A collection of contemporary and classic horror stories by authors such as Pete Johnson, Robert Westall, Roald Dahl and Stephen King

It’s been one year since an electromagnetic pulse destroyed America’s infrastructure and took down the power grid, throwing the country into a new Dark Age. Emily Rosen lives in a military camp at Grand Central Station, where women act as the soldiers’ private harem, selling their bodies on the tracks for extra rations. Emily escapes Grand Central and goes on the run from the soldiers intent on killing her for the secret she’s discovered—America is rebuilding outside of New York City, and everything the city’s refugees have been told is a lie. Christopher Mason, a convict who broke out of prison after the Pulse, finds Emily before the soldiers do. Mason’s survived on the streets of New York City this long by looking out only for himself—but there’s something about the beautiful young woman that makes her impossible to leave behind. Now Emily must convince this intimidating, magnetic stranger to be her protector and guide as they journey out of New York and into the unknown. For Mason’s protection, Emily barters the only thing anyone’s valued since the Pulse—her body. But sex with Mason can never be just currency—it’s pure passion, and everything she desires

As massive solar flares bombard the Earth, an intense electromagnetic pulse instantly destroys the power grid throughout North America. Within hours, desperate citizens panic and anarchy descends. Surrounded by chaos, Casey Drager, a student at Tulane University, must save herself from the havoc in the streets of New Orleans. Casey and two of her friends evacuate the city and travel north, where they end up in the dangerous backwaters of Mississippi, forced to use their survival skills to seek refuge and fight for their lives. Meanwhile, thousands of miles away, Casey’s father, Artie, finds himself cut off and stranded. His Caribbean sailing vacation has turned into every parent’s nightmare. Warding off pirates and tackling storms, Artie uses the stars to guide him toward his daughter. The Pulse is a compelling action-adventure novel that reveals what it would take to survive in a world lit only by firelight, where all the rules have changed and each person must fend for himself. Scott B. Williams is a sea kayaker, sailor, boat builder, and writer with a passion for exploring and outdoor adventures on land and sea. He has written seven non-fiction books prior to The Pulse, which is his first novel, and continues to write for magazines in addition to maintaining various blogs on boat building, sailing, and outdoor survival

Рассказ вошёл в сборники: Long After Midnight (Далеко за полночь) Bradbury Stories: 100 of His Most Celebrated Tales (Сборник ста лучших рассказов) Summer Morning, Summer Night (Летнее утро, летняя ночь)

The Pumpkin Eater is a surreal black comedy about the wages of adulthood and the pitfalls of parenthood. A nameless woman speaks, at first from the precarious perch of a therapist’s couch, and her smart, wry, confiding, immensely sympathetic voice immediately captures and holds our attention. She is the mother of a vast, swelling brood of children, also nameless, and the wife of a successful screenwriter, Jake Armitage. The Armitages live in the city, but they are building a great glass tower in the country in which to settle down and live happily ever after. But could that dream be nothing more than a sentimental delusion? At the edges of vision the spectral children come and go, while our heroine, alert to the countless gradations of depression and the innumerable forms of betrayal, tries to make sense of it all: doctors, husbands, movie stars, bodies, grocery lists, nursery rhymes, messes, aging parents, memories, dreams, and breakdowns. How to pull it all together? Perhaps you start by falling apart. “A subtle, fascinating, unhackneyed novel. . in touch with human realities and frailties, unsentimental and amused. . So moving, so funny, so desperate, so alive. . [A] fine book, and one to be greatly enjoyed.” — Elizabeth Janeway, The New York Times “A strange, fresh, gripping book. One of the the many achievements of The Pumpkin Eater is that it somehow manages to find universal truths in what was hardly an archetypal situation: Mortimer peels several layers of skin off the subjects of motherhood, marriage, and monogamy, so that what we’re asked to look at is frequently red-raw and painful without being remotely self-dramatizing. In fact, there’s a dreaminess to some of the prose that is particularly impressive, considering the tumult that the book describes.” —Nick Hornby, The Believer

This mythic tale of greed and political corruption by award-winning novelist Ibrahim al-Koni tells a gripping, expertly crafted story of bloody betrayal and revenge inspired by gold lust and an ancient love affair

Cover art by David Martin

Two very different men meet in a remote cabin. One is looking for gold. The other is transporting a very special purchase back to his home. As a snowstorm rages all around them, these two men are about to come face to face with an evil they can’t possibly comprehend. Richard Garrett is a man on a mission. A former soldier, he’s now dedicated to a strange and unnatural ritual that sees him travel far and wide. The purchase on the back of his cart has to be protected. Stuart Munver, meanwhile, is a man whose greed knows no end, who has been searching endlessly for gold, without any success. Desperate to prove himself, Munver will stop at nothing in his quest for glory. What strange purchase does Garrett have on the back of his cart? Why are two mysterious gold coins marked in an unknown language? And – in the present day – can two archaeologists uncover the truth before the evil strikes again? The Purchase is a horror story about greed, faith, and the true price of returning from the dead

Magic is about to meet murder in Willow Bay Angela Martin lives a pretty normal life. As normal as the life of a witch who can talk to animals can be, anyway. Until she shows up to work one day and finds a dead body. Of course, in a small town like Willow Bay this means everyone is obviously on edge. Between the cops who have never investigated a murder before, the crazy hot but infuriating guy Angela is sure has something to do with the murder and clients threatening to move to Canada, Angela starts to wonder if things are ever going to be normal again. But as Angela comes closer to the truth, she finds herself in the murderer's crosshairs. Will she be able to solve the case before she becomes the next victim? The Purr-fect Crime is the first book in the Willow Bay Witches series of paranormal cozy mysteries. It's a full-length novel full of funny and sarcastic best friends, a touch of magic, a snarky talking cat and a little bit of romance. Author note: This book was updated (with new editing!) on October 15th, 2016

It's autumn in cozy, idyllic Crozet, Virginia—a time for golden days, crisp nights…and murder. Mrs. Carla Paulson is one of the diamond-encrusted “come-here” set who has descended on Crozet with plenty of wealth and no feeling for country ways. She's determined to make her new house the envy of all her well- heeled friends—and enemies — and she's hired architect Tazio Chappers to build it. From the start, the project—and Mrs. Paulson—are a major headache for all involved. But no one could foresee that it would end with Mrs. Paulson stabbed to death at a gala fund-raiser with Harry's friend Tazio standing over her, holding the knife. Now Harry must solve what seems to everyone else an open-and-shut case. Her four-legged partners —sleuthing cats Mrs. Murphy and Pewter and corgi Tee Tucker—see it Harry's way. But will they have to choose between catching the purrfect killer and saving Harry?

Manhattan, Thanksgiving eve, 1945. The war is over, and Eric Smythe's party was in full swing. All his clever Greenwich Village friends were there. So too was his sister Sara, an independent, outspoken young woman, starting to make her way in the big city. And then in walked Jack Malone, a U.S. Army journalist just back from a defeated Germany, a man whose world view was vastly different than that of Eric and his friends. This chance meeting between Sara and Jack and the choices they both made in the wake of it would eventually have profound consequences, both for themselves and for those closest to them for decades afterwards. Set amidst the dynamic optimism of postwar New York and the subsequent nightmare of the McCarthy era, "The Pursuit of Happiness" is a great, tragic love story; a tale of divided loyalties, decisive moral choices and the random workings of destiny

“Savage yarns that rip into your sac and don’t let go.” — Michiko Kakutani

WITH SUBSTANTIAL MATERIAL NOT INCLUDED IN THE DOCUMENTARY Academy Award winner Oliver Stone was able to secure what journalists, news organizations, and even other world leaders have long coveted: extended, unprecedented access to Russian President Vladimir Putin. The Putin Interviews are culled from more than a dozen interviews with Putin over a two-year span—never before has the Russian leader spoken in such depth or at such length with a Western interviewer. No topics are off limits in the interviews, which first occurred during Stone’s trips to meet with NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden in Moscow and most recently after the election of President Donald Trump. Prodded by Stone, Putin discusses relations between the United States and Russia, allegations of interference in the US election, and Russia’s involvement with conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, and elsewhere across the globe. Putin speaks about his rise to power and details his relationships with Presidents Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama, and Trump. The exchanges are personal, provocative, and at times surreal. At one point, Stone asks, “Why did Russia hack the election?”; at another, Stone introduces him to Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 Cold War satire “Dr. Strangelove,” which the two watch together. Stone has interviewed controversial world leaders before, including Hugo Chavez, Fidel Castro, and Benjamin Netanyahu. But The Putin Interviews, in its unmediated access to one of the most enigmatic and powerful men in the world, can only be compared to the series of conversations between David Frost and Richard Nixon we now refer to as “The Nixon Interviews” of 1977. The book will also contain references and sources that give readers a deeper understanding of the topics covered in the interviews and make for a more robust reading experience

A quarter century after the fall of the Soviet Union, Russia once again looms large over world affairs, from Ukraine to Syria to the 2016 U.S. election. Yet how power works in present-day Russia―how Vladimir Putin came to power and maintains his rule―remains opaque and often misunderstood. In The Putin System, Russian economist and opposition leader Grigory Yavlinsky explains his country’s politics from a unique perspective, voicing a Russian liberal critique of the post-Soviet system that is vital for the West to hear. Combining the firsthand experience of a practicing politician with academic expertise, Yavlinsky gives unparalleled insights into the sources of Putin’s power and what might be next. He argues that Russia’s dysfunction is neither the outcome of one man’s iron-fisted rule nor a deviation from the supposedly natural development of Western-style political institutions. Instead, Russia’s peripheral position in the global economy has fundamentally shaped the regime’s domestic and foreign policy, nourishing authoritarianism while undermining its opponents. The quasi-market reforms of the 1990s, the bureaucracy’s self-perpetuating grip on power, and the Russian elite’s frustration with its secondary status have all combined to enable personalized authoritarian rule and corruption. Ultimately, Putin is as much a product of the system as its creator. In a time of sensationalism and fear, The Putin System is essential reading for anyone seeking to understand how power is wielded in Russia