Bobbie Ann Mason burst onto the American literary scene during a renaissance of short fiction that Raymond Carver called a "literary phenomenon." Anne Tyler hailed Mason as "a full-fledged master of the short story." Mason's work, charged with a spirit of exploration, garnered both popular and critical acclaim. This reader collects outstanding examples of Mason's award-winning work from throughout her writing career and provides a unique look at the development of one of the country's finest writers. Patchwork contains short stories first published in the New Yorker and other leading periodicals; chapters from Mason's acclaimed novels, including In Country, An Atomic Romance, and The Girl in the Blue Beret; and riveting excerpts from Mason's eclectic nonfiction. Some examples of Mason's recent explorations in flash fiction appear here in print for the first time.Mason's writing glows with a nuanced understanding of the struggles and pathos of American life in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. George Saunders writes in his introduction, "Bobbie Ann Mason is a strange and beautiful writer.... Her stories exist to gently touch on, and praise, even mourn, what it feels like to be alive in this moment." Patchwork conveys Mason's extraordinary talent and range as a writer.

A girl afflicted with pyrokinesis tries to control her fire-starting long enough to go to a dance with a boy she likes. A woman trapped in a stalled marriage is excited by an alluring ex-con who enrolls in her YMCA cooking class. A teen accompanies her mother, a prestigious poet, to a writing conference where she navigates a misguided attraction to a married writer -- who is, in turn, attracted to her mother -- leaving her "inventing punishments for writers who believe in clichés as tired as broken hearts. "In this affecting collection, Katie Cortese explores the many faces of love and desire. Featuring female narrators that range in age from five to forty, the narratives in Make Way for Her speak to the many challenges and often bittersweet rewards of offering, receiving, and returning love as imperfect human beings. The stories are united by the theme of desperate love, whether it's a daughter's love for a parent, a sister's for a sibling, or a romantic love that is sometimes returned and sometimes unrequited.Cortese's complex and multilayered stories play with the reader's own desires and anticipations as her characters stubbornly resist the expected. The intrepid girls and women in this book are, above all, explorers. They drive classic cars from Maine to Phoenix, board airplanes for the first time, and hike dense forests in search of adventure; but what they often find is that the most treacherous landscapes lie within. As a result, Make Way for Her explores a world of women who crave knowledge and experience, not simply sex or love.

Four-year old Jacqueline Clancy leads a carefree existence in the friendly town of Toorandulla until one day her mother disappears. Filled with unanswered questions, Jacqueline must adjust to life with her formidable Auntie Mina and the possibility of a new step-mother, all while continuing a desperate search to retrieve her lost mother. Almost forty years later, Jacqueline’s husband has left her for a younger woman. Despite the number of men who come knocking at her door, Jacqueline resolves to stay faithful to her estranged husband. However, when Auntie Mina returns, Jacqueline must decide whether she will allow her inability to say goodbye to an old love to rule her life. Complex and emotionally driven, Hello Love seamlessly weaves together the voice and viewpoint of a young child with that of a woman well into adulthood. Bursting with vivid descriptions and detailed dialogue, Carmen Cullen’s second novel centres around the thought-provoking question: can a person trust in love, when it has been taken away from her before?

Alex Rossino’s Six Days in September is a gripping, fast-paced account of Robert E. Lee’s 1862 campaign to win Southern independence by carrying the war north into Maryland. The thrust across the Potomac River triggered a determined Federal response when Gen. George McClellan led the reorganized and often defeated Army of the Potomac out of Washington’s defenses in pursuit of a victory on Union soil. The resulting battles of South Mountain and Sharpsburg (Antietam) wreaked havoc on both armies, witnessed the bloodiest day in American history, and changed the course of the entire Civil War. Deeply researched and written with close attention to the actual events, Rossino’s seamless weaving of history and fiction transports readers into the minds of the Southern generals, the torn hearts of beleaguered civilians, and the ranks of Lee’s long-suffering soldiers who endured the agonizing horrors of Civil War combat. Six Days in September is a panoramic, sweeping account of the complex and decisive Maryland Campaign that altered the destiny of our nation.

Before Jane Austen's novels explored heroines in English society, writers Sarah Fielding and Jane Collier dared to provide commentary on gender and education through self-conscious narratives. Published in 1754 in five parts and divided into three volumes, The Cry stands as one of the most distinctive and intriguing works by women during the florescence of their writing in eighteenth-century England.Strikingly experimental -- mixing fiction and philosophy, drama and exposition, satire and irony, and singular and choral voices -- The Cry revolves around a main character, Portia, who tells a series of stories to an audience that includes Una, the allegorical representation of truth, and "The Cry" itself, a collection of characters who serve as a kind of Greek chorus. A story about the story-making female subject, the novel serves as a catalyst to convey that women are capable of doing all of the things that men can do -- discuss ethics, learn, and think rationally -- and should be allowed to do these things publically. Throughout, editor Carolyn Woodward offers essential historical and editorial context to the work, demonstrating that this novel continues to facilitate discussions about women and public life.

WINNER OF THE 2016 DRUE HEINZ LITERATURE PRIZE Winner of the 2017 California Book Awards, first fiction categoryMany of these richly layered stories juxtapose the miracles of modern medicine against the inescapable frustrations of everyday life: awkward first dates, the indignities of air travel, and overwhelming megastore cereal aisles. In "Go Forth," an aging couple attends a kidney transplant reunion, where donors and recipients collide with unexpected results; in "Hounds," a woman who runs a facial reconstruction program for veterans nurses her dying dog while recounting the ways she has used sex as both a weapon and a salve; and in "Consider this Case," a lonely fetal surgeon caring for his aesthete father must reconsider sexuality and the lengths people will go to have children. Melissa Yancy's personal experience in the milieus of hospitals, medicine, and family services infuse her narratives with a rare texture and gravity. Keenly observed, offering both sharp humor and humanity, these stories explore the ties that bind—both genetic and otherwise—and the fine line between the mundane and the maudlin. Whether the men or women that populate these pages are contending with illness, death, or parenthood, the real focus is on time and our inability to slow its progression, and to revel in those moments we can control.

It is winter, just before Christmas. On the cliffs above the transit town of Port Hiver stands a decommissioned lighthouse. Inside, Peter Boniface, a psychotherapist, ponders the falling snow, and his imminent retirement. The arrival of an unexpected visitor plucks him out of his reverie and throws him into the most hazardous case of his career. Boniface's visitor is Bones, a former paramilitary, seeking, he says, "to make a good death". The Lighthouse Keeper is an account of this encounter, the outcome of which will determine everything about what remains of the lives of them both. Nothing less than an examination of the conflicting values underpinning Irish culture, The Lighthouse Keeper traces the intersecting worlds of its two protagonists, from Boniface’s consulting room to the wider world.

Old Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, is the third-largest National Preservation District in the United States and the largest Victorian-era neighborhood in the country. Beneath the balconies and terraces of the district's Gothic, Queen Anne, and Beaux Arts mansions, current residents trade riveting stories about their historic homes. Many of these tales defy rational explanation. When David Dominé moved into one of these houses, he dismissed local rumors of a resident poltergeist named Lucy. However, before long, unnerving, disembodied footsteps and mysterious odors caused him to flee his home in the middle of the night.Since that night, David Dominé not only embraced the possibility of supernatural phenomenon but also turned it into a popular tour series and best-selling collection of books, which have brought new attention to this iconic neighborhood. The book that launched the guided tours, Ghosts of Old Louisville, introduced readers to the hauntingly beautiful Lady of the Stairs and the Widow Hoag, who waits eternally near Fountain Court for a lost child who will never return. These tales of things that go bump in the night not only reveal why Old Louisville is considered the "most haunted neighborhood in America," but also help to preserve this historically and architecturally significant community.

Old Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, is the third-largest National Preservation District in the United States and the largest Victorian-era neighborhood in the country. Beneath the balconies and terraces of the district's Gothic, Queen Anne, and Beaux Arts mansions, current residents trade riveting stories about their historic homes. Many of these tales defy rational explanation. When David Dominé moved into one of these houses, he dismissed local rumors of a resident poltergeist named Lucy. However, before long, unnerving, disembodied footsteps and mysterious odors caused him to flee his home in the middle of the night.Since that night, Dominé has not only opened his mind to the idea of paranormal phenomena but also turned it into popular tours and a bestselling collection of books, which have brought new attention to this iconic neighborhood. In Haunts of Old Louisville, he takes readers inside the opulent Ferguson Mansion -- where a phantom tosses books off shelves -- and introduces them to the spectral stable hand who lurks around Campion House. He also examines historic tales pulled out of the headlines and even explores the claim that a winged demon haunts the ornate towers of Walnut Street Baptist Church. These tales of things that go bump in the night not only reveal why Old Louisville is considered the "most haunted neighborhood in America," but also help to preserve this historically and architecturally significant community.

Old Louisville in Louisville, Kentucky, is the third-largest National Preservation District in the United States and the largest Victorian-era neighborhood in the country. Beneath the balconies and terraces of the district's Gothic, Queen Anne, and Beaux Arts mansions, current residents trade riveting stories about their historic homes. Many of these tales defy rational explanation. When David Dominé moved into one of these houses, he dismissed local rumors of a resident poltergeist named Lucy. However, before long, unnerving, disembodied footsteps and mysterious odors caused him to flee his home in the middle of the night.Since that night, Dominé has not only opened his mind to the idea of paranormal phenomena but also turned it into popular tours and a bestselling collection of books, which have brought new attention to this iconic neighborhood. In Phantoms of Old Louisville: Ghostly Tales from America's Most Haunted Neighborhood, Dominé recounts a horrifying encounter at the Spalding Mansion and the long history of the kindly spirit Avery, who guards the iconic Pink Palace. These tales of things that go bump in the night not only reveal why Old Louisville is considered the "most haunted neighborhood in America," but also help to preserve this historically and architecturally significant community.

Whitehall civil servant Magnus Sparling is called home to Dublin because Edwin, his father, has been accused of attempting to poison his wife. Magnus does a thorough job interrogating his father. He is discreet, patient and pragmatic, but Edwin resolutely refuses to confess. Why is Magnus convinced of Edwin’s guilt, his aunt Charlotte asks.Magnus tells Charlotte a story that has long been suppressed in the family: an account of a few extraordinary and precious days in the past when he accompanied his father on a clandestine journey beyond the Mojave Desert to meet Edwin’s blood-mother. The more Magnus probes for the truth about the attempted poisoning, the greater is his need to relinquish old fears. What he fails to anticipate is that Charlotte, a secret fantasist, has important news to add.A compelling tale of family secrets, and love lost and regained, by a writer at the height of his powers.

Grange Abbey is the family saga of the Bannon construction dynasty, through the hard times and good, through recessions and growth, tragedy and success. Spanning generations, we see how James and his sons Frank, Simon and Paul come from humble beginnings to create a powerful construction empire and we also see the personal costs that success entails. Whether it is James striving to create a company amid the ashes of post-second world war Britain, Frank taking on unions and risking it all in the brash '80s, or Paul standing up to bullies in his schooldays, the Bannons pride themselves on determination, bravery and loyalty to their friends. They stand by the courage of their convictions, whatever the consequences and exact revenge, whoever has crossed them in life or love. The rewards if they succeed are a lavish lifestyle of untold wealth of yachting, beautiful women, shooting, gala balls and ultimately Grange Abbey itself. The property seams to symbolize the family clan and yet, means so much more. It takes grit to build a dynasty. Do the Bannons have what it takes to maintain one?

At the Weldon Institute in Philadelphia, a mob of zealous balloon enthusiasts plans to conquer the sky in a state-of-the-art dirigible. When a stranger, the mysterious Robur, declares that the future belongs not to balloons but to heavier-than-air flying machines, the Institute scornfully dismisses the idea. But Robur demands vengeance—and has a unique flying machine that will allow him to take it. By turns an impassioned argument for aviation, a wild proto-steampunk adventure, and a jubilant celebration of the dream of flight, Robur the Conqueror ranks among Jules Verne’s most iconic and influential works. Its technological speculations, including the unforgettable aircraft Albatross, are a vibrant snapshot of nineteenth-century scientific innovation. This, the first complete English translation of Verne’s 1886 novel, includes an insightful introduction, explanatory chapter notes, never-before-published glimpses of Verne’s original manuscript, all the first-edition illustrations by Léon Benett, and an up-to-date Verne biography and primary and secondary bibliography. It is an essential new edition of a seminal science fiction classic.

Art dealer Hugh Rhattigan is heavily in debt to Douglas Virgo, a freelance fixer for some of the most powerful banks and corporations in London. With little hope of repaying the debt, Hugh is coerced into establishing a gallery as a front for illicit payments. Blue-chip banks and corporations can’t easily show bumper staff bonuses in the accounts any more, let alone bribes to politicians to stave off regulation, or payments for Bolivian coke-flake and all manner of other nocturnal pursuits, so why not book these outgoings as a piece of art? All they need is a gallery to provide the paperwork and an artist to manufacture the work. But the gallery is soon dragged into a turf war between rival criminal gangs, while a host of ever-richer, ever-greedier collectors set about making a killing of their own. Like a Breaking Bad in the art world, Lead White is gripping, irreverent and very, very funny. A page-turner from an exciting new talent.

Charles Pagan and Dick Baron, who served together in WWI, embark on a walking holiday in the Vosges Mountains in France, in 1930. En route they meet Cecil and his sister Clare who is recovering from the loss of her fiancé during the war. Pagan and Baron pitch camp at a guesthouse, but the strange behaviour of locals piques their interest in the surroundings: in particular the old battlefield nearby. They express an interest in visiting it and are told by their host in no uncertain terms that it is not the place to go at night. When they discover they have been locked in their bedrooms, the pair lose no time in putting a rope out of the window and shinning down it, intent on exploring the forbidden territory and viewing the apparition Pagan thinks he has glimpsed briefly by moonlight. Pagan, like W. F. Morris’s preceding novel Bretherton, is a mystery story, but one which could only have been written as a result of the war. Bretherton himself is mentioned in passing by his brothers in arms. It is exciting, spine-chilling, funny, and romantic, but the Great War taints all these elements like a colour filter on a camera. The war is only a decade away and wounds, both mental and physical, are raw. The novel works brilliantly as a thriller in its own right, and but also a commentary on post-war Europe.

Ellen Emerson may be the last living survivor of the Johnstown flood. She was only four years old on May 31, 1889, when twenty million tons of water decimated her hometown of Johnstown, Pennsylvania. Thousands perished in what was the worst natural disaster in U. S. history at the time. As we witness in The Johnstown Girls, the flood not only changed the course of history, but also the individual lives of those who survived it.A century later, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reporters Ben Bragdon and Nina Collins set out to interview 103-year-old Ellen for Ben’s feature article on the flood. When asked the secret to her longevity, Ellen simply attributes it to “restlessness.” As we see, that restlessness is fueled by Ellen’s innate belief that her twin sister Mary, who went missing in the flood, is somehow still alive. Her story intrigues Ben, but it haunts Nina, who is determined to help Ellen find her missing half.Novelist Kathleen George masterfully blends a history of the Johnstown flood into her heartrending tale of twin sisters who have never known the truth about that fateful day in 1889—a day that would send their lives hurtling down different paths. The Johnstown Girls is a remarkable story of perseverance, hard work, and never giving up hope in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds. It’s also a tribute to the determination and indomitable spirit of the people of Johnstown through one hundred years, three generations, and three different floods.