In 1943 two spirited young teachers decided to do their part for the war effort by spending their summer vacation working the swing shift on a B-24 production line at a San Diego bomber plant. Entering a male-dominated realm of welding torches and bomb bays, they learned to use tools that they had never seen before, live with aluminum shavings in their hair, and get along with supervisors and coworkers from all walks of life.They also learned that wearing their factory slacks on th...

This story was inspired by a remark of Mark Twain's to the effect that it was a pity that the best part of life came at the beginning and the worst part at the end. By trying the experiment upon only one man in a perfectly normal world I have scarcely given his idea a fair trial. Several weeks after completing it, I discovered an almost identical plot in Samuel Butler's "Note-books." The story was published in "Collier's" last summer and provoked this startling letter from an anonymous adm...

An essential collection of classic stories that established Flannery O’Connor’s reputation as an American master of fiction—now with a new introduction by New York Times bestselling author Lauren Groff In 1955, with the title story and others in this critical edition, Flannery O’Connor firmly laid claim to her place as one of the most original and provocative writers of her generation. Steeped in a tradition of moral fiction that would become synonymous with her n...

Cyril M. Kornbluth (1923–1958) was an American science fiction author and a notable member of the Futurians. He wrote prolifically during his short lifetime, and produced a remarkable body of work. This volume is the largest ebook collection of his work ever assembled. It includes:TIME BUMTAKEOFFTHE SYNDICTHE ALTAR AT MIDNIGHTCRISIS!THE GOLDEN ROADKAZAM COLLECTSTHE LUCKIEST MAN IN DENVMAKE MINE MARSTHE MARCHING MORONS

A girl has disappeared...but did she go of her own accord?In a small town in turn-of-the-century Colorado, a young woman has disappeared from the boarding-house where she lives. Her distraught fiancé is certain that she must have been kidnapped. But the case takes a new turn when a city detective appears on the scene, looking for a woman who matches the description of the missing girl. Was Charity really kidnapped, or did she have a reason to flee? Mrs. Meade, a ge...

Christmas ain't happy when you're next target of an unknown killer. This award winning short-story of 3240 words is by the whodunit diva Ann Morven.

Only Alexander knows why the barn is haunted—-and by whatWhen Alexander notices an eerie light coming out of the barn,. He thinks his friend Blossom Culp is trying to spook him. But strange things really are happening there. Slimy footprints appear out of nowhere, and whimpering sounds float down from the hayloft. And when he ventures into the barn in the dark of night, his breath catches in his throat. Suddenly Blossom's words come back to him: "You can make contact with the Unsee...

An unauthorised eye witness account from a first responder Fire-fighter to Australia's worst natural disaster the Black Saturday Bush-fires.Thie book details the crews actions of Whittlesea Tanker 3 during Black Saturday and the weeks after. 

Robert Jones is a crew leader in a naval shipyard in Los Angeles in the 1940s. He should have a lot going for him, being educated, with a steady job and a steady relationship. But in the four days covered in this novel, the impossibility of life as a black man in a white world is made devastatingly clear.Jones is surrounded by prejudice, suspicion and paranoia, and his daily experiences influence his thoughts, dreams and behaviour. Immediately recognised as a masterful expose of ra...

The author of The Egg and I continues her hilariously candid memoir series as she enters the job market at the worst possible time—the Great Depression."The best thing about the Depression was the way it reunited our family and gave my sister Mary a real opportunity to prove that anybody can do anything, especially Betty." So begins Betty MacDonald's singular chronicle of trying to make ends meet amid the worst economic downturn in American history.A...

The teller turned to the stacked pile of bills. They were gone! And no one had been near!

John Sladek's first short story collection. Sladek wrote some of the best science fiction stories of the 20th-century and his parodies of famous s/f authors are uproariously "right-on". His talent went under-appreciated except by a few devoted followers, even though his satirical writing was on a par with the early Kurt Vonnegut.