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The Bazaar of Bad Dreams: Stories

Shirley Jackson Awards

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams: Stories

Victor LaValle

A novella about a marriage drawn into a disturbing bargain that tests the boundaries between money, conscience, and self-deception.

moral dilemmamarriagetemptationsuspense

Work Information

A novella about a marriage drawn into a disturbing bargain that tests the boundaries between money, conscience, and self-deception.

A novella about a marriage drawn into a disturbing bargain that tests the boundaries between money, conscience, and self-deception.

Book Information

Publisher
Scribner
Published
2015-11-03
Pages
512 pages
Language
英語
Size
15.56 x 4.83 x 23.5 cm
ISBN-13
9781501111679
ISBN-10
1501111671
Price
5884 JPY
Category
洋書/Mystery & Thrillers/Thrillers/Suspense

Includes the story “Premium Harmony”—set in the fictional town of Castle Rock, Maine The masterful #1 New York Times bestselling story collection from O. Henry Prize winner Stephen King that includes twenty-one iconic stories with accompanying autobiographical comments on when, why, and how he came to write (or rewrite) each one. For more than thirty-five years, Stephen King has dazzled readers with his genius as a writer of short fiction. In this collection, he introduces each story with a passage about its origins or his motivations for writing it. As Entertainment Weekly said about this collection: “ Bazaar of Bad Dreams is bursting with classic King terror, but what we love most are the thoughtful introductions he gives to each tale that explain what was going on in his life as he wrote it." There are thrilling connections between stories; themes of morality, the afterlife, guilt, what we would do differently if we could see into the future or correct the mistakes of the past. In “Afterlife,” a man who died of colon cancer keeps reliving the same life, repeating his mistakes over and over again. Several stories feature characters at the end of life, revisiting their crimes and misdemeanors. Others address what happens when someone discovers that he has supernatural powers—the columnist who kills people by writing their obituaries in “Obits;” the old judge in “The Dune” who, as a boy, canoed to a deserted island and saw names written in the sand, people who then died in freak accidents. In “Morality,” King looks at how a marriage and two lives fall apart after the wife and husband enter into what seems, at first, a devil’s pact they can win. “I made these stories especially for you,” says King. “Feel free to examine them, but please be careful. The best of them have teeth.” Stories include: -Mile 81 -Premium Harmony -Batman and Robin Have an Altercation -The Dune -Bad Little Kid -A Death -The Bone Church -Morality -Afterlife -Ur -Herman Wouk Is Still Alive -Under the Weather -Blockade Billy -Mister Yummy -Tommy -The Little Green God of Agony -Cookie Jar -That Bus Is Another World -Obits -Drunken Fireworks -Summer Thunder

Stephen King is the author of more than sixty books, all of them worldwide bestsellers. His recent work includes Never Flinch , the short story collection You Like It Darker ( a New York Times Book Review top ten horror book of 2024), Holly (a New York Times Notable Book of 2023), Fairy Tale , Billy Summers , If It Bleeds , The Institute , Elevation , The Outsider , Sleeping Beauties (cowritten with his son Owen King), and the Bill Hodges trilogy: End of Watch , Finders Keepers , and Mr. Mercedes (an Edgar Award winner for Best Novel and a television series streaming on Peacock). His novel 11/22/63 was named a top ten book of 2011 by The New York Times Book Review and won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize for Mystery/Thriller. His epic works The Dark Tower , It , Pet Sematary , Doctor Sleep , and Firestarter are the basis for major motion pictures, with It now the highest-grossing horror film of all time. He is the recipient of the 2020 Audio Publishers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the 2018 PEN America Literary Service Award, the 2014 National Medal of Arts, and the 2003 National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters. He lives in Bangor, Maine, with his wife, novelist Tabitha King.

Reviews

  • Good short stories

    Always love King’s short stories I

  • やっぱりキングさんは長編作家

    えっ、キングさんの短編?とびっくりして、手にとった。うーむ、正直なところ、やはり S.King は長編作家である。 自分でも長編作家であると自覚しているキングさんが出した短編集だから、それなりに良い出来のものばかりを選んで載せたはずなのだが、短編の名手カーヴァ―やマンロー、それに長編がメインとはいえ短編もすごいアーチャーを読んだ時のような、「できの良さに、思わずうなってしまう」ような経験がほとんどなかった。読後しばらくしても、心にとどまったのはほんの数編でしかない。老人ホームの父親がロードレイジの相手を…と、砂州に書かれていた名前は実はちかぢか…の2編くらいだろうか。 キングファンには、たまに手に取るイロモノとしては良いかもしれないが、つまるところ「やっぱり長編だよな、キングさんは」と再認識させてくれる短編集である。 ただし、各短編がはじまる前のページに、キングさん自身がその短編が出来上がった経緯とかイントロダクションといった感じの小文を載せているのだが、むしろそちらの方が楽しめる。Aの着想を頭の片隅に仕舞い込んで数年後にBの着想が浮かび、合体したら頭の中でひとつの短編が出来上がった…みたいな裏話はキングファンとしては実にありがたい贈り物である。

  • Good set of short tales. Hope Mr King has a few more left in him. Thoroughly enjoyed this one- thank you.

  • I`ve read many books of this awesome writer, one of my favorite writers, actually. I love his short stories, much more than his romances (what can I do?) I just couldn`t stop reading.

  • Sehr schönes Buch mit tollen Kurzgeschichten, allerdings empfehle ich dringend das Überspringen der Einleitungen vor den jeweiligen Geschichten weil man sich damit viel Freude nimmt. Nachher kann man dann zurück blättern und den Hintergrund lesen, keine Ahnung warum die vorher platziert wurden - hab ich so auch noch nicht gesehen. Sonst auf jeden Fall einen Kauf wert :)

  • I loved every single story, they’re genuinely entertaining. Some of them are, of course, better than others, but in general it’s a book I totally recommend. PS: if you go for the scariest; this is not. It’s more disturbing or stories that’ll leave you thinking.

  • Such a wide range is new stories are available. What I like about the book is that at the beginning of each tale, you get to read king himself telling you about how he came up with those ideas although some of them may not be called 'horror' or at leats one in which a mysterious creature is involved. These are, undoubtedly, real ones. If you are a king's fan, you must read this book. =)

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