A PEN Translates Award-winning collection of short stories about life in North Korea under Kim Jong-Il, written in secret by a dissident author. The Accusation is a revelatory work of fiction that exposes the truth of the North Korean regime. Set during the period of Kim Jong-Il’s leadership, the seven stories that make up The Accusation throw light on different aspects of life in this most bizarre and horrifying of dictatorships. One story, “Life of a Swift Seed,” tells of a war hero and former ardent Communist who plants an elm tree in his back garden to commemorate one of his brothers-in-arms. When the tree is to be cut down to make way for a power line, the man is ready to defend it with his life, leaving a family friend to decide whether to intercede. In another story, “City of Specters,” a Pyongyang mother’s young son misbehaves during a party rally, crying out when he sees a portrait of Karl Marx, whom he thinks is a monster of Korean myth known as the Eobi. In one other story, a mother attempts to feed her husband during the worst years of North Korea’s famine, and in another, a woman in a perilous situation meets the Dear Leader himself. As a whole, The Accusation is a vivid and frightening portrait of what it means to live in a completely closed-off society, and a heartbreaking yet hopeful portrayal of the humanity that persists even in such dire circumstances. “Searing fiction by an anonymous dissident . . . A fierce indictment of life in the totalitarian North.”—New York Times

In her debut collection, Melinda Moustakis brings to life a rough-and-tumble family of Alaskan homesteaders through a series of linked stories. Born in Alaska herself to a family with a homesteading legacy, Moustakis examines the near-mythological accounts of the Alaskan wilderness that are her inheritance and probes the question of what it means to live up to larger-than-life expectations for toughness and survival. The characters in Bear Down, Bear North are salt-tongued fishermen, fisherwomen, and hunters, scrappy storytellers who put themselves in the path of destruction—sometimes a harsh snowstorm, sometimes each other—and live to tell the tale. While backtrolling for kings on the Kenai River or filleting the catch of the Halibut Hellion with marvelous speed, these characters recount the gamble they took that didn't pay off, or they expound on how not only does Uncle Too-Soon need a girlfriend, the whole state of Alaska needs a girlfriend. A story like “The Mannequin at Soldotna” takes snapshots: a doctor tends to an injured fisherman, a man covets another man's green fishing lure, a girl is found in the river with a bullet in her head. Another story offers an easy moment with a difficult mother, when she reaches out to touch a breaching whale. This is a book about taking a fishhook in the eye, about drinking cranberry lick and Jippers and smoking Big-Z cigars. This is a book about the one good joke, or the one night lit up with stars, that might get you through the winter.

A collection of twenty-five traditional tales from countries around the world, including Iran, Brazil, and Greece. Suggested level: primary, intermediate.

The King of Red Midgard is mad and there are no gods to stop him from taking his land over the brink into destruction. The land that god Odin once molded to his liking has been separated from the gods for thousands of years. All the Nine Worlds and sundered by the ancient Hel's War, but in Midgard, the years have passed relatively peacefully. Men govern men, and there are wars, there is peace and life goes on.Yet, for Red Midgard, times are indeed changing. The harsh, freedom-loving northern land faces the animosity of the mighty High King, but also a threat of war with its few allies, as King Morag is rumored to look for any reason to go to war with those he should keep close. Maskan and Sand, thieves of Dagnar, discover a web of conspiracies to topple the king before it is too late, and soon, they have a good reason to tie their fates with those who would fight the king.But not all is as it seems, and layers of truths and lies make the road dark and dangerous. Our heroes must navigate very murky waters of betrayal, elemental magic, love, and loyalty to save their land and to find revenge.

From the first colonization at Roanoke Island, the bizarre and inexplicable have shrouded the Tar Heel State. From history and legend, John Harden records ominous events that have shaped or colored state history.

This carefully edited collection has been designed and formatted to the highest digital standards and adjusted for readability on all devices. The Son of the Wolf: The White Silence, The Son of the Wolf, The Men of Forty Mile, In a Far Country, To the Man on the Trail, The Priestly Prerogative, The Wisdom of the Trail, The Wife of a King, An Odyssey of the North. The God of His Fathers: The God of His Fathers, The Great Interrogation, Which Make Men Remember, Siwash, The Man with the Gash, Jan, the Unrepentant, Grit of Women, Where the Trail Forks, A Daughter of the Aurora, At the Rainbow's End, The Scorn of Women. Children of the Frost: In the Forests of the North, The Law of Life, Nam-Bok the Unveracious, The Master of Mystery, The Sunlanders, The Sickness of Lone Chief, Keesh, the Son of Keesh, The Death of Ligoun, Li Wan, the Fair, The League of the Old Men. The Faith of Men: A Relic of the Pliocene, A Hyperborean Brew, The Faith of Men, Too Much Gold, The One Thousand Dozen, The Marriage of Lit-lit, Bâtard, The Story of Jees Uck. Love of Life & Other Stories: Love of Life, A Day's Lodging, The White Man's Way, The Story of Keesh, The Unexpected, Brown Wolf, The Sun Dog Trail, Negore, The Coward. Lost Face: Lost Face, Trust, To Build a Fire, That Spot, Flush of Gold, The Passing of Marcus O'Brien, The Wit of Porportuk. Smoke Bellew: The Taste of the Meat, The Meat, The Stampede to Squaw Creek, Shorty Dreams, The Man on the Other Bank, The Race for Number Three. + 19 Uncollected Stories: The Devil's Dice Box, The Test: A Clondyke Wooing, Even Unto Death, The King of Mazy May, Pluck and Pertinacity, A Northland Miracle, Thanksgiving on Slav Creek, The "Fuzziness" of Hoockla-Heen, The League of Old Men, To Build a Fire, Up the Slide... Jack London is best known as the author of The Call of the Wild and White Fang, both set in the Klondike Gold Rush.