Modern & contemporary fiction

With her trademark honesty, Cecelia Ahern gives us 30 stories, all titled 'The Woman Who-', that capture the different facets of women's lives. Humorous, moving and poignant, the stories capture the moments the characters are overwhelmed by guilt, confusion, frustration, intimidation, exhaustion ...

This new edition of Defoe's masterpiece includes a lively introduction by Tom Keymer, full notes and useful appendices, including a chronology of the action of the story and Defoe's most sustained commentary on it.

Jhumpa Lahiri sets her gaze on the eternally beautiful city, illuminating the frailties of the human condition and dissecting lives lived on the margins. A man recalls a summer party that awakens an alternative version of himself. A couple haunted by a tragic loss return to seek consolation. An o...

Here are twenty meticulously plotted, intimate portraits of humanity at its best and worst, featuring assassins, CIA agents, gangsters, and more. A drug-dealing hit man unburdens his fears to a stranger. An overlooked rookie cop is assigned to the department's file room. A ruthless killer only ki...

'Santaland Diaries' contains six of David Sedaris' most profound Christmas stories, from Dinah, the Christmas Whore to Season's Greetings to our Friends and Family.

A collection of nineteen short stories from some of Scotland's finest women writers includes such works as "Friendsrevisited.com" by Carmen Reid, Sara Sheridan's "The Six-Stone Stack," and "The Fringes" by Jenny Colgan.

Each of these 12 stories is a complete world, where ordinary lives are transformed, myths bloom into reality and the everyday is haunted by obsession and duplicity. A painter is made insufferable by success; a writer is driven to bury the evidence of his inadequacy. Metamorphosis fragments a marr...

This title explores the raw and tender places where Black women and girls dare to follow their desires and pursue a momentary reprieve from being good. The nine stories in this collection feature four generations of characters grappling with who they want to be in the world, caught as they are be...

This selection of Alice Munro's stories sums up her genius. Her territory is the secrets that cackle beneath the facade of everyday lives, the pain and promises, loves and fears of apparently ordinary men and women whom she renders extraordinary and unforgettable. This volume brings together the ...

Spanning her last five collections and bringing together her finest work from the past fifteen years, this selection of Alice Munro's stories infuses everyday lives with a wealth of nuance and insight. Beautifully observed and remarkably crafted, written with emotion and empathy, these stories ar...