Short Stories Books

Driving with a donkey stuffed in the back seat; jackdaws pecking brains out through the roof of a confessional box; cat piss and astronauts. This is not the world as you see it, but as it is, twisted from the maverick mind of Blin…

In a series of unexpected moments when past loves and choices re-surface with startling clarity, the imperfect beings who populate these stories find themselves finally grasping the impact of crucial early relationships, as joy, l…

A mother has an unexpected outburst at a corporate therapy session for working parents. A couple finally get time to rekindle their relationship and make an ill-advised home movie. A pregnant film director plots revenge on the act…

After a Dance is a collection of short stories from acclaimed writer Bridget O'Connor, with an exclusive preface from the author's daughter, Constance Straughan. Bridget O'Connor was one of the great short story writers of her gen…

Written with the accomplished authority of a modern classic and the manic intensity of a loser's manifesto, Rejection radically redefines what it means to be rejected by lovers, friends, society and oneself. We see a tryhard male …

A young girl spends her days on a double-decker bus. A bride-to-be prays to St Valentine’s bones. Flowers are found, left in bouquets, all over a museum. Teenagers gather to dissect the human body. Teeming with compassion and thru…

Are you ready to play?Have you ever found yourself doom-scrolling, worrying about that weird pain in your leg, only to have your plans for the day completely trashed by the appearance of a literal axe-wielding troll?What about tha…

Ireland has long been a nation of story-tellers. What began as a lively form of entertainment has grown into an unrivalled literary genre. Although Ireland may mourn the loss of the seanchaí, the old hearthside story-teller, the I…

A young Belfast theatre troupe brings its experimental production of Hamlet to New York. On a night-flight, travelling with a violin older than the United States, a professional musician slips through time. A man who loses all he …

How do you mourn someone you never really knew? Three siblings – Anna, Gemma and Matthew – will have to work that out quickly. Monday is the day of their gentle, but distant, father’s funeral, and for the first time in a long whil…

It's summer 2017 and the last few residents of the Lough Neagh Archipelago are facing imminent eviction. The flood planned to combat a devastating algae outbreak will submerge their homes, forcing them back to the Mainland for the…

Set across liminal landscapes, this collection of fourteen stories from award-winning author Niamh Mac Cabe feature characters navigating emotional or existential thresholds—grieving, seeking meaning, or reconciling with the past.…

The Traveller families who live in Saint Rita’s are on borrowed time. In just a week they will be evicted by the local council, threatening not only their homes but also their history and the stories that have shaped them. Charlen…

In a labyrinthine research facility, where those who open the wrong door might find it's disappeared behind them or that the echoing footsteps they're running from are their own, an unnamed protagonist begins their night shift und…

The short story flourishes in Ireland. All Irish conditions seem to favour it. With its roots in the fertile soil of the Gaelic folk tradition, it appeared to grow and thrive on the discontinuities of Irish history – the war of in…

One of our best writers, Lauren Groff returns with a fierce new story collection, her first since the award-winning and bestselling Florida.Ranging from the 1950s to the present day and moving across age, class, and region - from …

Mary Lavin is the great unsung voice of Irish fiction. Here are her very best, most electric stories: illuminating, moving, arrows in flight.Mary Lavin’s stories feature ordinary people in the tight confines of ordinary life. From…

This dark yet hilariously satirical state-of-an-era novel sees Will Self's middle-class, middle-English characters apparently trapped in a timeless go-round of polite chitchat in dinner parties that refract like a hall of mirrors,…

Eleven strange buildings. One terrible secret. A lonely hut in the woods. A hidden chamber. A mysterious shrine. A home in flames. A nightmarish prison... Each of the buildings in this book tells a chilling story. Each one is part…

Razor-sharp, glittering tales exploring marriage, fame and female friendship, from the Sunday Times bestselling author. In this compulsive collection of twelve witty stories, Sittenfeld shows why she’s as beloved for her short fic…

A writer alone at a retreat is faced with an unwelcome visitor. A priest seeks solace from a romantic memory.A farmhand regrets losing the finest woman in town. In this remarkable collection of stories, Claire Keegan observes an I…

What a lovely home I found myself plummeting toward. . .Not for the first time - in fact, for the 343rd time - Jill 'Doll' Blaine finds herself crashing down to earth, head-first, rear-up, to accompany her latest charge into the a…

One winter, in a secluded Alpine city, Irish sculptor John Molloy meets Bernadette, an enigmatic Italian sociologist. As John falls in love, a distressing moment from his youth rises into view, the disastrous fallout of which has …

After a near-death experience and life-changing injury, twenty-year-old Jago Trevarno goes to stay with his uncle on his small coastal farm a few miles from St Ives in Cornwall. Their existence is a simple one, their lives measure…

The #1 New York Times bestsellera mesmerizing treasury of short stories by Stephen King.An eerie-looking child's toy harbors an unimaginable evil. A supermarket is unexpectedly the place where humanity makes its last stand against…

From Eliza Clark, the author of the brilliant novels Boy Partsand Penance and one of Grantas Best Young British Novelists, comes a fierce, visionary and darkly comic story collection. A woman welcomes a parasite into her body. A t…

Winner of the 2025 International Booker Prize. In the twelve stories of Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Praised for their dry and gentle …

A fierce new chorus of voices emerges from contemporary Ireland. Eight writers. Sixteen unforgettable stories. Translated from Irish for the first time. Stories from Belfast to Kerry, from the immigrant experience to the weight of…

Over the last four decades, Lynne Tillman has established herself as one of America's most audacious writers, a tireless innovator whose shorter works have reimagined the story form. Thrilled to Death collects a bold, anarchic, an…