First Person Singular: Stories by Haruki Murakami

$39.99 AUD

Category: Short Stories

A mind-bending new collection of short stories from the internationally acclaimed, Haruki Murakami. The eight stories in this new book are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator. From memories of youth, meditations on music, and an ardent love of baseball, to dreamlike scenarios an d invented jazz albums, together these stories challenge the boundaries between our minds and the exterior world. Occasionally, a narrator may or may not be Murakami himself. Is it memoir or fiction? The reader decides. Philosophical and mysterious, the stories in First Person Singular all touch beautifully on love and solitude, childhood and memory. . . all with a signature Murakami twist.   ...Show more

How to Fake Being Tidy: And Other Things My Mother Never Taught Me by Fenella Souter

$29.99 AUD

Category: Short Stories

Funny true stories about the everyday dramas that can make or break friendships, cooking, housekeeping and the domestic chaos that always threatens to get the upper hand, written in the tradition of Nora Ephron. 'A glorious account of how the little things of life are, of course, the big things' - Rich ard Glover 'Every failed domestic goddess will rock with laughter.' Shona Martyn My mother wasn't much of a housekeeper. She wasn't much of a cook either, although she tried. She longed to live a more unconventional life. Admirably high-minded, but it meant I never learnt to fold a towel. In these funny, sometimes poignant stories, award-winning feature writer Fenella Souter celebrates the highs and lows of domestic life - from her attempts to run the house like a grown-up, to lessons in good cooking; from accidentally killing her wisteria, divorcing the cat and shirt-fronting bossy tradies, to wondering if the 'hostess gift' is still a thing or why some people have impeccable taste. With their distinctive wit, they will leave you smiling with recognition at the everyday dramas and dilemmas that can make or break friendships and marriages, turn a house into a home, or let chaos get the upper hand. 'Chuck out all your self-help guides to gratitude, mindfulness and finding meaning. This book is all you need.' - Charlotte Wood 'Sweet, wise and very funny.' - Danny Katz   ...Show more

Flock: First Nations Stories Then and Now by Ellen van Neerven ed.

$29.99 AUD

Category: Short Stories

This wide-ranging and captivating anthology showcases both the power of First Nations writing and the satisfaction of a good short story. Curated by award-winning author Ellen van Neerven, Flock roams the landscape of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander storytelling, bringing together voices from acro ss the generations. Featuring established authors such as Tony Birch and Melissa Lucashenko, and rising stars such as Adam Thompson and Mykaela Saunders, Flock confirms the ongoing resonance and originality of First Nations stories. ...Show more

Hold Your Fire by Chloe Wilson

$32.99 AUD

Category: Short Stories

Dark and dangerous, brilliantly unsettling and chillingly funny, this extraordinary debut shows us what we usually deny - the uneasy truce we make with our ruthless desires and gothic fears, and how easily it can be broken. Prize-winning author Chloe Wilson's stories will pin you to the page. 'Chilling , funny, and razor sharp - a writer in control every step of the way. How I relished this extraordinary and original collection.' Sofie Laguna, Miles Franklin winner for The Eye of the Sheep First published in Granta Magazine, the title story takes us into the cold war of a contemporary family: a missile-making mother doubts her husband's guts and the steel of her son, until a playground incident escalates and brings them into the most surprising of alliances. Needle sharp, effortlessly surprising and beautifully controlled, every story is transfixing. A young couple move into a house in which there's been a recent murder, and fall under the spell of their peculiar, commanding neighbours. Two sisters are determined to detoxify themselves into perfection. A diver pushes herself and those around her to higher and higher jumps.  Interspersed with these transfixing tales are lightning strikes of flash fiction: we glimpse a leopard in the apartment next door; plants grown out of a strange and miraculous soil; the spirit of a girl who's been thrown down a well. At each turn, Chloe Wilson offers a unique insight, a tear in the veil of our comfortable moral certainties. Hold Your Fire exposes the battles we wage beneath the surface. '['Tongue-Tied'] had me uncomfortably pinned by the end of the first paragraph, and squirming by the end of the first page ... add to that delicate balance an unusual point of view, two loaded relationships, and a sharp, subtle dose of humour, and I had to pick this story.' Rebecca Makkai, in choosing 'Tongue-Tied' to win the Iowa Review Prize. 'The stories in Chloe Wilson's Hold Your Fire are full of wit, intelligence, savage humour, and dark surprises. They combine the brilliant menace of Ottessa Mossfegh with the insight and control of Helen Garner; the result is a new Australian writer who made me feel less like a reader and more like a conspirator. I was transfixed.' Fiona McFarlane, author of Miles Franklin-shortlisted The Night Guest and The High Places 'These stories are wonderfully strange, complex yet funny; they are otherworldly and unearthly but at the same time an expression of how we live in the world right now. Chloe Wilson is the magician who by her art brings to light all we usually prefer to keep hidden.' Ceridwen Dovey, author of Only the Animals and In the Garden of the Fugitives   ...Show more

Twice Not Shy - One Hundred Short Short Stories by Laura Keenan & Linda Martin (Editors)

$20.00 AUD

Category: Short Stories

Twice Not Shy is a contemporary collection of 100 flash, micro and hybrid stories, each 500 words or less, by rising and established writers. Building on the success of Night Parrot Press's first collection, Once, this anthology showcases the best of Western Australian authors writing in this exciting, challenging and condensed genre. Small but mighty, the stories linger long after reading them. ...Show more

Fabulous Lives by Bindy Pritchard

$27.00 AUD

Category: Short Stories

Fabulous Lives is a collection of short stories spanning Australia and other continents. It embraces people with all their frailties and strengths, failures and hopes, as they reach critical junctures in their lives.Both funny and heart-rending, these 16 stories follow the struggles of life's outsiders- the sick, the lonely, the poor and the ugly-as they try to find hope and belonging in a hostile world. ...Show more

A Year of Loving Kindness to Myself by Brigid Lowry

$29.99 AUD

Category: Short Stories

If you're struggling to maintain grace and good humour amidst daily potholes and pitfalls, Brigid Lowry may be just the warm, wise and witty companion you need. Informed by contemporary psychology and Zen Buddhism, Brigid's essays offer reflections on everything from friendship to grief, and from gratit ude to self-care. Give this book to a friend or gift it to yourself, A Year of Loving Kindness to Myself is all the encouragement you'll need to nurture you and those around you. ...Show more

Land of Big Numbers by Te-Ping Chen

$29.99 AUD

Category: Short Stories

Land of Big Numbers depicts the diverse and legion Chinese people, their history, their government, and how all of that has tumbled--messily, violently, but still beautifully--into the present. Cutting between clear-eyed realism and tongue-in-cheek magical realism, Chen's stories coalesce into a portrai t of a people striving for openings where mobility is limited. Twins take radically different paths: one becomes a professional gamer, the other a political activist. A woman moves to the city to work at a government call center and is followed by her violent ex-boyfriend. A man is swept into the high-risk, high-reward temptations of China's volatile stock exchange. And a group of people sit, trapped for no reason, on a subway platform for months, waiting for official permission to leave.   With acute social insight, Te-Ping Chen layers years of experience reporting on the ground in China with incantatory prose in this taut, surprising debut, proving herself both a remarkable cultural critic and an astonishingly accomplished new literary voice. ...Show more

Lengthening Shadows (Short Stories) by Bob Franklin

$24.99 AUD

Category: Short Stories

The master of creeping unease and unrelenting consequences is back. The vain and the cruel, the indifferent and the excessive, across ten tales of cut corners and grubby compromise, Bob Franklin turns his fairground mirror on contemporary Australia, with a cast of characters navigating modern life and trying to get by, get on and get away with whatever they can, whatever the cost. A gaggle of comedians exchange escalating jokes about a needy fan. A small business owner delights in making top dollar off uncomprehending customers. A widower finds solace in a new dog that gives focus and purpose to his rage and grief. In 60s London a rock band rise and rise, aided by occult forces from another place. After dinner stories in an elite gentleman’s club turn to impossible murder and skullduggery in an Australian mining company. Gleefully macabre, drily menacing, chillingly acute, Franklin spares nobody.    ...Show more

Flight or Fright: 17 Turbulent Tales by Stephen King and Bev Vincent (editors)

$27.99 AUD

$32.99 (15% off)

Category: Short Stories

Fasten your seatbelts for an anthology of turbulent tales curated by Stephen King and Bev Vincent. This exciting new collection, perfect for airport or aeroplane reading, includes an original introduction and story notes for each story by Stephen King, and brand new stories from Stephen King and Joe Hil l. Stephen King hates to fly. Now he and co-editor Bev Vincent would like to share this fear of flying with you. Welcome to Flight or Fright, an anthology about all the things that can go horribly wrong when you're suspended six miles in the air, hurtling through space at more than 500 mph and sealed up in a metal tube (like - gulp! - a coffin) with hundreds of strangers. All the ways your trip into the friendly skies can turn into a nightmare, including some we'll bet you've never thought of before... but now you will the next time you walk down the jetway and place your fate in the hands of a total stranger. Featuring brand new stories by Joe Hill and Stephen King, as well as fourteen classic tales and one poem from the likes of Richard Matheson, Ray Bradbury, Roald Dahl, Dan Simmons, and many others, Flight or Fright is, as King says, "ideal airplane reading, especially on stormy descents... Even if you are safe on the ground, you might want to buckle up nice and tight." Book a flight for this terrifying new anthology that will have you thinking twice about how you want to reach your final destination. Table of Contents: Introduction by Stephen King Cargo by E. Michael Lewis The Horror of the Heights by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle Nightmare at 20,000 Feet by Richard Matheson The Flying Machine by Ambrose Bierce Lucifer! by E.C. Tubb The Fifth Category by Tom Bissell Two Minutes Forty-Five Seconds by Dan Simmons Diablitos by Cody Goodfellow Air Raid by John Varley You Are Released by Joe Hill Warbirds by David J. Schow The Flying Machine by Ray Bradbury Zombies on a Plane by Bev Vincent They Shall Not Grow Old by Roald Dahl Murder in the Air by Peter Tremayne The Turbulence Expert by Stephen King Falling by James L. Dickey Afterword by Bev Vincent ...Show more

The Weight of a Human Heart by Ryan O'Neill

$27.95 AUD

Category: Short Stories

The Weight of a Human Heart turns the rules of storytelling on their head. A series of graphs illustrates the disintegration of a marriage, step by excruciating step. The heartbreaking story of a Rwandan boy is hidden in the pages of his English exam paper. A young girl learns her mother’s disturbing se crets through the broken key on a typewriter. With settings ranging from China to Rwanda to Australia, these powerful and original stories announce the arrival of a brilliant literary talent. 'Clever ... uproarious ... dazzling' THE MONTHLY 'In O'Neill's hands, the minor art form of the short story becomes major art' BOOKSELLER AND PUBLISHER ‘Full of wit, irony, wild invention, love and pain – and sometimes shocking power’ PADDY O'REILLY ‘By turns acerbic, playful and serious, O’Neill is equally at home with satire and pathos’ CATE KENNEDY author of The World Beneath ‘With each new story O’Neill redefines the boundaries of what is possible’ PATRICK CULLEN, author of What Came Between ...Show more

Skyglow by Leslie Thiele

$24.00 AUD

Category: Short Stories

A woman adjusts to her new urban landscape. A slaughterman comes to terms with the death of his wife. A rodeo ringer blows into town, wreaking havoc.In this collection, we venture across distinct terrains-inviting and inhospitable, familiar and unknowable-into worlds of past, future and present. In sett ings that shift between the mundane and extraordinary, these short stories illuminate our continuous search for truth and what it means to find our way back home. ...Show more