21 May
Plato, the Greek philosopher, mathematician and writer born in 427 BC. Along with his mentor, Socrates, and his student, Aristotle, Plato helped to lay the foundations of natural philosophy, science, and Western philosophy. Read more about Plato's life
Read the opening extract of the brand new Melanie Gideon book before its publication on 23/05/2013
In our time-pressured lives short stories are, unsurprisingly, a booming new format. Intense, concentrated and varied. See below for some of our favourite collections and find details of short story prizes in the right hand column.
Featured Books
Summer Lies Bernhard Schlink
From Bernhard Schlink, the internationally best-selling author of The Reader, come seven provocative and masterfully calibrated stories. Tender yet unsentimental, achingly personal yet utterly universal, Summer Lies asks what it means to love, to deceive and ultimately, to be... Format: Paperback - Released: 02/05/2013
Black Vodka Ten Stories Deborah Levy
March 2013 Short Story Collection of the Month.
Ten elegant, witty yet unsettling short stories explore the dislocations of modern life. From the pain it can bring to the... Format: Paperback - Released: 26/02/2013
A Trail of Fire Diana Gabaldon
Time travelling and historical fiction blend in these four extraordinary stories featuring characters from Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander series which has sold over 18 million copies worldwide. In two of them soldier come spy Lord John can be found in Jamaica... Format: Hardback - Released: 08/11/2012
Trains and Lovers The Heart's Romance Alexander McCall Smith
November 2012 Book of the Month.
Linking a group of passengers on a Edinburgh to London train, this is an exquisitely produced pocket-sized edition of his latest book and it’s a perfect gift... Format: Hardback - Released: 01/11/2012
Christmas Magic Cathy Kelly
A magical collection of wise and witty bite-size stories, stuffed full of warmth and perfect to give you mini escapes whenever you need them. This festive collection of short stories is ideal for any fan of Maeve Binchy. Format: Paperback - Released: 08/11/2012
Every Short Story by Alasdair Gray 1952-2012 Alasdair Gray
Gathering together every story he has written in a career spanning 60 years, as well as sixteen brand new tales and a host of illustrations, this is a landmark publication from one of Scotland’s greatest writers. Format: Hardback - Released: 15/11/2012
Homeland Barbara Kingsolver
A collection of 12 stories, with settings ranging from northern California to the hills of eastern Kentucky and the Caribbean island of St Lucia, that explore the twin themes of family ties and the life choices one must ultimately make... Format: Paperback - Released: 03/01/1998
Summer Lies Bernhard Schlink
From Bernhard Schlink, the internationally best-selling author of The Reader, come seven provocative and masterfully calibrated stories. Tender yet unsentimental, achingly personal yet utterly universal, Summer Lies asks what it means to love, to deceive and ultimately, to be... Format: Hardback - Released: 13/09/2012
Somewhere Else, or Even Here A. J. Ashworth
Winner of the 2011 Scott Prize. Short story writers have the enviable job of having to create characters and situations in just a few pages and A. J. Ashworth performs this amazing feat, seemingly, effortlessly making her short stories a... Format: Paperback - Released: 15/11/2011
The Best British Short Stories Nicholas Royle
2nd in this new series of the best British short stories, as selected by experienced and highly respected editor Nicholas Royle. There are some big name authors among his 20 chosen stories, Will Self and Jeanette Winterson to... Format: Paperback - Released: 15/04/2012
Reality, Reality Jackie Kay
The women of Reality, Reality are mesmerizing, whether in love or in solitude. Full of compassion, generosity, sorrow and joy, their fifteen unforgettable stories explore the power of the imagination to make things real, and celebrate, most of all, those... Format: Paperback - Released: 20/06/2013
Astray Emma Donoghue
Counterfeiter. Dishwasher. Prostitute. Attorney. Sculptor. Mercenary. Elephant. Corpse. The fascinating characters that roam across the pages of Emma Donoghue's latest fact-inspired fictions have all gone astray: they are emigrants, runaways, drifters. They cross other borders, too: those of race, law,... Format: Hardback - Released: 25/10/2012
Feeling the Fear And Other Intriguing Tales Carolyn Pertwee
Intriguing, shocking, moving and sometimes humorous, this collection of short stories is a real gem. Each 10 - 15 page story is an intense blend, each with its own emotional flavour and amazingly, for their short length, full of twists... Format: Paperback - Released: 29/02/2012
The Weight of a Human Heart Ryan O'Neill
This prize winning short story collection is sometimes comic, sometimes tragic, but always startlingly original. The Weight of a Human Heart turns the rules of storytelling on their head. Format: Paperback - Released: 24/07/2012
Burning Bright Ron Rash
A dozen blistering, disturbing, and remarkable short stories. Burning Bright won the 2010 Frank O’Connor Award and Ron Nash can count the superstar authors Margaret Atwood and Irvine Welsh among his fans. He has also written the exquisite... Format: Paperback - Released: 16/08/2012
New World Fairy Tales Cassandra Parkin
In contemporary America, an un-named college student sets out on an obsessive journey of discovery to collect and record the life-stories of total strangers. The interviews that follow have echoes of another, far more famous literary journey, undertaken long ago... Format: Paperback - Released: 15/12/2011
The Book of Life Stuart Nadler
In The Book of Life, as in life, moments of unsettling tension and grief sit alongside those of humour and happiness. There are huge betrayals one man sleeps with his best friend's daughter, one with his best friend's wife. There... Format: Paperback - Released: 06/04/2012
This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You Jon Mcgregor
A man builds a tree house by a river, in anticipation of the coming flood. A sugar-beet crashes through a young woman's windscreen. A boy sets fire to a barn. A pair of itinerant labourers sit by a lake, talking... Format: Hardback - Released: 02/02/2012
Diving Belles Lucy Wood
Along Cornwall's ancient coast, the flotsam and jetsam of the past becomes caught in the cross-currents of the present and, from time to time, a certain kind of magic can float to the surface...Straying husbands lured into the sea can... Format: Hardback - Released: 19/01/2012
In Other Worlds SF and the Human Imagination Margaret Atwood
IN OTHER WORLDS: SF AND THE HUMAN IMAGINATION is Margaret Atwood's account of her relationship with the literary form we have come to know as 'science fiction'. This relationship has been lifelong, stretching from her days as a child reader... Format: Hardback - Released: 20/10/2011
Pulse Julian Barnes
A collection of stories that are attuned to rhythms and currents: of the body, of love and sex, illness and death, connections and conversations. Ranging from the domestic to the extraordinary, from the vineyards of Italy to the English seaside... Format: Paperback - Released: 04/08/2011
Manhattan in Reverse Peter F. Hamilton
In 1998 Peter F. Hamilton, the master of space opera and top ten bestselling author, published his first collection of short stories in A Second Chance at Eden. Thirteen years later he returns to short fiction with a new collection.... Format: Paperback - Released: 10/05/2012
The Mammoth Book of Best British Crime Maxim Jakubowski
This great annual covers the full range of mystery fiction, from noir and hardboiled crime to ingenious puzzles and amateur sleuthing. This year's volume contains stories by: Peter James, Nick Quantrill, Reginald Hill, Jay Stringer, Liza Cody, L. C. Tyler,... Format: Paperback - Released: 02/02/2012
Stop What You're Doing and Read This! Mark Haddon, Michael Rosen, Zadie Smith, Carmen Callil
In any 24 hours there might be sleeping, eating, kids, parents, friends, lovers, work, school, travel, deadlines, emails, phone calls, Facebook, Twitter, the news, the TV, Playstation, music, movies, sport, responsibilities, passions, desires, dreams. Why should you stop what you're... Format: Paperback - Released: 26/12/2011
Emerald City Jennifer Egan
From the author of one of the top novels of 2011, A Visit from the Goon Squad, comes an elegant and poignant collection of short stories; seamless evocations of self-discovery. These eleven masterful stories - the first collection from... Format: Paperback - Released: 19/01/2012
The Best Little Book Club in Town
A terrific collection of short stories from bestselling authors including Kate Mosse, Katie Fforde, Lee Child, Sophie Kinsella and Jodi Picoult. Here are stories of love, passion, mystery and hope - and the discovery that some of the more surprising... Format: Paperback - Released: 01/09/2011
Look at Me Jennifer Egan
September 2011 Book of the Month.
From the author of the bestselling A Visit from the Goon Squad, this is one of Jennifer Egan's bold, innovative earlier novels published in a new... Format: Paperback - Released: 15/09/2011
The Complete Short Stories Muriel Spark
Muriel Spark coolly probes the idiosyncrasies that lurk beneath the veneer of human respectability, displaying the acerbic wit and wisdom that are the hallmarks of her unique talent. The Complete Short Stories is a collection to be loved and cherished,... Format: Paperback - Released: 18/08/2011
The Best British Short Stories 2011 Nicholas Royle
In true Ronseal fashion this book really ‘does what it says' on the cover. In it you’ll find the best short stories published by British writers, whether based in the UK or elsewhere and you won’t be disappointed. Format: Paperback - Released: 15/04/2011
Touchy Subjects Emma Donoghue
How do you make conversation with a sperm donor? How do you say someone's novel is drivel? Would you give a screaming baby brandy? In what words would you tell your girlfriend to pluck a hair on her chin? Touchy... Format: Paperback - Released: 07/04/2011
Aphrodite's Hat Salley Vickers
This book is sheer delight. With a sharp observation of the minutiae of human life combined with wonderful little twists and turns, the writing is reminiscent of all that so many enjoy in Alexander McCall Smith. Here, Salley Vickers... Format: Paperback - Released: 09/06/2011
Last Fling Sue Gee
This is the first short story collection from an acclaimed novelist with a wide and loyal readership. All stories are written with Sue Gee's insight, precision and delicacy of style and tone. Poignant, haunting and immensely readable. Format: Paperback - Released: 15/05/2011
Sometimes you want War and Peace and sometimes something a little thinner! Round here, we love a good short story! A short burst of escapism and perfect for the trip to work. After all a Test Match takes time and a 20/20 can be a lot more fun!
Joanna Trollope, novelist and prize judge has said: "Short stories are notoriously difficult to pull off successfully, needing—as they do—to involve the readers during reading as well as to leave them with something to reflect on afterwards, and all in only a few thousand words.”
Have a look at these great short stories and if you are an author read on for details of the new Costa Short Story Award, The Scott Prize and the BBC Short story prize that you may want to enter.
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The Scott Prize is an international annual prize for a first collection of short stories in English. The publisher Salt accepts submissions of short story manuscripts from 1st July until 31st October each year. The shortlist will be announced on 1 February the following year, the winner will be announced during April and published six months later.Click here to find out more.
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Now in its eighth year, the BBC National Short Story Award has expanded its remit to become the BBC International Short Story Award 2013. The Award continues to serve as a reminder of the power of the short story and to celebrate a literary form that is proving ever more versatile in the 21st century.
And if you need some inspiration... Kavita Jindal recently won the The Haruki Murakami Short Story Competition [in association with his publisher, Harvill Secker] - where entrants had to write a short story of no more than 1,500 words based on a line Haruki Murakami selected from his novel, 1Q84. Click here to read the whole wonderful short story.
A published poet, Kavita also contributed to the Tindal Press Short story collection Too Asian, Not Asian Enough.
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Nicholas Royle 
