A master literary stylist, John Crowley has carried readers to diverse and remarkable places in his award-winning, critically acclaimed novels -- from his classic fable, Little, Big, to his New York Times Notable Book, The Translator. Now, for the first time, all of his short fiction has been collected in one volume, demonstrating the scope, the vision, and the wonder of one of America's greatest storytellers. Courage and achievement are celebrated and questioned, paradoxes examined, and human frailty appreciated in fifteen tales, at once lyrical and provocative, ranging fromthe fantastic to the achingly real. Be it a tale of an expulsion from Eden, a journey through time, the dreams of a failed writer, ora dead woman's ambiguous legacy, each story in Novelties & Souvenirs is a glorious reading experience, offering delights to be savored ... and remembered.

For fans of

Prep

,

Dead Poets Society

, and

Special Topics in Calamity Physics

comes an elegant and remarkably insightful coming-of-age debut, in which a young woman’s serendipitous discovery of her college’s underground Shakespeare Society leads to an unforgettable series of transformations. When Naomi finds herself among “the Shakes” at Wellesley, she finally lets herself embrace the passionate inner self she’s always kept locked away. But when a sudden scandal unfolds, she will be forced to learn the limits of the relationships that have sustained her. An intimate and enthralling narrative, Elizabeth Percer’s debut novel

An Uncommon Education

marks the emergence of a stunning new literary talent.

Nine “darkly funny, profoundly compassionate” short stories exploring the nature of loneliness and human interaction in contemporary society (

More

).

“The stories in Daniel Orozco’s debut collection convey a sense of workplace alienation that would make Karl Marx cringe. . . . A treat.” —

The New York Times Book Review

A

Kirkus Reviews

Best of 2011 Short Story Collections title

Breakfast’s boiled egg, the overhead hum of fluorescent lights, the midmorning coffee break—daily routines keep the world running. But when people are pushed—by a coworker’s taunt, a face-to-face encounter with a woman in free fall form a bridge—cracks appear, revealing alienation, casual cruelty, madness, and above all a simultaneous hunger for and fear of the unknown. Daniel Orozco’s

Orientation

introduces a writer at the height of his powers, whose work invites us to reassess the landscape of American fiction.

“

Orientation

remains a tour de force. . . . There isn’t a lemon or an extraneous word in Orozco’s nine stories, which boast not just cleverness but complexity, subtlety and range.” —

San Francisco Chronicle

“A gem and a killer. . . . Orozco manages to convey [Henry] James’s psychological acuity with one-tenth of his clauses, mingling it with Steven Milhauser’s sense of lunatic joy.” —

The Boston Phoenix

“The moment you begin this comparable debut, you’ll discover why Daniel Orozco’s fans have been shouting his praises for years. . . . This may be Orozco’s first collection, but he’s nothing short of a master.” —Julie Orringer, author of

The Invisible Bridge

and

How to Breathe Underwater

*** Winner of the 2012 eFestival of Words award for best literary fiction! ***

Village Books is a local institution…which is good, because most of the staff probably belong in one.

The manager’s addiction to WebMD has turned him into a closeted hypochondriac. The cashier’s husband may have just gone AWOL with a small arsenal of fragmentary explosive devices. The fiction lead is buying urine on the black market. Trying to hold it all together is the store’s long-suffering assistant manager, who is spinning his wheels in retail while he waits for something better to come along.

That something better may be Leah Dashwood, an aspiring actress and new assistant manager with an ambitious plan to transform the store and its staff in a way that will turn their carefully disordered world on its head. Will the store survive or will it be bought over by its evil corporate competition?