Ocean State Libraries

With clarity and ease, Alice Munro renders complex, difficult events and emotions into stories that shed light on the unpredictable ways in which men and women accommodate and often transcend what happens in their lives.

"A gentle Eastern European immigrant arrives in New York City after his family and his life have been torn apart by his country's civil war. A man who loves to bowl rolls a perfect game--and then another and then another and then many more in a row until he winds up ESPN's newest celebrity, and he must decide if the combination of perfection and celebrity has ruined the thing he loves. An eccentric billionaire and his faithful executive assistant...

"A master storyteller at his best--the O. Henry Prize winner Stephen King delivers a generous collection of stories, several of them brand-new, featuring revelatory autobiographical comments on when, why, and how he came to write (or rewrite) each story. Since his first collection, Nightshift, published thirty-five years ago, Stephen King has dazzled readers with his genius as a writer of short fiction. In this new collection he assembles, for the...

"This collection of Poe's best stories contains all the terrifying and bewildering tales that characterize his work. As well as the Gothic horror of such famous stories as The Pit and the Pendulum, The Fall of the House of Usher, The Premature Burial, and The Tell-Tale Heart, all of Poe's Auguste Dupin stories are included. These are the first modern detective stories, and include The Murders in the Rue Morgue, The Mystery of Marie Roget and The...

Six short stories with subjects ranging from a dejected teenager who discovers that the universe is communicating with him through talismanic objects left behind in a seagull's nest to two vampires in a sun-drenched lemon grove who try helplessly to slake their thirst for blood.

A collection of more than twenty-five short fictional works follows a theme of the intersections between life and death, perception and reality, and darkness and light. The distinctive storytelling genius of Neil Gaiman has been acclaimed by writers as diverse as Norman Mailer and Stephen King. Fragile Things, Gaiman's second collection of short fiction, contains approximately twenty previously published pieces of short fiction -- stories, verse,...

A collection of interwoven tales explores themes of family, sacrifice, war, and the redemptive power of art.

"B.J. Novak's One More Thing: Stories and Other Stories is an endlessly entertaining, surprisingly sensitive, and startlingly original debut that signals the arrival of a brilliant new voice in American fiction. A boy wins a $100,000 prize in a box of Frosted Flakes--only to discover how claiming the winnings might unravel his family. A woman sets out to seduce motivational speaker Tony Robbins--turning for help to the famed motivator himself. A new...

"Award-winning author Elizabeth McCracken is an undisputed virtuoso of the short story, and this new collection features her most vibrant and heartrending work to date"-- In these stories, the mysterious bonds of family are tested, transformed, fractured, and fortified. A recent widower and his adult son ferry to a craggy Scottish island in search of puffins. An actress who plays a children's game show villainess ushers in the New Year with her deadbeat...