When did you last meet a polar bear, or go to a magician for help? These stories offer many different experiences. Some are strange, some are scary, some are sad, some are blackly funny. A few are shocking — when Lin Lin returns home for a funeral, she learns a dark and terrible family secret which may destroy her. Bookworms World Stories collect stories written in English from around the world. These stories are from Australia, Canada, India, Malaysia, Nigeria, Singapore, South Africa, and Trinidad.

What happens when a man lives his life backwards, or a family owns a diamond as big as the Ritz Hotel? How can a boring girl become more popular, a careless young woman become more sensible, or a cut-glass bowl destroy a married woman's life? What does a young man do to save the girl that he likes from an evil ghost, or to forget old feelings for a woman when she marries another man? Read this collection of short stories by one of America's finest storytellers to find out.

Sometimes I think this search is hopeless. So much has happened since I last saw my friends. Perhaps they have died or the rebels have taken them away. But I know I have to find Laker. I know she needs me. In a country torn by war, it is easy to stop hoping. All Atita has is an old photograph. She does not even know if she will recognize Laker after all these years... The stories in this volume of World Stories are by African writers Jackee Budesta Batanda, Jack Cope, Mandla Langa, and M. G. Vassanji.

At home we started with an innocent life. Walking home from village dances across pale wet fields, looking at birds on the moonlit lake, playing a tune across the water in the early morning with no other sound in the clear cold air. Innocence and experience, loss and longing, humour and sadness run hand in hand through these stories. The stories in this volume of World Stories are by Irish writers Brian Friel, Edna O'Brien, William Trevor, Lorcan Byrne, Frank O'Connor, Claire Keegan, Eamonn Sweeney, and Somerville & Ross.

At home we started with an innocent life. Walking home from village dances across pale wet fields, looking at birds on the moonlit lake, playing a tune across the water in the early morning with no other sound in the clear cold air. Innocence and experience, loss and longing, humour and sadness run hand in hand through these stories. The stories in this volume of World Stories are by Irish writers Brian Friel, Edna O'Brien, William Trevor, Lorcan Byrne, Frank O'Connor, Claire Keegan, Eamonn Sweeney, and Somerville & Ross.

My brother preferred being with mother and me. He used to help us prepare vegetables in the kitchen or make the bread. But what he liked best was listening to my mother's stories. But those childhood days are long gone, and now a great distance divides sister and brother, children and mother. The stories in this volume of World Stories come from India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. The writers are Romesh Gunesekera, M. Athar Tahir, Chitra Divakaruni, Anu Kumar, Anne Ranasinghe, Ruskin Bond, Anita Desai, Vijita Fernando, and Amara Bavani Dev.

Sherlock Holmes is the greatest detective of them all. He sits in his room, and smokes his pipe. He listens, and watches, and thinks. He listens to the steps coming up the stairs; he watches the door opening — and he knows what question the stranger will ask. In these three of his best stories, Holmes has three visitors to the famous flat in Baker Street — visitors who bring their troubles to the only man in the world who can help them.

Christmas is humbug, Scrooge says — just a time when you find yourself a year older and not a penny richer. The only thing that matters to Scrooge is business, and making money. But on Christmas Eve three spirits come to visit him. They take him travelling on the wings of the night to see the shadows of Christmas past, present, and future — and Scrooge learns a lesson that he will never forget.

Bathsheba Everdene is young, proud, and beautiful. She is an independent woman and can marry any man she chooses — if she chooses. In fact, she likes her independence, and she likes fighting her own battles in a man's world. But it is never wise to ignore the power of love. There are three men who would very much like to marry Bathsheba. When she falls in love with one of them, she soon wishes she had kept her independence. She learns that love brings misery, pain, and violent passions that can destroy lives...