A collection of stories which includes "Home," a wryly whimsical account of a soldier's return from war; "Victory lap," a tale about an inventive abduction attempt; and the title story, in which a suicidal cancer patient saves the life of a young misfit.

A Manual for Cleaning Women compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With her trademark blend of humor and melancholy, Berlin crafts miracles from the everyday--uncovering moments of grace in the cafeterias and Laundromats of the American Southwest, in the homes of the Northern California upper classes, and from the perspective of a cleaning woman alone in a hotel dining room in Mexico City. The women of Berlin's stories...

Stories of your life and others delivers dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar, often presenting characters who must confront sudden change -- the inevitable rise of automations or the appearance of aliens -- while striving to maintain some sense of normalcy.

The three laws of Robotics: 1) A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm 2) A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. 3) A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law. With these three, simple directives, Isaac Asimov changed our perception of robots forever when...

Introduces a gallery of highly unusual characters in these seventeen tales of women who destroy their men and women who destroy themselves.

A canny young woman is struggling to survive by perpetrating various levels of mostly harmless fraud. On a rainy April morning, she is reading auras at Spiritual Palms when Susan Burke walks in. A keen observer of human behavior, our unnamed narrator immediately diagnoses beautiful, rich Susan as an unhappy woman eager to give her lovely life a drama injection. However, when the "psychic" visits the eerie Victorian home that has been the source of...

"For lovers of the supernatural and the macabre comes this collection of ghostly and chilling stories from legendary mystery writer Agatha Christie. Fantastic psychic visions, specters looming in the shadows, encounters with deities, a man who switches bodies with a cat--be sure to keep the light on whilst reading these tales. The Last Séance gathers twenty stories, some featuring Christie's beloved detectives Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, in...

Collects stories written by best-selling thriller authors,11 women and 11 men partnered in male-female literary pairings, in anthology that includes contributions by such favorites as Sandra Brown, John Sandford and Eric Van Lustbader. "In this incredible follow-up to the New York Times and USA TODAY bestseller FaceOff, twenty-two of the world's most popular thriller writers come together for an unforgettable anthology. MatchUp takes the never-before-seen...

Collects four fast-paced suspense novellas, including "The Trial," in which a vicious drug lord unleashes unexpected violence on the lawyers, jurors, and police involved in his case.