Little Black Book of Stories

Like Hans Christian Andersen and the Brothers Grimm, Isak Dinesen and Angela Carter, A. S. Byatt knows that fairy tales are for grownups. And in this ravishing collection she breathes new life into the form. Little Black Book of Storiesoffers shivers along with magical thrills. Leaves rustle underfoot in a dark wood:two middle-aged women, childhood friends reunited by chance, venture into a dark forest where once, many years before, they sawor thought they sawsomething unspeakable. Another woman, recently bereaved, finds herself slowly but surely turning into stone. A coolly rational ob-gyn has his world pushed off-axis by a waiflike art student with her own ideas about the uses of the body. Spellbinding, witty, lovely, terrifying, theLittle Black Book of Storiesis Byatt at the height of her craft.

A.S. Byatt is internationally acclaimed as a novelist, short story writer and critic. Educated at Cambridge, she taught at the Central School of Art and Design and at University College, London before becoming a full-time writer in 1983. Her most recent novel is <b>A Whistling Woman</b>, the conclusion of the famous “Frederica” quartet.<br><br><br><i>From the Hardcover edition.</i>