Lydia is the favourite child of Marilyn and James Lee; a girl with her mother's bright blue eyes and her father's jet-black hair. Her parents are determined that Lydia will fulfill the dreams they were unable to pursue. But Lydia is under pressures that have nothing to do with growing up in 1970s small town Ohio. Her father is an American born of Chinese immigrants, and his ethnicity, and hers, make them conspicuous. When Lydia's body is found in a lake, James is consumed by guilt and sets...

Jennifer Egan and best-selling Celeste Ng come together for a compelling discussion of their new novels, Manhattan Beach and Little Fires Everywhere, two stories of family secrets and the children who discover them. Performances by Cindy Cheung (Mistress America) and Susannah Rogers (The Diary of a Teenage Girl).

'There is much here that might impress Pulitzer and Man Booker judges...Ng brilliantly depicts the destruction that parents can inflict on their children and on each other' Mark Lawson, Guardian'This intriguing tale of unhappy families will have you gripped from the opening line . . . No wonder it beat Hilary Mantel and Stephen King to win Amazon's book of the year' StylistLydia is the fav...

From the #1 bestselling author of Little Fires Everywhere, a deeply heart-wrenching novel about the unbreakable love between a mother and child in a society consumed by fear.Read by award-winning actress Lucy Liu, with an author's note read by Celeste Ng.Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving but broken father, a former linguist who now shelves books in Harvard's library. He knows not to ask too many questions,...

“Short stories can act like little tuning forks, helping us to clarify our own values,” writes guest editor Celeste Ng. “In a time when our values are being tested daily, it’s hard to think of anything more important.” The Best American Short Stories 2025 resonates precisely at this pitch: twenty pieces that upend expectations and test the foundation of our beliefs. From a bereaved medical actress obsessed with a student in her rotation to a mysterious sickness that ignites a leth...

“Short stories can act like little tuning forks, helping us to clarify our own values,” writes guest editor Celeste Ng. “In a time when our values are being tested daily, it’s hard to think of anything more important.” The Best American Short Stories 2025 resonates precisely at this pitch: twenty pieces that upend expectations and test the foundation of our beliefs. From a bereaved medical actress obsessed with a student in her rotation to a mysterious sickness that ignites a leth...

The Pulitzer Prize-winning Jennifer Egan and best-selling Celeste Ng come together for a compelling discussion of their new novels Manhattan Beach and Little Fires Everywhere, two stories of family secrets and the children who discover them. Performances by Cindy Cheung (Mistress America) and Susannah Rogers (The Diary of a Teenage Girl).

'It's impossible not to be moved' Stephen King'Stunning...this novel will break your heart and fire up your courage' Mail on SundayThe New York Times bestseller, a deeply heart-wrenching novel about the unbreakable love between a mother and child and a TIMES BEST PAPERBACK OF APRIL 2023Twelve-year-old Bird Gardner lives a quiet existence with his loving father, a ...

The Summer 2020 Issue. Ploughshares is an award-winning journal of new writing. Since 1971, Ploughshares has discovered and cultivated the freshest voices in contemporary American literature, and remains prescient in the digital age by providing readers with thoughtful and entertaining literature in a variety of formats. Find out why the New York Times named Ploughshares “the Triton among minnows.”As guest-editor Celeste Ng writes in her introduction, “Stories are more than documen...

This year's six shortlisted stories for the world's richest short story prize, the £30,000 Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award.The Sunday Times EFG Short Story Award is the world's most prestigious and richest short story prize, worth £30,000 to the winner. Past winners and shortlisted authors have included the Pulitzer winners Junot Díaz, Anthony Doerr and Adam Johnson, plus Hilary Mantel, Ali Smith, Yiyun Li, CK Stead and Elizabeth Strout.Six Shorts 2017 brings together th...

'I raced through it, breathing fast and when I had finished had to reread parts of the wonderful early chapters. I don't like historical novels but this is the exception. I shall let a few months go by and then read it all over again with, I'm sure, undiminished pleasure' Ruth Rendall, GuardianIt is 1922, and London is tense. Ex-servicemen are disillusioned, the out-of-work and the hungry are demanding change. And in South London, in a genteel Camberwell v...

From the bestselling author of Women Talking, a "wrenchingly honest, darkly funny novel" (Entertainment Weekly).Elf and Yoli are sisters. While on the surface Elfrieda's life is enviable (she's a world-renowned pianist, glamorous, wealthy, and happily married) and Yolandi's a mess (she's divorced and broke, with two teenagers growing up too quickly), they are fiercely close-raised in aMennonite household and sharing the hardship of Elf's desire to end her life. After Elf's l...