Short Story by Sherman Alexie. A Spokane Indian recalls his breakup with a white kindergarten teacher he loved. Their relationship was one of constant fights and arguments, often over his excessive drinking. Tortured by violent dreams, he left her and returned to the community of the reservation.
Novella by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn. A fictional account of life in a former Soviet Gulag (forced labor camp). The system is designed to break inmates through a combination of harsh conditions, brutality and absurd rules. Some survive with dignity, others through theft, scavenging, and snitching. Many don’t survive.
Short Story by Ivan Turgenev. A doctor becomes infatuated with a beautiful 20-year-old patient. On sensing her coming death, the woman tells the doctor she loves him. He replies that he also loves her. When the woman confesses their love to her mother, he denies everything and blames her fever.
Short Story by Isak Dinesen. A recently married nineteen-year-old woman’s innocent, child-like view of the world is shattered by a chance encounter with a man covered in blood who is on the run for theft and murder. The triggers a re-evaluation of her naïve views on life and marriage.
Short Story by Jason Brown. A melancholic young man struggles to deal with his mother’s looming death from a brain tumor. The story has as much to do with the young man coming to terms with his failures in life as they do with his mother’s deteriorating state of mind.