Series: Brief Encounters

Experience a brief encounter with Fyodor Dostoevsky, titan of Russian literature, in these two searing novellas of love, despair, and the weight of the human soul. Two of Dostoevsky's most powerful novellas of obsession, cruelty, and the fragility of the heart. A pawnbroker paces beside his young wife's body, attempting to piece together the circumstances that led to her suicide....

Enjoy a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Natsume Soseki, Japan's greatest modern novelist, in this sly, comic tale of cats, humans, and the absurdities of friendship. From Japan's most famous, classic novelist comes a remarkable gem of wit, irony, and feline observation. A stray kitten, catapulted to literary fame, loudly observes the world of Meiji Japan in all its absurdity. But he's...

Experience a brief encounter with Halldór Laxness, the Nobel Prize-winning Icelandic author, in this rich, rustic and charming novel. An intimate, magical novel about one enduring church in a rural Icelandic valley—an ode to a quiet way of life now lost to time forever. The resting place of the legendary Viking warrior Egil Skallagrimsson's skull, Mosfell Church is a lonely,...

Relish a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Aldous Huxley, the visionary author, in his dystopian satire. Huxley's dystopian classic is a nightmare vision of the fate of humanity in a post-nuclear world. After a devastating global catastrophe, a group of scientists arrives in a ruined future shaped by fear, ritual, and violence. Humanity has survived—but at a terrible cost, and not in...

Embark on a brief encounter with Angela Carter, weird fiction's most influential pioneer, and her transformative stories of finding oneself in the face of another world. Five stories of desire and discovery set in 1970s Japan, from weird fiction's most influential pioneer - Angela Carter. An Englishwoman muses on her affair with a younger Japanese man. A spurned lover seeks...

Enjoy a brief encounter with Herman Melville, the great, epic storyteller of Modern America, and his enduring tale of a man who takes refusing to conform to its extreme limits. Herman Melville's enduringly comic and affecting tale of a man who takes quiet quitting to its extreme. A new clerk in a Wall Street lawyer's office causes dismay and confusion...

Experience a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Louisa May Alcott, beloved chronicler of girlhood, in this surprisingly dark, subversive novella of deception and desire. This is Alcott as you have never seen her before – gothic, and gloriously unsettling. A young governess arrives at a grand country house and quickly wins the confidence of its family. Humble and modest, Jean Muir seems...

Experience a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Edith Wharton, grande dame of American letters, in these spectral tales of longing, loss, and the uncanny. Edith Wharton's ghost stories whisper of passion, exile, and the things we cannot forget. In an old Dorset house, a couple settle into a life of quiet comfort — until a presence makes itself felt. At a country...

Experience a brief encounter with José Saramago, the Nobel Prize-winning author, in his provocative and philosophical retelling of the biblical story of Cain. Written in the last years of Saramago's life, Cain is a controversial and witty story of a wilful, authoritarian God. After killing his brother, Cain is condemned to wander the earth. As he moves through time, he...

A trail-blazing, transportive novella that contains all the energy, history and charm of one man's lifetime, this is Bohumil Hrabal's most unique masterpiece. This ebullient, gallivanting novella encapsulates the world vision of the Czech Republic's best-loved author in one tumbling, breathtaking sentence. An ageing man holds court, spinning a single, unbroken stream of stories about his life—loves won and lost,...

Enjoy a brief encounter with Roberto Bolaño, the 21st century's first, great classic author, and his novella Distant Star—a dark, haunting, yet delightfully magical story of two poets outplaying one another in a sinister endgame of cat-and-mouse. A dazzling, daring tale of poets at the end of the world, Distant Star is Roberto Bolaño's miniature dystopian masterpiece. Alberto Ruiz-Tagle was...

Relish a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Richard Wright, trailblazing voice of African American literature, in this devastating story of survival, love and betrayal during a Southern flood. A flood brings not only rising waters but the full force of a brutal, racist world. With the Mississippi flooding, a Black farmer struggles to get his pregnant wife to safety. In the chaos,...

Relish a brief encounter with Bram Stoker, master of Gothic horror, in this chilling tale and other stories that serve as a doorway into the dark world of Dracula. Step into the night where tombs lie open and wolves prowl under a cursed moon. A solitary traveller strays from the road on the eve of Walpurgis Night. Snow closes in,...

Relish a brief encounter with Ngugi wa Thiong'o, Africa's foremost voice of resistance, in this fierce collection of stories about defiance, sacrifice, and survival. Ngugi wa Thiong'o's stories of rebellion and sacrifice, where ordinary lives burn with extraordinary courage. In these tales of rebellion and sacrifice, ordinary lives burn with extraordinary courage. From fighters taking up arms against colonial rule...

Embark on a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Anita Desai, a master observer of human connection, in this poignant novella about family, female oppression, and unexpected freedoms. Vivid and alive, this powerful novella about one woman's belated rebellion against the powers that be is Anita Desai at her finest. Nanda Kaul retreats to a quiet house in the hills, determined to live...

Embark on a haunting Brief Encounter with Toni Cade Bambara, one of America's finest activist authors, in this heartbreaking elegy that 'puts the reader at the heart of the horror that came to be called the Atlanta child murders' Toni Morrison. At once a gripping thriller and a heartbreaking elegy, this is Toni Cade Bambara's powerful final testament, a hymn...

Relish a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Richard Brautigan, the whimsical poet of the counterculture, in his surreal and enchanting novel, In Watermelon Sugar. A psychedelic post-apocalyptic vision of a world on the brink of civil war... In iDEATH, the sun shines a different colour every day. It is a happy place, made of watermelon, and its inhabitants travel the length of...

Relish a brief encounter with Virginia Woolf, modernist pioneer, in this radiant prose-poem of gardens, voices, and shifting perspectives. In a single afternoon's walk, Virginia Woolf captures the infinite life of a garden... A couple pause among the flowerbeds, their thoughts drifting apart. A woman's mind fixes on a small, troubling mark on the wall. A chance meeting becomes an...

Experience a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Jane Austen, the most elegant satirist of manners, in her wickedly sharp novella of seduction, wit, and deceit. Outrageous, and wickedly funny, Lady Susan introduces Jane Austen at her most scandalous. Recently widowed and dangerously charming, Lady Susan Vernon arrives among her relatives determined to secure her own advantage. Through a flurry of letters, alliances...

Experience a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Vera Caspary, queen of mid-century noir, in this haunting psychological thriller of love, obsession, and betrayal. When the woman you love may be dead, or worse - unknowable - obsession takes over. A young woman is found dead in her Manhattan apartment. In the aftermath, the men who knew her begin to tell their stories:...

Experience a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Fumiko Enchi, a leading female voice in Japanese literature, and her unforgettable exploration of identity and tradition. Masks is Enchi's elegant, seductive story of sexual deception, revenge, and the haunting legacy of the past. Ibuki loves widow Yasuko, who is young, charming, and sparkling with intelligence. His friend, Mikame, desires her too, but that is...

Experience a brief encounter with Kurt Vonnegut, the satirical genius, in his thought-provoking dystopian tales that challenge the status quo. Four of Kurt Vonnegut's best dystopian stories, Monkey Business distils his darkly comic vision of the modern world and the cost of trying to engineer a better life. In a future where everyone is forced to be equal, a gifted...

Relish a brief encounter with Franz Kafka, the great chronicler of anxiety and estrangement, in this collection of uncanny animal tales led by his masterpiece, Josephine the Singer, or The Mouse Folk. Five of Franz Kafka's most compelling short animal stories, where fable, dark humour and unease collide. A community gathers to listen to the singing of a mouse. An...

Embark on a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Ursula K. Le Guin and her novella Paradises Lost – the epic tale of a young friendship forged in space, about to take a new and unexpected course. Ursula K. Le Guin's beautifully realised space epic of two young friends finding their lives steer a new and unexpected course. As the spaceship Discovery makes...

Experience a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Nella Larsen and her devastating masterpiece of two women navigating a friendship in a racially divided world. The classic 1920s story of a friendship torn apart, Passing is Nella Larsen's devastating masterpiece. Irene Redfield is living a life of careful balance in Harlem when a chance encounter draws her back into the orbit of Clare...

Slip into a brief encounter with Haruki Murakami, Japan's most celebrated contemporary storyteller, and his nostalgic, jazz-soaked love letter to a youth spent in pursuit of simple pleasures. A nostalgic, jazz-soaked love letter to a youth spent in pursuit of simple pleasures, from Japan's most celebrated contemporary storyteller, Haruki Murakami. Haunted by memories of a doomed love affair, and living...

Experience a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Dylan Thomas, the Welsh poet of fire and music, in these lyrical, bittersweet stories of youth and memory. Dylan Thomas's vivid, affectionate portrait of youth - and the journey towards finding one's own artistic voice. A boy grows up in a small Welsh town, moving through school, family life, and first encounters with the wider...

Experience a brief encounter with Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison in this masterful novella about race, ambiguity, and the unexpected connections that shape our lives. A stunning, timeless story about race, friendship, what keeps us apart and what drives us apart, from the one and only Toni Morrison, with an introduction by Zadie Smith. Twyla and Roberta met in a...

Relish a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Christopher Isherwood, the master chronicler of 1930s Berlin, with this dazzling tale of glamour and decadence, poverty and ambition. Sally Bowles is the dazzling centrepiece of Goodbye to Berlin, distilling Isherwood's genius into the tale of one bawdy, brilliant woman. 1930s Berlin is a realm of glamour and sleaze, repression and excess, threatened by a...

Venture on a brief encounter with Margaret Atwood, one of the most iconic writers of our time, in these stories of mothers, evoking laughter, compassion and recognition in us all. This miniature array of perfect stories by the legendary Margaret Atwood flashes before us the joys and despairs of mothers good and bad, evoking laughter, compassion and recognition in us...

Relish a Brief Encounter with Ingmar Bergman, cinematic visionary, in this tender autobiographical novel of childhood and awakening. One of cinema's great masters revisits his childhood—and the end of his parents' marriage—in a novella of awakening. Over the course of one summer, eight-year-old Pu Bergman realises that his parents are no longer in love. Surrounded by the quiet idyll of...

Enjoy a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Gertrude Stein, Modernism's great pioneer, and her charmingly mundane, magical collection of everyday, yet otherworldly observations in Tender Buttons. A magical portrait of the mundane and everyday, made otherworldly in Gertrude Stein's one-of-a-kind prose poetry. Objects. Food. And, Rooms. Together these three subjects make up Tender Buttons, Gertrude Stein's beautifully strange, everyday poetic observations about...

Experience a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Jorge Luis Borges, master of metaphysical invention, in this playful bestiary of creatures real and unreal. A dazzling catalogue of beings drawn from the dreamworlds of myth, folklore, and imagination. From ancient myths to obscure legends, a strange menagerie takes shape: creatures part real, part invented, drawn from cultures across the world. Each is described...

Relish a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with one of the 'Queens of Crime', Margery Allingham, and her fiendishly brilliant, brutal, but deeply entertaining novella of Middle England, in the midst of a murder spree. A fiendishly brutal but brilliant, charming English murder mystery, from Agatha Christie's favourite writer - the criminally underrated, Margery Allingham. Private detective Albert Campion is summoned to the...

Experience a BRIEF ENCOUNTER like no other, with Italo Calvino, the master of post-war experimental fiction, and his mind-bendingly brilliant novella about a travelling band of Tarot readers. A magical, mystical novella about the art and power of storytelling, this is Italo Calvino's miniature masterpiece. A group of travellers chance to meet, first in a castle, then in a tavern....

Enjoy a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Colette, France's most daring chronicler of desire, in this sparkling story of love, society, and awakening. A Parisian comedy of manners where wit meets rebellion. Raised by her family to become a courtesan, young Gigi scandalises everyone by refusing the path laid out for her. Instead, she dares to seek love on her own terms....

Relish a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with F. Scott Fitzgerald, and his iconic, fairy-talesque story of a man aging backwards, from old age to birth. The classic, moving tale of a man born old, destined to die young, and live at odds with his time. To the confusion and embarrassment of his family, Benjamin Button is born an old man. As the...

Experience a brief encounter with James Joyce, the giant of modernism, in his haunting masterpiece of love, memory, and mortality. At a Christmas party, a revelation shatters a man's complacency forever. At a winter gathering in Dublin, friends and family come together for an evening of music, conversation and ritual. As the night unfolds, small tensions surface, and a chance...

Relish a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with H. P. Lovecraft, architect of cosmic terror, in this chilling tale of eldritch monstrosities and unspeakable evil in rural New England. In the decaying hills of Dunwich, something monstrous stirs. Wilbur Whateley is a strange child—of uncertain parentage, growing to abnormal size at abnormal speed. Shunned by the villagers of Dunwich, Wilbur and his grandfather...

Experience a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Mikhail Bulgakov, the Soviet satirist supreme, in this razor-sharp tale of science, folly, and catastrophe. What begins as a miracle of science soon turns into a nightmare... After a plague wipes out all of Russia's chickens, eyes fall on zoologist Periskov and his strange discovery that promises to revive their population. But quickly, the state's...

Relish a brief encounter with Mary Shelley, the grand dame of the Gothic imagination, in this incredible trio of supernatural tales of longing and loss. Three supernatural tales of longing and loss from the grand dame of Gothic fiction, Mary Shelley. When a storm drives their boat towards the rocks, a group of sailors is saved by the light of...

Enjoy a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Charles Dickens and Wilkie Collins, titans of Victorian fiction, in this witty, semi-autobiographical tale of travel and adventure. Two literary giants take to the road on a comic journey – both chaotic, and completely unforgettable. Tired of the grind of work, two apprentices set out on a walking tour with no fixed plan, determined to...

Experience a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Nobel Prize-Winner Yasunari Kawabata, and his remarkable fictional account of a world about to be cleft in two as two men battle to become the master of the strategy game, Go. Luminous, suspenseful and serene, The Master of Go is a compelling portrait, quietly devastating, of two men - and a whole society - facing...

Experience a brief encounter with Ernest Hemingway, Nobel Prize-winner and master of stripped-back prose, in this profound tale of endurance, dignity, and the eternal struggle between man and nature. Hemingway's enduring story of resilience and solitude: One of the most powerful tales of courage and endurance ever written. An ageing fisherman sets out alone into the Gulf Stream, determined to...

Enjoy a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Arthur Conan Doyle, creator of Sherlock Holmes, in this eerie tale of mesmerism, obsession, and unseen control. Arthur Conan Doyle's tense, unsettlingly supernatural tale of obsession and control. After Austin Gilroy's fiancée is hypnotised, he finds himself drawn into the orbit of the woman responsible—Miss Penclosa. Soon, disturbances begin to unsettle him: actions he cannot...

Experience a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Yi Mun-yol, one of Korea's greatest modern writers, in this haunting portrait of a wandering poet torn between art, poverty, and destiny. The life of a poet becomes a parable of hope in Yi Mun-yol's searching novella of art, status, and selfhood. With their family condemned as traitors, two young brothers are sent away in...

Arrange a brief encounter with one of the original, and best, thriller writers, Graham Greene, and his iconic tale of espionage and betrayal - The Third Man. Graham Greene's iconic thriller is a shocking tale of espionage and deceit, told from amongst the smouldering ruins of war-torn Europe. Rollo Martins, a second-rate novelist, arrives penniless in post-war Vienna to visit...

Things: A Story of the Sixties by Georges Perec offers a cool, exacting portrait of a couple torn apart by consumer desire. A young couple build their lives around the objects they long to own. From furniture to clothes to carefully imagined interiors, their desires shape their sense of who they are - and who they might become. Yet satisfaction...

Embark on a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with J.G. Ballard, sci-fi's psychedelic pioneer, and this short collection of his most mesmerising and mind-blowing stories from his invented desert dystopia: Vermillion Sands. Welcome to Vermilion Sands, the fully automated desert-resort ready to fulfil your most exotic whims. Out over the towering Coral D, sky artists paint the sky with clouds. A musical statue...

Embark on a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Jacqueline Harpman, author of I Who Have Never Known Men, with this startling new collection of three never-before-translated stories, about orders given and defied. A startling new collection of three never-before-translated stories, from the author of I Who Have Never Known Men. In the wake of some unfathomable war, a woman wanders the forest,...

Immerse yourself in a brief encounter with Simone de Beauvoir, the pioneering feminist and existentialist thinker, in this pair of stories about two very different sisters and one disappointing man. Two sisters must find their way in a world designed to confine them. Marcelle is the elder sister, a woman whose ambitions focus on becoming the companion of a 'man...

Experience a BRIEF ENCOUNTER with Eileen Chang, 'a giant of modern Chinese literature' The New York Times, in this breathtaking, newly translated collection of her most masterful stories on love, regret and nostalgia. From one of the great Chinese authors of the twentieth century, these newly translated stories illuminate the most intimate matters of the human heart. Since childhood, Ruliang...