Why We Sleep
1 × £12.99 
I Want My Hat Back
1 × £8.99 
Refuge
1 × £12.99 Subtotal: £34.97
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From the septuagenarian prostitute exposed in a tabloid sting to the Queen Bee of a local dramatic society upstaged by her cleaner; from the nine-year-old girl caught in the crossfire of her parents’ divorce to the widow stuck on an Antarctic cruise during COVID; these captivating stories paint a vibrant portrait of contemporary female experience.
Graham Greene, the great 20th-century novelist, also wrote exceptional short stories. Selected and introduced by Yiyun Li, 22 of his very best stories are collected here, each of them bearing the hallmark themes that characterise Greene’s great novels: betrayal and vengeance, love and hate, pity and violence.
Spanning both decades and continents, ‘Refuge’ turns its lens on those who are often overlooked in stories about war: women and children, civilians forced out of their homes in terror, those who wait for their brave soldiers to come home, and soldiers who commit unspeakable violence. this powerful collection simultaneously delves into the darkest parts of the human psyche whilst being an ode to humanity’s ability to endure, love and retain dignity and compassion.
Aysegül Savas’s acute and tender collection explores the distances we keep, and those we try to close, in the age of connectivity. A researcher abroad in Rome eagerly awaits a visit from her long distance lover, only to find he is not the same man she remembers. An expat meets a childhood friend on a layover and is dismayed by her unexpected contentment. A newly pregnant woman considers the taboo of sharing the news too soon, but can’t resist when an opportunity comes to patch up a damaged friendship. ‘Long Distance’ showcases Savas’s devastating talent for the short story. Her shrewd encapsulations of contemporary life often centre on characters displaced more by choice than circumstance, characters both determined to install themselves in new lives and preoccupied with the people they’ve left behind.
Miyako suspects her mother-in-law is a murderer. It’s not just a case of them rubbing each other up the wrong way – there is definitely something suspicious going on. But Miyako isn’t exactly what she seems either. Her husband has no idea about her past life as a secret agent. When she decides to use her professional skills to investigate her mother-in-law, the delicate equilibrium of their lives is thrown wildly out of balance.
‘Wild Folk’ comprises seven richly illustrated fables of transformation and power, summoned from the ancient stones beneath our feet and transformed by word and image into portals between past and future. These tales from the stones are neither new nor old. They are full of ‘wild folk’, shape-shifting spirits that carry the energy that connects all things. This book brings together the words of Jackie Morris and the stained-glass paintings of Tamsin Abbott, but the stories come from both, a true collaboration born out of friendship and hope. These are tales to make you see, listen and most of all feel the wild magic that links stone, tree, fox and star.
Weaving together ancient Greek fables with more recent dystopian narratives, Mark Haddon jump starts the heart of these legends told and retold for millennia, and demonstrates their lasting relevance again, in new and unexpected forms.
Since the publication of ‘Multitudes’, her debut collection, Lucy Caldwell has been celebrated as one of today’s pre-eminent short story writers. In this much-anticipated third collection, she continues her exploration of the contemporary female experience, as she delves deeper into motherhood and marriage, love and longing. From a passionate affair in Blitz-era London, to a highly charged Christmas party in Belfast, to a trip to Marrakech which could form a new family, the thirteen striking stories of ‘Openings’ pulse with possibility and illuminate those fleeting but recognisable moments of heartbreak and hope that can change the course of a life.
Train travel provides the perfect setting for life’s dramas to play out as proven in this thoroughly diverting collection of short stories.
Franz Kafka is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most enigmatic geniuses of European literature. What happens when his idiosyncratic imagination meets some of the greatest literary minds writing in English across the globe today? From a future society who ask their AI servants to construct a giant tower to reach God; to a flat hunt that descends into a comically absurd bureaucratic nightmare; to a population experiencing a wave of unbearable, contagious panic attacks, these ten specially commissioned stories are by turns mind-bending, funny, unsettling and haunting. Inspired by a twentieth-century visionary, they speak powerfully to the strangeness of being alive today.
A woman has an unexpected outburst at a corporate group therapy session for returning parents. A couple find some long-overdue time to rekindle their relationship and make an ill-advised home movie. A pregnant film director plots her revenge on the actress who betrayed her. An ex-wife deliberately causes conflict at her former husband’s wedding. ‘This Is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things’ illuminates the lives of malicious, subversive, and untamed women. Exploring failed sisterhood, dubious parenting and the dark side of modern love, these powerful and funny stories offer a takedown of how society wants women to behave and show what happens when they refuse.
Why We Sleep
1 × £12.99 I Want My Hat Back
1 × £8.99 Refuge
1 × £12.99 Subtotal: £34.97
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