Good luck in Malaysia, bad news in New Zealand, a chicken and a jug of cider in Britain, a goat and a pumpkin in India, fun and games in a cyber cafe in Nigeria... The countries change, but people's lives are always strange and wonderful in any place. Bookworms World Stories collect stories written in English from around the world. These stories are by Shahana Chaudhury, Mary McCluskey, Nandita Ray, Suchitra Karthik Kumar, Susan Costello, Anthony C. Diala, Preeta Krishna, and Folakemi Emem-Akpan.

Good luck in Malaysia, bad news in New Zealand, a chicken and a jug of cider in Britain, a goat and a pumpkin in India, fun and games in a cyber cafe in Nigeria... The countries change, but people's lives are always strange and wonderful in any place. Bookworms World Stories collect stories written in English from around the world. These stories are by Shahana Chaudhury, Mary McCluskey, Nandita Ray, Suchitra Karthik Kumar, Susan Costello, Anthony C. Diala, Preeta Krishna, and Folakemi Emem-Akpan.

He smiled, showing teeth yellow from cigarette smoke. He looked at his desk diary, then at her papers again. Mmm... a hundred pesos a month, Why, that's one thousand two hundred pesos a year. Surely, you can afford to buy me a forty-peso dinner! How can Marina say no? How can she refuse the Chief's next request? He is an evil man, but she needs her promotion...

He smiled, showing teeth yellow from cigarette smoke. He looked at his desk diary, then at her papers again. Mmm... a hundred pesos a month, Why, that's one thousand two hundred pesos a year. Surely, you can afford to buy me a forty-peso dinner! How can Marina say no? How can she refuse the Chief's next request? He is an evil man, but she needs her promotion...

Then a letter came for Aloo from a famous college in America. They offered him a place... a place with a scholarship. Aloo could not believe it at first. He read the letter again and again. Aloo is very happy, but soon he finds that it is not so easy. He will need money to live on, money for his plane ticket... And then there is Mother... The stories in this volume of World Stories come from Malawi, South Africa, and Tanzania by African writers Steve Chimombo, Farida Karodia, and M. G. Vassanji.

I'm afraid to look in the storeroom. All our food for the winter — where is it now? Inside those hungry guests! They never stop eating! And they never say thank you! And those children — my God, they eat more than their parents! Izzet Efendi and his family are afraid that their guests are never going to go home, but what can they do? Bookworms World Stories collect stories from around the world. This volume has stories by Turkish writers Huseyin Rahmi Gurpinar, Ayse Kilimci, Sait Faik, and Yalvac Ural.

Then a letter came for Aloo from a famous college in America. They offered him a place... a place with a scholarship. Aloo could not believe it at first. He read the letter again and again. Aloo is very happy, but soon he finds that it is not so easy. He will need money to live on, money for his plane ticket... And then there is Mother... The stories in this volume of World Stories come from Malawi, South Africa, and Tanzania by African writers Steve Chimombo, Farida Karodia, and M. G. Vassanji.

In EDI (the European Department of Intelligence in Brussels) there are some very secret files — the Omega Files. There are strange, surprising, and sometimes horrible stories in these files, but not many people know about them. You never read about them in the newspapers. Hawker and Jude know all about the Omega Files, because they work for EDI. They think fast, they move fast, and they learn some very strange things. They go all over the world, asking difficult questions in dangerous places, but they don't always find the answers...

Tom Walsh had a lot to learn about life. He liked travelling, and he was in no hurry. He liked meeting people, anyone and everyone. He liked the two American girls on the train. They were nice and very friendly. They knew a lot of places. Tom thought they were fun. Tom certainly had a lot to learn about life. This is a collection of short stories about adventures on trains. Strange, wonderful, and frightening things can happen on trains — and all of them happen here.

It is 1880, in the Opera House in Paris. Everybody is talking about the Phantom of the Opera, the ghost that lives somewhere under the Opera House. The Phantom is a man in black clothes. He is a body without a head, he is a head without a body. He has a yellow face, he has no nose, he has black holes for eyes. Everybody is afraid of the Phantom — the singers, the dancers, the directors, the stage workers... But who has actually seen him?

The President is dead! A man is running in the night. He is afraid and needs to rest. But there are people behind him — people with lights, and dogs, and guns. A man is standing in front of a desk. His boss is very angry, and the man is tired and needs to sleep. But first he must find the other man, and bring him back — dead or alive. Two men: the hunter and the hunted. Which will win and which will lose? Long live the President!

Dr Huxtable has a school for boys in the north of England. When the Duke of Holdernesse decides to send his young son there, that is good news for the school. The Duke is a very important person, and Dr Huxtable is happy to have his son in the school. But two weeks later Dr Huxtable is the unhappiest man in England. Why? And why does he take the train down to London and go to Baker Street? Why does he need the help of the famous detective Sherlock Holmes? Because someone has kidnapped the Duke's son...

Horseracing is the sport of kings, perhaps because racehorses are very expensive animals. But when they win races, they can make a lot of money too — money for the owners, for the trainers, and for the people who put bets on them to win. Silver Blaze is a young horse, but already the winner of many races. One night he disappears from his stables, and someone kills his trainer. The police want the killer, and the owner wants his horse, but they can't find them. So what do they do? They write to 221B Baker Street, London, of course — to ask for the help of the great detective, Sherlock Holmes.

A woman and a man... words of love whispered on a summer night. Later, there is a child, but no wedding-ring. And then the man leaves the first woman, finds a younger woman, marries her... It's an old story. Yes, it's an old, old story. It happens all the time — today, tomorrow, a hundred years ago. People don't change. But this story, set among the green hills of southern England, has something different about it. Perhaps it is only a dream, or perhaps it is magic — a kind of strange dark magic that begins in the world of dreams and phantoms...

I'm afraid to look in the storeroom. All our food for the winter — where is it now? Inside those hungry guests! They never stop eating! And they never say thank you! And those children — my God, they eat more than their parents! Izzet Efendi and his family are afraid that their guests are never going to go home, but what can they do? Bookworms World Stories collect stories from around the world. This volume has stories by Turkish writers Huseyin Rahmi Gurpinar, Ayse Kilimci, Sait Faik, and Yalvac Ural.

Tony Kytes is a favourite with the girls but he's not terribly clever. If you meet an old girlfriend and she asks for a ride home in your wagon, do you say yes? And then if you meet the girl you are planning to marry, what do you do? Very soon, Tony is in a great muddle, and does not know how to escape from it. These stories are set in an English country village of the nineteenth century, but Hardy's tales of mistakes and muddles and marriages belong in any place, at any time.

From Botswana to New Zealand, from Jamaica to Nigeria, from Uganda to Malaysia, from India to South Africa, these moving stories show us that the human heart is the same in every place. Children, wives, mothers, husbands, friends all have the same feelings of fear and pain, happiness and sadness. These eight stories were winning entries in the 2004 Commonwealth Short Story Competition. The writers are Sefi Atta, Adrienne M. Frater, Lauri Kubuitsile, Erica N. Robinson, Jackee Budesta Batanda, Janet Tay Hui Ching, Anuradha Muralidharan, and Tod Collins.