short fiction from Flannery O'Connor to Tobias Wolff.David Sedaris is an exceptional reader. Alone in his apartment, he reads stories aloud to the point he has them memorized. Sometimes he fantasizes that he wrote them. Sometimes, when they’re his very favorite stories, he’ll fantasize about reading them in front of an audience and t...