Five years in the Polish wilderness.Queues for groceries, unfathomable bus timetables, inexplicable traditions and truly bizarre soup – this is Poland in the mid-1990s, where Tom Galvin innocently went as a trainee teacher.Without a word of Polish, he is plunged into a strange and rapidly changing culture, as the country shakes off its troubled and complex past and faces the challenges of being a part of modern Europe.Tom spent five years dealing with long and freez...

In the year 2050, America is booming—but there's a dark side when prosperity is based on the buying and selling of the next generation's future, as Sasha Cross is about to find out.To the world, Sasha is young, famous, and the symbol of what's wrong with a money-first society. To the Big 7 companies that control the fate of America's youth, she's a sure thing, and they all want a piece of her. But Sasha wants to choose her destiny.Whether you're an Auction elite such as Sas...

Ghosts walk in the open and infidelities are conducted in plain sight. Two teenagers walk along a perfect beach in the anticipation of a first kiss. Time stops for nothing – not even for death. Sometimes time cracks, disrupting a fragile equilibrium. The stories are peopled with locals and incomers, sailors and land dwellers; a diver searches the deep for what she has lost, and forbidden lovers meet in secret places. Throughout, the writers' words reveal a love of the inco...

The nation's favourite annual guide to the short story, now in its eleventh year.Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover – or, more accurately, by its title. This critically acclaimed series aims to reprint the best short stories published in the previous calendar year by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere. The editor's brief is wide ranging, covering anthologies, collections, magazines, newspapers and web sit...