Showing results for "grief" in Anthologies & Short Stories

Maya has always gotten wet in the rain. Her father never did. As a child, she watched him step out into storms and come back completely dry, urging her to “walk between the raindrops” and promising that, when she could, she’d finally know who she was and why she was here.

A grieving mother makes a spreadsheet of everyone she’s lost. Elsewhere, a professor develops a troubled intimacy with her hairdresser. And every year, a restless woman receives an email from a strange man twice her age and several states away. In Yiyun Li’s stories, people strive for an ordinary existence until doing so becomes unsustainable, until the surface cracks and the grand mysterious forces—death, violence, estrangement—come to light. And even everyday life is laden with meaning, studded with indelible details.

I was pretty happy with my life until the hot shot, all-state baller from my teen years moved back in next door. (I babysat him, yes, but I never changed his diapers. Just wanted to be clear about that.) Guess who’s now the assistant b-ball coach? Logic would say me–especially since I coached my entire first year holding the playbook upside down (it turned out to be an old football playbook from the ‘80s, so it’s not like it mattered which way I held it) but the accurate answer is Trey Haywood, my all-star neighbor.

In this, Theodore Dalrymple’s second collection of short stories, he begins to let his imagination run. The absurdity of modern life is fully laid bare when taken to extremes. You will laugh through your tears.

These stories wrestle with the experience of loss—of loved ones, of relationships, of a sense of self, of health—and forge a path to hope as characters fight their way forward. From bestsellers and SPFBO finalists to rising voices, 13 exceptionally talented authors explore the many facets of grief and healing through the lens of fantasy and sci-fi.

At the heart of every Irish family, the hopes of the future are tied deeply to the dreams of the past. And at the heart of every Maeve Binchy novel, the lives and loves of vividly drawn characters are deftly woven into unforgettable, beautifully realized tales. Now, in this charming audio set...

A full-frontal confrontation of the ways we perform desire and shame—from the downright bizarre to the frighteningly relatable—by the award-winning author of A Sharp Endless Need An employee at a hunting ground where people pay to act out hate crimes prepares to meet their girlfriend’s...

Exploring themes like hypocrisy, mental illness, individualism, toxic masculinity, environmentalism, relationships, death, and revenge, Of Grief and High Delight is certain to engage the mind and stir the spirit as it immerses listeners in vividly imagined worlds and introduces them to unforgettable characters that will bring them to see their own world with new perspectives.

Seasons of Grief is a collection of 27 award-winning stories by teens. These stories encompass a wide range of genres, inviting listeners to explore a wealth of important themes passionately crafted by these young writers, from a middle-aged woman suffering losses in the heart of Nazi Germany to a teen finding it hard to cope with the loss of a close friend.

In “The Pleasure of Her Company,” a lonely, single woman befriends the married couple next door, hoping to learn the secret of their happiness. In "Long Distance," a man finds himself relieved of the obligation to continue an affair that is no longer compelling to him, only to be waylaid by the guilt he feels at his easy escape. And in the incandescently wise and moving title novella, a dentist, aware that his wife has fallen in love with someone else, must comfort her when she is spurned....

“Oates is a fearless writer.” —Los Angeles Times “Oates is a master of the dark tale—stories of the hunted and the hunter, of violence, trauma, and deep psychic wounds.” —Booklist (starred review) Sourland is a gripping, haunting, and intensely moving collection of short stories by...

This short story collection will literally carry you through space on a quest for water due to a shortage of water on earth. Go along with the astronauts and specialized teams to Mars to find water for earth. The next story on your journey will take you to Clay County, Kentucky, to walk along with Crystal and Mother Pearl as they learn about love and forgiveness in a family that has been holding back a secret. Finally on your journey, you get to watch Abby, a senior at Ridgefield High School in Connecticut, struggle through her senior year, through pain and grief and in the end find hope.

This poignant and haunting tale begins with the narrator's journey of placing his mother in a rural nursing home—a sanctuary that feels more like a retreat. As he adjusts to this new chapter in their lives, he encounters peculiar events, including an old man conversing with an unseen companion over tea. This eerie experience fades into the background as the narrator becomes consumed by the demands of life, gradually visiting his mother less frequently.

Loss in any form seems to burden us with more weight than anything that can possibly be gained or learnt from. The loss of a person, a loved one, is often overwhelming. Lives so interwoven that the severing or loss of one life leaves the other weakened, unable to function for some time. Recovery comes in a myriad of forms but is usually debilitating, slow and, in the end, we are not as whole as we once were.It is a subject that authors return to again and again.