Showing titles in Short Stories

A captivating volume of over forty short stories full of love, hope, and fear, from the Sunday Times bestselling author of Lady of Hay. Barbara Erskine is a born storyteller. The tales in 'Encounters' illustrate her extraordinary talent for capturing the spirit of a place and drawing us into the...

Form-defining short stories. First published in 1914, James Joyce defined what the short story could be with his collection The Dubliners. A mixture of prose and poetry, each story can be listened to independently, or as a collection. From childhood to maturity, we see what life - and ultimately death - can be, via an extraordinary cast of characters, all of whom experience an epiphany. There’s Father Flynn, the priest; Evelyn, the shop girl who dreams of escape; Mrs Mooney, the butcher’s daughter, who runs a boarding house.

Just round the corner from St Jarlath's Crescent (featured in Minding Frankie) is Chestnut Street. Here, the lives of the residents are revealed in Maeve Binchy's wonderfully compelling tales: Bucket Maguire, the window cleaner, who must do more than he bargained for to protect his son. Nessa Byrne, who's aunt comes to visit from America for six weeks every summer and turns the house - and Nessa's world - upside down. Lilian, the generous girl with a big heart, and the fiancé not everyone approves of.

A classic Agatha Christie short story, available individually for the first time as an ebook. Around the dinner table, Mrs Bantry recounts the tale of a dinner where everyone became ill and one young lady died from poisoning, after foxglove leaves had been mixed in with the sage and fed to...

Hearts in Atlantis is composed of five interconnected, sequential narratives, set in the years from 1960 to 1999. Each story is deeply rooted in the sixties, and each is haunted by the Vietnam War.

What begins as a relaxing hike in the picturesque Derbyshire Dales soon becomes a waking nightmare for disgraced barrister, Graham Solace. A strange, swirling fog has just arrived and left him utterly lost and in the middle of nowhere. But there’s hope. Upon the next hill appears to be a pub, The Crooked Stag. Surely someone there will be able help to help him get back to civilsation. Right?

The best of the golden age crime writers, praised by all the top modern writers in the field including P. D. James and Ruth Rendell, Dorothy L. Sayers created the immortal Lord Peter Wimsey. In his tenth appearance, he takes a job as an advertising copywriter to expose a ruthless killer. Victor Dean fell to his death on the stairs of Pym's Advertising Agency, but no one seems to be sorry. Until an inquisitive new copywriter joins the firm and asks some awkward questions....

There will never be another Western writer like Louis L’Amour. A legendary author and indisputably the greatest storyteller in his genre of all time, L’Amour captivated millions of readers and has sold well over three hundred million copies of his works, which includes nearly ninety novels and countless short stories. Mistakes Can Kill You highlights an essential selection featuring nine of L’Amour’s earlier short stories, sometimes written under the pen name Jim Mayo, that exemplify the rugged morality of the best Western writing.

Brought to you by Penguin. In this beautiful book of classic fairy tales, award-winning author Philip Pullman has chosen his fifty favourite stories from the Brothers Grimm and presents them in a'clear as water' retelling, in his unique and brilliant voice. From the quests and romance of...

Eve has always lived on Ennisfarne, an idyllic island just off the coast of Northumberland and only accessible when tides are low. There she runs a bar overlooking Darling Cove, a heavenly horseshoe-shaped beach named after her seafaring ancestors, whose links to the Farne Islands stretch back centuries. Logan is a famous photographer desperate to evade the limelight after a difficult break-up. Renting a cottage from Eve, he chooses Ennisfarne in the hope of anonymity but is immediately spellbound by its natural beauty.

The idea of steamy adult romances, sexual encounters that set your pulse racing or activities you may never be brave enough to try for yourself, is something that lurks deep inside many of us. Being involved in a threesome or a gangbang may sound like something you’d never get involved in but listening to it may be just enough to satisfy your curious nature.

Brought to you by Penguin. The heartwarming Japanese bestseller for fans of Matt Haig, Fredrik Backman and THE CAT WHO SAVED BOOKS 'Library. What a nice-sounding word. So comforting. I feel like I'm a student again. Library ... Am I allowed to borrow books?' 'What are you looking for?' asks...

"Kissing you is like new paint and old pain. It is like coffee and car alarms and a dim stairway and a stain and it's like smoke.' ('Placing a Call') How does love change us? And how do we change ourselves for love - or for lack of it? Ten stories by acclaimed author Deborah Levy explore these delicate, impossible questions. In Vienna, an icy woman seduces a broken man; in London gardens, birds sing in computer start-up sounds; in ad-land, a sleek copywriter becomes a kind of shaman.

In his first-ever short story collection, which spans forty years of work and features many never-before-published pieces, international bestselling author and legendary creator of From Hell, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and other modern classics, Alan Moore, presents nine stories full of wonder and strangeness, each taking us deeper into the fantastical underside of reality.

“I was sick, sick unto death with that long agony,” begins one of the most famous tales from the master of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe. Through the tortures of the Spanish Inquisition, we follow the straying mind of the unnamed prisoner in his quest for hope in a world of darkness and despair. This episode skyrocketed The Classic Tales Podcast to number 3 on iTunes’ Top 100 Podcasts chart.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More by Roald Dahl, read by Andrew Scott. Roald Dahl turns his pen to anything, twisting everyday life into powerful, and sometimes terrifying fantasies. Seven superb stories, full of Roald Dahl's usual magic...

Mysterious, funny, insightful, and heartbreaking, these are tales of expatriates and exiles, wise children and straying saints. They compose a secret history, both intimate and panoramic, of modern times, and offer a kaleidoscopic impression of the world within a world that is Paris.

Whether weaving family life and history into dark fiction or writing speculative Afrofuturism, American Book Award winner and Essence best-selling author Tananarive Due’s work is both riveting and enlightening. In her debut collection of short fiction, Due takes us to Gracetown, a small Florida town that has both literal and figurative ghost; into future scenarios that seem all too real; and provides empathetic portraits of those whose lives are touched by otherness. Featuring an award-winning novella and 15 stories, Ghost Summer: Stories is sure to haunt and delight.

Brought to you by Penguin. Razor-sharp, glittering tales exploring marriage, fame and female friendship, from the Sunday Times and New York Times bestselling author of Romantic Comedy and American Wife. In this compulsive collection of twelve witty stories, Sittenfeld shows why she’s as...

Season Two, Volume One. Four cryptic cases involving murder, mayhem, and mysterious disappearances. Is one mastermind behind them all?