Brief Encounters
52 books in this series
Ape and Essence
Huxley's dystopian classic is a nightmare vision of the fate of humanity in a post-nuclear world.
In February 2108, the New Zealand Rediscovery Expedition reaches California at last. It is over a century since the world was devastated by nuclear war, but the blight of radioactivity and disease still gnaws away at the survivors. The expedition expects to find physical destruction but they are quite unprepared for the moral degradation they meet. Ape and Essence is Huxley's vision of the ruin of humanity, told with all his knowledge and imaginative genius.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
In February 2108, the New Zealand Rediscovery Expedition reaches California at last. It is over a century since the world was devastated by nuclear war, but the blight of radioactivity and disease still gnaws away at the survivors. The expedition expects to find physical destruction but they are quite unprepared for the moral degradation they meet. Ape and Essence is Huxley's vision of the ruin of humanity, told with all his knowledge and imaginative genius.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
Bartleby, The Scrivener
Herman Melville's enduringly comic and affecting tale of a man who takes quiet quitting to extreme limits
A new office clerk in a Wall Street lawyer's office is the cause for quiet dismay when he refuses to do his job. But how to deal with Bartleby, The Scrivener, especially 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
A new office clerk in a Wall Street lawyer's office is the cause for quiet dismay when he refuses to do his job. But how to deal with Bartleby, The Scrivener, especially 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
Behind a Mask
This is Alcott as you have never seen her before, sharp, gothic, and gloriously unsettling
Jean Muir arrives at the wealthy Coventry household as a humble governess. But beneath her meek exterior lies a woman of steely ambition and dangerous cunning. What begins as a tale of domestic harmony turns swiftly into a drama of seduction, betrayal, and psychological gamesmanship.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
Jean Muir arrives at the wealthy Coventry household as a humble governess. But beneath her meek exterior lies a woman of steely ambition and dangerous cunning. What begins as a tale of domestic harmony turns swiftly into a drama of seduction, betrayal, and psychological gamesmanship.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
Bewitched
Edith Wharton's ghost stories whisper of passion, exile, and the things we cannot forget
From bleak New England farms to glittering drawing rooms, Wharton summons hauntings that speak less of horror than of human yearning. This collection includes some of her most powerful supernatural tales, written with elegance and chill.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
From bleak New England farms to glittering drawing rooms, Wharton summons hauntings that speak less of horror than of human yearning. This collection includes some of her most powerful supernatural tales, written with elegance and chill.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
The Book of Imaginary Beings
A dazzling catalogue of beasts drawn from the dreamworlds of myth, folklore, and imagination
From dragons and unicorns to beings born only in Borges's labyrinthine mind, this extraordinary compendium blurs the line between scholarship and fantasy. At once encyclopaedia and storybook, it reveals Borges's genius for turning knowledge into wonder.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
From dragons and unicorns to beings born only in Borges's labyrinthine mind, this extraordinary compendium blurs the line between scholarship and fantasy. At once encyclopaedia and storybook, it reveals Borges's genius for turning knowledge into wonder.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
Cain
Written in the last years of Saramago's life, Cain is a controversial and witty story of a wilful, authoritarian God.
After killing his brother Abel, Cain must wander for ever. He witnesses Noah's ark, the destruction of the Tower of Babel, Moses and the golden calf. And he is there in time to save Abraham from sacrificing Isaac when God's angel arrives late after a wing malfunction.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
After killing his brother Abel, Cain must wander for ever. He witnesses Noah's ark, the destruction of the Tower of Babel, Moses and the golden calf. And he is there in time to save Abraham from sacrificing Isaac when God's angel arrives late after a wing malfunction.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
The Case of the Late Pig
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
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
The Castle of Crossed Destinies
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. Their powers of speech have been magically taken from them. Instead, they have only tarot cards with which to tell their tales. What follows is an exquisite interlinking of narratives, and a fantastic, surreal and chaotic history of all human consciousness.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The classic, moving tale of a man born old, destined to die young, and live at odds with his time
Born in the body of a 70-year-old man, Benjamin Button is cursed to live life in reverse. As he ages backwards, he embraces life, finds love and seeks out adventure, all while getting younger and younger. But time, however skewered, waits for no man, and even youth waits to rob Benjamin Button of the one rare thing we all share: life.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
Born in the body of a 70-year-old man, Benjamin Button is cursed to live life in reverse. As he ages backwards, he embraces life, finds love and seeks out adventure, all while getting younger and younger. But time, however skewered, waits for no man, and even youth waits to rob Benjamin Button of the one rare thing we all share: life.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
Dancing Lessons for the Advanced in Age
This ebullient, gallivanting novella encapsulates the world vision of the Czech Republic's best-loved author in one tumbling, breathtaking sentence.
Saints and sinners, emperors and embezzlers, barmaids and balalaikas all play their part in the bawdy reminiscences of Hrabal's cobbler as he charms an audience of young beauties with his tale.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days.
Saints and sinners, emperors and embezzlers, barmaids and balalaikas all play their part in the bawdy reminiscences of Hrabal's cobbler as he charms an audience of young beauties with his tale.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days.