Books like Bad dreams and other stories by Tessa Hadley

A whimsical collection of short stories where characters slip between tales, wandering through lost libraries, locked gardens, and a city of stopped clocks, all bound together by Helen Oyeyemi’s intricate prose and imaginative worldbuilding.

A chance encounter with an uninvited visitor turns a quiet English holiday into a moment of unsettling change, with rippling effects that carry the family back to London.

A 1991 anthology of 51 adult tales by Roald Dahl, drawn from earlier collections and the television series *Tales of the Unexpected*, it offers a mix of dark humor, macabre twists and sharp social satire.

Hilary Mantel’s sharp, darkly humorous short‑story collection delves into modern England, tackling gender, class, family, and society with penetrating insight and unexpected twists.

271 p. : 20 cm

Over five novels and two collections of stories Tessa Hadley has earned a reputation as a fiction writer of remarkable gifts, and been compared with Elizabeth Bowen and Alice Munro. In her new novel three sisters and a brother meet up in their grandparents' old house for three long, hot summer weeks. The house is full of memories of their childhood and their past - their mother took them there when she left their father - but now they may have to sell it. And under the idyllic surface, there are tensions. Roland has come with his new wife and his sisters don't like her. Kasim, the twenty-year-old son of Alice's ex-boyfriend, makes plans to seduce Molly, Roland's teenage daughter. Fran's children uncover an ugly secret in a ruined cottage in the woods. Passion erupts where it's least expected, blasting the quiet self-possession of Harriet, the oldest sister. A way of life - bourgeois, literate, ritualised - winds down to its inevitable end. With uncanny precision and extraordinary sympathy, Tessa Hadley charts the squalls of lust and envy disrupting this ill-assorted house party, as well as the consolations of memory and affection, the beauty of the natural world, the shifting of history under the social surface. From the first page the reader is absorbed and enthralled, watching a superb craftsman at work --

Clare, mère de famille, fait face à un passé qui refait surface lorsqu’elle retrouve, à l’âge adulte, l’homme qu’elle avait connu durant son adolescence. Ce retour déclenche une rivalité inattendue avec Helly, son amie d’enfance et actrice., la dynamique de leurs amitiés et de leurs familles recomposées se met à l’épreuve, offrant une exploration fine des relations féminines et des secrets de foyer.

Irvine Welsh returns with a sharp, humorous collection of five short stories that showcase his talent for wit and vivid characters.

Ali Smith’s collection, The First Person and Other Stories, blends wit and depth, exploring the craft of storytelling through smart, compassionate, and humorous short tales.