National Network for Equitable Library Service

New writings on our fear of-and fascination with-the "other" from Joyce Carol Oates, Peter Straub, Kelly Link, Jeffrey Ford, and more.Alien is a powerful and flexible word. Aliens are "other." Aliens are the stuff of science fiction and fantasy. Aliens are traditional literary figures that cause us to see ourselves anew.

Seven extraordinary stories from bestselling author Mary McCarthy that carry readers from the heartbreaking core of a broken family to the tourist sites of Italy and into the contemplative mind of a potential murderess Best known for her acclaimed and provocative novels, including The Group and Cannibals and Missionaries, author Mary McCarthy also won praise for her brilliant short fiction. Cast a Cold Eye offers readers seven unforgettable tales from the pen of a true American literary master.

A classic collection of short stories from one of the twentieth century's most influential fantasy authors. Irish author Lord Dunsany majorly influenced generations of writers, including J. R. R. Tolkien, H. P. Lovecraft, and many more, and his Fifty-One Tales, a collection of short stories first published in 1915, has delighted readers for more than a century. These vignettes-some no more than a few paragraphs long-offer brief glimpses into worlds of sparkling wit and imagination.

Welcome Home collects a number of adoption-themed fictional short stories, and brings them together in one anthology from a diverse range of celebrated Young Adult authors. The all-star roster includes Edgar-award winner Mindy McGinnis, New York Times best-selling authors C.J. Redwine (The Shadow Queen) and William Ritter (Jackaby), and acclaimed YA authors across all genres. The full list of contributors includes: Adi Alsaid, Karen Akins, Erica M.

The Stories Behind the Series Though perhaps most famous as a novelist, Philip K. Dick wrote more than one hundred short stories over the course of his career, each as mind-bending and genre-defining as his longer works. Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams collects ten of the best. In "Autofac," Dick shows us one of the earliest examples (and warnings) in science fiction of self-replicating machines.

Winner of the National Jewish Book Award and nominee for both the PEN/Faulkner Award and the American Book Award, these ten stories and the celebrated title novella are "beyond compare ... [Helprin's] imagination should be protected by some intellectual equivalent of the National Park Service" (The Philadelphia Inquirer).

As both a global learning company and award-winning publishing house, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt sought to weave together its educational and literary expertise to inspire young writers across the United States and celebrate their work. HMH launched the first-ever Spark a Story writing competition for high school students, and received submissions from teens across the country. In the spirit of HMH's Best American series, the Spark a Story collection includes twenty short stories from this competition, as selected by HMH editors.

Best-selling author Meg Wolitzer guest edits the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction. "If you know exactly what you are going to get from the experience of reading a story, you probably wouldn't go looking for it; you need, in order to be an open reader of fiction, to be willing. To cast a vote for what you love and then wait for the outcome," writes Meg Wolitzer in her introduction. The Best American Short Stories 2017 casts a vote for and celebrates all that is our country.

"This volume showcases the nuanced, playful, ever-expanding definitions of the genre and celebrates its current renaissance." -Washington Post Science fiction and fantasy can encompass so much, from far-future deep-space sagas to quiet contemporary tales to unreal kingdoms and beasts. But what the best of these stories do is the same across the genres-they illuminate the whole gamut of the human experience, interrogating our hopes and our fears.

"Fans of such notables as C.J. Box, Peter Straub, and Joyce Carol Oates chiefly known for their novels will be pleased to see how well they write at shorter length."--Publishers Weekly "Some people might tell you that crime short stories, unlike the more precious kind, are a kind of fictional ghetto, full of cardboard characters and cliched situations. Not true. These stories are remarkably free of bullshit-although there's always a little, just to grease the wheels," writes guest editor John Sandford in his introduction.