A diverse collection of forty-three stories inhabited by eclectic characters waiting to meet you. A stranger enters a saloon in a desolate, baking hot town in the Arizona desert with a cryptic warning. A murder mystery involving Santa Claus. Ghosts with a sense of humor haunting a graveyard on Halloween. Dogs chasing cats, kids playing T-ball, what really happened to Hitler, and aliens from Alpha Centauri that have plans for planet earth. Plus, many more. Sit back in a comfortable chair and enjoy the journey.
There is no single, unifying theme to the 22 stories in this collection. Many have an element of fantasy. Two stories involve the intrusion of a historical period (the Peasants’ Revolt, Jacobean England) into our present-day world; another features a wholly imaginary world. Sometimes the inspiration comes from folklore, such as a shapeshifting hare or pagan aspects of a harvest festival. In one story, the fantasy is based on a dream; another describes a frightening train journey. Memory is often important: people look back on their younger lives, trying to make sense of the past. Structure is crucial in a short story. Some of these are narrated in a café, a pub or a club. The reaction of the listeners is significant. Sometimes, characters are reading an old journal, a series of letters, a recommended book or a poem set for homework. How do they respond? Three stories may be categorised as flash fiction. They comprise only about 250 words each and are attempts to develop the possibilities of this format.
The One-Handed Pianist was published to acclaim in the early 1990’s, with the two-part Spanish edition winning the Latino Literature Prize in 1989 and the Gamma Literature Prize in 1992. Its tales look at what it means to be Jewish in the Hispanic world—a world in which spirituality is often exercised outside the realm of orthodoxy. Stavans constructs fables that raise questions about ethnicity and community; even Stavans’ person raises questions about ethnicity and community: what does it mean that a Jew of Eastern European lineage can call himself Latino and speak for that group?
Devoted to those practitioners of the art of short fiction, this new 2nd edition offers thorough coverage of approximately 375 authors and 400 of their works. In a single volume, Reference Guide to Short Fiction features often-studied authors from around the world and throughout history, all selected for inclusion by a board of experts in the field. Reference Guide to Short Fiction is divided into two sections for easy study. The first section profiles the authors and offers personal and career details, as well as complete bibliographical information. A signed essay helps readers understand more about the author. These authors are covered: -- Sandra Cisneros -- Nikolai Gogol -- Ernest Hemingway -- Langston Hughes -- Gabriel Garcia Marquez -- Salman Rushdie -- Jean-Paul Sartre -- Edith Somerville -- Eudora Welty -- And others Section two helps readers gain deeper understanding of the authors and the genre with critical essays discussing 400 important works, including: -- "The Hitchiking Game", Milan Kundera -- "The Swimmer", John Cheever -- "The Dead", James Joyce -- "A Hunger Artist", Franz Kafka -- "How I Met My Husband", Alice Munro -- "Kew Gardens", Virginia Woolf This one-stop guide also provides easy access to works through the title index.
A first edition, Insiders' Guide to Palm Beach County is the essential source for in-depth travel and relocation information to the sandy beaches of Florida. The guide covers Boca Raton, Delray Beach, Boynton Beach, Lake Worth, Wellington, Palm Beach, West Palm Beach, Jupiter, and Palm Beach Gardens. Written by a local (and true insider), this guide offers a personal and practical perspective of the Palm Beach County.
For more than 20 years, fantasist Bruce Taylor has been entertaining readers all over the world with his masterful blend of surrealism and magic realism. This collection showcases an imagination at once intense and gentle, absurd and cutting.
The role of representation in religion is complex. While often perceived as essential, it is also associated in many traditions with the liability of idolatry and provokes iconoclasm. The essays in this volume examine the nuances of representation in religion and the debate concerning its place across a variety of traditions from the three Abrahamic faiths, to those of antiquity and the East. This volume consists of presentations made at an international conference held in honor of Moshe Barasch, art historian and cultural critic, who has done much to elucidate the light which representation and religion shed on each other. It pays tribute to Barasch by expanding the base of understanding and insight he has erected. It should be of interest to students of religion and of art history.
How thin is the line between good and evil? Discover the classic tale of gothic horror Dr Jekyll has been experimenting with his identity. He has developed a drug which separates the two sides of his nature and allows him occasionally to abandon himself to his most corrupt inclinations as the monstrous Mr Hyde. But gradually he begins to find that the journey back to goodness becomes more and more difficult, and the risk that Mr Hyde will break free entirely from Dr Jekyll's control puts all of London in grave peril.
