Fiction

Pipe Dreams: The Drug Experience in Literature, edited and with an introduction by Gilbert Alter-Gilbert

From antiquity to the present, people have sought artificial paradise in the stimulations and insights afforded by the use of intoxicants. Famous literary figures have often been the first to experiment with little-known drugs, and to champion their unique fascination upon the human imagination. In this remarkable anthology, a dazzling array of authors, including H. G. Wells, Marie Corelli, Guy de Maupassant, Leo Tolstoy, Charles Dickens, Stephen Crane, Sadegh Hedayat, Santiago Dabove, Jean Cocteau, William James, Charles Baudelaire, Théophile Gautier, and a host of others from many cultures and historical periods, raids a pharmacopoeia containing ether, absinthe, morphine, hashish, opium, cocaine, heroin, alcohol, chloral hydrate, psilocybin, ayahuasca, carbon tetrachloride, LSD, amyl nitrate, ecstasy, and angel dust, in flights of descriptive prose of unparalleled suggestive power and visionary splendor.

Toothpaste with Chlorophyll / Maritime Hot Baths: Stories by Elias Papadimitrakopoulos; translated and introduced by John Taylor; illustrations by Alekos Fassianos

Toothpaste with Chlorophyll and Maritime Hot Baths are the first two collections of short stories by Elias Papadimitrakopoulos. These books have been reprinted several times in Greece. Papadimitrakopoulos combines his remarkably subtle gift for precision of language with the profound sensitivity and compassion for his subjects that has made his reputation as a master painter of the triste and ephemeral. He received the Petros Haris Foundation Prize from the Academy of Athens in 2010 and the National Literary Award in 2015. His collected short stories are now gathered in a six-volume set published by Gavriilidis. He lives in Athens and, during the summer, on the island of Paros.

The book is translated and has notes and an introduction by John Taylor and features illustrations by Alekos Fassianos.

The Secret of the Old Cloche: Agatha Christine Mystery Stories #1 by Leslie Stahlhut

After one too many glasses of wine at a business dinner, Agatha Christine is suddenly out of work, losing both her CIA job and her cover job in the same day. Following her financial planner’s advice, she moves back to her home town to live with her mother, while she builds a new career as a crochet designer. She is offered an investigative job, and with bills to pay and a career to launch, she can’t afford to say no. She is thrust into a mystery where pet lovers and crafters in this DIY wonderland battle with NIMBY socialites for control of an inheritance locked up in the confusing last wishes of Amelia Dettmer an eccentric heiress and animal welfare advocate.

If Agatha is unable to uncover the truth, the people and pets of Amelia’s beloved Quercus Grove Animal Rescue Society and Thrift (QGARST) will be left out in the cold.

The Secret of the Old Cloche is the first Agatha Christine mystery.

Fictions: The Beak Doctor, Short Fictions, 1972–1976 & Bartholomew Fair by Eric Basso