'A day without laughter is a day wasted.'It is Christmas Day when Charlie Chaplin receives a visit from Death. The great actor is 82 years old, but not yet ready to face the final curtain. Desperate to see his teenage son grow up, the actor strikes a deal: if he manages to make Death laugh, he will win an extra year of life. As he awaits his final, fatal encounter, Chaplin composes an impassioned letter to his son, in which he attempts to tell him about his past, from his ...

Holly Golightly knows that nothing bad can ever happen to you at Tiffany's. In this seductive, wistful masterpiece, Capote created a woman whose name has entered the American idiom and whose style is a part of the literary landscape—her poignancy, wit, and naïveté continue to charm.This volume also includes three of Capote's best-known stories, “House of Flowers,” “A Diamond Guitar,” and “A Christmas Memory,” which the Saturday Review called “one of the mo...

In this “powerful” blockbuster of a novel (The New York Times), the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Independence Day introduces his most beloved character, failed novelist turned sportswriter Frank Bascombe, during an Easter weekend, as he moves through the great losses of his life.As a sportswriter, Frank Bascombe makes his living studying people—men, mostly—who live entirely within themselves. This is a condition that Frank himself aspires to. ...

"Either the work of John Fante is unknown to you or unforgettable. He was not the kind of writer to leave room in between." — New York Times"Fante was my God."—Charles BukowskiJohn Fante’s classic California novel details the adventures of his alter ego, Arturo Bandini, a young writer in Great Depression-era Los Angeles. Struggling to succeed, Bandini falls into an obsessive love affair with the elusive, mocking, unstable Camilla Lopez, a Mexican waitress. Yet just...

One hundred classic stories from the celebrated author of Fahrenheit 451.In this, the first volume of Ray Bradbury's short stories, some of the author's finest works are published together, among them ‘Homecoming’, ‘Veldt’, ‘A Sound of Thunder’ and ‘The Long Rain’.Join an ill-fated crew of astronauts pushed to the brink of insanity by the incessant and highly corrosive rain on Venus, a high-tech virtual reality playroom that comes to life with terrible consequences, and a s...

A heartbreaking and daring love story that questions the nature of time, appearance, and reality, from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Less.We are each the love of someone's life.So begins The Confessions of Max Tivoli, Andrew Sean Greer's extraordinarily haunting novel. At his birth, Max's father declares him a "nisse," a creature of Danish myth, as his baby son has the external physical appearance of an old, dying creature. Max grows older l...

Profound, lyrical, shocking, wise: the short story is capable of almost anything. This collection of 100 of the finest stories ever written ranges from the essential to the unexpected, the traditional to the surreal. Wide in scope, both beautiful and vast, this is the perfect companion for any fiction lover.Here are childhood favourites and neglected masters, twenty-first century wits and national treasures, Man Booker Prize winners and Nobel Laureates.Featuring an all-star...

John Cheever’s Collected Stories explores the delicate psychological frameworks of 20th century suburbia.WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY HANIF KUREISHIThis outstanding collection by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist John Cheever shows the power and range of one of the finest short story writers of the last century. Stories of love and of squalor, they include masterpieces such as 'The Swimmer' and 'Goodbye, My Brother' and date from the time of his honourabl...

With his disarmingly simple style and complex imagination, Ray Bradbury has seized the minds of American readers for decades.This collection showcases thirty-two of Bradbury's most famous tales in which he lays bare the depths of the human soul. The thrilling title story, A Sound of Thunder, tells of a hunter sent on safari -- sixty million years in the past. But all it takes is one wrong step in the prehistoric jungle to stamp out the life of a delicate and harmless butterfly -- and possi...

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 m...

Witty, heartbreaking, shocking, satirical: the short story can excite or sadden, entice or repulse. The one thing it can never be is dull. Now Victoria Hislop, passionate ambassador for the art of the short story, has collected 100 stories from her favourite women writers into one volume.Here are Man Booker Prize winners and Nobel Laureates, well-known feminists and famous wits, national treasures and rising stars. All handpicked by one of the nation's best-loved novelists, there's...

The Sunday Times Humour Book of the Year.80 of the funniest stories ever written, selected and introduced by Paul Merton.From Anton Chekhov to Ali Smith, from P.G. Wodehouse to Nora Ephron, the greatest writers are those who know how to laugh. Here, award-winning comedian and broadcaster Paul Merton brings together his favourite funny stories of all time.Whether it's the silly, surreal, slap-stick or satirical that makes you smile, there's a...