Collected in a single volume for the first time—an unforgettable book of short stories from the Booker Prize-winning author of Possession that explores the fragile ties between generations, the dizzying abyss of loss, and the elaborate memories we construct against it. In this book of short fictions, A.S. Byatt compels us to inhabit other lives and returns us to our own with new knowledge, compassion, and a sense of wonder. "Byatt's stories display all her talents as a novelist, but spiced with an additional friskiness." —Evening Standard

Seven superb short stories from the bestselling author of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and The BFG! The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar is coming soon to Netflix! Meet the boy who can talk to animals and the man who can see with his eyes closed. And find out about the treasure buried deep underground. A clever mix of fact and fiction, this collection also includes how master storyteller Roald Dahl became a writer. With Roald Dahl, you can never be sure where reality ends and fantasy begins. "All the tales are entrancing inventions." —Publishers Weekly

From Jewell Parker Rhodes, the author of Towers Falling and Ninth Ward (a Coretta Scott King Honor Book and a Today show Al's Book Club for Kids pick) comes a tale of a strong, spirited young girl who rises beyond her circumstances and inspires others to work toward a brighter future. Ten-year-old Sugar lives on the River Road sugar plantation along the banks of the Mississippi. Slavery is over, but laboring in the fields all day doesn't make her feel very free. Thankfully, Sugar has a knack for finding her own fun, especially when she joins forces with forbidden friend Billy, the white plantation owner's son. Sugar has always yearned to learn more about the world, and she sees her chance when Chinese workers are brought in to help harvest the cane. The older River Road folks feel threatened, but Sugar is fascinated. As she befriends young Beau and elder Master Liu, they introduce her to the traditions of their culture, and she, in turn, shares the ways of plantation life. Sugar soon realizes that she must be the one to bridge the cultural gap and bring the community together. Here is a story of unlikely friendships and how they can change our lives forever.

In the late 1630s, lured by the promise of the New World, Andrea Stuart’s earliest known maternal ancestor, George Ashby, set sail from England to settle in Barbados. He fell into the life of a sugar plantation owner by mere chance, but by the time he harvested his first crop, a revolution was fully under way: the farming of sugar cane, and the swiftly increasing demands for sugar worldwide, would not only lift George Ashby from abject poverty and shape the lives of his descendants, but it would also bind together ambitious white entrepreneurs and enslaved black workers in a strangling embrace. Stuart uses her own family story—from the seventeenth century through the present—as the pivot for this epic tale of migration, settlement, survival, slavery and the making of the Americas. As it grew, the sugar trade enriched Europe as never before, financing the Industrial Revolution and fuelling the Enlightenment. And, as well, it became the basis of many economies in South America, played an important part in the evolution of the United States as a world power and transformed the Caribbean into an archipelago of riches. But this sweet and hugely profitable trade—“white gold,” as it was known—had profoundly less palatable consequences in its precipitation of the enslavement of Africans to work the fields on the islands and, ultimately, throughout the American continents. Interspersing the tectonic shifts of colonial history with her family’s experience, Stuart explores the interconnected themes of settlement, sugar and slavery with extraordinary subtlety and sensitivity. In examining how these forces shaped her own family—its genealogy, intimate relationships, circumstances of birth, varying hues of skin—she illuminates how her family, among millions of others like it, in turn transformed the society in which they lived, and how that interchange continues to this day. Shifting between personal and global history, Stuart gives us a deepened understanding of the connections between continents, between black and white, between men and women, between the free and the enslaved. It is a story brought to life with riveting and unparalleled immediacy, a story of fundamental importance to the making of our world.

The three stories that follow mean to speak to the head and heart. They are the first in a series of stories Mark and Alexandra will produce in the coming years. As you read, keep in mind that the “sugar chair” is not a thing; it is a way. It’s a way of helping ourselves and our children slow this crazy world down, see clearer through our own eyes and the eyes of others, and own and act on our strategies for “sweetening things up.” Each story focuses on a certain audience: Littles (3-8 years old), Middles (8-12 years old), and Olders (12 years old and up). Our thinking is that Olders should read all three, Middles the first two, and Littles the first one. But in the end, you decide what’s right for you and your crew. We hope you enjoy!

Turmeric & Sugar {Stories} is a collection of short fiction telling the stories of real life with a hint of surreal magic. Complex friendships between women are explored across race, age, and class, like that of a nanny and her employer and an unlikely one between an elderly widowed landlady and her young tenant whose husband of a few short years has gone missing. One girl learns what it means to truly inhabit her sister's shoes for a night, and another gets a second chance as a human after her previous life as an elephant. Two teenage outsiders fall in love for the first time and a married couple grapples with unimaginable loss. Daughters of immigrants struggle to navigate painful but fiercely loving relationships with the imperfect fathers who left their homes in another country to make the ultimate sacrifice for their children. The people in these stories are longing to understand each other and themselves-who they are and who they will become. They are visited by the ghosts that haunt them. All of these lives consist of joy and suffering, bitter and sweet, turmeric and sugar-not always in equal measure-but their diversity and similarities illuminate the human condition that unites us all, even as many of the individuals are seemingly driven apart by darkness. Fans of Anna's work in Berkeley Fiction Review, Wigleaf, and Catapult will love these stories. This recipe is one that's been simmering for a while.

The inspiration for the acclaimed OWN TV series produced by Oprah Winfrey and Ava DuVernay "Queen Sugar is a page-turning, heart-breaking novel of the new south, where the past is never truly past, but the future is a hot, bright promise. This is a story of family and the healing power of our connections—to each other, and to the rich land beneath our feet." —Tayari Jones, author of An American Marriage Readers, booksellers, and critics alike are embracing Queen Sugar and cheering for its heroine, Charley Bordelon, an African American woman and single mother struggling to build a new life amid the complexities of the contemporary South. When Charley unexpectedly inherits eight hundred acres of sugarcane land, she and her eleven-year-old daughter say goodbye to smoggy Los Angeles and head to Louisiana. She soon learns, however, that cane farming is always going to be a white man’s business. As the sweltering summer unfolds, Charley struggles to balance the overwhelming challenges of a farm in decline with the demands of family and the startling desires of her own heart.