Skip to content
Home/ Sex and Death: Stories
Sex and Death: Stories

Sex and Death: Stories

No customer reviews yet ISBN 9780062354709

In this provocative and haunting collection of short stories, edited by two masters of the form, a diverse group of contemporary writers probes the nature and connection between two of the most powerful, exhilarating, and terrifying forces that define and shape the human experience.

"What else is there?"--Alice Munro, on why so much of her work deals with the twin themes of sex and death.

The drive for life--for survival and reproduction--and the drive for death--for violence and self-destruction--are the two dominant, instinctive urges of human behavior. These conflicting compulsions, characterized by Freud as Eros and Thanatos, are also the central themes of great literature. In Sex and Death, some of today's most compelling writers from around the globe--Kevin Barry, Lynn Coady, Ceridwen Dovey, Robert Drewe, Damon Galgut, Petina Gappah, Sarah Hall, Peter Hobbs, Yiyun Li, Alexander MacLeod, Ben Marcus, Jon McGregor, Guadalupe Nettel, Courttia Newland, Taiye Selasi, Ali Smith, Wells Tower, Claire Vaye Watkins, Alan Warner, Clare Wigfall--explore these challenging themes with honesty, psychological acuity, brutality, tenderness, and empathy, in stories that are disquieting, illuminating, funny, and utterly dazzling.

About the author

Product details

Pub dateAug 30, 2016
ISBN-100062354701
ISBN-139780062354709
LanguageEnglish
Last updated 2026-03-07 21:56
$17.62 $24.99 29% off
You save $7.37 · list price $24.99
In stock soon — order now to reserve your copy
Delivery by Tuesday, September 8, 2026
Qty
Sign in to Add to Saved list
Free delivery on orders over $35.
15-day returns. Any reason.
Secure checkout. We never store card details.

Readers who bought this also bought

More from Anthologies (multiple authors)
See all
I Am Heathcliff: Stories Inspired by Wuthering Heights
16 modern fiction superstars shine a startling light on the romance and pain of the infamous literary pair Heathcliff and Cathy.Short stories to stir the heart and awaken vital conversation about love.<p> <strong>Sixteen stories inspired by Wuthering Heights.</strong> </p><p>In 'Terminus' a young woman hides in an empty Brighton hotel&#x3b; in 'Thicker Than Blood' a man sits in a hot tub stalking his newly-married love on social media&#x3b; and in 'A bird half-eaten' an amateur boxer prepares for a match.</p><p>A woman recalls the 'Heathcliffs I Have Known' and the physical danger she has borne at their hands&#x3b; in 'Anima' a child and a fox are unified in one startling moment of violence&#x3b; and in 'One Letter Different' two teenagers walk the moors and face up to their respective buried secrets.</p><p>Curated by Kate Mosse and commissioned for Emily Brontë's bicentenary year in 2018, these fresh, modern stories pulse with the raw beauty and pain of love and are as timely as they are illuminating.</p><p>The full list of contributors is: <br />Leila Aboulela, Hanan Al-Shaykh, Joanna Cannon, Alison Case, Juno Dawson, Louise Doughty, Sophie Hannah, Anna James, Erin Kelly, Dorothy Koomson, Grace McCleen, Lisa McInerney, Laurie Penny, Nikesh Shukla, Michael Stewart and Louisa Young.</p>
$12.12
Bodies from the Library: Lost Tales of Mystery and Suspense from the Golden Age of Detection
<p>This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together 16 tales by masters of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including a newly discovered Agatha Christie crime story that has not been seen since 1922.</p><p>At a time when crime and thriller writing has once again overtaken the sales of general and literary fiction, <em>Bodies from the Library</em> unearths lost stories from the Golden Age, that period between the World Wars when detective fiction captured the public's imagination and saw the emergence of some of the world's cleverest and most popular storytellers.</p><p>This anthology brings together 16 forgotten tales that have either been published only once before - perhaps in a newspaper or rare magazine - or have never before appeared in print. From a previously unpublished 1917 script featuring Ernest Bramah's blind detective Max Carrados, to early 1950s crime stories written for London's Evening Standard by Cyril Hare, Freeman Wills Crofts and A.A. Milne, it spans five decades of writing by masters of the Golden Age.</p><p>Most anticipated of all are the contributions by women writers: the first detective story by Georgette Heyer, unseen since 1923&#x3b; an unpublished story by Christianna Brand, creator of Nanny McPhee&#x3b; and a dark tale by Agatha Christie published only in an Australian journal in 1922 during her 'Grand Tour' of the British Empire.</p><p>With other stories by Detection Club stalwarts Anthony Berkeley, H.C. Bailey, J.J. Connington, John Rhode and Nicholas Blake, plus Vincent Cornier, Leo Bruce, Roy Vickers and Arthur Upfield, this essential collection harks back to a time before forensic science - when murder was a complex business.</p>
$10.69