These fourteen stories by the acclaimed master of Jewish-Russian fiction are set in the former USSR, Western Europe, and America. Dinner with Stalin features Soviet Jews grappling with issues of identity, acculturation, and assimilation. Shrayer-Petrov explores aspects of antisemitism and persecution, problems of mixed marriages, dilemmas of conversion, and the survival of Jewish memory. Both an author and a physician, Shrayer-Petrov examines his subjects through the double lenses of medicine and literature. He writes about Russian Jews who, having suffered in the former Soviet Union, continue to cultivate their sense of cultural Russianness, even as they—and especially their children—assimilate and increasingly resemble American Jews. Shrayer-Petrov’s stories also bear witness to the ways Jewish immigrants from the former USSR interact with Americans of other identities and creeds, notably with Catholics and Moslems. Not only lovers of Jewish and Russian writing but all discriminating readers will delight in Dinner with Stalin and Other Stories.

Combining traditional elements with the fantastic and the surreal, Ivanov's stories address not only the themes of the Russian revolution but also the quiet world of man and nature, and the elemental bond that tied peasants to their native land.

This book contains70 short storiesfrom 10 classic, prize-winning and noteworthy authors. The stories were carefully selected by the criticAugust Nemo, in a collection that will please theliterature lovers. For more exciting titles, be sure to check out our 7 Best Short Stories and Essential Novelists collections. This book contains: Fitz-James O'Brien: - The Diamond Lens. - The Lost Room. - What Was it? A Mystery. - My Wife's Tempter. - The Golden Ingot. - The Child Who Loved a Grave. - The Wondersmith.Francis Marion Crawford: - The Dead Smile. - The Screaming Skull. - Man Overboard! - For The Blood Is The Life. - The Upper Berth. - By The Waters of Paradise. - The Doll's Ghost.Francis Stevens: - Behind the Curtain. - Unseen Unfeared. - Elf Trap. - Serapion. - Friend Island. - Citadel of Fear. - Nightmare!Barry Pain: - Aunt Martha. - The Bet. - The Boy in the Book. - The Discovery of Nesting. - Eliza and the Special. - The Kindness of the Celestial. - The Victim of Apparatus.Frank L. Packard: - Corporal Bob. - The Guardian of the Devil's Slide. - Where's Haggerty? - McQueen's Hobby. - Munford. - "If a Man Die" - The Blood of Kings.Paul Laurence Dunbar: - The Scapegoat. - One Christmas At Shiloh. - The Mission Of Mr. Scatters. - A Matter Of Doctrine. - Old Abe's Conversion. - The Race Question. - A Defender Of The Faith.Otis Adelbert Kline: - The Corpse on the Third Slab. - The Man from the Moon. - The Cup of Blood. - Mignight Madness. - The Malignant Entity. - The Bird-People. - The Thing of a Thousand Shapes.John Ulrich Giesy: - The Occult Detector. - The Purple Light. - The Significance of the High "D". - The Wistaria Scarf. - The Master Mind. - Rubies of Doom. - The House of Invisible Bondage.Valery Bryusov: - The Republic of the Southern Cross. - The Marble Bust. - For Herself or for Another. - In the Mirror. - Protection. - The "Bemol" Shop of Stationery. - Rhea Silvia.Eleanor H. Porter: - A Delayed Heritage. - The Folly of Wisdom. - The Letter. - The Elephant's Board and Keep. - Crumbs. - The Lady in Black. - That Angel Boy.

Throughout his life Isaac Babel was torn by opposing forces, by the desire both to remain faithful to his Jewish roots and yet to be free of them. This duality of vision infuses his work with a powerful energy from the earliest tales including 'Old Shloyme' and 'Childhood', which affirm his Russian-Jewish childhood, to the relatively non-Jewish world of his collection of stories entitled 'Red Cavalry'. Babel's masterpiece, 'Red Cavalry' is the most dramatic expression of his dualism and in his simultaneous acceptance and rejection of his heritage heralds the great American-Jewish writers from Henry Roth to Saul Bellow and Philip Roth.

Gertrude Barrows Bennett, known by the pseudonym Francis Stevens, was a pioneering author of fantasy and science fiction. Bennett wrote a number of fantasies and has been called "the woman who invented dark fantasy". ] The critic August Nemo selected seven short stories by this remarkable author for your enjoyment: - Behind the Curtain. - Unseen Unfeared. - Elf Trap. - Serapion. - Friend Island. - Citadel of Fear. - Nightmare!