Invisible forces grab a man by the seat of the pants and pull him through the air without explanation or regard for walls, trees, and other hazards. The city of Pasadena is replicated to scale in an old man’s basement simply because he’s never been there. A man drills holes in his head to become smarter.These and other unlikely twists on how we expect things to be make up Disrupted Lives and Other Commotions. Often funny, always in conflict with our sense of how the world should op...

A woman runs from a cult leader.A man watches a crowd carry a baby into the woods.A boy makes a childhood friend who is much older than she appears.The forty pieces in this book unite two creative endeavours at the heart of humanity: making music and telling stories. Each writer took inspiration from one of the ten tracks on the Wayward & Upward album by Spinoza Gambit. This anthology collects one short story and three poems for each track, showcasing the variety of...

A charming, honest, funny, sad, tender and beautiful literary memoir, from Tim Rogers of You Am I. Think Patti Smith meet Dylan Thomas, by way of Banjo Paterson.'Rogers is a beautiful writer, both literate and lyrical ... Detours makes most rock memoirs look like How to Hypnotise Chooks. A heartbreaking work of staggering honesty.' West Australian'Of all the utterances delivered to me by strangers, my least favourite after "We can no l...

The loss of a parent is an experience that we all face without any training - relating to a parent through old age and illness; going through the actual death in different circumstances and whether we can help parents to have a good death; the emotional aftermath - shock, grief, relief, the effect on families; funerals, wills and other rituals; clearing out the house and keeping memories alive; recovery and carrying on with life; the longer-term changes in us and our relationship with our ...

A woman finds her everyday life engulfed by vivid fantasies, a businessman explores new ways to deal with his rage, a young woman is stuck on a boat with a bunch of delinquents, a diary is discovered, a commune goes wrong …In this captivating collection of short fiction, award-winning novelist Amanda Lohrey explores the dilemmas of modern life. Her characters find themselves caught between body and spirit, memory and desire, ambition and mortality – and they must transform themselv...

Featuring:Sarah Hall, Lucy Wood, Lisa Blower, Lavinia Greenlaw and Lionel Shriver.Edgar Allan Poe once claimed the greatest literary works were those that could be read ’in one sitting’. ‘Brevity must be in direct ratio of the intensity of the intended effect,’ he argued, once the effect has been established, of course.The stories shortlisted for the BBC National Short Story Award 2013 all use brevity with striking results, whether presenting a comp...

A collection of short stories and poems with a twist

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. Neither genre nor Granta shall be overlooked in the search for th...

Will Self possesses one of the greatest literary imaginations of any writer working today. How the Dead Live is his most extraordinary book yet—a novel that will challenge, entertain, and truly astonish.Lily Bloom is an aging American transplanted to England who has lost her battle with cancer and lies wasting away at the Royal Ear Hospital. As her two daughters—lumpy Charlotte, who runs a hugely successful chain of stationery stores called Waste of Paper, and beautiful Natasha, a ...

Beaten, battered and subjected to terrifying psychological cruelty at the hands of his sadistic, alcoholic father, by the age of twelve Andy McQuade realized that he and his family had suffered enough. Afraid for the lives of himself and his mother and brothers, tortured by painful memories of years of domestic violence, and unable to run away with his family lest they were hunted down and killed, Andy decided there was only one thing he could do to guarantee their safety. So, late one nig...

Five bewitching tales of love from the winners of the Power Play Romance Writer's Competition.From a moment of reflection to a moment of passion, these short stories explore the ways in which love and lust shape our lives.Writers Elizabeth McLennan, Hazel McLoughlin, Jessica Towicz, Saman Shad and overall winner Anna McHugh take us from the hustle and glamour of New York to the serenity of rural life in this enchanting and affecting collection.