The nation’s favourite annual guide to the short story, now in its tenth year. Best British Short Stories invites you to judge a book by its cover – or, more accurately, by its title. This new 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 sites, looking for the best of the bunch to reprint all in one volume. Featuring: Richard Lawrence Bennett, Luke Brown, David Constantine, Tim Etchells, Nicola Freeman, Amanthi Harris, Andrew Hook, Sonia Hope, Hanif Kureishi, Helen Mort, Jeff Noon,...

In Fun with Problems, Robert Stone demonstrates once again that he is "one of our greatest living writers" (Los Angeles Times). The pieces in this new volume vary greatly in length — some are almost novellas, others no more than a page — but all share the signature blend of longing, violence, black humor, sex and drugs that has helped Stone illuminate the dark corners of the human soul. Entire lives are laid out with remarkable precision, in captivating prose: a screenwriter carries on a decades-long affair with a beautiful actress, whose descent into addiction he can neither turn from nor share; a bored husband picks up a mysterious woman only to find that his ego has led him woefully...

A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice “Fast-paced [and] riveting. . Stone is one of our transcendently great American novelists.” — Madison Smartt Bell “Brilliant.” — Washington Post At an elite college in a once-decaying New England city, Steven Brookman has come to a decision. A brilliant but careless professor, he has determined that for the sake of his marriage, and his soul, he must end his relationship with Maud Stack, his electrifying student, whose papers are always late yet always incandescent. But Maud is a young woman whose passions are not easily curtailed, and their union will quickly yield tragic and far-reaching consequences. Death of the Black-Haired...

A new novel from an American master, Bay of Souls is a gripping tale of romantic obsession set against the backdrop of an island revolution. Michael Ahearn is a midwestern English professor who abandons his comfortable life when he becomes obsessed with a new colleague from the Caribbean, Lara Purcell. When Lara claims a vodoun spirit has taken possession of her soul, Michael follows her to her native St. Trinity, only to find himself in a whirlpool of Third World corruption. A finely wrought tale of one man's moral dissolution, Bay of Souls showcases Robert Stone at his most provocative and psychologically acute.

The stories collected in Bear and His Daughter span nearly thirty years — 1969 to the present — and they explore, acutely and powerfully, the humanity that unites us. In "Miserere," a widowed librarian with an unspeakable secret undertakes an unusual and grisly role in the anti-abortion crusade. "Under the Pitons" is the harrowing story of a reluctant participant in a drug-running scheme and the grim and unexpected consequences of his involvement. The title story is a riveting account of the tangled lines that weave together the relationship of a father and his grown daughter.

A searing, indelible love story of two ravaged spirits-a screenwriter and an actress- played out under the merciless, magnifying prism of Hollywood.

An emotional, dramatic and philosophical novel about Americans drawn into a small Central American country on the brink of revolution.

Роберт Стоун — классик современной американской прозы, друг Кена Кизи и хроникер контркультуры, лауреат Национальной книжной премии США за роман «Псы войны». Его первый роман «В зеркалах» получил престижную премию имени Фолкнера, присуждающуюся за лучший дебют, и стипендию Гуггенхейма. Роман был экранизирован Стюартом Розенбергом (учитель Дарена Аронофски), главные роли исполнили Пол Ньюмен, Джоанн Вудворд и Энтони Перкинс. Не менее примечательна история русской публикации «В зеркалах»: перевод был издан в журнале «Иностранная литература» сокращенным по цензурным соображениям почти на треть, а книгой выходит впервые — и впервые полностью; один из авторов исходного перевода, знаменитый...

Разочарованному в жизни Оуэну Брауну, бывшему солдату, а ныне торговому агенту, представляется случай кардинально изменить жизнь. Он соглашается принять участие в кругосветной одиночной гонке на яхте. Вначале полный энтузиазма, он вскоре понимает, что совершил ошибку.

In Saigon during the waning days of the Vietnam War, a small-time journalist named John Converse thinks he’ll find action — and profit — by getting involved in a big-time drug deal. But back in the States, things go horribly wrong for him. Dog Soldiers perfectly captures the underground mood of America in the 1970s, when amateur drug dealers and hippies encountered profiteering cops and professional killers — and the price of survival was dangerously high.