Brief Encounters
52 books in this series
Paradises Lost
Ursula k. Le Guin's beautifully realised space epic of two young friends finding their lives steer a new, and unexpected course
As the spaceship Discovery makes its slow way towards its destination – New Earth – Hsing and Luis come of age together. Born in the middle of this multigenerational journey, they have never known life beyond the ship and never expect to. But just as their lives seem to be unfolding as decreed, a revelation about Discovery’s true course throws everything they know into question.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
As the spaceship Discovery makes its slow way towards its destination – New Earth – Hsing and Luis come of age together. Born in the middle of this multigenerational journey, they have never known life beyond the ship and never expect to. But just as their lives seem to be unfolding as decreed, a revelation about Discovery’s true course throws everything they know into question.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
The Parasite
Arthur Conan Doyle’s tense, unsettlingly supernatural tale of obsession and control
After Austin Gilroy’s fiancée is hypnotised, he finds himself drawn into the orbit of the woman responsible – Miss Penclosa. Soon, disturbances begin to unsettle him: actions he cannot account for, thoughts that seem to come from elsewhere. As Penclosa’s hold over Gilroy tightens, he discovers how little control he has over his own mind. Told through a series of journal entries, The Parasite follows a self-declared rational man drawn into a relationship he cannot escape - or fully understand.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
After Austin Gilroy’s fiancée is hypnotised, he finds himself drawn into the orbit of the woman responsible – Miss Penclosa. Soon, disturbances begin to unsettle him: actions he cannot account for, thoughts that seem to come from elsewhere. As Penclosa’s hold over Gilroy tightens, he discovers how little control he has over his own mind. Told through a series of journal entries, The Parasite follows a self-declared rational man drawn into a relationship he cannot escape - or fully understand.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
A Parish Chronicle
An intimate, magical novel about one enduring church in a rural Icelandic valley - an ode to a quiet way of life now lost to time forever
The resting place of legendary Viking warrior Egil Skallagrímsson’s skull, Mosfell Church is a lonely, country church, fated to be destroyed. But as the plans to destroy it take shape, stories, myth and folklore abound in one magical last attempt to leave Mosfell standing.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
The resting place of legendary Viking warrior Egil Skallagrímsson’s skull, Mosfell Church is a lonely, country church, fated to be destroyed. But as the plans to destroy it take shape, stories, myth and folklore abound in one magical last attempt to leave Mosfell standing.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
Passing
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
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
Pinball, 1973
A nostalgic, jazz-soaked love-letter to a youth spent in pursuit of simple pleasures, from the Japan's most celebrated contemporary storyteller, Haruki Murakami
Haunted 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
Haunted 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 Poet
The life of a poet becomes a parable of hope in Yi Mun-yol’s searching novella of art, status and selfhood.
With their family condemned as traitors, two young brothers are sent away in disguise to save their lives. One grows up by his wits, accepting what has been lost. The other is set on a different path, shaped by a determination to restore the family’s place in the world. As he wanders in search of recognition as a poet, ambition and survival begin to pull him in opposing directions.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog
Dylan Thomas’s vivid, affectionate portrait of youth - and the journey towards finding one’s own artistic voice
A 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
A 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
Recitatif
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.
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.
Sally Bowles
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.
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.
Significant Moments
This miniature array of perfect stories by the legendary Margaret Atwood flash before us the joys and despairs of mothers good and bad, evoking laughter, compassion and recognition in us all.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days.
A Souvenir of Japan
Five stories of desire and discovery set in 1970s Japan, from weird fiction's most influential pioneer - Angela Carter
An Englishwoman muses on her affair with a younger Japanese man. A spurned lover seeks intimacy in another chance encounter. A boy stumbles upon a mirror world while walking in the woods. In five mesmerising, fantastical tales of 1970s Japan, Angela Carter explores what it means to arrive in a world different from one’s own, and to transform profoundly – sometimes terrifyingly – in the process.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
An Englishwoman muses on her affair with a younger Japanese man. A spurned lover seeks intimacy in another chance encounter. A boy stumbles upon a mirror world while walking in the woods. In five mesmerising, fantastical tales of 1970s Japan, Angela Carter explores what it means to arrive in a world different from one’s own, and to transform profoundly – sometimes terrifyingly – in the process.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
Sunday's Children
One of Cinema's great masters revisits his childhood - and the end of his parent's marriage - in a novella of awakening
Over the course of one summer, eight-year-old Pu Bergman realises that his parents are no longer in love. Surrounded by the quiet idyll of the Swedish countryside, with its ponds, rivers and woods, the daily chaos of the family’s ramshackle summer home threatens to end the bright, brilliant haze of Pu’s childhood world.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
Over the course of one summer, eight-year-old Pu Bergman realises that his parents are no longer in love. Surrounded by the quiet idyll of the Swedish countryside, with its ponds, rivers and woods, the daily chaos of the family’s ramshackle summer home threatens to end the bright, brilliant haze of Pu’s childhood world.
BRIEF ENCOUNTERS: classic novellas and captivating stories, to be read in a single sitting or savoured over days
Tender Buttons
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
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
Things: A Story of the Sixties
Georges Perec’s cool, exacting portrait of a couple torn apart by consumer desire
A 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 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
The Third Man
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
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
An Undesirable Friend
From Japan's most famous, classic novelist comes a remarkable gem of wit, irony, and feline observation
A 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
A 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