Includes the stories “The Body” and “Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption”—set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine A “hypnotic” (The New York Times Book Review) collection of four novellas—including the inspirations behind the films Stand By Me and The Shawshank Redemption—from Stephen King, bound together by the changing of seasons, each taking on the theme of a journey with strikingly different tones and characters. This gripping collection begins with “Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption,” in which an unjustly imprisoned convict seeks a strange and startling revenge—the basis for the Best Picture Academy Award-nominee The Shawshank Redemption. Next is “Apt Pupil,” the inspiration for the film of the same name about top high school student Todd Bowden and his obsession with the dark and deadly past of an older man in town. In “The Body,” four rambunctious young boys plunge through the façade of a small town and come face-to-face with life, death, and intimations of their own mortality. This novella became the movie Stand By Me. Finally, a disgraced woman is determined to triumph over death in “The Breathing Method.” “The wondrous readability of his work, as well as the instant sense of communication with his characters, are what make Stephen King the consummate storyteller that he is,” hailed the Houston Chronicle about Different Seasons.

Yan Lianke's most powerful novel yet. Reminiscent of A Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich and Darkness at Noon, Yan's mythical tale portrays the grotesque persecution during the Great Leap Forward. In the ninety-ninth district of a labour camp, the Author, Musician, Scholar, Theologian and Technician undergo re-education, to restore their revolutionary zeal. In charge of this process is the Child, who delights in enforcing draconian rules. The Four Books tells the story of one of China's most controversial periods. It also reveals the power of camaraderie, love and faith against oppression in the darkest possible times. Yan Lianke was born in 1958 in Henan Province, China. Text has published his novels Serve the People!, Lenin’s Kisses and Dream of Ding Village, which was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. Yan Lianke won the Hua Zhong World Chinese Literature Prize in 2013. He has also won two of China's most prestigious literary awards: the Lu Xan Prize and the Lao She Award. In 2014, he won the Franz Kafka Prize. He lives in Bejing. 'Author Yan's deft satire, comic touches and his endless compassion bring smiles and tears through a journey that swings effortlessly back and forward between the absurd, the real and moments of magic. It is an epic tale of how grand, event if well-meant, plans can be tarnished by greed and unhappiness. It cautions against being consumed by power. Here is a splendid storyteller in the tradition of Jonathan Swift. Yan's writing is masterful, his imagination and his satire soars above the common.' Courier Mail 'Yan's postmodern cartoon of the Communist dream caving to run-amok capitalism is fiendishly clever, in parodying the conventions of fables and historical scholarship. The ghost of another famous dead Russian, Nikolai Gogol, hovers over the proceedings in spirit, if not in economy of means.' New York Times 'Yan at the peak of his absurdist powers. He writes in the spirit of the dissident writer Vladimir Voinovich, who observed that “reality and satire are the same".' New Yorker 'Whimsical and horrifying by turns...a no-holds-barred satirical allegory of recent Chinese history.' Listener, NZ ‘Yan Lianke weaves a passionate satire of today’s China, a marvellous circus where the one-eyed-man is king...Brutal. And wickedly funny.' L'Express ‘Set Rabelais down in the mountains of, say, Xinjiang, mix in some Günter Grass, Thomas Pynchon and Gabriel García Márquez, and you’re in the approximate territory of Lianke’s latest exercise in épatering the powers that be...A satirical masterpiece.’ Kirkus ‘Both a blistering satire and a bruising saga, this epic novel examines the grinding forces of communism and capitalism, and the volatile zone where the two intersect...A heartbreaking story of greed, corruption, and the dangers of utopia.’ Publishers Weekly ‘This epic tragicomedy deftly satirises the exploitation of the Chinese people by greedy, power-hungry and inept officials. Yan Lianke showcases many talents of his own, including brilliant absurdist humour and self-censorship.’ North and South, NZ ‘For once, the hype doesn’t go far enough...a devastating, brilliant slice of history.’ Times ‘Woven together, these “texts” reflect the catastrophe of the times and meditate on the meaning of integrity, truth, love and ethics when confronted with horror...[Lianke] has produced an extraordinary novel.’ Guardian ‘A compelling account of the absurdities of the tragedy that killed an estimated 30 million people.’ North and South

“Tidhar changes genres with every outing, but his astounding talents guarantee something new and compelling no matter the story he tells.” – Library Journal A nun enters a poker tournament as she wrestles with her faith in God; a boy travels across a mysterious, cloud-covered planet in search of a mythical space port; in Nazi-occupied London a screenwriter searches for an old flame with deadly consequences; three wise men from the East travel to Judea to give a newborn baby an unexpected power. Collected for the first time in one volume, this omnibus edition from World Fantasy Award winner Lavie Tidhar gathers four mind-bending novellas: The Big Blind, Cloud Permutations, The Vanishing Kind, and Jesus and the Eightfold Path. “Lavie Tidhar is one of the great writers of my generation.” – Silvia Moreno-Garcia, author of Mexican Gothic

A shy, pious woman finds inspiration at a religious singing convention in the mountains. A teenage girl, sent to live with her grandparents following the death of her mother, expects to be lonely, bored and sad, but instead makes a host of friends through many adventures. Young western couple who are held hostage—he by the barren hills in which he is forced to live, and she by kidnappers—find love which rescues them both. A man's self-imposed isolation, plus being a victim of his own hatred, result in tragedy at the massive window rock.

A collection of four novellas: each taking place in 1998, each set in the world of Six Four, and each centring around a mystery and the unfortunate officer tasked with solving it. SEASON OF SHADOWS "The force could lose face . . . I want you to fix this." Personnel's Futawatari receives a horrifying memo forcing him to investigate the behaviour of a legendary detective with unfinished business. CRY OF THE EARTH "It's too easy to kill a man with a rumour." Shinto of Internal Affairs receives an anonymous tipoff alleging a Station Chief is visiting the red-light district - a warning he soon learns is a red herring. BLACK LINES "It was supposed to be her special day." Section Chief Nanao, responsible for the force's 49 female officers, is alarmed to learn her star pupil has not reported for duty, and is believed to be missing. BRIEFCASE "We need to know what he's going to ask." On the eve of a routine debate, Political Liaison Tsuge learns a wronged politician is preparing his revenge. He must now quickly dig up dirt to silence him. Prefecture D continues Hideo Yokoyama's exploration of the themes of obsession, saving face, office politics and inter-departmental conflicts. Placing everyday characters between a rock and a hard place and then dialling up the pressure, he blends and balances the very Japanese with the very accessible, to spectacular effect.

Four thematically linked novellas that focus on obsessive relationships, stolen identities, and illusions of grandeur in the post-1989 Carpathian-Balkan region: ● An American expat in Europe appropriates the identity of a Romanian orphan in her desperate search for love. ● A dictator's daughter learns, while on a study trip to France, that her parents have been overthrown and are about to be executed. ● A minor character from a novel confronts her own insignificance. A wife announces to her husband of forty years that she's just been awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.

A luminous quartet, five years in the writing, reveals even more fully the breathtaking range of "a storyteller in the grand tradition" (New York Times). Allan Gurganus's voice--by turn bawdy and serene, folkloric and profane--deepens as it soars into this quiet masterwork. Four new fables--rich in event, comedy, experience--surge with the force of history's headlines versus sidestreet human fortitude. Improbable heroes and heroines spiral outward from Gurganus's familiar Carolina terrain. Each fires into a wild and differing direction, all in quest of some fantasy that's practically impossible: --An impoverished immigrant has her portrait painted (or not) by John Singer Sargent. --A young man's devotion to saving eighteenth-century homes—and their odd lingering ghosts—helps him find unlikely ways to renovate his own mortality. --A pillar of the community becomes, over the course of one cartoon matinee, its pariah. --A beloved, transfixingly homely father shows his village and his only son a decency stronger than race, humiliation, or even death itself. These characters' quixotic missions prove mysterious, often even to themselves. Their legacies are not easily deciphered. And yet, their most impractical wishes soon become the heartiest facts about each. They manage to wrest battle-courage from everyday indecision. Out of superstition and convention, they lift certainty. They each find a wealth of consoling truths banked--immortal--in the all-too-human heart. Allan Gurganus's great powers--announced more than a decade ago by Oldest Living Confederate Widow Tells All--here achieve a yearning exuberance worthy of a new Whitman. These leaps of sexual longing, empathy, and faith become a major new gift from this essential fablemaker.