Best American Short Stories 2025

<p>A wide-ranging and eclectic collection of short stories on the theme of love in its various forms: romantic, erotic, impossible, undying and exhausted.</p> <p>No other aspect of the human experience regularly inspires such an outpouring of poetry, prose and philosophy as love. From passionate declarations to clinical analysis, writers of every age have been fascinated, tormented and inspired by love.</p> <p>This beautifully produced collection of short stories will combine the best of contemporary and classic fiction on the theme of love, from Catullus to Alice Munro. Edited and introduced by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 'Middlesex', this wonderfully heterodox look at love will include, amongst others, 'A Rose for Emily' by William Faulkner, 'The Lady with the Lapdog' by Anton Chekhov and stories by Lorrie Moore, Milan Kundera and Guy de Maupassant.</p>

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>

<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>

Bodies from the Library 2: Lost Tales of Mystery and Suspense from the Golden Age of Detection

Bodies from the Library 3: Lost Tales of Mystery and Suspense from the Golden Age of Detection

Bodies from the Library 4: Lost Tales of Mystery and Suspense from the Golden Age of Detection