Brief Encounters – serie

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. Having mysteriously lost their powers of speech, they must tell their tales using only a deck of tarot cards. As their stories interlink and overlap, a fantastic, surreal and chaotic history of the human quest for meaning unfolds.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

Three supernatural tales of longing and loss from the grand-dame of Gothic fiction, Mary Shelly When a storm drives their boat towards the rocks, a group of sailors is saved by the light of a ruined tower. The locals speak of the Invisible Girl who haunts it – a lost, wandering soul. But the truth is more disturbing, and far more human, than any ghost story.Includes the stories: The Invisible Girl, The Mortal Immortal and The MournerBRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

A nostalgic, jazz-soaked love-letter to a youth spent in pursuit of simple pleasures, from the Japan's most celebrated contemporary storyteller, Haruki MurakamiHaunted by memories of a doomed love affair, and living in something of a strange hiatus in Tokyo, Pinball, 1973's narrator finds himself dreaming of the days he used to wile away playing pinball in J's Bar. Until one day he embarks on a quest: to find the exact model of pinball machine he played years earlier - the infamous three-flipper Spaceship.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

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 Kendry, a childhood friend. Passing as white, Clare moves effortlessly through a world that Irene has chosen to reject. Their renewed intimacy is charged with fascination and envy.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

Outrageous, and wickedly funny, Lady Susan introduces Jane Austen at her most scandalousRecently widowed and dangerously charming, Lady Susan Vernon arrives among her relatives determined to secure her own advantage. Through a flurry of letters, alliances shift, affections are tested, and reputations quietly unravel. Lady Susan is Jane Austen’s sharp, mischievous portrait of a woman who refuses to behave. Bold, manipulative and irresistibly alive, it reveals Austen at her most daring – and her most amused.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

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 set out on tending to their own plan. But the otherworldly can’t be kept tame forever. The Dunwich Horror is H. P. Lovecraft’s terrifying tale of strange beings, forbidden knowledge and the power of unseen forces – and what follows when the wrong things are allowed to take root.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

This is Alcott as you have never seen her before - gothic, and gloriously unsettlingA young governess arrives at a grand country house and quickly wins the confidence of its family. Humble and modest, Jean Muir seems to embody every virtue expected of her. But beneath her meticulous performance lies a will sharpened by resentment, ambition and rage.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

Two literary giants take to the road on a comic journey - both chaotic, and completely unforgettableTired of the grind of work, two apprentices set out on a walking tour with no fixed plan, determined to do as little as possible. As they drift from town to town, they encounter curious characters, regale strange stories and witness moments of quiet absurdity that disrupt their idleness.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

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, Gerturde Stein's beautifully strange, everyday poetic observations about the world and home around her.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

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 imagined life, rich with longing and regret. In six luminous, experimental stories, Virginia Woolf remakes the short story as a space of transcendence. Moving fluidly between inner lives and outward scenes, Kew Gardens captures moments of consciousness as they shimmer, fracture and pass, revealing the beauty and strangeness of everyday existence.Includes the stories: Kew Gardens, The Mark on the Wall, An Unwritten Novel, Monday or Tuesday, The String Quartet and Blue & GreenBRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

Step into the night where tombs lie open and wolves prowl under a cursed moonA solitary traveller strays from the road on the eve of Walpurgis Night. Snow closes in, strange figures emerge, and an abandoned tomb offers shelter. But what begins as a detour becomes a brush with something far older and more deadly. Dracula’s Guest gathers Bram Stoker’s eerie short fiction, steeped in dread and foreboding – four tales that explore the thin line between the rational world and the shadows that constantly close in on it.Include the stories: Dracula’s Guest, The Judge’s House, The Squaw, The Burial of the Rats BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

Herman Melville's enduringly comic and affecting tale of a man who takes quiet quitting to its extremeA new clerk in a Wall Street lawyer’s office causes dismay and confusion when, after a productive start, he suddenly refuses to do his job. But how to deal with Bartleby, the Scrivener, when he refuses to leave the office altogether?BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

Two of Dostoevsky's most powerful novellas of obsession, cruelty, and the fragility of the heartA pawnbroker paces beside his young wife’s body, attempting to piece together the circumstances that led to her suicide. A young man is overwhelmed by his own contentment and sows his ruin in a fierce attempt to protect it.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

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 years pass, he grows younger – moving against the current of ordinary life. While those around him age as expected, Benjamin finds himself increasingly out of step, his relationships strained by a life no one else can share. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is F. Scott Fitzgerald’s quietly unsettling tale of being a misfit to one’s time.Includes the stories: The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Winter Dreams and 'The Sensible Thing'BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

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 attempt to control nature spirals rapidly out of control, and soon all of Moscow is under siege by creatures they hadn’t bargained for. The Fatal Eggs is Mikhail Bulgakov’s savage, darkly comic tale of progress gone wrong. Blending satire with science fiction, it captures the dangers of unchecked power – and the absurdity of believing that catastrophe can be neatly managed.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

Hemingway’s enduring story of resilience and solitude: One of the most powerful tales of courage and endurance ever writtenAn ageing fisherman sets out alone into the Gulf Stream, determined to prove that his strength and skill have not left him. When he hooks a great marlin, he begins a struggle that will test his pride and his place in the world. Simple, powerful and deeply moving, The Old Man and the Sea captures what it means to persist – even in the face of inevitable loss.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

Luminous, suspenseful and serene, The Master of Go is a compelling portrait, quietly devastating of two men – and a whole society – facing defeat. Simple in its fundamentals, infinitely complex in its execution, the strategy game Go is an expression of the Japanese spirit. But when a revered Master is challenged by a younger, more modern upcomer, their match, waged over several months and layered in ceremony, pits imperial Japan against the twentieth century. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

Sally Bowles is the dazzling centrepiece of Goodbye to Berlin, distilling Isherwood's genius into the tale of one baudy, brilliant woman.1930s Berlin is a realm of glamour and sleaze, repression and excess, threatened by a rising tide of tyranny. There, a lonely young Brit working on a novel is charmed by an English runaway and aspiring star, the delightfully decadent Sally Bowles. The intimate, fleeting connection they share will stay with him long after.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days.

A dazzling, daring tale of poets at the end of the world, Distant Star is Roberto Bolano's miniature dystopian masterpieceAlberto Ruiz-Tagle was once the quiet, unpromising member of Chile’s young poetry scene. But the military coup of 1973 sees Alberto reborn as Chile’s leading celebrity poet, Carlos Wieder, known for his daring sky poems, penned in smoke high above the cities. Where did this talent suddenly spring from? And, how is it connected to the disappearance of the beautiful Garmendia twins? Told from across the years in exile in Europe, the narrator’s attempts to trace the fate of his old circle will lead him to one last confrontation with the brutality of their generation.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

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 village of Kepesake to investigate a particularly distasteful death. The body turns out to be that of Pig Peters, freshly killed five months after his own funeral. Soon other corpses start to turn up, just as Peters's body goes missing. It takes all Campion's coolly incisive powers of detection to unravel the crime.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

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 any form they recognise. Ape and Essence is Aldous Huxley’s bleak, satirical vision of civilisation after collapse. Fierce, strange and provocative, it confronts the destructive impulses that persist even after the world has ended.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

Graham Greene’s iconic thriller – 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 his friend and hero, Harry Lime. But Harry has died in suspicious circumstances, and the police are closing in on his associates...BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

Georges Perec’s cool, exacting portrait of a couple torn apart by consumer desireA 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 always seems just out of reach.. Precise and quietly ironic, Things explores the promises of material life – and the emptiness that can follow.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

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 their dreams. But outside its sugared limits a gang of dissenters live among the trash heaps of the Forgotten Works, stewing in violence, hate – and the promise of revenge. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

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 girls’ shelter as children. Inseparable then, they lose touch as they grow older, only to meet again later at a diner, a grocery store and then on opposing sides of a protest. The two women are seemingly at opposite ends of every issue, but the persistence of their bond is undeniable.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days.

Dylan Thomas’s vivid, affectionate portrait of youth - and the journey towards finding one’s own artistic voiceA boy grows up in a small Welsh town, moving through school, family life and first encounters with the wider world in moments of mischief and self-discovery. Along the way, a sensibility begins to take shape – playful, observant and alive to the strangeness of the everyday.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

Colette’s elegant, unsettling study of love turned hostile - and all because of a cat. A young marriage begins to sour, poisoned by rivalry and resentment. At its centre is a cat – adored by the husband, despised by the wife – whose presence exposes the quiet cruelty and emotional imbalance of the household. BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days

From Japan's most famous, classic novelist comes a remarkable gem of wit, irony, and feline observationA stray kitten, catapulted to literary fame loudly observes the world of Meiji Japan in all its absurdity. But he’s not the only cat in the neighbourhood, and as he rallies against the stupidity of human habit, he grows closer to the sophisticated Miss Calico – but he can’t hide his own inadequacies for long.BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days