Seven poignant and wise stories about family values, marital relationships and parental love that can work wonders. For example, in the story "The Thorn Tree", the reader will get acquainted with an unnamed first-grader whose father and mother divorced. The boy seems to be lost between "two cold hostile sides" and does not understand who to love now and why his parents are so angry.
The author shows from the outside that adults sometimes behave worse than little ones, forgetting about the safety of children and taking care of them because of emotions. The audio version was voiced by Dina Rubina herself, a writer, screenwriter and winner of the Big Book Award.
Under the cover of the book there are four independent stories of the king of horrors. "Mr. Harrigan's Phone" is a story about the mystical friendship of a boy and an elderly millionaire, which continued after the death of one of the characters. Donald Sutherland played in the 2022 film adaptation of the same name.
"Chuck's Life" tells about the end of the world and the death of Charles Krantz and makes you think that the whole world lies in ourselves. "The Rat" is a story about a deal that will save an unsuccessful writer from the fear of a clean slate in return for the life of a loved one. And actually, "There will be blood" describes the unusual case of private investigator Holly Gibney, who suspects that an inhuman being is involved in the tragedy at the local school. Holly can be found in other books by King — "Mr. Mercedes", "The Stranger", "The Post passed" and more.
It is ideal to start acquaintance with the works of the country's main postmodernist with small prose. This way you can gradually navigate the author's favorite topics, which often flow from one book to another. There are three short stories in this collection: "The Yellow Arrow", "The Recluse and the Sixfinger" and "The Prince of Gosplan".
The first one, for example, is about Andrew, who wakes up every morning on a strange train. None of the passengers thinks about how they got there and what is happening outside the carriage. But Andrey is not like that. He thinks about everything, realizing that "this whole world is a yellow arrow that hit you. Yellow Arrow, the train you're riding to the destroyed bridge."
Audio versions of books will save even more time. These 11 ironic stories with a unique Dovlatov charisma and the ability to notice the topical were voiced by writers and actors of theater and cinema — Maxim Sukhanov, Dina Rubina, Alexey Bagdasarov, Ivan Litvinov and others.
Dissimilar characters are united by time — the 1980s, when everyone wants to speak out, but is not sure that they will be heard, when connections are collapsing and landmarks are lost, but all this is not sad, but rather curious. Listen or read for yourself.
Among the authors are Alexey Salnikov, winner of the National Bestseller and NOSE awards, Eduard Verkin, winner of New Horizons, Olga Breininger, a finalist on the longlists of the Russian Booker and the Big Book, and 10 other modern novelists.
In Russia, Liu Cixin is known primarily as the author of the novel "The Task of Three Bodies", which opens the trilogy "Memory of the Earth's Past" about the confrontation between humans and extraterrestrial civilizations. At home, in China, Qixin is the most popular science fiction writer, winner of dozens of awards, who breathed new life into the genre and in almost every work reflects on global catastrophes and the future of the planet andThe Celestial Empire.
One of the 10 stories gave the title to the collection. According to the plot, the familiar world is over: The Sun has become too big, and it is deadly hot on Earth. Humanity needs to rally in the face of danger, but you will find out for yourself if it will work.
19 small but deep stories will make you smile understandingly, laugh out loud, cry with sympathy and just take your mind off the routine and think about what is really important in life.
The compiler of the collection, writer Narine Abgaryan ("Manyunya", "People who are always with me"), set out to collect stories that will be close to everyone. Among the authors, for example, Yana Wagner with the story "Ugly Sonya" is about a late child in a family who understands early how important it is to become an ally to himself in order to understand others later.