Tuesday 5 August 2014

Free Magic Realism Short Stories and Books


It's that time of year again. Time for the second Magic Realism Bloghop and this blog's second birthday.  To start the bloghop here is my birthday present to you - a load of free magic realism.

Over the last year I have been gathering together links to places where you can read online or download magic realism. Most of the pieces are short stories, but there are a few full-length books in here. Some are samples from ebook collections of short stories, including four from the great Gabo himself (thank you Harper Collins).


Marcel Ayme - The Man Who Walked Through Walls - online and downloadable pdf
Aimee Bender - Hotel Rot - online
Aimee Bender - Bull - online
Aimee Bender - The Doctor and the Rabbi -online
Aimee Bender - The Rememberer - online
Kevin Brockmeier - Ceiling - online
Italo Calvino - The Distance of the Moon - pdf 
Italo Calvino - The Daughters of the Moon - online
Miguel de Cervantes - Don Quizote - full book download in various formats
Cory Doctorow - Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town full book download
Louise Erdrich - Four Short Stories (The Red Convertable, Scales, The World's Greatest Fisherman and Saint Marie) - online
Lousie Erdrich - The Shawl - online
Jeffrey Ford - Two Short Stories  (Polka Dots and Moonbeams, Down Atsion Road) - online 
Nikolai Gogol - The Nose -online
Franz Kafka - Metamorphosis - downloadable in various formats
Elizabeth Hand - Hungerford Bridge - online 
Kelly Link - Stranger Things Can Happen (complete short story collection) - pdf
Kelly Link - Some Zombie Contingency Plans - online
Kelly Link - The Faery Handbag - online
Kelly Link -  The Hortlak - online 
Kelly Link - Magic for Beginners - online
Charles de Lint - Make a Joyful Noise - online
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Four Short Stories (The Third Resignation, The Other Side of Death, Eva Is Inside Her Cat, Bitterness for Three Sleepwalkers,) - view online
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - The Autumn of the Patriarch - online
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Death Constant Beyond Love  - pdf 
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World - online
Gabriel Garcia Marquez - A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings - online
Steven Millhauser - Cathay - online
Erin Morgenstern - Flax Golden Tales - online
Haruki Murakami - Samsa in Love - online
Nnedi Okorafor - Biafra - online 
Nnedi Okorafor - Asunder - online
Nnedi Okorafor - Hello Moto - online
Bruce Holland Rogers - Don Ysidro - online 
Benjamin Rosenbaum - The Ant King and Other Stories full book - pdf
Salman Rushdie - The Shelter of the World - online
Karen Russell - The Graveless Doll of Eric Mutis - online
Jose Saramag0 - Things - online
Ekaterina Sedia - Herding Vegetable Sheep - online
Ekaterina Sedia - Zombie Lenin - online
Ekaterina Sedia - Manuel and the Magic Fox - online
Muriel Spark - The Seraph and the Zambesi - short story online
Katherine Vaz - Journey of the Eyeball - online
Oscar Wilde - Picture of Dorian Gray - full book - download
Virgina Woolf - Orlando - full book - download  (available in countries where the public domain point is 70+ years)

I think all these pieces are available legally.

If you know of any other free (legal) pieces of magic realism, please leave links to them in the comments and I will add them to the list. 

11 comments:

Unknown said...

Wow what a treasure trove! Thanks for this. Calvino's Distance of the Moon is one of my favourite short stories.

Dennis Vickers said...

Wow! This is a wonderful resource. I'm often looking for excellent literature online, to share works with my students without forcing them to buy additional books or overheating the photocopy machine. Garcia-Marquez, Erdrich, Calvino...my favorites!

Yvonne Hertzberger said...

Great trove. I'm coming back to this for sure. :)

Laura (Literate Thoughts) said...

I will definitely be using this list!

jamief said...

Hi there! Thank you for posting all of these. Super helpful!

I have a quick question. I am looking for a VERY short story that has elements of magical realism. Perhaps only one or two pages? Do you know of any this short? Any suggestions?

Thank you so much!
Jamie

Zoe Brooks said...

DON YSIDRO is quite short

Anonymous said...

I notice that this blog was posted in 2014 but I'd thought i'd give it a try to get a reply. I am a college student writing a essay over A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and I have to find another short story to compare it to and write about. I am wanting to find another short story with the same magical realistic style like AVOMWEW but am having trouble finding one. My idea is to compare the two from their magical realistic style and how it brings both story's together. All I can find is other stories by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and long books, but the story I need to find can not be by Marquez (I need a different author) and it has to be a short story. Any suggestions?

Zdenka said...

thanks for the inspiration, this kind of books is my cup of tea :-)

Unknown said...

This is a wonderful service thank you so much! However, Kevin Brockmeier's "The Ceiling," listed here, is not available online. Your link goes to the publisher (Penguin).

Unknown said...

Hey guys, I am looking for gabriel garcia marquez'very first story which has been publish in El Espectador when he was a student.
The title is " the third registration"

Please Email me if you have any link

Marzziehz@gmail.com

Amala-bhakti devi dasi said...

Thank you so much. I love this blog!