The Best Short Stories 2024
The O. Henry Prize Winners
Amor Towles crafts narratives with a sophisticated voice that delves into the intricacies of human nature and societal expectations. His works, often set against richly imagined historical backdrops, explore themes of social class, identity, and the search for meaning. Towles masterfully blends engaging plots with profound philosophical reflections, offering readers compelling and thought-provoking literary experiences. His distinctive style and keen eye for detail make him a memorable storyteller.







The O. Henry Prize Winners
Moskva, New York, Los Angeles. Sedm příběhů od autora bestselleru Gentleman v Moskvě. Na konci Towlesova románu Pravidla zdvořilosti opouští Evelyn Rossová New York a vrací se domů. V Chicagu si to ale na poslední chvíli rozmyslí a namísto toho se vydává do Los Angeles… Je rok 1938 a Hollywood zažívá „zlatou éru“. Obstojí Eve ve světě stříbrného plátna? Kromě novely Eve v Hollywoodu obsahuje Stůl pro dva šest povídek zasazených převážně do současného New Yorku. Začínající spisovatel začne padělat podpisy slavných autorů. Mladá žena sleduje svého otčíma, aby zjistila, jestli není nevěrný její matce. Bývalý rolník v porevolučním Rusku objeví nadání pro stání ve frontách. Ve všech příbězích se vyskytuje okamžik, kdy se dvě postavy octnou proti sobě u stolu, a na jejich dalších slovech často závisí jejich budoucnost…
Die legendären dreißiger Jahre in Hollywood – leichtfüßig, witzig und elegant erzählt. „Amor Towles ist ein Meistererzähler.“ New York Times Book Review Eine umwerfende Gesellschaftssatire vom Autor des Bestsellers „Ein Gentleman in Moskau“: Amor Towles erzählt mit augenzwinkernder Eleganz, wie eine Frau aus der Provinz die Glamourwelt Hollywoods austrickst. Nachdem Eve mit ihrem Freund in New York Schluss gemacht hat, bricht sie nach Los Angeles auf. Wenig später wird sie mit der berühmten Olivia de Havilland in den angesagten Lokalen Hollywoods gesehen. Es ist die Zeit, als „Vom Winde verweht“ gedreht wird und die Studios sich gegenseitig die Schauspielerinnen abjagen. Die ebenso raffinierte wie rätselhafte Eve gibt kaum etwas von sich preis, verwirrt jeden Möchtegern und Betrüger, der ihr begegnet, bis sie diejenige ist, die zuletzt lacht.
A New York Times Bestseller “This may be Towles’ best book yet. Each tale is as satisfying as a master chef’s main course, filled with drama, wit, erudition and, most of all, heart.” —Los Angeles Times “The book spans the 20th century, bringing characters into tableaus of deceit and desire. Beneath his coifed prose Towles is a master of the shiv, the bait and switch; we see the flash of light before the shock wave strikes, often in the final sentence. . . . Table for Two delivers the kick of a martini served in the Polo Lounge.” – The New York Times Book Review Millions of Amor Towles fans are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories based in New York City and a novella set in Golden Age Hollywood. The New York stories, most of which take place around the year 2000, consider the fateful consequences that can spring from brief encounters and the delicate mechanics of compromise that operate at the heart of modern marriages. Told from seven points of view, “Eve in Hollywood” describes how one of Towles’s most beloved characters, the indomitable Evelyn Ross from Rules of Civility, crafts a new future for herself—and others—in a noirish tale that takes us through the movie sets, bungalows, and dive bars of 1930s Los Angeles. Written with his signature wit, humor, and sophistication, Table for Two is another glittering addition to Towles’s canon of stylish and transporting fiction.
THE INSTANT NUMBER ONE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER FROM THE AUTHOR OF RULES OF CIVILITY AND A GENTLEMAN IN MOSCOW 'Deserves a place alongside Kerouac, Steinbeck and Wolfe as the very best of the genre' OBSERVER 'An absolute beauty of a book. As soon as I finished it, I wanted to read it again' TANA FRENCH 'Welcome to the enormous pleasure that is The Lincoln Highway . . . in which the miles fly by and the pages turn fast' ANN PATCHETT In June, 1954, eighteen-year-old Emmett returns home to his younger brother Billy after serving fifteen months in a juvenile facility for involuntary manslaughter. They are getting ready to leave their old life behind and head out to sunny California. But they're not alone. Two runaways from the youth work farm, Duchess and Wolly, have followed Emmett all the way to Nebraska with a plan of their own, one that will take the four of them on an unexpected and fateful journey in the opposite direction - to New York City. 'Already feels like an American coming of age classic' RED 'The best novel I've read in years' CHRIS CLEAVE 'Wise and wildly entertaining . . . permeated with light, wit, youth' THE NEW YORK TIMES
More than half a million readers have fallen in love with the New York Times bestseller A Gentleman in Moscow 'Everything a novel should be: charming, witty, poetic and generous. An absolute delight' Mail on Sunday 'A work of great charm, intelligence and insight' Sunday Times 'Winning . . . gorgeous . . . satisfying . . . Towles is a craftsman' New York Times Book Review 'A comic masterpiece' Daily Express 'If we do a better book than this one on the book club this year we will be very very lucky' Matt Williams, Radio 2 Book Club 'Abundant in humour, history and humanity' Sunday Telegraph 'Wistful, whimsical and wry' Sunday Express On 21 June 1922 Count Alexander Rostov - recipient of the Order of Saint Andrew, member of the Jockey Club, Master of the Hunt - is escorted out of the Kremlin, across Red Square and through the elegant revolving doors of the Hotel Metropol. But instead of being taken to his usual suite, he is led to an attic room with a window the size of a chessboard. Deemed an unrepentant aristocrat by a Bolshevik tribunal, the Count has been sentenced to house arrest indefinitely. While Russia undergoes decades of tumultuous upheaval, the Count, stripped of the trappings that defined his life, is forced to question what makes us who we are. And with the assistance of a glamorous actress, a cantankerous chef and a very serious child, Rostov unexpectedly discovers a new understanding of both pleasure and purpose.
On the last night of 1937, twenty-five-year-old Katey Kontent is in a second-rate Greenwich Village jazz bar with her boardinghouse roommate stretching three dollars as far as it will go when Tinker Grey, a handsome banker with royal blue eyes and a tempered smile, happens to sit at the neighboring table. This chance encounter and its startling consequences propel Katey on a yearlong journey from a Wall Street secretarial pool toward the upper echelons of New York society and the executive suites of Condé Nast—rarefied environs where she will have little to rely upon other than a bracing wit and her own brand of cool nerve. Wooed in turn by a shy, principled multi-millionaire, and an irrepressible Upper East Side ne'er-do-well, befriended by a single-minded widow who is ahead of her time, and challenged by an imperious mentor, Katey experiences firsthand the poise secured by wealth and station and the failed aspirations that reside just below the surface. Even as she waits for circumstances to bring Tinker back into her life, she begins to realize how our most promising choices inevitably lay the groundwork for our regrets.