best short stories list

Bite-sized: 50 great short stories, chosen by Hilary Mantel, George Saunders and more

Quick and easily shared, is the short story the form for our times? Leading authors pick their favourites

“The Tribute” by Jane Gardam (1980)

John McGahern and Annie Proulx are among my favourite authors, but to dispel gloom I choose this story from Jane Gardam’s 1980 collection The Sidmouth Letters . Reading this gleeful story in my expatriate days, I recognised the cast of “diplomatic wives”, trailing inebriate husbands through the ruins of empire. Mostly dialogue, it is a deft, witty tale in which a small kindness – though not by a diplomatic wife – pays off 40 years later. I must have read it a dozen times, to see how its note is sustained and the surprise is sprung; every time it makes me smile with delight. Hilary Mantel

“The Stone Boy” by Gina Berriault (1957)

This great and underrated masterpiece is a meditation on good and evil and especially about the way that people’s expectations and assumptions about us may wear us down and eventually force us into compliance with their view. But it is a much deeper and more biblical story than that and, like any great work of art, resists reduction. Berriault, who died in 1999, is known as a San Francisco writer. A wonderful sampling of her stories is available in Women in Their Beds: New & Selected Stories . George Saunders

“The Love of a Good Woman” by Alice Munro (1998)

Among the handful of short stories closest to my heart, I’ve chosen “The Love of a Good Woman” by Canadian writer Munro, from her 1998 collection of that name. It’s about a murder – probably it’s a murder, because nothing is certain – and a love match that depends on keeping that murder secret. Like so many of Munro’s stories, this one has the scope of a novel yet never feels hurried or crowded. The sociology of a small town in rural Ontario is caught on the wing in the loose weave of her narration; the story takes in whole lifetimes, and yet its pace is also exquisitely slow, carrying us deep inside particular moments. A woman moves among the willows beside a river at night, making up her mind. Tessa Hadley

“The Siren” by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa (1961)

Born in Palermo in 1896, Lampedusa was a learned prince who died before his work was published. In addition to his celebrated novel The Leopard , he left behind some short stories, including “The Siren”, a mysterious masterpiece that jolts and haunts me every time I read it. It contains two narrative planes, two central protagonists, two settings, two tonal registers and two points of view. There are even two titles; though published as “La Sirena”, it was originally called “Lighea”, the name of the siren, portrayed as a 16-year-old girl. Lampedusa’s description renders this fatefully seductive creature specific, vulnerable and real. Jhumpa Lahiri The Penguin Book of Italian Short Stories, edited by Jhumpa Lahiri, will be published on 7 March.

“A Simple Heart” by Gustave Flaubert (1877)

Flaubert wrote this story for his old friend and “fellow troubadour” George Sand. It’s the story of Félicité, an old servant-woman, and the diminishing loves in her life, the final one being a (live – at first) parrot. It has a sombre novelistic density, and is touching and tender, comic and grotesque. Control of tone is central to its effect. It also exemplifies the Flaubertian principle that irony and sympathy are not incompatible. Sand died before she was able to read it. “So it is with all our dreams,” noted Flaubert. Julian Barnes

“Friends” by Grace Paley (1985)

This story tracks three friends as they visit a fourth who is dying. The women then go home on the train. It ends with a brief conversation between the narrator, Faith, and her 18-year-old son. The piece has warm intimacy as well as cold spaces within it. It captures the all-encompassing intrusion of the world and its conditioning of our day-to-day emotions, our children’s colonisation of our hearts and our powerlessness ultimately to protect them. Its understated tone is perfectly pitched: the narrative moves gently, then soars, into either sadness, or joyful contentment – again and again. I am in this story, and so is the world. Ahdaf Soueif

“My Life” by Anton Chekhov (1896)

This is Chekhov’s longest short story and one of the very few he wrote in the first-person singular. It’s the autobiography of a young man in provincial Russia struggling to live up to his lofty ideals and being brought down by life’s random contingencies. I actually adapted “My Life” for a play and know it intimately. If you could only read a single Chekhov story then this is the one: all his gifts and genius – the wry, dark comedy of his voice, his unique angle on the human condition, his refusal to judge – are contained in it. William Boyd

“In the Night” by Jamaica Kincaid (1978)

Part poetic incantation, part eccentric kaleidoscopic vision, this is a story which contorts each time you read it. Born in Antigua, Kincaid invents aesthetics which are wholly unique, transfiguring human form and surroundings, in particular, the Caribbean landscapes. Here, she conveys the multiple textures of smaller islands, creating a literary geography which remains experimental, new and indefinable. Irenosen Okojie

“Music at Annahullion” by Eugene McCabe (2004)

McCabe’s story is set on the border between Monaghan and Fermanagh sometime in the 1950s or 60s. Two brothers and a sister are uneasily sharing a smallholding. The landscape itself and the states of sour feeling are described with sharpness and precision. When the sister announces that she would like a piano that is advertised for sale locally, one of the brothers buys it for her. But it won’t fit into the house and is left to rot outside. The failure to get the piano into the house has an extraordinary power and pathos. Its purchase has stood for all hope, and now there is no hope. The hard-won sense of despair and darkness in the final pages of this small masterpiece is memorable and chilling. Colm Tóibín

“Werner” by Jo Ann Beard (2007)

Only afterwards did I discover that this was in fact a piece of densely textured reportage, but it taught me so much about how to write a short story that I will always see it as one. A young man, Werner Hoeflich, trapped by a fire, escapes by leaping from the window of his New York apartment, across the intervening gap and in through the window of the adjacent building. It has the richness of a novel, the raw and dirty grip of life and was, for me, a revelation. Fine language and a deftly conjured mood are all well and good, but fiction – of whatever length – should thrill. Mark Haddon

“The Window Theatre” by Ilse Aichinger (1953)

Miscommunication, antic disposition, voyeurism, glee – this translation of one of Aichinger’s most famous stories provides windows upon windows upon windows. Simply expressed and made to linger long in the mind, it was my first experience of the prizewinning Austrian writer and her dark, precise prose styling, and the start of an ongoing pursuit on my part to read more of her work. Eley Williams

“The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe (1843)

Poe’s obsessive theme was the terror of losing sanity – never more dramatically evoked than in this masterpiece. In “The Tell-Tale Heart”, one of Poe’s shortest “tales of the grotesque and arabesque”, and the one that seems most contemporary in the hallucinatory intensity of its narration, an unnamed individual commits a brutal, seemingly unprovoked murder of an old man with whom he lives, disposes of the body by dismembering and burying it beneath the floorboards of the residence they share, and succumbs to madness and self-destruction in the aftermath of guilt. Throughout, the narrator insists on his sanity: “True – nervous – very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses – not destroyed – not dulled them.” That the murder is entirely irrational is acknowledged by the murderer: “Object there was none. Passion there was none. I loved the old man. He had never wronged me. He had never given me insult. For his gold I had no desire. I think it was his eye! yes, it was this! One of his eyes resembled that of a vulture – a pale blue eye, with a film over it.”

Poe is a master of the “unreliable narrator” – a voice that speaks with devastating spontaneity and is utterly convincing – that has come to be a staple of much suspense and horror fiction in the 20th and 21st centuries. Unhampered by the literary pretensions of certain of Poe’s other, longer stories, totally committed to its unrepentant pathology, and its visceral celebration of this pathology, “The Tell-Tale Heart” is the very essence of Poe, as Poe is himself the very essence of the American gothic tradition. Joyce Carol Oates

“An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” by Ambrose Bierce (1890)

Many readers might come to this from the short film, made rather confusingly in French. But it’s a tale set during the American civil war. Peyton Farquhar is being hanged by Union soldiers on a small bridge in Alabama. To say more might ruin the experience of reading it. When I happened on the story a few years ago, I thought I might be one of only a few intrepid readers. Of course, it is considered to be one of the best stories in American literature. Sebastian Barry

“After Rain” by William Trevor (1996)

William Trevor has influenced me more than any other writer, and it’s impossible for me to name one story by him that is an absolute favourite. I can, however, name 20 to 30 stories that I return to often. One of these is “After Rain”. A woman travels alone to recover from a love that has ended too abruptly, but the wish that solitude could exorcise loneliness is as faulty as the wish that love could exorcise disappointment brought by love. The story to me is like an eye drop for the mind. It doesn’t offer a resolution to life’s muddiness, but it offers a moment of clarity. Yiyun Li

“In the Heart of the Heart of the Country” by William H Gass (1968)

The thing that is most striking about this story, aside from its restrained, grave beauty, is that it should manage to be so moving. On one level it is a dryly detailed and topographically exact portrait of a small town in the American midwest, but on another it is a devastating threnody for lost love. Gass was one of the great prose stylists, and the writing here is typically smooth and pellucid, conjuring its effects by stealth and unflagging control. Simply, and by simple means, a masterpiece. John Banville

“American Express” by James Salter (1988)

The temporal shifts in James Salter’s short fiction are its distinguishing glory. Decades unfold inside the beat of a sentence; a single moment might linger unspoken for many pages. Time seems to concertina, expanding and contracting to open out pockets of aromatic description. In “American Express”, a pair of venal New York lawyers make a shabby killing and embark with their riches on a playboy jaunt through Italy, where one of them takes up with a schoolgirl. The story deals in oxymorons – bitter desire, weak power – and jolts to a conclusion that is harsh, cool, indelible. Kevin Barry

“Paradise” by Edna O’Brien (2014)

Key to a great short story is the tension and torsion created within each sentence. “Paradise” combines remarkable disquiet, poetry and narrative drive. O’Brien is a phenomenal architect of landscape, both physical and human, imbuing her setting with exact detail, lush discomfort, intrigue and counterintuitive fate. The main character, a nurse, has been taken to the overseas villa of her rich lover. Not only must she learn to swim and entertain his companions, she’s interviewing – without any real prospect – for the position of wife. The story is lit with sexual chemistry, but travels a horribly misaligned path. Its true test lies in finding an exit from the female dream. Sarah Hall

“Hands” by Sherwood Anderson (1916)

This is a strange, dark little story. Its charm comes from the eccentricities of its subject, former schoolteacher Wing Biddlebaum, since “the story of Wing Biddlebaum is a story of hands”. Anderson evokes the Ohio town of Winesburg by focusing on the hands of its inhabitants. Wing’s hands are “slender, and forever trying to conceal themselves” and he notices how the hands of those around him are “quieter, inexpressive”. And it’s the wandering hands of Wing Biddlebaum, who has changed his name from Adolph Myers, that leads to the story’s disturbing conclusion. Guy Gunaratne

“Let It Snow” by David Sedaris (2003)

Sedaris is in the fifth grade when heavy snow closes the schools. After a few days, his mother breaks down: “Get the hell out of my house,” she says, “and stay out!”. The little Sedarises go off sledding and return to find the door locked against them. They peer through the window to see their mother watching TV and glugging wine. ‘Open the door,’ they yell, ‘it’s us!’. She closes the drapes on them. “That bitch!” shouts a Sedaris sister. Fun turns to fear, mild sibling savagery follows and then, suddenly, it’s OK again.

A story – more memoir than fiction – that starts with the recognition that the very sight of you drives your mother to drink is attractive to me. But when it ends with that mother wading barelegged through five inches of snow to reach you, it’s everything a story should be. It’s The Sound of Music / Lord of the Flies / Owl Babies in a few short pages. He is a genius. Nina Stibbe . Reasons to Be Cheerful by Nina Stibbe will be published by Viking on 28 March .

“The Distance of the Moon” by Italo Calvino (1963)

This is a gloriously sensual story, narrated by a man who wants another’s wife – but the true star of the show is the moon. Calvino imagines it so close it risks dipping its scales in the sea. Fishermen gather lunar milk as the protagonist writhes in unrequited love. It is a great example of magic realism – full of texture and motion and mischief and longing. Leone Ross Come Let Us Sing Anyway , by Leone Ross, is published by Peepal Tree.

Contemporary and classic tales picked by Chris Power

“civil peace” by chinua achebe (1971).

Achebe didn’t write many short stories (in the preface to his 1972 collection, Girls at War , he notes that “a dozen pieces in twenty years must be accounted a pretty lean harvest by any reckoning”), but his best are deeply memorable. “Civil Peace” takes place in the immediate aftermath of the Biafran war, and gives vivid life to the luck and misfortune experienced by Jonathan Iwegbu – an incorrigible optimist in a devastated society – and the surviving members of his family.

“In a Bamboo Grove” by Ryūnosuke Akutagawa (1921)

Akutagawa’s ingenious riddle of a story takes the form of seven testimonies given to a magistrate in the course of a murder investigation. A samurai has been found dead in a bamboo grove, but the narrative doesn’t end with the confession of the notorious bandit Tajōmaru. Instead, two subsequent testimonies, that of the samurai’s wife and of the samurai himself, via a spirit medium, contradict each other and the bandit’s story, and ask the reader to turn investigator and puzzle out the truth.

“Happy Endings” by Margaret Atwood (1983)

Alice Munro once said: “I want the story to exist somewhere so that in a way it’s still happening … I don’t want it to be shut up in the book and put away – oh well, that’s what happened.” Atwood articulates the same position in this fun, thought-provoking story that begins with a man meeting a woman, then offers variants of what happens next. Any ending that isn’t death, she concludes, is false, and the interesting part of stories isn’t what happens, but how and why.

“Going to Meet the Man” by James Baldwin (1965)

A southern white deputy sheriff tries and fails to have sex with his wife. As she goes to sleep he talks about the vicious beating he gave a black protestor earlier that day, and returns to a deeper and even darker memory from his childhood: the ritual killing of a black man. After the killing, there was a picnic. Baldwin doesn’t deny his character humanity, but as the story’s shocking climax shows, neither does he forgive him.

“The Garden of Forking Paths” by Jorge Luis Borges (1941)

When described in summary, there is a danger of reducing Borges to a collection of tropes: labyrinths, mirrors, invented books (he avoided “the madness of composing vast books” by pretending they exist and writing commentaries on them). But with these elements he explored some of the most thrilling ideas in fiction. Labyrinths and strange books are both present here, as is a theory of existence that anticipates the many-worlds interpretation of quantum mechanics. Extraordinarily, all these elements are enfolded within an account of a wartime espionage mission.

“This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” by Tadeusz Borowski (1946)

From spring 1943 to summer 1944 the young Polish poet Borowski was a political prisoner in Auschwitz. His stories are some of the darkest documents in world literature. This one describes the narrator’s first shift as a kapo unloading trains packed with Jewish men, women and children. Borowski’s prose alternates between a blunt numbness and image making of extraordinary power.

“The Company of Wolves” by Angela Carter (1979)

In The Bloody Chamber Angela Carter rewrote some of the best known fairytales – “Beauty and the Beast”, “Snow White”, “Bluebeard” – challenging their assumptions about gender, sexual cruelty and morality. In “The Company of Wolves” Red Riding Hood is no longer the meek victim of the wolf, but a woman of agency and courage who uses her sexuality to tame him.

“Why Don’t You Dance?” by Raymond Carver (1981)

The best Carver stories don’t require the conventional techniques of exposition or backstory but create an extraordinary immediacy. Here we witness a man who has taken his furnishings and arranged them on his lawn: bed, couch, desk, turntable, lamp. It’s all for sale, and as the man gets drunk with a young couple looking to furnish their apartment, we can guess how he has got here. But a hangnail of the unknowable remains, and stays long in the memory.

“The Country Husband” by John Cheever (1954)

Cheever is known as a chronicler of the suburbs, but in this story the leafy neighbourhood of Shady Hill, a recurring location in his fiction, blends the domestic with something much stranger, almost magical. The story is comic (its title mirrors William Wycherley’s 1675 comedy of manners The Country-Wife ), but darker currents work beneath its surface and it builds to a stunning finale that is one of the most rapturous passages Cheever ever wrote.

“An Outpost of Progress” by Joseph Conrad (1897)

Kayerts and Carlier, agents for the Great Trading Company, are “two perfectly insignificant and incapable individuals” left in charge of a remote trading station. Conrad mines a deep vein of irony as he describes their work “serving the cause of progress”. As the story unfolds, and the men are shown to be idiotic cogs in the engine of colonialism, Conrad exposes the gap between the high-flown language of such projects (“progress”, “civilisation”, “virtue”) and their brutal reality.

“Twilight of the Superheroes” by Deborah Eisenberg (2006)

Eisenberg’s story is high on the list of great literature about 9/11. Since the 1990s she has examined the effects of American power on the world and asked the question one of her characters asks here: “How far away does something have to be before you have the right to not really know about it?” The attack on New York, that “terrible day”, although it seemed to come from nowhere, “had been prepared for a long, long time, though it had been prepared behind a curtain”.

“In the Tunnel” by Mavis Gallant (1971)

Sarah’s father sends her from Canada to Grenoble as a way of ending her relationship with a married professor, but she ends up on the French Riviera. There she meets Roy, an ex-prison inspector, and rashly moves in with him. The story’s charge arises from a combination of wit, the awfulness of the relationship’s collapse, and Gallant’s profound grasp of the psychology of love affairs. She talks about her characters in a way that makes you feel your own perceptiveness is being worked like a muscle.

“The Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1892)

During her lifetime Gilman was best known for her nonfiction, and she was forgotten after her suicide. Her fiction, in particular “The Yellow Wallpaper”, was rediscovered in the 1970s by feminist academics. This chilling story takes the “madwoman” figure of gothic fiction, memorably used by Charlotte Brontë in Jane Eyre , and describes her experience from the inside looking out. Having been told to avoid mental stimulation by her doctor following an episode of depression, Gilman wrote the story to “convince him of the error of his ways”.

“The Overcoat” by Nikolai Gogol (1842)

It is uncertain whether it was Turgenev or Dostoevsky who said, “We all came out from under Gogol’s ‘Overcoat’”, but his influence on those writers – as well as on Tolstoy, Kafka, Nabokov, Borges and many more – is profound. The main character of this bleakly hilarious story, the downtrodden government clerk Akaky Akakievich, is arguably the first antihero in modern literature, and his doomed pursuit of a new overcoat one of the most memorably absurd quests in fiction.

“Six Feet of the Country” by Nadine Gordimer (1953)

The reality of apartheid, and later the effects of its aftermath, dominates Gordimer’s fiction. Here her narrator, who has escaped the tension of Johannesburg to play at farming in a rural suburb, becomes enraged when, following the death and autopsy of one of his workers’ brothers, the authorities return the wrong body for burial. Despite his efforts to achieve justice, the story’s final, bitterly ironic lines reveal that he is blind to his own racism.

“Big Two-Hearted River” by Ernest Hemingway (1925)

Hemingway’s distinctive style – which John Updike described as “gleaming economy and aggressive minimalism” – is stunningly showcased here. Nick Adams’s journey into the Michigan backwoods is also a journey into his own war-damaged psyche, and his unwillingness to fish the deep water of the swamp a resonant evocation of trauma.

“A Village After Dark” by Kazuo Ishiguro (2001)

The tension in this uncanny piece is stoked by Ishiguro’s refusal to provide more than tantalising fragments of backstory. At nightfall an old man, Fletcher, arrives at a village where he once held great influence, but is now resented (“I was mistaken about a lot of things,” he admits). This might be an alternative Britain, or a future one. The dilapidated buildings and Fletcher’s tramp-like appearance give the story a Beckettian feel, while its allegorical quality carries over to Ishiguro’s novel The Buried Giant .

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson (1948)

Asked to describe her writing, Jackson once noted its fascination with “the uncontrolled, unobserved wickedness of human behaviour”. “The Lottery”, in which a crowd gathers for a ceremony in the main square of a New England village on a sunny June morning, ends with one of the nastiest surprises in fiction. When the New Yorker printed the story it became the “ Cat Person ” of its era as letters flooded in expressing admiration, disgust, and – unbelievably – concern that the gruesome story was true.

“Emergency” by Denis Johnson (1991)

Johnson’s story begins in a hospital emergency room. It’s the night shift, and Fuckhead (his nickname is the only name for him we get) and Georgie are taking care of hospital business while swallowing every pharmaceutical they can get their hands on. When their shift finishes, they drive into the countryside and reality unravels completely. Johnson rides a line between the sacred and the profane, between hilarity and sadness., and writes prose that will take your breath away

“Araby” by James Joyce (1914)

The stories in Dubliners divide into the four stages of life, and “Araby” encapsulates the turbulence and humiliation of adolescence in a boy’s lonely night-time journey across Dublin to buy a gift for the girl he loves.

“A Bright Green Field” by Anna Kavan (1958)

If you love JG Ballard, you should read Anna Kavan. Few novelists, Ballard said, “could match the intensity of her vision”, and that same intensity fuels her stories. The narrator of “A Bright Green Field” claims to encounter the same, unnaturally vivid field of grass wherever she goes. It’s an unlikely candidate for a bete noire, but Kavan’s descriptions of a mountain town in the gathering gloom, loomed over by “the sheer emerald wall that was the meadow”, create an atmosphere of powerful unease.

“Extra” by Yiyun Li (2003)

Granny Lin is 51, and doesn’t know when everyone started calling her granny. Working as a maid at a boarding school in the Beijing suburbs she develops feelings for six-year-old Kang, a rich man’s illegitimate son, an unwanted “extra” who “has to be got rid of”. Granny Lin’s love is complicated; is it maternal, or is it perhaps the great romance she missed out on in her youth? Li has a Chekhovian ability to disappear from the text, allowing a remarkable intensity to develop between reader and story.

“The Husband Stitch” by Carmen Maria Machado (2014)

Machado takes a grisly campfire tale (“The Green Ribbon”), combines it with the purported medical practice of suturing a woman’s perineum with an extra stitch or two after childbirth to increase her husband’s pleasure, and creates a powerful modern fable about misogyny and motherhood. Before her wedding day, as Machado expertly builds the atmosphere of foreboding, the narrator notes that, “Brides never fare well in stories. Stories can sense happiness and snuff it out like a candle”.

“Madame Tellier’s House” by Guy de Maupassant (1881)

Maupassant, probably the only short-story writer as influential as Chekhov, wrote in two modes: short, impressively constructed but one-dimensional stories with trick endings (“The Necklace” is the most famous of these), and longer, more interesting work. He wrote “Madame Tellier’s House” after a friend reported passing a brothel in Rouen with a sign on its door saying, “Closed because of First Communion”. His expansion on this irresistible detail resulted in one of his greatest stories.

“A Horse and Two Goats” by RK Narayan (1970)

Narayan, who wrote more than 200 short stories, called them “concentrated miniatures of human experience in all its opulence”. The opulence of the clay horse at the centre of this story has faded beneath the Indian sun, but the conversation it triggers between an American tourist who speaks no Tamil and Muni, a poor peasant who speaks no English, is not only very funny, but also telling about the degree to which misunderstanding is an unavoidable part of human interaction.

“Minutes of Glory” by Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o (1976)

This story by Kenya’s most prominent writer follows the struggles of barmaid Beatrice as she works in a succession of increasingly seedy establishments. Men prey on her, buying her body as if it were “a bag of potatoes or a sack of cabbages”, and her hopes of living the high life in Nairobi become more unlikely by the day. “She fought life with dreams,” Ngũgĩ writes, and through a reckless action Beatrice’s fantasies briefly become reality before the story reaches its sorrowful conclusion.

“A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor (1953)

This story is a vicious and darkly funny account of a family’s encounter with a criminal gang led by the psychotic Misfit. Its closing lines, and the apparent act of grace they describe, are as memorable as they are ambiguous.

“We Didn’t Like Him” by Akhil Sharma (2013)

Two boys grow up together on a lane in Delhi. One, the narrator, becomes a lawyer. The other, Manshu, becomes pandit of the local temple. The narrator’s burgeoning dislike for Manshu, the way the events of life bring them back into contact with one another, the Hindu burial process and the mechanics of “putting someone in the Ganges”: these elements are so absorbingly animated that the story’s emotional impact, when it arrives, feels like an ambush.

“Heads of the Colored People: Four Fancy Sketches, Two Chalk Outlines, and No Apology” by Nafissa Thompson-Spires (2015)

Police shoot two black men outside a comic-book convention in LA, while halfway across the country an artist buys his daughter a cupcake at a vegan bakery. Thompson-Spires’s self-reflexive story is “angry, like a big black fist”, but it’s also breathtaking in the way it loops back and forth in time and constantly second-guesses the reader’s assumptions.

“Smote (or When I Find I Cannot Kiss You in Front of a Print by Bridget Riley)” by Eley Williams (2015)

“To kiss you,” this story begins, “should not involve such fear of precision.” Williams’s story is less a stream of consciousness than a barrelling wave, as a woman debates whether or not to kiss her girlfriend in an art gallery, and all the doubt, thrill, uncertainty, hilarity and panic of love is compressed into a few seconds of indecision.

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25 Best Short Stories of All Time

Alex Simmonds

How do you capture the human condition in a few pages? With difficulty. Which is why many writers argue that short stories are harder to write, and a much purer form of writing than novels.

The perfect short story might be comedic, fast-paced and exciting, descriptive, or poetic. But the one thing it must do? Get the reader hooked quickly .

Everything must be perfectly weighted and have a purpose.

What Is the Best Short Story Ever Written?

What are the best short story collections, what is a good example of a short story, what makes a perfect short story.

An impossible question to answer, but we can try to get close.

We’ve put together a list of 25 of the most iconic, most anthologised, best written, or most well-known short stories of all time.

To start us off, here are some authors that many consider to be the masters of the short story. We’ve highlighted some of their most popular works, but check out their full collections for classic examples of incredible short stories.

1. "The Dead" by James Joyce

The stories in Dubliners are depictions of life in Dublin around 1910. T. S. Eliot, amongst others, described The Dead as "one of the greatest short stories ever written."

Irish middle-class life jumps from the page, as Gabriel Conroy gives a speech at a family party and finds his principles and beliefs challenged.

There is a lyrical, melancholic tone as his thoughts move from awkward social encounters, to Irish nationalism, to the role of the dead in people’s lives. It offers a beautifully accessible route into the world of an often-inaccessible writer.

2. "The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson

Who knew that a story about a village lottery could cause so much anger and outrage?

Yet Jackson’s dark, modern gothic tale caused a flood of complaints to The New Yorker . People demanded to know where such a horrific lottery was taking place!

The Lottery , written in 1948, remains chilling to this day and perfectly captures the potential of human beings to both accept and participate in a shocking act of ritual violence in the name of faith and tradition.

3. "The Swimmer" by John Cheever

Cheever’s short stories veer from realism to satire to fantasy, often in the space of the same sentence.

Below the surface of the cocktail parties that greet new readers, are puzzling fables about radio transmissions of private conversations ( The Enormous Radio ) or brothers attacking one another unexpectedly ( Goodbye My Brother ).

The Swimmer is his best-known story and certainly the most anthologized.

A boozy jaunt through the pools and backyards of middle America, the story swings from social commentary about mid-century, middle American sensibilities in Shady Hill, to a surreal and melancholic dream fable of the passing of the seasons and a man losing everything he has in his life.

4. “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor

It is almost cast in stone that any list of great short story writers must mention Carver, Cheever, and O’Connor together, as the greats of American short story writing.

Known for her southern gothic stories, O’Connor’s A Good Man Is Hard to Find is her most popular work.

It tells the tale of a southern family who gets stranded on a road trip and encounters a criminal gang. As usual with O’Connor, it is a humorous, but dark and vicious tale, confronting notions of good and evil.

5. "The Company of Wolves" by Angela Carter

Carter’s reworking of fairy tales in The Bloody Chamber challenged the way women were represented in classic tales of western culture.

Turning the tropes of fairy tales and gothic fiction on their head, Carter created heroic and sexually liberated female protagonists. In her most famous story, The Company of Wolves , Red Riding Hood becomes a confident and beloved heroine, who defeats the wolf by seducing and taming him.

6. "Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?" by Joyce Carol Oates

Joyce Carol Oates’s impeccable short stories are known for their representation of violence and evil in American society.

"Where are you going, where have you been" is one of her finest. It is about a 15-year-old girl who meets a stranger, who is trying to coax her into coming with him.

Inspired by three real life murders in Arizona the story has been anthologised many times and is regularly featured on English literature courses around the world.

7. "Desiree’s Baby" by Kate Chopin

Causing widespread outrage on first publication, Kate Chopin set her 1893 story of race relations in Louisiana just before the Civil War.

It examines gender and discrimination through the story of Desiree, who is adopted by wealthy French Creoles and who later marries Armand.

When Desiree gives birth to a mixed-race baby, Armand forces her to leave. Chopin was fascinated with women’s identities in all her stories, and this was one of her finest.

8. "Hills Like White Elephants" by Ernest Hemingway

Eternally imitated but never bettered, few writers have influenced as many as Ernest Hemingway.

Any number of his stories could have made this list – from the early noir of The Killers to the pathos of confronting death in The Snows of Kilimanjaro . However, if you had to pick one from the best Hemingway short stories, then it would surely be Hills Like White Elephants (1927).

A man and woman are waiting for the train whilst discussing an operation the man wants the woman to have.

The story’s genius lies in how the whole thing is about abortion, but it is never actually mentioned. A masterclass of simplicity, by the undisputed master of minimalism.

All of the stories below represent some of the best storytelling in the last century. You’ve probably heard the classing writing advice to read more than you write. With short stories, you get all the elements of brilliant story structure, description, character, and voice, but in bite-sized pieces.

Even if you don’t enjoy some of the titles on this list, you can still learn from the way they were written—often in one sitting!

9. "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce

This frequently anthologized story is simple enough; a civilian who has carried out a mission for the confederacy is being hanged on a bridge in Alabama.

But it is the story’s portrayal of this "occurrence" as a part of war, its unreliable narrator, and its innovative use of the stretching of subjective time, that has seen the story influence generations of writers.

10. "The Monkey’s Paw" by W W Jacobs

Some stories are on this list because they are the best written short stories of all time.

Others, such as The Monkey’s Paw , are here because of their iconic place in our imaginative lives.

W W Jacobs took the ancient story of magic wishes and rewrote it as a supernatural short story, dealing with the notion of unintended consequences. The tale is as creepy today as it was in 1902 when it was first published.

11. "The Gift of the Magi" by O. Henry

You will not find a more compact tale about sacrifice and the Christmas spirit than The Gift of the Magi . It is for this reason that the story has been adapted countless times, including over 18 movie adaptations.

12. "Cathedral" by Raymond Carver

Most critics agree that alongside Chekhov , the grand master of the short story is Raymond Carver.

His stories exhibit a stripped back, minimalist examination of American working-class life. He reinvigorated the form in the 1980’s after it had gone out of fashion.

Two of his stories that are cited most often are, What We Talk About When We Talk About Love and Cathedral . Both have been heavily anthologized, but the latter is perhaps the more important and well known of the two.

The story is about a prejudiced man whose wife’s old blind friend comes to visit. Amidst Carver’s classic working-class landscape, Cathedral portrays a distrusting narrator having a moment of revelation and catharsis.

The final moments of the story, as the two men try to draw the Cathedral together, represent the high point of American short story telling.

13. "The Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka

Can there be any more famous first line in the history of literature than this?

“As Gregor Samsa awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, he found himself transformed in his bed into an enormous insect.”

Kafka’s stories are pregnant with multiple meanings and devoid of answers.

In the Penal Colony is possibly his finest short story, but The Metamorphosis is his best known, and most anthologised.

Perhaps this is because of the story’s parallel meanings or perhaps it is simply because there is something intriguing about a man who wakes up having turned into an insect.

14. "Sonny’s Blues" by James Baldwin

Sonny’s Blues is a perfectly crafted short story about an algebra teacher in Harlem and his brother Sonny who is hooked on heroin.

Baldwin portrays the darkness looming over African Americans, and the narrator sees that drugs are for many, including his brother, a way of coping.

The darkness in their lives is contrasted with the "atmospheric lighting" of the jazz club and the "circle of light" the musicians play under. By far the best story ever written about jazz, the story follows a long tradition of proclaiming the artist as a prophet.

15. "Girl" by Jamaica Kincaid

A stunning and inventive piece of writing that first appeared in The New Yorker , Girl is a single 650-word sentence of dialogue between a mother and daughter.

Most of the dialogue is the mother instructing the daughter about how she must become the perfect woman and fit into society in Antigua. She passes down the same patriarchal roles for women that she was taught as a child.

16. "A Telephone Call" by Dorothy Parker

On one level, this is a story about dating and agonising over whether the phone is going to ring.

On another level, Parker explores the precarious place of women in society in 1928. Parker argues that women depend on men and God and act irrationally and insecurely when they should aim for self-reliance.

Short stories are, well, short. They require you to be exact with your language, specific with your details, and vivid with your imagery.

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• She’d made a decision. It was time to make a change.

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• She’d decided. It was time to make a change.

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17. "The Rocking Horse Winner" by D H Lawrence

First published in 1926, The Rocking Horse Winner by Lawrence concerns a boy, Paul, who wishes to help his no-luck mum by proving he can be lucky.

He does this by riding his rocking horse into a frenzy, which allows him to predict real horses in races.

The family wins a great deal of money until things come to an abrupt and dark end. Most often viewed as a Freudian cautionary tale, it represents a high point in Lawrence’s short fiction.

18. "The Nose" by Nikolai Gogol

Nikolai Gogol was one of the most influential writers in Russian history, with Borges, Nabokov, Kafka, and Tolstoy all citing him as a major influence.

The Nose (1836) is his best and most famous work. Satirizing life in a totalitarian regime, The Nose tells the story of a Russian official whose nose wants to live independently from the rest of his face and body.

19. "The Distance of the Moon" by Italo Calvino

Calvino’s tale is the perfect example of magical realism, imagining a world where the moon was much closer to the Earth than it is today—when standing on the top of a ladder "you could just touch the moon if you held your arms up."

Underlying the more whimsical elements of is a sensual story of a man being in love with another man’s wife. The moon is the star of The Distance of the Moon , though, and as one Goodreads reviewer suggested, this story is "strange, but enjoyable."

20. "The Body" by Stephen King

Unfortunately, there isn’t enough room here to list the best sci-fi short stories or the best horror stories (or even the best Stephen King short stories) , but Stephen King does manage to sneak onto the list anyway.

Known for his horror fiction, King has also written some heart-breaking, lyrical short stories, and is an astonishingly talented short story writer.

Certainly, two of his stories deserve a place on any list of the greats.

The first is Rita Hayworth and Shawshank Redemption (the source material for the most highly rated film of all time).

The second is The Body , a bittersweet, coming-of-age masterpiece, about four young friends looking for a dead body (made into another popular film, Stand By Me ).

21. "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow" by Washington Irving

This entry has embedded itself deeply in popular culture.

Irving’s other famous story Rip Van Winkle could also be here, but it is The Legend of Sleepy Hollow that makes the cut, simply because it features ghosts and a headless horseman, looking for his head!

22. “The Tell-Tale Heart” by Edgar Allan Poe

Poe’s story of losing one’s sanity and a beating heart under the floorboards is the one that most people remember.

The Tell-Tale Heart is technically accomplished, from the use of the unreliable narrator to the hallucinatory writing style as the narrator goes slowly mad. Frequently adapted and referenced in books, TV shows, and movies over the last century, no list of great short stories can ignore this American gothic classic.

23. "The Yellow Wallpaper" by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

As relevant as ever, The Yellow Wallpaper is often cited as the first feminist story readers come across.

Concerning itself with women’s mental health, it follows the deterioration of a woman who is confined to her room by a controlling husband.

Staring at the wallpaper, it changes form: “At night in any kind of light, in twilight, candlelight, lamplight, and worst of all by moonlight, it becomes bars!”

24. "I Bought A Little City" by Donald Barthelme

Donald Barthelme is on this list because of his incredibly unique, postmodern voice and the dazzling experimentation that went into his short stories.

In I Bought a Little City (1974), a man buys a city and gradually becomes more and more despotic in his attempted stewardship of that city. In trying to better the city, he strips away its individuality and creates conflict.

25. "The Lady with the Dog" by Anton Chekhov

Writers who are on the record as being heavily influenced by Chekhov include Raymond Carver, Alice Munro, Katherine Mansfield, Ernest Hemingway, Tennessee Williams, and Flannery O’Connor.

John Cheever noted wryly that he was one of "8 or 10 American writers described as the American Chekhov."

Why is he rated so highly? Perhaps because he was the first writer to concentrate less on the development of the plot, and more on uncertainty, reticence and mood, via his highly complex characters.

Chekhov was the first writer to truly reflect the mundane ordinariness of life and the infinite strangeness of people.

The Lady with the Dog , a story of two people in unhappy marriages, ends up (as most of his stories do) with the characters in the same place as they started, but with more uncertainty about the world and less confidence in their own view of things.

Inspired to Write Your Own Short Story?

Don’t forget you can use ProWritingAid’s Writing Styles to help you set the right tone.

Have we missed any of your favorites off the list? Let us know in the comments.

Are you ready to write your novel? Download this free book now :

This guide helps you work out your narrative arc, plan out your key plot points, flesh out your characters, and begin to build your world.

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Alex Simmonds is a freelance copywriter based in the UK and has been using words to help people sell things for over 20 years. He has an MA in English Lit and has been struggling to write a novel for most of the last decade. He can be found at alexsimmonds.co.uk.

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Treat your mind: The 11 best short stories ever written

Everyone knows the pleasures of settling in with a good book , but most often when people think of reading they think about chunky novels which might take weeks or even months to work through. And while there's certainly something to be said for sinking into the world of a novel and taking the time to really explore, sometimes you're in the mood for something on the short and punchy side of the spectrum. Then it's time to look for a great short story. It takes a whole lot of skill to pack characters, world building, themes, motivations, and an intriguing plot into just a few pages, but there are a few outstanding authors who have mastered the art.

To that end, there are a smattering of short stories that stand out from the crowd. Admittedly, it is difficult to call them the best short stories because quality is subjective. But rest assured that those you’ll find recommended here are almost universally considered some of the most important little works of literature ever thanks to some combination of their revolutionary style, timeless storytelling, or influence on nearly all writers to follow. Some of these are classic tales that have been beloved for decades while others are from current authors who are still breaking literary ground today, but they are truly great short stories one and all.

The Tell-Tale Heart by Edgar Allan Poe

Few genres have made as much use of the short story format as horror, and it’s difficult to say that any such writer stands above Poe. Known for penning many gothic masterpieces, The Tell-Tale Heart is Poe's most renowned short story. Narrated by a murderer whose sanity gradually slips as he meditates on his crime and is haunted by the beating heart of his victim, this story helped to set the standard for early gothic romanticism.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

First released in The New Yorker in 1948, The Lotter y is a masterwork of grim atmosphere and troubling themes. The story of a small village lottery — the winner of which will be stoned to death — it almost singlehandedly created the modern concept of gothic horror thanks to its gloomy atmosphere and use of thought-provoking, disturbing irony.

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The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Published in 1892, The Yellow Wallpaper is another classic of early-modern gothic horror, though it emphasizes psychological distress over some of the more fantastic elements embraced by Gilman’s peers. The tale of a woman who is confined to her bedroom as part of a rest cure for her so-called hysteria, as the narrator slips into madness she becomes increasingly enamored by the yellow color of her room. Considered a cornerstone of early American feminist writing, its commentary on the oppressive impact of patriarchy remains relevant to this day.

Giovanni’s Room by James Baldwin

Toeing the line between short story and novella, this semi-autobiographical narrative centers around a young American living in Paris whose affections are torn between his girlfriend and an Italian bartender named Giovanni. Not only is this a wonderfully written work by one of the 20th century’s greatest Black thinkers, writers, and activists, but it is held in high regard for its open and complex portrayal of bisexuality and same-sex relationships.

The Dead by James Joyce

The most renowned installment in Joyce’s Dubliners, The Dead is about a young Irishman whose family holds him in the highest regard thanks to his practicality and level-headedness. When he attends a party, however, his principles are challenged as he is pushed to confront his own mortality. Arguably the famed writer’s most accessible work, it nonetheless shows his ability to bury deep themes in seemingly straightforward stories.

The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka

Not only is The Metamorphos is one of the greatest short stories ever written, but it was an important forebearer of the Surrealist movement that would emerge shortly after its publication in 1915. The story of a salesman who wakes up one morning to find, much to his alarm, that he has turned into a beetle, there has been much debate over its meaning, but all agree that it is a masterful look at alienation in the modern age.

Hills Like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway

Papa Hemingway wrote several short stories that could be ranked among the best of all time, but Hills Like White Elephants is perhaps his most brilliant effort thanks to how he talks directly about a subject without ever bringing it up at all. The story of a young couple waiting for a train as they discuss some never-clarified operation, it is nevertheless obvious that the man is attempting to pressure the woman into having an abortion. It is a masterpiece of subtlety and simplicity from a writer who is perhaps the greatest at packing an abundance of meaning into a minimal word count.

Cathedral by Raymond Carver

By the late 1970s, short stories were waning in their public appeal. Then Raymond Carver rose to prominence and wrote some life back into the format with his unrivaled application of minimalism. The most renowned example of this was Cathedral , which is about a man’s jealousy toward his wife’s blind friend. By the time the two men bond over the image of a cathedral — which only one of them can actually see — the reader is left floored by the elegant simplicity of the story’s deceptively powerful ending.

Stories of Your Life by Ted Chiang

When a fleet of spaceships arrives on Earth, a team of scientists is tasked with figuring out how to communicate with the extraterrestrial pilots. As linguist Louise Banks learns more and more about the alien language, she discovers that the solution to mounting problems seemingly brought with the visitors involves her own personal relationship to time. A pint-sized masterpiece by one of the greatest living science fiction writers, Chiang’s elegant yet complex story was made into an acclaimed feature film, Arrival .

On the Honeymoon by Javier Marias

One of the greatest writers of the past several decades, Javier Marias’ name is essentially on every shortlist for the Nobel Prize in literature. While novels account for the vast majority of his work, he did release a collection of short fiction called When I Was Mortal . Perhaps the best story in the book is On the Honeymoon , which tells the story of a newly married man who watches the street outside a hotel window as his wife is sick in bed. Drama ensues when he catches the eye of a distraught looking woman. Within 20 pages, Marias uses all the literary tools that he is known for wielding in books 20 times longer.

A Good Man Is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor

If Hemingway and Carver make up two points of the Holy Trinity of great American short story writing, Flannery O’Connor is the third. She’s also wildly regarded as the greatest of Southern Gothic writers. Without a doubt her most famous work is A Good Man Is Hard to Find, which tells the story of an arguing family that ends up stranded after a car crash, with horrible consequences.

Frequently Asked Questions

There's no consensus, and what matters most is the short story you gravitate toward. There certainly are some widely known ones. Edgar Allen Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart, for example, is legendary. The Metamorphosis, first published in 1915, is another. Even religious texts like the Bible and Qur'an contain short stories full of lessons and symbolism.

If you're new to short stories, consider trying out different genres and time periods to see which you lose yourself in the most. You may find your tastes change over time or based on your mood. There are also many published collections of short stories around different themes or topics, which can be a great way to read a variety of new and familiar writers who you might not be exposed to otherwise. Some genres, like sci-fi, have a long tradition of anthology short story publications so you can look out for short story offerings from publishers like Tor to see how much interest can be packed into a few short pages of story.

Either way, taking time to read can be a way to engage your mind and relax without screens (unless you're using a tablet, in which case consider turning notifications off to "unplug.")

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Looking for a way to pass time and escape from the present? Diving deep into the pages of books about the past is a great way to go about it. History is messy stuff, but much of it is, in fact, not ugly and not all that hard to process. The more you know about it, the more the messes make sense, both in a historical and modern context. Here are some of the best history books that give you brilliant knowledge in enjoyable prose.

While best is an easy word to throw around, it's harder to pin down. In the case of the best history books ever written, best is a highly subjective distinction that depends on your perspective. What is considered the best by someone born in raised in Los Angeles, for example, is likely very different from someone raised in Tokyo. It is, however, fairly easy to determine the greats that should be included in any true history buff's reading list.

Are you obsessed with The Last Of Us? We don't blame you — it's a fantastic show. Unfortunately, most video game movies and shows suck. Few things feel so unquestionably true, and that knowledge can make looking forward to an adaptation of your favorite game an especially tricky proposition. While it's fair to be distrustful of any potential adaptation of a beloved gaming property, there are a few exceptions to the rule. These video game-based movies aren't perfect, but they do manage to have some real fun with the games that they're based on. Even better, they often double as great action movies. One can only hope that in the future, more great video game adaptations will make it to the big screen. For now, though, these are the best video game movies you can watch right now.

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The Best Reviewed Short Story Collections of 2021

Featuring haruki murakami, brandon taylor, elizabeth mccracken, kevin barry, lily king, and more.

Well, friends, another grim and grueling plague year is drawing to a close, and that can mean only one thing: it’s time to put on our Book Marks stats hats and tabulate the best reviewed books of the past twelve months.

Yes, using reviews drawn from more than 150 publications, over the next two weeks we’ll be revealing the most critically-acclaimed books of 2021, in the categories of (deep breath): Memoir and Biography ; Sci-Fi, Fantasy, and Horror ; Short Story Collections; Essay Collections; Poetry; Mystery and Crime; Graphic Literature; Literature in Translation; General Fiction; and General Nonfiction.

Today’s installment: Short Story Collections .

Brought to you by Book Marks , Lit Hub’s “Rotten Tomatoes for books.”

1. Afterparties by Anthony Veasna So (Ecco)

22 Rave • 5 Positive • 1 Mixed

“The presence of the author is so vivid in Afterparties , Anthony Veasna So’s collection of stories, he seems to be at your elbow as you read … The personality that animates Afterparties is unmistakably youthful, and the stories themselves are mainly built around conditions of youth—vexed and tender relationships with parents, awkward romances, nebulous worries about the future. But from his vantage on the evanescent bridge to maturity, So is puzzling out some big questions, ones that might be exigent from different vantages at any age. The stories are great fun to read—brimming over with life and energy and comic insight and deep feeling.”

–Deborah Eisenberg ( New York Review of Books )

2. Filthy Animals by Brandon Taylor (Riverhead)

19 Rave • 7 Positive • 2 Mixed Read an interview with Brandon Taylor here

“Taylor plays the Lionel-Charles-Sophie storyline for all its awkwardness and resentment, but it can feel like a note held too long to suspend commitment, which is the resolution we’re trained to expect … The violence is neither glamorous nor gratuitous; it is senseless without being pointless. In contrast, Taylor presents such earnest moments of vulnerability in Anne of Cleves that my breath hitched … Some writers have the gift of perfect pitch when writing dialogue; Taylor’s gift is perfect tempo. In a band of writers, he’d be the drummer who sticks to a steady moderato. He neither rushes a story to its high notes nor drags the pace so that we can admire his voice. And as a plotter, he doesn’t rely on gasp-inducing reveals … Taylor’s superpower is compressing a lifetime of backstory into a paragraph – sometimes just a sentence … I’ve come to expect, in fiction, the story of the Sad Gay Youth who is rejected by his often religious family and thereafter becomes self-destructive or reckless. And while Taylor refracts versions of this story throughout the collection, he does so without overly romanticising it … He is a writer of enormous subtlety and of composure beyond his years.”

–Ian Williams ( The Guardian )

3. First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami (Knopf)

13 Rave • 17 Positive • 7 Mixed • 5 Pan

“… a blazing and brilliant return to form … a taut and tight, suspenseful and spellbinding, witty and wonderful group of eight stories … there isn’t a weak one in the bunch. The stories echo with Murakami’s preoccupations. Nostalgia and longing for the charged, evocative moments of young adulthood. Memory’s power and fragility; how identity forms from random decisions, ‘minor incidents,’ and chance encounters; the at once intransigent and fragile nature of the ‘self.’ Guilt, shame, and regret for mistakes made and people damaged by foolish or heartless choices. The power and potency of young love and the residual weight of fleeting erotic entanglements. Music’s power to make indelible impressions, elicit buried memories, connect otherwise very different people, and capture what words cannot. The themes become a kind of meter against which all the stories make their particular, chiming rhythms … The reading experience is unsettled by a pervasive blurring of the lines between fantasy and reality, dream and waking … Most of the narrators foreground the act of telling and ruminate on the intention behind and effects of disclosing secrets, putting inchoate impulses, fears, or yearnings into clear, logical prose … This mesmerizing collection would make a superb introduction to Murakami for anyone who hasn’t yet fallen under his spell; his legion of devoted fans will gobble it up and beg for more.”

–Pricilla Gilman ( The Boston Globe )

4. That Old Country Music by Kevin Barry (Doubleday)

13 Rave • 10 Positive •1 Mixed

“There’s not a bad story in the bunch, and it’s as accomplished a book as Barry has ever written … Barry does an excellent job probing the psyche of his diffident protagonist, and ends the story with an unexpected moment of sweetness that’s anything but cloying—realism doesn’t need to be miserablism, he seems to hint; sometimes things actually do work out … Barry has a rare gift for crafting characters the reader cares about despite their flaws; in just 13 pages, he manages to make Hannah and Setanta come to life through sharp dialogue and keen observations … Barry proves to be a master of writing about both love and cruelty … Barry brilliantly evokes both the good and bad sides of love, and does so with stunningly gorgeous writing … There’s not an aspect of writing that Barry doesn’t excel at. His dialogue rings true, and he’s amazingly gifted at scene-setting—he evokes both the landscape of western Ireland and the landscape of the human heart beautifully. His greatest accomplishment, perhaps, is his understanding of the ways our collective psyche works; he seems to have an innate sense of why people behave the way we do, and exactly what we’re capable of, both good and bad.”

–Michael Schaub ( NPR )

5. Milk Blood Heat by Dantiel W. Moniz (Grove)

17 Rave • 1 Positive Listen to an interview with Dantiel W. Moniz here

“Mortality is the undercurrent in Dantiel W. Moniz’s electrifying debut story collection, Milk Blood Heat , but where there’s death there is the whir of life, too. A lot of collections consist of some duds, yet every single page in this book is a shimmering seashell that contains the sound of multiple oceans. Reading one of Moniz’s stories is like holding your breath underwater while letting the salt sting your fresh wounds. It’s exhilarating and shocking and even healing. The power in these stories rests in their veracity, vitality and vulnerability.”

–Michelle Filgate ( The Washington Post )

6. The Dangers of Smoking in Bed by Mariana Enriquez (Hogarth)

15 Rave 2 Positive Read a story from The Dangers of Smoking in Bed here

“There’s something thrilling about other people’s suffering—at least within this collection’s 12 stories of death, sex and the occult. Horrors are relayed in a stylish deadpan … Enriquez’s plots deteriorate with satisfying celerity … Largely it’s insatiable women, raggedy slum dwellers and dead children—those who are ordinarily powerless—who wield unholy power in this collection, and they seem uninterested in being reasonable. And Enriquez is particularly adept at capturing the single-minded intensity of teenage girls … If some of these stories end vaguely, the best ones close on the verge of some transgressive climax … To Enriquez, there’s pleasure in the perverse.”

–Chelsea Leu ( The New York Times Book Review )

7. The Souvenir Museum by Elizabeth McCracken (Ecco)

13 Rave • 2 Positive • 1 Mixed Read Elizabeth McCracken on savoring the mystery of stories here

“Elizabeth McCracken’s The Souvenir Museum begins with one of the funniest short stories I’ve read in a long time … I had to stop reading ‘The Irish Wedding’ several times to explain to my husband why I was laughing so hard. I kept thinking: I wish I were reading a whole book about these people … they’re all beguiling … This tale, like much of McCracken’s work, captures the mixed bag that characterizes most people’s lives … McCracken’s writing is never dull. She ends this fantastic collection with a second English wedding and its aftermath, nearly 20 years after the first, delivering happiness tempered by sobering circumstances—and a satisfying symmetry.”

–Heller McAlpin ( NPR )

8. Wild Swims by Dorthe Nors (Graywolf)

13 Rave • 1 Positive Read an excerpt from Wild Swims here

“How slippery the work of the Danish writer Dorthe Nors is, how it sideswipes and gleams … The stories are vivid the way a flash of immobilizing pain is vivid … Perhaps because they’re so very short and because they mostly sketch slight interior shifts in her characters, Nors’s stories all feel a little bashful, a little tender. Surely this is intentional … Most of her stories are too short to linger deeply in time or consciousness; the characters spin back into their silence almost as soon as they emerge on the page. Nors is a master at portraying female rage, but here there is also no violent explosion outward, instead a sort of inner collapse; her characters assiduously resist confronting their fury until it rises up against them and attacks their bodies … The sense of simultaneous, furious upwelling into text and retraction into shame or reticence gives the stories a powerful undercurrent, as if they were constantly wrestling with themselves. Inherently self-contradicting, they wobble interestingly on their axes, pulled between outraged individualism and the restrictive Janteloven.”

–Lauren Groff ( The New York Review of Books )

9. Walking on Cowrie Shells by Nana Nkweti (Graywolf)

12 Rave • 1 Mixed Read an interview with Nana Nkweti here

“The pure energy of the words strikes first, the thrumming, soaring, frenetic pace of Nana Nkweti’s expression … None of these stories end with a miraculous healing. Even where revelations occur, they never erase scars. Nkweti uses genre tropes to subvert our expectations. She employs the zombie story, the fairy tale, and the confessional in order to invert conventions … The levity of Nkweti’s writing can make even passing descriptions a delight … Occasionally the writing veers into the overwrought … But the sheer speed of Nkweti’s expression allows for correction in midair, and her keen descriptive eye provides more pleasures than missteps … Her inventiveness dazzles.”

–Lee Thomas ( Los Angeles Review of Books )

10. My Monticello by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson (Henry Holt)

9 Rave • 4 Positive 1 Mixed Read Jocelyn Nicole Johnson on how writing “vengeful fiction” can make you a better person, here

“Jocelyn Nicole Johnson uses history to spectacular effect in her debut fiction collection … What makes My Monticello particularly resonant is that it does not stray far from life as we know it today. In the near future conjured by Johnson, there are the heat waves and wildfires that bring climate change into view. There is fallout from a fraught election. There is the vile replacement theory rhetoric of the right wing. But the lives of Johnson’s richly drawn characters—their personal stories—are always in focus. And, because of it, the storytelling is propulsive, as we follow these refugees along a harrowing journey, with danger ever at their heels. My Monticello is, quite simply, an extraordinary debut from a gifted writer with an unflinching view of history and what may come of it.”

–Anissa Gray ( The Washington Post )

Our System:

RAVE = 5 points • POSITIVE = 3 points • MIXED = 1 point • PAN = -5 points

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100 Must-Read Contemporary Short Story Collections

Liberty Hardy

Liberty Hardy is an unrepentant velocireader, writer, bitey mad lady, and tattoo canvas. Turn-ons include books, books and books. Her favorite exclamation is “Holy cats!” Liberty reads more than should be legal, sleeps very little, frequently writes on her belly with Sharpie markers, and when she dies, she’s leaving her body to library science. Until then, she lives with her three cats, Millay, Farrokh, and Zevon, in Maine. She is also right behind you. Just kidding! She’s too busy reading. Twitter: @MissLiberty

View All posts by Liberty Hardy

This list of must-read contemporary short story collections is sponsored by Random House’s  Buzziest Short Story Collections of 2018

From New York Times bestselling author Curtis Sittenfeld’s dazzling first collection, You Think It, I’ll Say It , to National Book Award winner Denis Johnson’s final collection, The Largesse of the Sea Maiden , there’s something for every book lover from Random House.

Carmen Maria Machado raves of Anjali Sachdeva’s exhilarating collection, All the Names They Used for God ; “completing one [story] is like having lived an entire life, and then being born, breathless, into another.”

All are available in Spring 2018 from Random House, wherever books are sold.

Of all of the 100 must-read lists I have done so far, this was probably the easiest, because there are so many amazing contemporary short story collections. Story collections are such a gift: a whole bunch of different stories in one convenient place! What fun! The following list is made up of the first 100 collections that popped into my head. I have read and loved each of them. (And I probably have enough titles to do a sequel—stay tuned!) And by “contemporary” I mean “published this century.” (Which still gave me eighteen amazing years to choose from!)

I’ve included a brief description from the publisher with each title. Tell us in the comments about which of these you’ve read or other contemporary short story collections that you love. There are a LOT of them. Yay, books!

The Thing Around Your Neck  by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

“Searing and profound, suffused with beauty, sorrow, and longing, the stories in The Thing Around Your Neck map, with Adichie’s signature emotional wisdom, the collision of two cultures and the deeply human struggle to reconcile them…Now, in her most intimate and seamlessly crafted work to date, Adichie turns her penetrating eye on not only Nigeria but America, in twelve dazzling stories that explore the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States.”

War by Candlelight: Stories  by Daniel Alarcón

“Something is happening. Wars, both national and internal, are being waged in jungles, across borders, in the streets of Lima, in the intimacy of New York apartments.  War by Candlelight  is an exquisite collection of stories that carry the reader from Third World urban centers to the fault lines that divide nations and people—a devastating portrait of a world in flux—and Daniel Alarcón is an extraordinary new voice in literary fiction, one you will not soon forget.”

The Water Museum: Stories  by Luis Alberto Urrea

“From one of America’s preeminent literary voices comes a new story collection that proves once again why the writing of Luis Alberto Urrea has been called ‘wickedly good’ ( Kansas City Star ), ‘cinematic and charged’ ( Cleveland Plain Dealer) ,   and ‘studded with delights’ ( Chicago Tribune) . Examining the borders between one nation and another, between one person and another, Urrea reveals his mastery of the short form. This collection includes the Edgar-award winning ‘Amapola’ and his now-classic ‘Bid Farewell to Her Many Horses,’ which had the honor of being chosen for NPR’s ‘Selected Shorts’ not once but twice.”

In the Country: Stories  by Mia Alvar

“In these nine globe-trotting tales, Mia Alvar gives voice to the women and men of the Philippines and its diaspora. From teachers to housemaids, from mothers to sons, Alvar’s stories explore the universal experiences of loss, displacement, and the longing to connect across borders both real and imagined.  In the Country  speaks to the heart of everyone who has ever searched for a place to call home—and marks the arrival of a formidable new voice in literature.”

What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky: Stories  by Lesley Nneka Arimah

“A dazzlingly accomplished debut collection explores the ties that bind parents and children, husbands and wives, lovers and friends to one another and to the places they call home…Evocative, playful, subversive, and incredibly human,  What It Means When a Man Falls from the Sky  heralds the arrival of a prodigious talent with a remarkable career ahead of her.”

North American Lake Monsters: Stories by Nathan Ballingrud

“Nathan Ballingrud’s Shirley Jackson Award–winning debut collection is a shattering and luminous experience not to be missed by those who love to explore the darker parts of the human psyche. Monsters, real and imagined, external and internal, are the subject. They are us and we are them and Ballingrud’s intense focus makes these stories incredibly intense and irresistible.”

Young Skins: Stories  by Colin Barrett

“Enter the small, rural town of Glanbeigh, a place whose fate took a downturn with the Celtic Tiger, a desolate spot where buffoonery and tension simmer and erupt, and booze-sodden boredom fills the corners of every pub and nightclub. Here, and in the towns beyond, the young live hard and wear the scars…In each story, a local voice delineates the grittiness of post boom Irish society. These are unforgettable characters rendered through silence, humor, and violence. Told in Barrett’s vibrant, distinctive prose,  Young Skins  is an accomplished and irreverent debut from a singular new voice in contemporary fiction.”

There Are Little Kingdoms: Stories  by Kevin Barry

“These stories, filled with a grand sense of life’s absurdity, form a remarkably sure-footed collection that reads like a modern-day  Dubliners . The winner of the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature and a 2007 book of the year in  The Irish Times , the  Sunday Tribune , and  Metro ,  There Are Little Kingdoms  marks the stunning entrance of a writer who burst onto the literary scene fully formed.”

We Show What We Have Learned and Other Stories  by Clare Beams

“The literary, historic, and fantastic collide in these wise and exquisitely unsettling stories. From bewildering assemblies in school auditoriums to the murky waters of a Depression-era health resort, Beams’s landscapes are tinged with otherworldliness, and her characters’ desires stretch the limits of reality…As they capture the strangeness of being human, the stories in  We Show What We Have Learned  reveal Clare Beams’s rare and capacious imagination—and yet they are grounded in emotional complexity, illuminating the ways we attempt to transform ourselves, our surroundings, and each other.”

Welcome Thieves: Stories  by Sean Beaudoin

“Black humor mixed with pathos is the hallmark of the twelve stories in this adult debut collection from a master writer of comic and inventive YA novels…Beaudoin’s stories are edgy and profane, bittersweet and angry, bemused and sardonic. Yet they’re always tinged with heart. Beaudoin’s novels have been praised for their playfulness and complexity, for the originality and beauty of their language.”

The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead: Stories  by Chanelle Benz

“The characters in  The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead , Benz’s wildly imaginative debut, are as varied as any in recent literature, but they share a thirst for adventure which sends them rushing full-tilt toward the moral crossroads, becoming victims and perpetrators along the way. Riveting, visceral, and heartbreaking, Benz’s stories of identity, abandonment, and fierce love come together in a daring, arresting vision.”

Birds of a Lesser Paradise: Stories  by Megan Mayhew Bergman

“Exploring the way our choices and relationships are shaped by the menace and beauty of the natural world, Megan Mayhew Bergman’s powerful and heartwarming collection captures the surprising moments when the pull of our biology becomes evident, when love or fear collides with good sense, or when our attachment to an animal or wild place can’t be denied.”

A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories  by Lucia Berlin

“A Manual for Cleaning Women  compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With the grit of Raymond Carver, the humor of Grace Paley, and a blend of wit and melancholy all her own, Berlin crafts miracles from the everyday, uncovering moments of grace in the Laundromats and halfway houses of the American Southwest, in the homes of the Bay Area upper class, among switchboard operators and struggling mothers, hitchhikers and bad Christians. Readers will revel in this remarkable collection from a master of the form and wonder how they’d ever overlooked her in the first place.”

Things that Fall from the Sky  by Kevin Brockmeier

“Weaving together loss and anxiety with fantastic elements and literary sleight-of-hand, Kevin Brockmeier’s richly imagined  Things That Fall from the Sky  views the nagging realities of the world through a hopeful lens…Achingly beautiful and deceptively simple,  Things That Fall from the Sky  defies gravity as one of the most original story collections seen in recent years.”

Mothers, Tell Your Daughters: Stories  by Bonnie Jo Campbell

“Named by the  Guardian  as one of our top ten writers of rural noir, Bonnie Jo Campbell is a keen observer of life and trouble in rural America, and her working-class protagonists can be at once vulnerable, wise, cruel, and funny. The strong but flawed women of  Mothers, Tell Your Daughters  must negotiate a sexually charged atmosphere as they love, honor, and betray one another against the backdrop of all the men in their world. Such richly fraught mother-daughter relationships can be lifelines, anchors, or they can sink a woman like a stone.”

Honeymoon and Other Stories  by Kevin Canty

“Honeymoon  is a book about love, about lovers and would-be lovers exploring unlikely alliances, all of them toeing a certain eventful edge, a decision between rational restraint and something altogether different…Revealing the hidden longings and quirky needs of both men and women with a tough sensitivity and deep, sometimes biting humor,  Honeymoon  presents a masterful writer purely at home in his form, yet continuing to push himself and his stories to their limits with enthusiasm and daring.”

The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington  by Leonora Carrington

“Surrealist writer and painter Leonora Carrington (1917–2011) was a master of the macabre, of gorgeous tableaus, biting satire, roguish comedy, and brilliant, effortless flights of the imagination. Nowhere are these qualities more ingeniously brought together than in the works of short fiction she wrote throughout her life.”

Among the Missing  by Dan Chaon

“In this haunting, bracing new collection, Dan Chaon shares stories of men, women, and children who live far outside the American Dream, while wondering which decision, which path, or which accident brought them to this place. Chaon mines the psychological landscape of his characters to dazzling effect. Each story radiates with sharp humor, mystery, wonder, and startling compassion.  Among the Missing  lingers in the mind through its subtle grace and power of language.”

Stories of Your Life and Others  by Ted Chiang

“What if men built a tower from Earth to Heaven-and broke through to Heaven’s other side? What if we discovered that the fundamentals of mathematics were arbitrary and inconsistent? What if there were a science of naming things that calls life into being from inanimate matter? What if exposure to an alien language forever changed our perception of time? What if all the beliefs of fundamentalist Christianity were literally true, and the sight of sinners being swallowed into fiery pits were a routine event on city streets? These are the kinds of outrageous questions posed by the stories of Ted Chiang.”

The Ladies of Grace Adieu: and Other Stories  by Susanna Clarke

“Faerie is never as far away as you think. Sometimes you find you have crossed an invisible line and must cope, as best you can, with petulant princesses, vengeful owls, ladies who pass their time embroidering terrible fates or with endless paths in deep, dark woods and houses that never appear the same way twice. The heroines and heroes bedeviled by such problems in these fairy tales include a conceited Regency clergyman, an eighteenth-century Jewish doctor and Mary, Queen of Scots, as well as two characters from Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell : Strange himself and the Raven King.”

Whatever Happened to Interracial Love?: Stories by Kathleen Collins

“Now available in Ecco’s Art of the Story series: a never-before-published collection of stories from a brilliant yet little known African American artist and filmmaker—a contemporary of revered writers including Toni Cade Bambara, Laurie Colwin, Ann Beattie, Amy Hempel, and Grace Paley—whose prescient work has recently resurfaced to wide acclaim. Humorous, poignant, perceptive, and full of grace, Kathleen Collins’s stories masterfully blend the quotidian and the profound in a personal, intimate way, exploring deep, far-reaching issues—race, gender, family, and sexuality—that shape the ordinary moments in our lives.”

Mary and O’Neil: A Novel in Stories  by Justin Cronin

“Justin Cronin’s poignant debut traces the lives of Mary Olson and O’Neil Burke, two vulnerable young teachers who rediscover in each other a world alive with promise and hope. From the formative experiences of their early adulthood to marriage, parenthood, and beyond, this novel in stories illuminates the moments of grace that enable Mary and O’Neil to make peace with the deep emotional legacies that haunt them: the sudden, mysterious death of O’Neil’s parents, Mary’s long-ago decision to end a pregnancy, O’Neil’s sister’s battle with illness and a troubled marriage. Alive with magical nuance and unexpected encounters, Mary and O’Neil celebrates the uncommon in common lives, and the redemptive power of love.”

We’ve Already Gone This Far: Stories  by Patrick Dacey

“In this stunning debut, Patrick Dacey draws us into the secret lives of recognizable strangers. Here, in small-town Massachusetts, after more than a decade of boom and bust, everyone is struggling to find their own version of the American dream: a lonely woman attacks a memorial to a neighbor’s veteran son, a dissatisfied housewife goes overboard with cosmetic surgery on national television, a young father walks away from one of the few jobs left in town, a soldier writes home to a mother who is becoming increasingly unhinged.”

The Redemption of Galen Pike  by Carys Davies

“From remote Australian settlements to the snows of Siberia, from Colorado to Cumbria, restless teenagers, middle-aged civil servants, and Quaker spinsters traverse expanses of solitude to reveal the secrets of the human heart. Written with raw and rigorous prose, charged throughout by a prickly wit, the stories in  The Redemption of Galen Pike  remind us how little we know of the lives of others.”

The Shell Collector: Stories  by Anthony Doerr

“The exquisitely crafted stories in Anthony Doerr’s debut collection take readers from the African Coast to the pine forests of Montana to the damp moors of Lapland, charting a vast physical and emotional landscape. Doerr explores the human condition in all its varieties—metamorphosis, grief, fractured relationships, and slowly mending hearts—conjuring nature in both its beautiful abundance and crushing power. Some of the characters in these stories contend with hardships; some discover unique gifts; all are united by their ultimate deference to the ravishing universe outside themselves.”

Ghost Summer: Stories  by Tananarive Due

“Whether weaving family life and history into dark fiction or writing speculative Afrofuturism, American Book Award winner and Essence bestselling author Tananarive Due’s work is both riveting and enlightening. In her debut collection of short fiction, Due takes us to Gracetown, a small Florida town that has both literal and figurative ghost; into future scenarios that seem all too real; and provides empathetic portraits of those whose lives are touched by Otherness.”

The Wilds by Julia Elliott

“In her genre-bending stories, Elliott blends Southern gothic strangeness with dystopian absurdities, sci-fi speculations with fairy-tale transformations. Teetering between the ridiculous and the sublime, Elliott’s language-driven fiction uses outlandish tropes to capture poignant moments in her humble characters’ lives. Without abandoning the tenets of classic storytelling, Elliott revels in lush lyricism, dark humor, and experimental play.”

What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank: Stories  by Nathan Englander

“These eight new stories from the celebrated novelist and short-story writer Nathan Englander display a gifted young author grappling with the great questions of modern life, with a command of language and the imagination that place Englander at the very forefront of contemporary American fiction.”

A Collapse of Horses  by Brian Evenson

“A stuffed bear’s heart beats with the rhythm of a dead baby, Reno keeps receding to the east no matter how far you drive, and in a mine on another planet, the dust won’t stop seeping in. In these stories, Evenson unsettles us with the everyday and the extraordinary—the terror of living with the knowledge of all we cannot know.”

Half an Inch of Water: Stories  by Percival Everett

“For the plainspoken men and women of these stories—fathers and daughters, sheriffs and veterinarians—small events trigger sudden shifts in which the ordinary becomes unfamiliar… Half an Inch of Water  tears through the fabric of the everyday to examine what lies beneath the surface of these lives. In the hands of master storyteller Everett, the act of questioning leads to vistas more strange and unsettling than could ever have been expected.”

A Natural History of Hell: Stories  by Jeffrey Ford

“Emily Dickinson takes a carriage ride with Death. A couple are invited over to a neighbor’s daughter’s exorcism. A country witch with a sea-captain’s head in a glass globe intercedes on behalf of abused and abandoned children. In July of 1915, in Hardin County, Ohio, a boy sees ghosts. Explore contemporary natural history in a baker’s dozen of exhilarating visions.”

Brief Encounters with Che Guevara: Stories  by Ben Fountain

“The well-meaning protagonists of  Brief Encounters with Che Guevara  are caught—to both disastrous and hilarious effect—in the maelstrom of political and social upheaval surrounding them. Ben Fountain’s prize-winning debut speaks to the intimate connection between the foreign, the familiar, and the inescapably human.”

Ayiti by Roxane Gay*

“From  New York Times –bestselling powerhouse Roxane Gay,  Ayiti  is a powerful collection exploring the Haitian diaspora experience. Originally published by a small press, this Grove Press paperback will make Gay’s debut widely available for the first time, including several new stories.”

*Originally published in 2011, being reissued by Grove Press on June 12

Dead Girls and Other Stories  by Emily Geminder

“With lyric artistry and emotional force, Emily Geminder’s debut collection charts a vivid constellation of characters fleeing their own stories. A teenage runaway and her mute brother seek salvation in houses, buses, the backseats of cars. Preteen girls dial up the ghosts of fat girls. A crew of bomber pilots addresses the ash of villagers below. And from India to New York to Phnom Penh, dead girls both real and fantastic appear again and again: as obsession, as threat, as national myth and collective nightmare.”

Gutshot: Stories  by Amelia Gray

“A woman creeps through the ductwork of a quiet home. A medical procedure reveals an object of worship. A carnivorous reptile divides and cauterizes a town. Amelia Gray’s curio cabinet expands in  Gutshot , where isolation and coupling are pushed to their dark and outrageous edges. A master of the macabre, Gray’s work is not for the faint of heart or gut: lick at your own risk.”

Delicate Edible Birds: And Other Stories  by Lauren Groff

“Throughout the collection, Groff displays particular and vivid preoccupations. Crime is a motif—sex crimes, a possible murder, crimes of the heart. Love troubles recur; they’re in every story—love in alcoholism, in adultery, in a flood, even in the great flu epidemic of 1918. Some of the love has depths, which are understood too late; some of the love is shallow, and also understood too late. And mastery is a theme—Groff’s women swim and baton twirl, become poets, or try and try again to achieve the inner strength to exercise personal freedom.”

You Should Pity Us Instead  by Amy Gustine

“You Should Pity Us Instead  explores some of our toughest dilemmas: the cost of Middle East strife at its most intimate level, the likelihood of God considered in day-to-day terms, the moral stakes of family obligations, and the inescapable fact of mortality. Amy Gustine exhibits an extraordinary generosity toward her characters, instilling them with a thriving, vivid presence.”

Madame Zero: 9 Stories  by Sarah Hall

“From one of the most accomplished British writers working today, the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of  The Wolf Border , comes a unique and arresting collection of short fiction that is both disturbing and dazzling…In this collection of nine works of short fiction, she uses her piercing insight to plumb the depth of the female experience and the human soul.”

You Are Not a Stranger Here: Stories  by Adam Haslett

“In these unforgettable stories, the acclaimed author of  Imagine Me Gone  explores lives that appear shuttered by loss and discovers entire worlds hidden inside them. The impact is at once harrowing and thrilling…Told with Chekhovian restraint and compassion, and conveying both the sorrow of life and the courage with which people rise to meet it,  You Are Not a Stranger Here  is a triumph of storytelling.”

Single, Carefree, Mellow by Katherine Heiny

“For the commitment-averse women in the eleven sublime stories of  Single, Carefree, Mellow,  falling in love is never easy and always inconvenient…The women grapple with love amidst everything from unwelcome houseguests to disastrous birthday parties as Katherine Heiny spins a debut that is superbly accomplished, endlessly entertaining, and laugh-out-loud funny.”

The Assimilated Cuban’s Guide to Quantum Santeria  by Carlos Hernández

“Assimilation is founded on surrender and being broken; this collection of short stories features people who have assimilated, but are actively trying to reclaim their lives…Poignant by way of funny, and philosophical by way of grotesque, Hernandez’s stories are prayers for self-sovereignty.”

20th Century Ghosts  by Joe Hill

“Imogene is young, beautiful…and dead, waiting in the Rosebud Theater one afternoon in 1945…Francis was human once, but now he’s an eight-foot-tall locust, and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing…John is locked in a basement stained with the blood of half a dozen murdered children, and an antique telephone, long since disconnected, rings at night with calls from the dead…Nolan knows but can never tell what  really  happened in the summer of ’77, when his idiot savant younger brother built a vast cardboard fort with secret doors leading into other worlds… The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past…”

Barbara the Slut and Other People  by Lauren Holmes

“Fearless, candid, and incredibly funny, Lauren Holmes is a newcomer who writes like a master. She tackles eros and intimacy with a deceptively light touch, a keen awareness of how their nervous systems tangle and sometimes short-circuit, and a genius for revealing our most vulnerable, spirited selves.”

Falling in Love with Hominids  by Nalo Hopkinson

“In this long-awaited collection, Hopkinson continues to expand the boundaries of culture and imagination. Whether she is retelling  The Tempest  as a new Caribbean myth, filling a shopping mall with unfulfilled ghosts, or herding chickens that occasionally breathe fire, Hopkinson continues to create bold fiction that transcends boundaries and borders.”

Deceit and Other Possibilities  by Vanessa Hua

“In this powerful debut collection, Vanessa Hua gives voice to immigrant families navigating a new America. Tied to their ancestral and adopted homelands in ways unimaginable in generations past, these memorable characters straddle both worlds but belong to none. These stories shine a light on immigrant families navigating a new America, straddling cultures and continents, veering between dream and disappointment.”

Daddy’s by Lindsay Hunter

“Lindsay Hunter tells the stories no one else will in ways no one else can. In this down and dirty debut she draws vivid portraits of bad people in worse places…A rising star of the new fast fiction, Hunter bares all before you can blink in her bold, beautiful stories. In this collection of slim southern gothics, she offers an exploration not of the human heart but of the spine; mixing sex, violence and love into a harrowing, head-spinning read.”

Knockout: Stories  by John Jodzio

“The work of John Jodzio has already made waves across the literary community. Some readers noticed his nimble blending of humor with painful truths reminded them of George Saunders. His creativity and fresh voice reminded others of Wells Tower’s  Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned . But with his new collection, Jodzio creates a class of his own.”

Fortune Smiles: Stories  by Adam Johnson

“Throughout these six stories, Pulitzer Prize winner Adam Johnson delves deep into love and loss, natural disasters, the influence of technology, and how the political shapes the personal, giving voice to the perspectives we don’t often hear.”

All Aunt Hagar’s ChildreN: stories  by Edward P. Jones

“Returning to the city that inspired his first prizewinning book,  Lost in the City , Jones has filled this new collection with people who call Washington, D.C., home. Yet it is not the city’s power brokers that most concern him but rather its ordinary citizens.  All Aunt Hagar’s Children  turns an unflinching eye to the men, women, and children caught between the old ways of the South and the temptations that await them further north, people who in Jones’s masterful hands, emerge as fully human and morally complex, whether they are country folk used to getting up with the chickens or people with centuries of education behind them.”

After the People Lights Have Gone Off  by Stephen Graham Jones

“The fifteen stories in  After the People Lights Have Gone Off  by Stephen Graham Jones explore the horrors and fears of the supernatural and the everyday. Included are two original stories, several rarities and out of print narratives, as well as a few ‘best of the year’ inclusions.”

Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri

“These eight stories by beloved and bestselling author Jhumpa Lahiri take us from Cambridge and Seattle to India and Thailand, as they explore the secrets at the heart of family life. Here they enter the worlds of sisters and brothers, fathers and mothers, daughters and sons, friends and lovers. Rich with the signature gifts that have established Jhumpa Lahiri as one of our most essential writers,  Unaccustomed Earth  exquisitely renders the most intricate workings of the heart and mind.”

Virgin and Other Stories  by April Ayers Lawson

“Nodding to the Southern Gothic but channeling an energy all its own,  Virgin and Other Stories  is a mesmerizing debut from an uncannily gifted young writer. With self-assurance and sensuality, April Ayers Lawson unravels the intertwining imperatives of intimacy—sex and love, violation and trust, spirituality and desire—eyeing, unblinkingly, what happens when we succumb to temptation.”

Back Talk: Stories  by Danielle Lazarin

“Through stories that are at once empathetic and unexpected, these women and girls defiantly push the boundaries between selfishness and self-possession. With a fresh voice and bold honesty,  Back Talk  examines how narrowly our culture allows women to express their desires.”

The Birthday of the World: And Other Stories  by Ursula K. Le Guin

“The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, five Hugo Awards and five Nebula Awards, the renowned writer Ursula K. Le Guin has, in each story and novel, created a provocative, ever-evolving universe filled with diverse worlds and rich characters reminiscent of our earthly selves. Now, in  The Birthday of the World,  this gifted artist returns to these worlds in eight brilliant short works, including a never-before-published novella, each of which probes the essence of humanity.”

Bobcat and Other Stories  by Rebecca Lee

“Rebecca Lee, one of our most gifted and original short story writers, guides readers into a range of landscapes, both foreign and domestic, crafting stories as rich as novels…Showing people at their most vulnerable, Lee creates characters so wonderfully flawed, so driven by their desire, so compelled to make sense of their human condition, that it’s impossible not to feel for them when their fragile belief in romantic love, domestic bliss, or academic seclusion fails to provide them with the sort of force field they’d expected.”

We Come to Our Senses: Stories  by Odie Lindsey

“For readers of  Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk  and  Redeployment , a searing debut exploring the lives of veterans returning to their homes in the South. Lacerating and lyrical,  We Come to Our Senses  centers on men and women affected by combat directly and tangentially, and the peculiar legacies of war.”

Get in Trouble: Stories  by Kelly Link

“Hurricanes, astronauts, evil twins, bootleggers, Ouija boards, iguanas,  The Wizard of Oz,  superheroes, the Pyramids…These are just some of the talismans of an imagination as capacious and as full of wonder as that of any writer today. But as fantastical as these stories can be, they are always grounded by sly humor and an innate generosity of feeling for the frailty—and the hidden strengths—of human beings. In  Get in Trouble,  this one-of-a-kind talent expands the boundaries of what short fiction can do.”

The Complete Stories  by Clarice Lispector,‎ Benjamin Moser (Editor),‎ Katrina Dodson (Translator)

“Now, for the first time in English, are all the stories that made her a Brazilian legend: from teenagers coming into awareness of their sexual and artistic powers to humdrum housewives whose lives are shattered by unexpected epiphanies to old people who don’t know what to do with themselves. Clarice’s stories take us through their lives—and ours. From one of the greatest modern writers, these stories, gathered from the nine collections published during her lifetime, follow an unbroken time line of success as a writer, from her adolescence to her death bed.”

The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories by Ken Liu

“With his debut novel,  The Grace of Kings , taking the literary world by storm, Ken Liu now shares his finest short fiction in  The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories …Insightful and stunning stories that plumb the struggle against history and betrayal of relationships in pivotal moments, this collection showcases one of our greatest and original voices.”

Three Scenarios in Which Hana Sasaki Grows a Tail  by Kelly Luce

“Set in Japan, Luce’s playful, tender stories—reminiscent of Haruki Murakami and Aimee Bender—tip into the fantastical, plumb the power of memory, and measure the human capacity to love. The award-winning narratives in this mesmerizing debut trace the lives of ex-pats, artists, and outsiders as they seek to find their place in the world.”

Half Wild: Stories  by Robin MacArthur

“Spanning nearly forty years, the stories in Robin MacArthur’s formidable debut give voice to the dreams, hungers, and fears of a diverse cast of Vermonters—adolescent girls, aging hippies, hardscrabble farmers, disconnected women, and solitary men. Straddling the border between civilization and the wild, they all struggle to make sense of their loneliness and longings in the stark and often isolating enclaves they call home—golden fields and white-veiled woods, dilapidated farmhouses and makeshift trailers, icy rivers and still lakes rouse the imagination, tether the heart, and inhabit the soul.”

Her Body and Other Parties: Stories  by Carmen Maria Machado

“In  Her Body and Other Parties , Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women’s lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.”

Music for Wartime: Stories  by Rebecca Makkai

“Rebecca Makkai’s first two novels,  The Borrower  and  The Hundred-Year House , have established her as one of the freshest and most imaginative voices in fiction. Now, the award-winning writer, whose stories have appeared in four consecutive editions of  The Best American Short Stories,  returns with a highly anticipated collection bearing her signature mix of intelligence, wit, and heart.”

Thunderstruck & Other Stories  by Elizabeth McCracken

“In Elizabeth McCracken’s universe, heartache is always interwoven with strange, charmed moments of joy—an unexpected conversation with small children, the gift of a parrot with a bad French accent—that remind us of the wonder and mystery of being alive.  Thunderstruck & Other Stories  shows this inimitable writer working at the full height of her powers.”

Heartbreaker: Stories  by Maryse Meijer

“In her debut story collection  Heartbreaker , Maryse Meijer peels back the crust of normalcy and convention, unmasking the fury and violence we are willing to inflict in the name of love and loneliness. Her characters are a strange ensemble—a feral child, a girl raised from the dead, a possible pedophile—who share in vulnerability and heartache, but maintain an unremitting will to survive. Meijer deals in desire and sex, femininity and masculinity, family and girlhood, crafting a landscape of appetites threatening to self-destruct. In beautifully restrained and exacting prose, she sets the marginalized free to roam her pages and burn our assumptions to the ground.”

Both Ways Is the Only Way I Want It  by Maile Meloy

“Eleven unforgettable new stories demonstrate the emotional power and the clean, assured style that have earned Meloy praise from critics and devotion from readers. Propelled by a terrific instinct for storytelling, and concerned with the convolutions of modern love and the importance of place, this collection is about the battlefields—and fields of victory—that exist in seemingly harmless spaces, in kitchens and living rooms and cars. Set mostly in the American West, the stories feature small-town lawyers, ranchers, doctors, parents, and children, and explore the moral quandaries of love, family, and friendship.”

Three Moments of an Explosion: Stories  by China Miéville

“The fiction of multiple award–winning author China Miéville is powered by intelligence and imagination. Like George Saunders, Karen Russell, and David Mitchell, he pulls from a variety of genres with equal facility, employing the fantastic not to escape from reality but instead to interrogate it in provocative, unexpected ways.”

I Was a Revolutionary: Stories  by Andrew Malan Milward

“Grounded in place, spanning the Civil War to the present day, the stories in  I Was a Revolutionary  capture the roil of history through the eyes of an unforgettable cast of characters: the visionaries and dreamers, radical farmers and socialist journalists, quack doctors and protestors who haunt the past and present landscape of the state of Kansas.”

Runaway by Alice Munro

“In Munro’s hands, the people she writes about—women of all ages and circumstances, and their friends, lovers, parents, and children—become as vivid as our own neighbors. It is her miraculous gift to make these stories as real and unforgettable as our own.”

After the Quake: Stories  by Haruki Murakami,‎ Jay Rubin  (Translator)

“The six stories in Haruki Murakami’s mesmerizing collection are set at the time of the catastrophic 1995 Kobe earthquake, when Japan became brutally aware of the fragility of its daily existence. But the upheavals that afflict Murakami’s characters are even deeper and more mysterious, emanating from a place where the human meets the inhuman.”

You Are My Heart and Other Stories  by Jay Neugeboren

“From the secluded villages in the south of France, to the cattle crawl in the Valley of a Thousand Hills in South Africa, to the hard-knock adolescent streets of Brooklyn, Neugeboren examines the great mysteries and complexities that unsettle and comprise human relationships. In works that are as memorable, engrossing, and exciting as they are gorgeously crafted, Neugeboren delivers on his reputation as one of our pre-eminent American writers.”

The Refugees  by Viet Thanh Nguyen

“With the same incisiveness as in  The Sympathizer , in  The Refugees  Viet Thanh Nguyen gives voice to the hopes and expectations of people making life-changing decisions to leave one country for another, and the rifts in identity, loyalties, romantic relationships, and family that accompany relocation. From a young Vietnamese refugee who suffers profound culture shock when he comes to live with two gay men in San Francisco, to a woman whose husband is suffering from dementia and starts to confuse her for a former lover, to a girl living in Ho Chi Minh City whose older half-sister comes back from America having seemingly accomplished everything she never will, the stories are a captivating testament to the dreams and hardships of migration.”

Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls: Stories by Alissa Nutting*

“Throughout these breathtakingly creative seventeen stories spread across time, space, and differing planes of reality, we encounter a host of women and girls in a wide range of unusual jobs…Wickedly funny yet ringing with deep truths about gender, authority and the ways we inhabit and restrict the female body,  Unclean Jobs for Women and Girls  is a brilliant commentary on the kaleidoscope of human behavior and a remarkably nuanced satire for our times.”

*Originally published in 2011, being reissued by Ecco on July 3

Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales  by Yoko Ogawa,‎ Stephen Snyder (Translator)

“Sinister forces collide—and unite a host of desperate characters—in this eerie cycle of interwoven tales from Yoko Ogawa, the critically acclaimed author of  The Housekeeper and the Professor …Yoko Ogawa’s Revenge is a master class in the macabre that will haunt you to the last page.”

Salsa Nocturna  by Daniel José Older

“A 300 year-old story collector enlists the help of the computer hacker next door to save her dying sister. A half-resurrected cleanup man for Death’s sprawling bureaucracy faces a phantom pachyderm, doll-collecting sorceresses and his own ghoulish bosses. Gordo, the old Cubano that watches over the graveyards and sleeping children of Brooklyn, stirs and lights another Malaguena. Down the midnight streets of New York, a whole invisible universe churns to life in Daniel Jose Older’s debut collection of ghost noir.”

The Bigness of the World: Stories  by Lori Ostlund

“In Lori Ostlund’s award-winning debut collection, people seeking escape from situations at home venture out into a world that they find is just as complicated and troubled as the one they left behind. In prose highlighted by both satire and poignant observation,  The Bigness of the World  contains characters that represent a different sort of everyman—men and women who poke fun at ideological rigidity while holding fast to good grammar and manners, people seeking connections in a world that seems increasingly foreign.”

When the Emperor Was Divine  by Julie Otsuka

“Julie Otsuka’s commanding debut novel paints a portrait of the Japanese internment camps unlike any we have ever seen. With crystalline intensity and precision, Otsuka uses a single family to evoke the deracination ‘both physical and emotional’ of a generation of Japanese Americans…Spare, intimate, arrestingly understated,  When the Emperor Was Divine  is a haunting evocation of a family in wartime and an unmistakably resonant lesson for our times.”

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere  by ZZ Packer

“With penetrating insight that belies her youth—she was only nineteen years old when  Seventeen  magazine printed her first published story—ZZ Packer helps us see the world with a clearer vision.  Drinking Coffee Elsewhere  is a striking performance—fresh, versatile, and captivating. It introduces us to an arresting and unforgettable new voice.”

Binocular Vision: New & Selected Stories  by Edith Pearlman

“In this sumptuous offering, one of our premier storytellers provides a feast for fiction aficionados. Spanning four decades and three prize-winning collections, these twenty-one vintage selected stories and thirteen scintillating new ones take us around the world, from Jerusalem to Central America, from tsarist Russia to London during the Blitz, from central Europe to Manhattan, and from the Maine coast to Godolphin, Massachusetts, a fictional suburb of Boston. These charged locales, and the lives of the endlessly varied characters within them, are evoked with a tenderness and incisiveness found in only our most observant seers.”

I Want to Show You More  by Jamie Quatro

“Sharp-edged and fearless, mixing white-hot yearning with daring humor, Quatro’s stories upend and shake out our views on infidelity, faith, and family. Set around Lookout Mountain on the border of Georgia and Tennessee, Quatro’s hypnotically revealing stories range from the traditional to the fabulist as they expose lives torn between spirituality and sexuality in the New American South. These fifteen linked tales confront readers with fractured marriages, mercurial temptations, and dark theological complexities, and establish a sultry and enticingly cool new voice in American fiction.”

You Have Never Been Here: New and Selected Stories  by Mary Rickert

“Open this book to any page and find yourself enspelled by these lush, alchemical stories. Faced with the uncanny and the impossible, Rickert’s protagonists are as painfully, shockingly, complexly human as the readers who will encounter them. Mothers, daughters, witches, artists, strangers, winged babies, and others grapple with deception, loss, and moments of extraordinary joy.”

The Republic of East LA: Stories  by Luis J. Rodriguez

“From the award-winning author of  Always Running  comes a brilliant collection of short stories about life in East Los Angeles. In these stories, Luis J. Rodriguez gives eloquent voice to the neighborhood where he spent many years as a resident, a father, an organizer, and, finally, a writer: a neighborhood that offers more to the world than its appearance allows.”

The Girl of the Lake: Stories  by Bill Roorbach

“These moving and funny stories are as rich in scope, emotional, and memorable as Bill Roorbach’s novels. He has been called “a kinder, gentler John Irving…a humane and entertaining storyteller with a smooth, graceful style” (the  Washington Post ), and his work has been described as “hilarious and heartbreaking, wild and wise” ( Parade  magazine), all of which is evident in spades (and also hearts, clubs, and diamonds) in every story in this arresting new collection.”

Telling the Map: Stories  by Christopher Rowe

“There are ten stories here including one readers have waited ten long years for: in new novella  The Border State  Rowe revisits the world of his much-lauded story  The Voluntary State . Competitive cyclists twins Michael and Maggie have trained all their lives to race internationally. One thing holds them back: their mother who years before crossed the border…into Tennessee.”

All the Names They Used for God: Stories  by Anjali Sachdeva

“Like many of us, the characters in this collection are in pursuit of the sublime, and find themselves looking not just to divinity but to science, nature, psychology, and industry, forgetting that their new, logical deities are no more trustworthy than the tempestuous gods of the past. Along the way, they walk the knife-edge between wonder and terror, salvation and destruction.  All the Names They Used for God  is an entrancing work of speculative fiction that heralds Anjali Sachdeva as an invigorating, incomparable new voice.”

Tenth of December: Stories  by George Saunders

“Writing brilliantly and profoundly about class, sex, love, loss, work, despair, and war, Saunders cuts to the core of the contemporary experience. These stories take on the big questions and explore the fault lines of our own morality, delving into the questions of what makes us good and what makes us human. Unsettling, insightful, and hilarious, the stories in  Tenth of December —through their manic energy, their focus on what is redeemable in human beings, and their generosity of spirit—not only entertain and delight; they fulfill Chekhov’s dictum that art should ‘prepare us for tenderness.'”

Blueprints for Building Better Girls  by Elissa Schappell

“Its interconnected stories explore the commonly shared but rarely spoken of experiences that build girls into women and women into wives and mothers. In revealing all their vulnerabilities and twisting our preconceived notions of who they are, Elissa Schappell alters how we think about the nature of female identity and how it evolves.”

Ambiguity Machines: and Other Stories  by Vandana Singh

“Singh’s stories have been performed on BBC radio, been finalists for the British SF Association award, selected for the Tiptree award honor list, and oft reprinted in Best of the Year anthologies. Her dives deep into the vast strangeness of the universe without and within and with her unblinking clear vision she explores the ways we move through space and time: together, yet always apart.”

The Virginity of Famous Men: Stories  by Christine Sneed

“Long intrigued by love and loneliness, Sneed leads readers through emotional landscapes both familiar and uncharted. These probing stories are explorations of the compassionate and passionate impulses that are inherent in—and often the source of—both abiding joy and serious distress in every human life.”

The Unfinished World: And Other Stories  by Amber Sparks

“Sparks’s stories—populated with sculptors, librarians, astronauts, and warriors—form a veritable cabinet of curiosities. Mythical, bizarre, and deeply moving,  The Unfinished World and Other Stories  heralds the arrival of a major writer and illuminates the search for a brief encounter with the extraordinary.”

Monstress: Stories  by Lysley Tenorio

“A luminous collection of heartbreaking, vivid, startling, and gloriously unique stories set amongst the Filipino-American communities of California and the Philippines,  Monstress  heralds the arrival of a breathtaking new talent on the literary scene: Lysley Tenorio. Already the worthy recipient of a Pushcart Prize, a Whiting Writer’s Award, and a Stegner Fellowship, Tenorio brilliantly explores the need to find connections, the melancholy of isolation, and the sometimes suffocating ties of family in tales that range from a California army base to a steamy moviehouse in Manilla, to the dangerous false glitter of Hollywood.”

Swimmer Among the Stars: Stories  by Kanishk Tharoor

“With exuberant originality and startling vision, Tharoor cuts against the grain of literary convention, drawing equally from ancient history and current events. His world-spanning stories speak to contemporary challenges of environmental collapse and cultural appropriation, but also to the workings of legend and their timeless human truths. Whether refashioning the romances of Alexander the Great or confronting the plight of today’s refugees, Tharoor writes with distinctive insight and remarkable assurance.  Swimmer Among the Stars  announces the arrival of a vital, enchanting talent.”

Night at the Fiestas: Stories  by Kirstin Valdez Quade

“With intensity and emotional precision, Kirstin Valdez Quade’s unforgettable stories plunge us into the fierce, troubled hearts of characters defined by the desire to escape the past or else to plumb its depths…Always hopeful, these stories chart the passions and obligations of family life, exploring themes of race, class, and coming-of-age, as Quade’s characters protect, betray, wound, undermine, bolster, define, and, ultimately, save each other.”

What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us: Stories  by Laura van den Berg

“Containing work reprinted in Best Non-Required Reading 2008, Best New American Voices 2010, and The Pushcart Prizes 2010, the stories in Laura van den Berg’s rich and inventive debut illuminate the intersection of the mythic and the mundane…Rendered with precision and longing, the women who narrate these starkly beautiful stories are consumed with searching—for absolution, for solace, for the flash of extraordinary in the ordinary that will forever alter their lives.”

Battleborn: Stories  by Claire Vaye Watkins

“In each of these ten unforgettable stories, Claire Vaye Watkins writes her way fearlessly into the mythology of the American West, utterly reimagining it. Her characters orbit around the region’s vast spaces, winning redemption despite—and often because of—the hardship and violence they endure.”

Children of the New World: Stories  by Alexander Weinstein

“ Children of the New World  grapples with our unease in this modern world and how our ever-growing dependence on new technologies has changed the shape of our society. Alexander Weinstein is a visionary new voice in speculative fiction for all of us who are fascinated by and terrified of what we might find on the horizon.”

Honored Guest: Stories  by Joy Williams

“With her singular brand of gorgeous dark humor, Joy Williams explores the various ways—comic, tragic, and unnerving—we seek to accommodate diminishment and loss. A masseuse breaks her rich client’s wrist bone, a friend visits at the hospital long after she is welcome, and a woman surrenders her husband to a creepily adoring student. From one of our most acclaimed writers,  Honored Guest  is a rich examination of our capacity for transformation and salvation.”

Diving Belles: And Other Stories  by Lucy Wood

“In these stories, the line between the real and the imagined is blurred as Lucy Wood takes us to Cornwall’s ancient coast, building on its rich storytelling history and recasting its myths in thoroughly contemporary ways. Calling forth the fantastic and fantastical, she mines these legends for that bit of magic remaining in all our lives—if only we can let ourselves see it.”

The Mountain: Stories  by Paul Yoon

“Hailed by  New York  magazine as a ‘quotidian-surreal craft-master’ and a ‘radiant star in the current literary firmament’ by  The Dallas Morning News , Yoon realizes his worlds with quiet, insightful, and gorgeous prose. Though each story is distinct from the others, his restrained voice and perceptive observations about violence—to the body, the landscape, and ultimately, the human soul—weaves throughout this collection as a whole, making  The Mountain  a beautiful, memorable read.”

Sour Heart: Stories  by Jenny Zhang

“Narrated by the daughters of Chinese immigrants who fled imperiled lives as artists back home only to struggle to stay afloat—dumpster diving for food and scamming Atlantic City casino buses to make a buck—these seven stories showcase Zhang’s compassion, moral courage, and a perverse sense of humor reminiscent of  Portnoy’s Complaint . A darkly funny and intimate rendering of girlhood,  Sour Heart  examines what it means to belong to a family, to find your home, leave it, reject it, and return again.”

What are your favorite contemporary short story collections? 

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Make Lists, Not War

The meta-lists website, best short stories of all time – ranked.

The following is a list of the Best Short Stories of All Time, as selected by critics, editors, academics and other experts. These are not my personal opinions. To create this meta-list, I combined a number of ‘Best Short Stories’ lists from the Internet and then added the stories contained in many short story anthologies. The meta-list below contains every short story included in at least two of the original sources.  The numbers in bold indicate the number of lists/anthologies containing the story; stories on the same number of lists are organized chronologically by publication date.  Although many of the resources I could find were focused on English-language stories, or American stories exclusively, I was able to find a number of lists and anthologies that included stories originally written in languages other than English. The list contains a significant number of stories by contemporary writers, although the older classics predominate at the top of the list.  For those who are chronologically inclined, I also have arranged the list in chronological order – click on  Best Short Stories of All Time – Chronological .

NOTE: Some of the short story lists and anthologies I relied on included works that are more commonly referred to as novellas, such as Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilyich and Conrad’s Heart of Darkness . I have left such works on the list if there are multiple authorities that refer to them as short stories.

UPDATE: Most of these stories are available to read online, so I have now added links. Click on the link to read the story.  For a list of the best poetry of all time with similar links, go here .

On 15 “Best Short Stories” Lists The Rocking-Horse Winner , by D.H. Lawrence (UK, 1926) The Lottery , by Shirley Jackson (US, 1948)

On 14 Lists A Good Man Is Hard to Find , by Flannery O’Connor (US, 1953)

13 Lists The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County , by Mark Twain (US, 1865)

12 Lists The Necklace , by Guy de Maupassant (France, 1884)

11 Lists Araby , by James Joyce (Ireland, 1914)

10 Lists The Yellow Wallpaper , by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (US, 1892)

9 Lists The Tell-Tale Heart , by Edgar Allan Poe (US, 1843) The Cask of Amontillado , by Edgar Allan Poe (US, 1846) A Hunger Artist , by Franz Kafka (Austria-Hungary, 1922) The Snows of Kilimanjaro , by Ernest Hemingway (US, 1936)

8 Lists Young Goodman Brown , by Nathaniel Hawthorne (US, 1835) The Fall of the House of Usher , by Edgar Allan Poe (US, 1839) Bartleby, the Scrivener , by Herman Melville (US, 1853) The Bet , by Anton Chekhov (Russia, 1889) The Monkey’s Paw, by W.W. Jacobs (UK, 1902) The Gift of the Magi , by O. Henry (US, 1905) Hills Like White Elephants , by Ernest Hemingway (US, 1927) The Secret Life of Walter Mitty , by James Thurber (US, 1939) Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?, by Joyce Carol Oates (US, 1966) Cathedral , by Raymond Carver (US, 1983)

7 Lists Thrawn Janet , by Robert Louis Stevenson (UK, 1881) An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge , by Ambrose Bierce (US, 1890) The Lady with the Dog , by Anton Chekhov (Russia, 1899) Paul’s Case , by Willa Cather (US, 1905) The Secret Sharer , by Joseph Conrad (Poland/UK, 1909-1910) The Dead , by James Joyce (Ireland, 1914) Eveline , by James Joyce (Ireland, 1914) A Clean, Well-Lighted Place , by Ernest Hemingway (US, 1933) Symbols and Signs , by Vladimir Nabokov (Russia/US, 1948)

6 Lists A Passion in the Desert , by Honoré de Balzac (France, 1830) The Overcoat , by Nikolai Gogol (Russia, 1842) The Story of an Hour , by Kate Chopin (US, 1894) To Build a Fire , by Jack London (US, 1908) The Open Window , by Saki (H.H. Munro) (UK, 1914) In the Penal Colony , by Franz Kafka (Austria-Hungary, 1914, pub. 1919) The Garden Party , by Kathleen Mansfield (New Zealand/UK, 1922) The Most Dangerous Game , by Richard Connell (US, 1924) A Rose for Emily , by William Faulkner (US, 1930) That Evening Sun (That Evening Sun Go Down) , by William Faulkner (US, 1931) Guests of the Nation , by Frank O’Connor (Ireland, 1931) A Perfect Day for a Bananafish , by J.D. Salinger (US, 1948) The Very Old Man with Enormous Wings , by Gabriel García Márquez (Colombia, 1955) The Artificial Nigger , by Flannery O’Connor (US, 1955) The Swimmer , by John Cheever (US, 1964)

5 Lists The Nose , by Nikolai Gogol (Russia, 1835-1836) The Minister’s Black Veil , by Nathaniel Hawthorne (US, 1836) The Pit and the Pendulum , by Edgar Allan Poe (US, 1842) The Outcasts of Poker Flat , by Bret Harte (US, 1869) The Three Questions , by Leo Tolstoy (Russia, 1885) Vanka , by Anton Chekhov (Russia, 1886) The Man Who Would be King , by Rudyard Kipling (UK/India, 1888) The Open Boat , by Stephen Crane (US, 1897) Heart of Darkness , by Joseph Conrad (Poland/UK, 1899) A Dark Brown Dog , by Stephen Crane (US, pub. 1901) How the Leopard Got His Spots , by Rudyard Kipling (UK/India, 1902) A Haunted House , by Virginia Woolf (UK, 1921) A Telephone Call , by Dorothy Parker (US, 1930) Babylon Revisited , by F. Scott Fitzgerald (US, 1930) The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber , by Ernest Hemingway (US, 1936) The Use of Force , by William Carlos Williams (US, 1938) Barn Burning , by William Faulkner (US, 1939) A Worn Path , by Eudora Welty (US, 1941) Sonny’s Blues , by James Baldwin (US, 1957) Harrison Bergeron , by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. (US, 1961) The Things They Carried , by Tim O’Brien (US, 1987)

4 Lists The Masque of the Red Death , by Edgar Allan Poe (US, 1842) The Birthmark , by Nathaniel Hawthorne (US, 1843) The Christmas Tree and the Wedding , by Fyodor Dostoevsky (Russia, 1848) A Lodging for the Night , by Robert Louis Stevenson (UK, 1882) The Death of Ivan Ilyich , by Leo Tolstoy (Russia, 1886) How Much Land Does A Man Need?, by Leo Tolstoy (Russia, 1886) The Nightingale and the Rose , by Oscar Wilde (Ireland, 1888) Rikki Tikki Tavi , by Rudyard Kipling (UK/India, 1894) Regret , by Kate Chopin (US, 1894) The Odour of Chrysanthemums , by D.H. Lawrence (UK, 1911) Sredni Vashtar , by Saki (H.H. Munro) (UK, c. 1900-1914) The Prussian Officer , by D.H. Lawrence (UK, 1914) The Metamorphosis , by Franz Kafka (Austria-Hungary, 1915) Kew Gardens , by Virginia Woolf (UK, 1919) The Fly , by Katherine Mansfield (New Zealand/UK, 1922) The Diamond as Big as the Ritz , by F. Scott Fitzgerald (US, 1922) The Horse Dealer’s Daughter , by D.H. Lawrence (UK, 1922) Haircut , by Ring Lardner (US, 1925) The Killers , by Ernest Hemingway (US, 1927) Dry September , by William Faulkner (US, 1931) Silent Snow, Secret Snow , by Conrad Aiken (US, 1934) Spring in Fialta , by Vladimir Nabokov (USSR/US, 1936) In Dreams Begin Responsibilities , by Delmore Schwartz (US, 1937) The Door , by E.B. White (US, 1939) Beware of the Dog , by Roald Dahl (UK, 1944) The Aleph , by Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina, 1945) A & P , by John Updike (US, 1961) Gogol’s Wife , by Tommasso Landolfi (Italy, 1963) Everyday Use , by Alice Walker (US, 1973) Bullet in the Brain , by Tobias Wolff (US, 1995) Interpreter of Maladies , by Jhumpa Lahiri (UK/US, 1999)

3 Lists Rip Van Winkle , by Washington Irving (US, 1819) Diary of a Madman , by Nikolai Gogol (Russia, 1835) The Eclipse , by James Fenimore Cooper (US, 1833-1838) The Purloined Letter , by Edgar Allan Poe (US, 1844) The Signal-Man , by Charles Dickens (UK, 1866) Boule de Suif , by Guy de Maupassant (France, 1880) The Lady or the Tiger? , by Frank Stockton (US, 1882) The Looking Glass , by Anton Chekhov (Russia, 1885) The Griffin and the Minor Canon , by Frank Stockton (US, 1885) The Happy Prince , by Oscar Wilde (Ireland, 1888) The Selfish Giant , by Oscar Wilde (Ireland, 1888) A Horseman in the Sky , by Ambrose Bierce (US, 1889) Without Benefit of Clergy , by Rudyard Kipling (UK/India, 1890) Desiree’s Baby , by Kate Chopin (US, 1893) Gooseberries , by Anton Chekhov (Russia, 1898) Youth , by Joseph Conrad (Poland/UK, 1902) One Autumn Night , by Maxim Gorky (Russia, 1902) A Dog’s Tale , by Mark Twain (US, 1903) The Mezzotint , by M.R. James (UK, 1904) The Cop and the Anthem , by O. Henry (US, 1904) The Last Leaf , by O. Henry (US, 1906) I Want to Know Why , by Sherwood Anderson (US, 1918) A. V. Laider , by Max Beerbohm (UK, 1919) The Interlopers , by Saki (H.H. Munro) (UK, 1919) Bliss , by Katherine Mansfield (New Zealand/UK, 1920) I’m a Fool , by Sherwood Anderson (US, 1922) The Story of My Dovecot , by Isaac Babel (Ukraine/USSR, 1925) My First Goose , by Isaac Babel (Ukraine/USSR, 1926) A Jury of her Peers , by Susan Glaspell (US, 1927) The Jilting of Granny Weatherall , by Katherine Anne Porter (US, 1930) Flowering Judas , by Katherine Anne Porter (US, 1930) Theft , by Katherine Anne Porter (US, 1930) Our Lady’s Juggler , by Anatole France (France, 1933) The Leader of the People , by John Steinbeck (US, 1937) Leiningen versus the Ants , by Carl Stephenson (Germany, 1938) The Wall , by Jean-Paul Sartre (France, 1939) Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius , by Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina, 1940) The Garden of Forking Paths , by Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina, 1941) Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland , by Carson McCullers (US, 1941) The Veldt , by Ray Bradbury (US, 1950) Goodbye, My Brother , by John Cheever (US, 1951) Bestiary , by Julio Cortázar (Argentina, 1951) A Sound of Thunder , by Ray Bradbury (US, 1952) Gimpel the Fool , by Isaac Bashevis Singer (Poland/US, 1953) All Summer in a Day , by Ray Bradbury (US, 1954) The Five-Forty-Eight , by John Cheever (US, 1954) The Country Husband , by John Cheever (US, 1954) The Habit of Loving , by Doris Lessing (UK, 1957) The Adulterous Woman , by Albert Camus (Algeria/France, 1957) The Sacrificial Egg , by Chinua Achebe (Nigeria, 1959) The Ledge , by Lawrence Sargent Hall (US, 1959) Borges and I , by Jorge Luis Borges (Argentina, 1960) I Stand Here Ironing , by Tillie Olsen (US, 1961) Almos’ a Man (The Man Who Was Almost a Man), by Richard Wright (US, 1961) Pigeon Feathers , by John Updike (US, 1962) The Jewbird , by Bernard Malamud (US, 1963) The Night Face Up , by Julio Cortázar (Argentina, 1967) Henne Fire , by Isaac Bashevis Singer (Poland/US, 1968) The Suitcase , by Cynthia Ozick (US, 1971) Naga, by R.K. Narayan (India, 1972) The School , by Donald Barthelme (US, 1976) Rape Fantasies , by Margaret Atwood (Canada, 1977) The Shawl , by Cynthia Ozick (US, 1980) Greasy Lake , by T.C. Boyle (US, 1985) You Can’t Get Lost in Cape Town , by Zoë Wicomb (South Africa, 1987) Emergency , by Denis Johnson (US, 1992) The Bear Came Over the Mountain , by Alice Munro (Canada, 1999) What You Pawn, I Will Redeem , by Sherman Alexie (US, 2003) The First Day , by Edward P. Jones (US, 2004) Safari , by Jennifer Egan (US, 2010)

2 Lists The Legend of Sleepy Hollow , by Washington Irving (US, 1820) The Devil and Tom Walker , by Washington Irving (US, 1824) The Queen of Spades , by Alexander Pushkin (Russia, 1833) The Ambitious Guest , by Nathaniel Hawthorne (US, 1835) The Gray Champion , by Nathaniel Hawthorne (US, 1835) David Swan , by Nathaniel Hawthorne (US, 1837) The Gold Bug , by Edgar Allan Poe (US, 1843) Rappaccini’s Daughter , by Nathaniel Hawthorne (US, 1844) The District Doctor , by Ivan Turgenev (Russia, 1852) The Lightning-Rod Man , by Herman Melville (US, 1854) The Luck of Roaring Camp , by Bret Harte (US, 1868) Scarlet Stockings , by Louisa May Alcott (US, 1869) Tennessee’s Partner , by Bret Harte (US, 1869) A Fight with a Cannon , by Victor Hugo (France, c. 1870) The Legend of St. Julian the Hospitaller , by Gustave Flaubert (France, 1877) The Private History of a Campaign That Failed , by Mark Twain (US, 1885) The Horla , by Guy de Maupassant (France, 1887) Chickamauga , by Ambrose Bierce (US, 1889) A New England Nun , by Mary Wilkins Freeman (US, 1891) The Boarded Window , by Ambrose Bierce (US, 1891) The Bottle Imp , by Robert Louis Stevenson (UK, 1891) Under The Lion’s Paw , by Hamlin Garland (US, 1891) The Red-Headed League , by Arthur Conan Doyle (UK, 1891) The House with the Mezzanine , by Anton Chekhov (Russia, 1896) The Figure in the Carpet , by Henry James (US/UK, 1896) Little Herr Friedemann , by Thomas Mann (Germany, 1896) A Pair of Silk Stockings , by Kate Chopin (US, 1896-1897) The Omnibus , by Arthur Quiller-Couch (UK, 1902) Was it Heaven? Or Hell?, by Mark Twain (US, 1903) Eve’s Diary , by Mark Twain (US, 1905) The Skylight Room , by O. Henry (US, 1906) Lazarus , by Leonid Andreyev (Russia, 1906) The Furnished Room , by O. Henry (US, 1906) The Willows , by Algernon Blackwood (UK, 1907) On The Gull’s Road , by Willa Cather (US, 1908) The Cactus , by O. Henry (US, c. 1905-1909) The Princess and the Puma , by O. Henry (US, c. 1905-1909) A Municipal Report , by O. Henry (US, c. 1905-1909) Gabriel-Ernest , by Saki (H.H. Munro) (UK, 1909) The Machine Stops , by E.M. Forster (UK, 1909) The Schartz-Metterklume Method , by Saki (H.H. Munro) (UK, 1910) The Other Side of the Hedge , by E.M. Forster (UK, 1911) How the Widow Won the Deacon , by William James Lampton (US, 1911) Casting the Runes , by M.R. James (UK, 1911) The Sisters , by James Joyce (Ireland, 1914) Dracula’s Guest , by Bram Stoker (Ireland, 1914) The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm , by Mark Twain (US, pub. 1916) The Tale , by Joseph Conrad (Poland/UK, 1917) A Madman’s Diary , by Lu Xun (China, 1918) The Other Woman , by Sherwood Anderson (US, 1920) Rain , by W. Somerset Maugham (UK, 1921) The Curious Case of Benjamin Button , by F. Scott Fitzgerald (US, 1922) The Doll’s House , by Katherine Mansfield (New Zealand/UK, 1922) The Gardener , by Rudyard Kipling (UK/India, 1926) The Dunwich Horror , by H.P. Lovecraft (US, 1929) Terra Incognita , by Vladimir Nabokov (USSR/US, 1931) Guy de Maupassant , by Isaac Babel (Ukraine/USSR, 1932) Death in the Woods , by Sherwood Anderson (US, 1933) A Day’s Wait , by Ernest Hemingway (US, 1933) Shooting An Elephant , by George Orwell (UK, 1936) The Devil and Daniel Webster , by Stephen Vincent Benét (US, 1937) The Chrysanthemums , by John Steinbeck (US, 1938) Flight , by John Steinbeck (US, 1938) First Confession , by Frank O’Connor (Ireland, 1939) The Girls In Their Summer Dresses , by Irwin Shaw (US, 1939) Nightfall , by Isaac Asimov (USSR/US, 1941) The Hitch-Hikers , by Eudora Welty (US, 1941) Sorrow-Acre , by Isak Dinesen (Denmark, 1942) The Demon Lover , by Elizabeth Bowen (Ireland/UK, 1945) Miriam , by Truman Capote (US, 1945) First Love , by Samuel Beckett (Ireland/France, 1946, pub. 1973) Sinners , by Seán Ó Faoláin (Ireland, 1947) A Man From the South , by Roald Dahl (UK, 1948) Miami-New York , by Martha Gellhorn (US, 1948) The Saint , by V.S. Pritchett (UK, c. 1940s) For Esmé – with Love and Squalor , by J.D. Salinger (US, 1950) The Chaser , by John Collier (UK, 1951) Christmas Every Day (Christmas Not Just Once a Year), by Heinrich Böll (Germany, 1951) The Resemblance Between a Violin Case and a Coffin , by Tennessee Williams (US, 1951) A Child’s Christmas in Wales , by Dylan Thomas (UK, 1952) A Mother’s Tale , by James Agee (US, 1952) Good Country People , by Flannery O’Connor (US, 1955) Continuity of Parks , by Julio Cortázar (Argentina, 1956) The Challenge, by Mario Vargas Llosa (Peru, 1958) The Last Mohican , by Bernard Malamud (US, 1958) Defender of the Faith , by Philip Roth (US, 1959) The Landlady , by Roald Dahl (UK, 1959) Patriotism , by Yukio Mishima (Japan, 1960) Lifeguard , by John Updike (US, 1961) Let Them Call It Jazz , by Jean Rhys (Dominica/UK, 1962) The Doll Queen , by Carlos Fuentes (Mexico, 1964) One Arm , by Yasunari Kawabata (Japan, 1964) All at One Point , by Italo Calvino (Italy, 1965) Parker’s Back , by Flannery O’Connor (US, 1965) How I Contemplated the World from the Detroit House of Correction and Began My Life Over Again , by Joyce Carol Oates (US, 1969) The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas , by Ursula Le Guin (US, 1973) Five-Twenty , by Patrick White (Australia, 1974) Bluebell Meadow , by Benedict Kiely (Ireland, 1975) A Family Man , by V.S. Pritchett (UK, 1977) The Bloody Chamber , by Angela Carter (UK, 1979) Why Don’t You Dance , by Raymond Carver (US, 1981) The Old Demon , by Pearl S. Buck (US, pub. 1981) Hollow , by Breece D’J Pancake (US, 1982) The Chosen Husband, by Mavis Gallant (Canada/France, 1985) The Elephant Vanishes , by Haruki Murakami (Japan, 1985) Communist, by Richard Ford (US, 1986) White Angel , by Michael Cunningham (US, 1988) The Management of Grief , by Bharati Mukherjee (India/US, 1988) You’re Ugly, Too , by Lorrie Moore (US, 1989) Friend of My Youth , by Alice Munro (Canada, 1990) Death by Landscape , by Margaret Atwood (Canada, 1990) A Real Doll , by A.M. Homes (US, 1990) The Pugilist at Rest, by Thom Jones (US, 1991) They’re Made out of Meat , by Terry Bisson (US, 1991) Silver Water , by Amy Bloom (US, 1991) Never Marry a Mexican , by Sandra Cisneros (Mexico/US, 1991) I Want to Live!, by Thom Jones (US, 1993) Drown , by Junot Díaz (Dominican Republic/US, 1996) Night Women , by Edwidge Danticat (Haiti/US, 1996) Tiny, Smiling Daddy , by Mary Gaitskill (US, 1997) Brokeback Mountain , by Annie Proulx (US, 1997) Sea Oak , by George Saunders (US, 1998) Drinking Coffee Elsewhere , by ZZ Packer (US, 2000) Travis B, by Maile Meloy (US, 2002) Paradise , by Ali Smith (UK, 2003) The Man on the Stairs , by Miranda July (US, 2007) A Tiny Feast , by Chris Adrian (US, 2009) Lorry Raja , by Madhuri Vijay (India/US, 2012) Italy , by Antonio Elefano (US, 2012) The Zero Meter Diving Team , by Jim Shepard (US, 2014)

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24 thoughts on “ best short stories of all time – ranked ”.

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Wow what a list, it just makes me want to start reading. Thanks!

You’re welcome!

I was hoping to see John Updike’s Lifeguard on this list.

The new, revised list now contains Lifeguard (JMB, 8/9/15).

Some of your “short stories” are really novels or at least novellas. I mean A Christmas Carol, Heart of Darkness, Jekyll and Hyde, etc. Short stories are usually no more than about 10,000 words, though some definitions go a little higher. I’d avoid using source lists that include both short stories and longer works, since they really aren’t comparable. It would be like comparing a Chopin mazurka to a Beethoven symphony: pointless.

Is there a list of the lists you used to compile this?

I’m afraid I didn’t keep track of where I got all the lists. Some of them were online, others I got from published anthologies. I did find a few of the original lists: (1) https://americanliterature.com/100-great-short-stories ; (2) http://bigreaders.myfastforum.org/index.php?component=content&topicid=611 ; and (3) http://www.listchallenges.com/29-short-stories-you-need-to-read .

Amazing list, bookmarked for further reading.

Thanks so much! Glad you are enjoying it.

I wonder if Janus by Ann Beattie could have been added. It’s also a good read. 🙂

Thanks for the feedback! I can only add a story to the meta-list if it is on at least 2 “Best Short Stories of All Time” lists. So far, I have not found this story to be on two or more “Best Stories” lists.

Wonderful list! I’ve been meaning to get into reading literary short stories, and you’ve done all the work for me to find the best to read.

I maintain two meta-lists about the Classics of Science Fiction. One for novels, and one for short stories. Our site is at https://classicsofsciencefiction.com/ – but note, we’ve created a new version that is database driven and lets users build their own lists. https://csfquery.com/

Do you happen to know which anthologies you used had the most stories that got on your final list? Here’s what I’m talking about for our SF short stories. https://classicsofsciencefiction.com/citation-sources-ranked/

James: Thanks so much for the feedback! And thanks for the link – I’ll check it out. Good to connect with another fan of making meta-lists. As for the lists and anthologies with the most stories from the final list, that is a great question but I don’t know the answer off the top of my head. Figuring that out would require a fair amount of reverse engineering so I probably won’t be doing it any time soon. I can tell you that I used both anthologies and online lists. I was disappointed that so many of the sources I found were exclusively American or exclusively English-language, so I did make an effort to find sources of literature from the rest of the world.

We were able to make lists from our meta-lists because we used computer programming. It does get overwhelming to hand-process after a while. Our v. 5 is all database driven and it’s fun to play with the lists. v. 1 was for a fanzine back in the 1980s and I did all the work on note cards.

Thank you for your contribution to civilization.

You’re welcome! And thanks so much for the feedback.

Best IMO, in no particular order: “The Secret Sharer” (Conrad), “Bartleby, the Scrivener” (Melville), “The Blind Man” (Lawrence), ” The Rocking-Horse Winner” (Lawrence), “A Short Trip Home” (Fitzgetald), “Everything That Rises Must Converge” ( Flannery O’Connor), “Good Country People” ( Flannery O’Connor), “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” (Hemingway), “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (Oates), “I Stand Here Ironing” (T. Olsen), “The Yellow Wallpaper” (Gilman), ” My Kinsman, Major Molineux” (Hawthorne), ” The Overcoat” (Gogol), ” A Worn Path” (Welty), ” The Dead” (Joyce), “A&P” (Updike), ” Flight” (Steinbeck), “Sonny’s Blues” (L. Hughes), “To Build a Fire” (London), ” Death in the Woods” (Andersen), “Hands” (Andersen), “Paul’s Case” (Cather), “The Bride Comes to Yellow Sky” (Crane), and a bunch of ’em by Carver.

Great list!

Why no Chekhov?

Lurline: I am confused by your question. There are six Chekhov stories on the list:

The Bet, by Anton Chekhov (Russia, 1889) The Lady with the Dog, by Anton Chekhov (Russia, 1899) Vanka, by Anton Chekhov (Russia, 1886) The Looking Glass, by Anton Chekhov (Russia, 1885) Gooseberries, by Anton Chekhov (Russia, 1898) The House with the Mezzanine, by Anton Chekhov (Russia, 1896)

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Not a single science-fiction title on these lists, and there are plenty of very good ones.

Robert: Yes, I was surprised by that result also. Maybe there are lists out there of best sci-fi short stories – that would be another list entirely. If you look at the Best Science Fiction list, there are a couple of books of short stories listed. https://beckchris.com/literature-lists/best-science-fiction-books-of-all-time/

– John B.

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20 Great American Short Stories

We hope you enjoy reading these stories (there are actually thirty). They represent the first collection published at American Literature. You may also enjoy Favorite Short Story Collections or search The Short Story Library

You may also be interested in The Short Story of the Day and 25 Great American Novels

• The Gift of the Magi (1905) by O. Henry This tender story -- one of the most famous titles in the short story genre -- is a must-read. The story is about a young couple and how they meet the challenge of buying each other a Christmas gifts when they don't have enough money. This sentimental tale has a moral lesson and is widely enjoyed during Christmastime and the holiday season. Study Guide
• The Little Match Girl (1845) by Hans Christian Andersen This is a special seasonal selection for The Holiday Season. It's a story to read for perspective, and is also featured in our Christmas Stories collection. Study Guide
• To Build a Fire (1908) by Jack London A classic Man versus Nature story set in the Yukon Territory in Northwestern Canada. "The dog did not know anything about thermometers" but it had the sense to know "that it was no time for travelling." A brilliant story to read in the depth of winter when a freezing spell is in the forecast or gripping your region.
• An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge (1890, 1891) by Ambrose Bierce A short story masterpiece: This a suspenseful story about a Civil War soldier, Petyon Farquhar, who has been captured by enemy troops. The story opens in a dangerous predicament, with the soldier about to be hanged, "A man stood upon a railroad bridge in northern Alabama ... A rope closely encircled his neck." Will Farquhar succeed in his effort to make a daring escape? Study Guide

• A Dark Brown Dog (written 1893, published 1901) by Stephen Crane This a powerful and well written tale of sorrow. The story -- depending on the reader -- can operate on at least two levels; as a simple story about a dog, a child and crushing cruelty. It may also be interpreted as an allegorical social criticism after the American Civil War. Either way, it's a powerful, sad story.
• The Monkey's Paw (1902) by W.W. Jacobs Three wishes and a Monkey's paw. What could go wrong? A horror story in the short story form. And I quote: "The first man had his three wishes. Yes," was the reply, "I don't know what the first two were, but the third was for death. That's how I got the paw."
• The Cask of Amontillado (1846) by Edgar Allan Poe A classic revenge story in the horror genre. The story is set in an unspecified Italian city, the protagonist, Motressor believes he has suffered a thousand slights and injuries at the hand of his friend. Montressor invites -- rather tricks --his friend, Fortunato , into tasting some wine stored back at his pallazo in the wine cellar.
• Eve's Diary (1906) by Mark Twain Mark Twain's take on the battle of the sexes is funny and witty and brilliant as he writes once from Eve's perspective and then follows-up from Adam's. A sample observation from Eve, "He talks very little. Perhaps it is because he is not bright..." I recommend starting with Eve first, then move over to the companion piece, Extracts from Adam's Diary .

• The Story of an Hour (1894, 1895) by Kate Chopin This dramatic short story -- an early entrant in feminist literature -- was very controversial when published in 1894. It suggests a possibility that people of that era were more comfortable rejecting rather than considering. The story still has the power to make modern readers uncomfortable. But please note that it is possible and sometimes even desirable to criticize an aspect of something to point out a nuanced feature; a quick mind can illuminate part of an arrangement without condemning the entire arrangement. I believe that is what Chopin did here. This suspenseful and climactic story will take you on an emotional journey. Study Guide
• The Luck of Roaring Camp (1868) by Bret Harte The hard-luck life of hard-hearted miners changes with the birth of Thomas Luck who draws on the heart strings of the rough and tumble miners of Roaring Camp. Featured in our Civil War Stories
• Regret (1897) by Kate Chopin A beautiful story hinting at the depths of a woman's emotional complexity. A great short story, one that could easily be misunderstood by modern feminists.
• The Skylight Room (1906) by O. Henry This one was selected for its simple poignancy.
• A Horseman in the Sky (1889) by Ambrose Bierce Another interesting story from Ambrose Bierce. This one is also set during the American Civil War. I classify this one under man versus himself. Study Guide
• The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (1820) by Washington Irving One of the early American classics, and don't forget its famous companion Rip Van Winkle .
• My Kinsman, Major Molineux (1832), Young Goodman Brown (1835), and The Minister's Black Veil (1832) by Nathaniel Hawthorne All three of these stories are important examples of Hawthorne's contribution to the genre of Dark Romanticism, and should be read. The first one is my favorite of the three. If you are having trouble understanding the stories, it might be helpful to visit Hawthorne's Home Page for some background, and The Minister's Black Veil Study Guide
• The Cactus (1882) by O. Henry A classic dose of O. Henry coming straight at you. Short and direct. Communication is important.
• The Tell-Tale Heart (1843) by Edgar Allan Poe "Me crazy? Not at all. Let me prove my sanity by describing how carefully and ingeniously I murdered my victim!"

• The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County (1865) by Mark Twain The famous story of Dan'l Webster the frog, and his anticipated performance in the jumping contest.
• Scarlet Stockings (~1869) by Louisa May Alcott "[ Belle Morgan ] does and says what she likes, is very blunt and honest, has ideas and principles of her own, goes to parties in high dresses, won't dance round dances, and wears red stockings, though Mrs. Plantagenet says it's fast." Independent, assertive, and clad in scarlet stockings. Lennox is helpless to resist.
• An Angel in Disguise (1851) by T.S. Arthur A sentimental story about love and kindness: "A bond had already corded itself around them both, and love was springing into life."
• Bartleby, the Scrivener (1856) by Herman Melville A widely read story, one of Melville's finest examples of Dark Romanticism, whose interpretation has been widely debated. If you figure out what it means, please let us know!
• The Purloined Letter (1844) by Edgar Allan Poe Poe again, this time with an early entry into the genre of detective stories. Also consider The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Mystery of Marie Roget
• A Jury of Her Peers (1917) by Susan Glaspell This short story is based on a murder story that Glaspell covered as a young reporter. It's adapted from her play Trifles which is a selection on the High School list. Read the story and please share it if you like it, Glaspell deserves to be more widely known.

• On the Gull's Road (1908) by Willa Cather A love story complicated by circumstance and protocol.
• The Lottery (1948) by Shirley Jackson A comprehensive summary of The Lottery , Jackson's dramatic and suspenseful short story. This story was probably intended as an allegorical lesson but it sparked controversy and even outrage across the United States, particularly in rural communities like the one where the story takes place.
• Thank You, M'am (1958) by Langston Hughes A comprehensive summary of Thank You, M'am . A compassionate story about what happens when a young boy tries to rob the wrong woman! Forgiving, yet firm: we should all be like Mrs. Luella Bates Washington Jones.

• The Split Cherry Tree (1939) by Jesse Stuart A comprehensive summary of The Split Cherry Tree . TIn this widely read story, set in the rural hills of Kentucky in the 1930s, young Dave Sexton finds himself trapped between the modern world that demands an education and his father's past where hard work may have held more value than "book learning." A conflict arises when he is punished by his teacher, and Dave's father Luster has to make a determination about the value of education.
• The Cat (1901) by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman Freeman's cunning in crafting this tale is well matched to the cat's marvelous waiting powers, hunting for its prey and anticipating the return of its master.
• The Lady, or the Tiger? (1882) by Frank Stockton The princess has a difficult choice to make. This iconic story has become a catchphrase to describe a problem that has no solution.
• The Night Came Slowly (1895) by Kate Chopin "The night came slowly, softly, as I lay out there under the maple tree."

Ready for more? You may enjoy our Favorite Short Stories Collection . Only have five minutes to spare? Try one of these Short Short Stories , sorted to suit your mood.

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“ When I Read Beckett ” by Liz Grosul

🏆 Winner of Contest #242

…in…in this room…cursed room…loved?... cursed…. where she slept…half-grown in her hometown t-shirt…shorts…no shorts…t-shirt worn with holes…on the floor…he having thrown it…under the bed…dust collected and swept and settled again…. and again…who?... he… not she?...gracious!...there for the first time…assuredly last time…no boys in the room, father said…keep out!...nodded her head… but in the room…blue light hugging the window…scotch tape…peeling off the paint whether chipped or freshly laid or…exhumed…he found her in the— no, not found…held…...

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“ Lost and Found ” by Jonathan Page

🏆 Winner of Contest #241

On my last shift as a lighthouse keeper, I climbed the seventy-six spiral iron stairs and two ladders to the watch room, the number of steps the same as my age. The thwomp and snare of each step laid an ominous background score. Something wasn’t right. At that very moment, Richie Tedesco was pointing a fire extinguisher at the burning electrical panel in the engine room of his boat a few miles offshore.The placard in the watch room read “Marge Mabrity, Lightkeeper—First lighted the depths on March 2nd, 1985, and hasn’t missed a night.” Alrea...

“ Metonymia ” by Gem Cassia

🏆 Winner of Contest #240

“God is dead.” “Which one?” “I meant it as more of a blanket statement, but if we’re getting into specifics, I guess I mean the one that I killed.” [When | the | god | of | cause-and-effect | is | slaughtered | in | cold | blood | everyone | knows | who | to | blame.]“People aren’t too pleased about that, you know.” “I’ve heard.”[Everyone | has | heard.]<...

“ Five Turns of the Hourglass ” by Weronika L

🏆 Winner of Contest #239

I tow my dead father with me to the scorched heart of a desert. His body guilts down my shoulders, heavier each time he doesn't tell me that I took the wrong turn, that I need to straighten my elbows, that I never do anything the right way so why does he even bother. My jeep sputters and chokes under our weight as it brings us to the parking lot in front of the hotel. Vipassana, reads the sign above the glass door, melted open at the hinges. The Silent Retreat. Heat slaps me across the face. I backpack my father around my waist and march to ...

“ Love.edu: Courtship and Coincidence in Modern Academia ” by Eliza Levin

🏆 Winner of Contest #238

Thursday, Jan 18 2:12 PMTo: [email protected]: [email protected]: Your (Brilliant) Paper on Mirrors/Jane EyreDear Professor Rhodes,I hope this email finds you well. I must confess that, although we have never met, I am a longtime admirer of your work—I was actually at your talk on Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell last year, which I greatly enjoyed.I write to you today to express my sincerest compliments on ...

“ Frozen Lemonade ” by Jennifer Fremon

🏆 Winner of Contest #237

Trigger warning: Contains underage sexual content, mentions of assaultYou know the movie Dirty Dancing? The one where Baby goes off to that fancy resort with her parents for the summer, and in the beginning she is a good, sweet girl who loves her daddy, and then by the end she is still a good sweet girl who loves her daddy but now she is kinda sexy too and can dance like a pro and is totally in love with that beautiful dance teacher. Why doesn’t anyone talk about how that teacher is clearly much, much older than Baby, and despite Patrick Swa...

“ KILLER IN THE WILLOWS ” by Kajsa Ohman

🏆 Winner of Contest #236

KILLER IN THE WILLOWSJust do it, so the T-shirts say. Just pick up the gun, pull the trigger—but maybe aim first, aim at the upper sternum and then pull the trigger, congratulating yourself that at last, in your long, passive life, you have shot somebody dead. So she did, and thus she became a murderer. She slipped through the night after that and disappeared into the willows to wash off any blood that spattered onto her clothing. The willows were thickl...

“ 6:47 PST ” by David Pampu

🏆 Winner of Contest #235

What has four faces, eight arms, and can’t tell time? The clock tower at Union Station. Four clocks on the tower and none of them run? I mean, what’re the odds? I peer up at the time and shade my eyes. It’s 6:47 pm. Always is, always will be. And all anyone knows is that on a Monday the world was a loud, frantic place and Tuesday it wasn’t. Tuesday? Really? The world should’ve ended on a Saturd...

“ Vegan Hamburgers ” by Ariana Tibi

🏆 Winner of Contest #234

Vegan Hamburgers February 1st 11:11pm WOW. I cannot believe that just happened. I went to AJ’s studio and almost walked out with a record deal. I was sober, too. He started rolling a joint and offered me some but I immediately said no. Last week, I had drinks at Lighthouse Studios and the executive was totally judging me when...

“ The Lantern of Kaamos ” by Jonathan Page

🏆 Winner of Contest #233

The melting Arctic is a crime scene, and I am like CSI Ny-Ålesund. Trond is the anonymous perpetrator leaving evidence and clues for me to discover, like breadcrumbs leading back to him. “Jonna,” he had said, the day we first met at the research institute, “If you are going to make it up here, don’t lock your doors.” It seemed like a life philosophy, rather than a survival tip.It is ironic. Out on Kings Bay, the coal miners came first, then the science outposts. Trond was already out here mining the Arctic when I was sti...

“ No Junior League ” by Mary Lynne Schuster

🏆 Winner of Contest #232

You are sure you want to do this?   Running away. Starting over.  It’s not as easy as people think. You have to give up everything.  Oh, that part’s easy. Everyone thinks we are all traceable, that you can’t really hide. But, see, everything is tied to your identity. Your papers. If you change those, you are a different person.  Fingerprints? If they’re in the system, if yo...

“ The Lop-it-off-a-me List ” by Ethan Zimmerman

🏆 Winner of Contest #231

The Lop-it-off-a-me List Count money in the envelope one more time. Make sure Marcel has his itinerary. Ask Alex if she will come by to feed Odin. Buy extra cat food and litter so Alex doesn't have to. Give her the spare key next time I see her. Kiss Odin and tell her she is the best cat in the world, even if she has always been destructive...

“ The Gingerbread Cookies ” by Aaron Chin

🏆 Winner of Contest #230

The Gingerbread Cookies Let’s go downstairs and bake some cookies, like mother used to make. The warm smell sits right at home in your nostrils, invading them like wild ax-murderers hacking and slashing their way through endless miles of human bodies that stand in the way of their inhumane, carnal desires. Shhh, shhh, but that’s too dark. It’s Christmas after all. So let’s go down...

“ Cooking Lessons ” by Molly Jenkinson

🏆 Winner of Contest #229

“That’s it petal, just push down a smidge more and it should cut right the way through it.” Mam’s standing above me as I’m trying to hack through the biggest potato the world’s ever seen. I’m sweating bullets at this point but she’s having none of it. “Can’t you just do it, Mam?” I’m absolutely knackered. I’ve been stabbing at this thing for (no joke) fifteen minutes but she just will not take...

“ The Winters of My Discontent ” by Warren Keen

🏆 Winner of Contest #228

I didn’t wake up on November 29th, 2023. The day prior I remember vividly. I drove two hours into western Minnesota to replace some fuses in a pad-mount transformer. Easy job when you bring the right fuses. I wasn’t prepared to stand outside in the freezing cold all day waiting for them. Waiting is the coldest thing you can do. I had checked the weather that morning, but I refused to acknowledge that it was lo...

“ Forthright Thursday ” by Chris Campbell

🏆 Winner of Contest #227

8:45PM Thanksgiving Day – GLOVES OFF: My mother, Mary, and her sister Alice were engaged in a wrestling match on the dining room table. Aloysius – my father - and Alice’s plus one; Jack, attempted to pry them apart, but both women had locked themselves into each other’s hair with vice-like grips, despite both their hands being splattered with custard trifle remnants. All I could do as an observing teenager was sit with mouth agape while holding my new Super 8mm silent movie camera, recording the whole scene. It was typical behavio...

“ The Day Alfred Googled Himself ” by Olivier Breuleux

🏆 Winner of Contest #226

Everyone has Googled themselves at one time or another in their lives. Even you, dear reader, I'll bet. Why did you do it? Curiosity? Validation? Finding your own LinkedIn profile? When Alfred did it, his reason was self-pity. He was nobody, he had nobody, and he had nothing. His immediate family had died years prior. His extended family did not remember he existed, nor did he remember the...

“ Goldfish ” by Mallory Jones

🏆 Winner of Contest #225

4 pm Miss Lucy and Dr. Singh are letting me visit my house tonight! Normally I get to go home for twelve hours on holidays, and an aide comes with me to monitor my equipment, but today is different. It’s not a holiday, it’s not my birthday, it’s not even the weekend— but I’m going home! Mommy says Lily will be home too even though she goes to college in Iowa. She’s coming home just for me for my ...

“ Cerulean ” by AnneMarie Miles

🏆 Winner of Contest #224

The door is cerulean, a bright and vibrant blue, but really it is the color of my sudden uneasiness. The feeling creeps up me slowly, jumps out at me dauntingly, and I am frozen in it. If the door were a mirror – and how I wish it were as innocent as a mirror – I would see my face reflected back to me, and it would tell me to run.I’m not sure what’s more jarring: the fact that this door is a clashing contrast to the rest of the library décor, or the fact that I’ve never noticed the path we took to get here before. I supp...

“ Just Like Him ” by Audrey McKenna

🏆 Winner of Contest #223

Content warning: sexual violence, languageWhen I was four years old, my sister and I were messing around at the pool. I slipped and hit my head on the concrete. It split open in the back. I remember the lifeguard gave me a squishy ball to squeeze. I remember she said I could keep it. I remember my dad scooped me up in his arms. It doesn’t make sense that it happened this way, but I remember he carried me all the way to the emergency room. I remember the pressure of my face pressing into a pillow as the doctor staple...

“ Clearance Aisle Libations ” by Bay Colt

🏆 Winner of Contest #222

The worst part about being an amateur necromancer is that no one respects you, not even the dead. My older brother, Joseph, is practically crying over the phone, struggling to speak through great gasps of heaving, wheezing laughter. After way too many seconds of this, he finally manages to choke out, “Really? Goddamn—Mountain Dew?” Irritated, I switch the phone to my other ear, tipping my head a...

“ Fae Touched ” by D. Grimes

🏆 Winner of Contest #221

Siobhan awoke to the Irish sun spilling in the open doorframe of their single-room cottage. Her back pressed against Sean’s, and she moved carefully so as to not wake him on his day off morning duties— today, she would feed the cattle and chickens. She rolled over, a stray mattress feather poking her side, and saw Aoife’s small body in her basket, enveloped by a blanket. A surge in Siobhan’s chest shot her awake—Aoife hadn’t cried once through the night. Siobhan scrambled to her feet, bare soles pressed into the cool packed dirt, no longe...

“ Cell 3.47 ” by Kate Hughes

🏆 Winner of Contest #220

Cell 3.47 was situated on the third floor of B wing in Stocken Gate prison, slap bang in the heart of London’s east end. Known as The Gate, the prison had a reputation for being a tough place to do time. The inmates behind the doors at The Gate endured long cold winters in the Victorian slammer that had been condemned many times but had always escaped closure. It was harsh, it was hard, and it was overrun by rats.Paula Pritchard was the sole resident of cell 3.47, but due to the rodent crisis she ...

“ Whale Song ” by Danielle Barr

🏆 Winner of Contest #219

Agony broils, but anguish simmers. I have known them both well and in equal measure. In the early days, my brain felt blurry and disjointed; I had the sense of being deep underwater, all undulating shadows and echoing whale song. The darkness was expansive, and the staticky, dull sense of confusion I felt was sometimes intercut with crippling panic. BP is spiking, ...

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Short Stories from Reedsy Prompts

Short stories may be small, but they are mighty! With the weight of a novel stripped away, great short stories strike directly at the heart of their topics. Often maligned as the novel’s poor cousin, the short story medium has produced some of the most beloved works of fiction. From the eerily-accurate predictions of Ray Bradbury to the spine-chilling thrills of Stephen King and the wildly imaginative worlds of N.K. Jemison, some of the best authors in the business have made their mark writing short stories .

Whether the stories are sweeping explorations of the human condition, or slices of life vignettes that move us to tears, short fiction has the power to dazzle from first word to last.

Who writes Reedsy’s short stories?

Here at Reedsy, we're looking to foster the next generation of beloved authors. To that end, we've been running a weekly writing contest for over six years — and these short stories are the thousands of entries we've received over that time. Our writers come to the contest from all experience levels to hone their skills through consistent practice and friendly feedback. Some of them have even gone on to write and publish novels based on their short story submissions !

Discover short stories of all genres and subjects

Centered around themed writing prompts, these short stories range across all forms, genres, and topics of interest. Simply filter by the genre that appeals you most, and discover thousands of stories from promising new writers around the world.

Maybe you want to read something new, but don’t want to choose a genre? We’ve gathered our favorite entries in our literary magazine, Prompted . Each issue is packed with prize-winning stories that have been introduced and edited by a guest editor. Grab a free copy of our first issue here . Who knows, you could even discover your next favorite author before they even hit the big time!

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Good Housekeeping

The Best Short Story Collections That Keep You Reading

Posted: March 31, 2024 | Last updated: March 31, 2024

Short story collections offer the perfect medium for fiction writers to craft compelling, affecting narratives that simply may not warrant a full-length novel to explore the ideas. The short story collection’s compact form delivers concise, impactful ideas and can free authors to explore a multitude of themes, characters, story arcs and styles within a single collection. Collections of short fiction have allowed writers like Edgar Allen Poe, Flannery O’Connor and James Baldwin to experiment with different tones, voices and plot devices while providing readers with gripping but approachable standalone stories.

These 8 short story collections are extremely readable, cover a variety of genres and authors and may give you a newfound appreciation of writers you already love.

1) Homesick For Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh

From one of the most compelling, propulsive voices in contemporary fiction, Moshfegh’s 2017 short story collection is an eclectic compendium of some of her best fiction work—much of which was previously published in places like The Paris Review , The New Yorker and Vice . Exceedingly atmospheric and permeated with Moshfegh’s hallmark sordid wit, Homesick For Another World interrogates the ubiquitous afflictions of the human condition and our capacity for cruelty through the collection’s generally amoral, misanthropic protagonists. A highly anticipated follow-up to Moshfegh’s breakout debut novel Eileen , Homesick was later named a New York Times Book Review Notable Book of 2017 and drew innumerable comparisons to the work of renowned authors like Mary Gaitskill and Flannery O’Connor.

2) Earth Angel by Madeline Cash

An electric debut from author Madeline Cash, Earth Angel is a collection of short stories that rockets through the reader’s imagination like a fever dream. Teeming with chimeric vignettes synthesizing the mundanely sinister realities of a capitalist culture with cataclysmic doomsday tropes, Earth Angel manages to be both endlessly funny and deeply poignant without feeling didactic. Cash both parodies and embraces the myopic stylings dominating popular fiction in a way that never feels malicious, but rather like the playful ribbing of a writer that refuses to take herself too seriously. Irreverent, compelling and laugh-out-loud funny, Earth Angel marks the emergence of one of contemporary fiction’s most exciting new figures.

3) Bliss Montage by Ling Ma

A surrealist collection from Severance author Ling Ma, Bliss Montage marks Ma’s first published short story collection after her phenomenal debut novel (which has no relation to the recent Apple TV+ series, by the way). Uncanny, otherworldly and above all evocative— Bliss Montage contains eight wildly different stories each touching on universal themes of the human experience against phantasmagoric, though eerily familiar backdrops. Ranging from a tale of two friends bonded by their shared use of a drug that turns you invisible to the story of a tourist caught up in a fatalistic healing ritual, Ma’s unforgettable collection manages to be both ingeniously unique and undoubtedly universal at once. Somehow both outlandish and quotidian, Bliss Montage keeps readers wrapped up in Ma’s captivating prose from start to end.

4) Daddy by Emma Cline

A thrilling examination of unspoken power structures (predominantly male power in a patriarchal society), Daddy by Emma Cline offers glimpses into the unexamined lives of each story's protagonist, often playfully alluding to, but never explicitly pointing to, a certain moral paradigm. Fraught familial dynamics, imbalanced romantic relationships and moral nuance permeate Cline’s collection, and each story offers a taste of her infectious prose and incisive style. The ten stories on offer often end achingly realistically, rejecting a tidy, personally gratifying ending—making each story appear as a certain tableau harkening to an idea rather than a traditional beginning, middle and end. Suspenseful, richly descriptive and engrossing—Cline’s collection begs to be devoured.

5) Skeleton Crew by Stephen King

From the King of Horror himself, Skeleton Crew is a 1985 collection comprised of two novellas, 18 short stories and two poems. A mix of works both previously published and unpublished, Skeleton Crew notably contains King’s 1980 novella The Mist , which was later adapted into a 2007 film starring Thomas Jane and Marcia Gay Harden. Alongside King’s trademark tales of terror are more subdued works like a poem written for his son and a notes section offering readers context and background on some of the stories in the collection. Many of the stories in Skeleton Crew were adapted into short films through King’s Dollar Baby agreement, wherein King permitted aspiring filmmakers to adapt one of his short stories for just $1 while he retained the rights. Sadly, the Dollar Baby Program was officially disbanded at the end of 2023.

6) First Person Singular by Haruki Murakami

First published in July 2020, First Person Singular is a collection of eight short stories each told from, you guessed it, the first-person singular perspective. Written by Japanese author Haruki Murakami, First Person Singular explores themes of nostalgia and lost love through stories from the perspective of mostly unnamed, middle-aged male protagonists believed to be based largely on the author himself, though some are more fantastical than others. Ranging from slice-of-life stories wherein the narrator reminisces on a past relationship, to the tale of a monkey doomed to fall in love with human women, the stories employ a myriad of hallmark Murakami techniques like magical realism, music, nostalgia and aging.

7) The Houseguest and Other Stories by Amparo Dávila

The first collection by beloved Mexican author Amparo Dávila to be translated into English, The Houseguest is a collection of 12 short stories touching on themes of obsession, paranoia and fear primarily featuring female protagonists and narrators. Often compared to horror writers like Edgar Allen Poe and Shirley Jackson, Dávila’s writing often deals with abstract feelings of dread and paranoia, imbuing them with magical realism to craft jarring, transfixing narratives that seem both eerily familiar and preternatural. Each tale menaced by an unseen, pernicious force, Dávila’s writing revels in its ambiguity with no straightforward answers. The Houseguest is an anxiety-inducing page-turner which will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

8) Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout

Though technically a short story cycle (a collection of self-contained short stories arranged to convey a concept or theme greater than the sum of its atomized parts), Olive Kitteridge consists of 13 stories each taking place in the fictional town of Crosby, Maine. The stories predominantly center on Olive Kitteridge, a brusque but caring retired school teacher and longtime resident of Crosby. Other stories show Olive only as a secondary character or in a cameo capacity and are from the point of view of other townsfolk. Winner of the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the collection was later adapted into a critically acclaimed miniseries starring Frances McDormand, Richard Jenkins, Zoe Kazan and Bill Murray. Profound, heartbreaking and human, Olive Kitteridge is an unforgettable first-read that will still impact you even if you watched the miniseries before.

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The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time. The life and music of Amy Winehouse, through the journey of adolescence to adulthood and the creation of one of the best-selling albums of our time.

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