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Short Stories

If you're coming back to reading after a break or just pressed for reading time, short stories are here to help. Enjoy this list of short story collections.

There's no such thing as an easy job by Kikuko Tsumura

"A young woman walks into an employment agency and requests a job that has the following traits: it is close to her home, and it requires no reading, no writing, and ideally, very little thinking. Her first gig--watching the hidden-camera feed of an author suspected of storing contraband goods--turns out to be inconvenient. (When can she go to the bathroom?) Her next gives way to the supernatural: announcing advertisements for shops that mysteriously disappear. As she moves from job to job--writing trivia for rice cracker packages; punching entry tickets to a purportedly haunted public park--it becomes increasingly apparent that she's not searching for the easiest job at all, but something altogether more meaningful. And when she finally discovers an alternative to the daily grind, it comes with a price."--Publisher

Happy like this by Ashley Wurzbacher

"Spanning a wide range of distinct perspectives, voices, styles, and settings, the ten shimmering stories in Happy Like This offer lyrical, deeply felt, often humorous meditations on the complexity of choice and the ambiguity of happiness. Two identical twins watch their bodies and lives diverge as one of them takes up competitive bodybuilding. A part-time mermaid struggles with her fluid sexuality and turbulent romantic past when she finds herself working at her ex-girlfriend's child's birthday party. An up-and-coming sociologist studies factitious disorders in a group of young women, observing their daily lives and attempting to understand their experiences of self-harm. A ballerina must choose between motherhood and her art. The characters in Happy Like This are smart girls and professional women--social scientists, linguists, speech therapists, plant physiologists, dancers--who search for happiness in roles and relationships that are often unscripted or unconventional. In the midst of their ambivalence about marriage, monogamy, and motherhood and their struggles to accept and love their bodies, they look to other women for solidarity, stability, and validation. Sometimes they find it; sometimes they don't. Plucky yet vulnerable, knowledgeable yet needy, Ashley Wurzbacher's vividly-imagined characters invite us to ask: What does it mean to be happy? When every choice entails a loss, how can we feel like we're doing the right thing?" --

Vampires in the lemon grove : stories by Karen Russell

A collection of stories features a pair of centuries-old vampires whose relationship is tested by a sudden fear of flying, a dejected teen who communicates with the universe, and a massage therapist who heals a tattooed veteran by manipulating the imageson his body.

Fresh complaint : stories by Jeffrey Eugenides

This collection of stories presents characters in the midst of personal and national emergencies. We meet a failed poet who, envious of other people's wealth during the real-estate bubble, becomes an embezzler; a clavichordist whose dreams of art founder under the obligations of marriage and fatherhood; and a high school student whose wish to escape the strictures of her immigrant family lead her to a drastic decision that upends the life of a middle-aged British physicist

Life ceremony : stories by Sayaka Murata

"With Life Ceremony, the incomparable Sayaka Murata, whose Convenience Store Woman has now sold more than a million copies worldwide, returns with a brilliant and wonderfully unsettling collection, her most recent fiction to be published in Japan. In these twelve stories, Murata mixes an unusual cocktail of humor and horror and turns the norms and traditions of society on their head to better question them. In "A First-Rate Material," Nana and Naoki are happily engaged, but Naoki can't stand the conventional use of deceased people's bodies for clothing, accessories, and furniture, and a disagreement around this threatens to derail their perfect wedding day. "Lovers on the Breeze" is told from the perspective of a curtain in a child's bedroom that jealously watches the young girl Naoko as she has her first kiss with a boy from her class and does its best to stop her. "Eating the City" explores the strange norms around food and foraging, while "Hatchling" closes the collection with an extraordinary depiction of the fractured personality of someone who tries too hard to fit in. In these strange and wonderful stories of family and friendship, sex and intimacy, belonging and individuality, Murata asks what it means to be a human in a world that often seems very strange, and offers answers that surprise and linger"--

Ghost lover : stories by Lisa Taddeo

"Behind anonymous screens, an army of cool and beautiful girls manage the dating service Ghost Lover, a forwarding system for text messages that promises to spare you the anguish of trying to stay composed while communicating with your crush. At a star-studded political fundraiser in a Los Angeles mansion, a trio of women compete to win the heart of the slick guest of honor. In a tense hospital waiting room, an inseparable pair of hard-partying friends crash into life's responsibilities, but the magic of their glory days comes alive again at the moment they least expect it. In these nine riveting stories--which include two Pushcart Prize winners and a finalist for the National Magazine Award--Lisa Taddeo brings to life the fever of obsession, the blindness of love, and the mania of grief. Featuring Taddeo's arresting prose that continues to thrill her legions of fans, Ghost Lover dares you to look away."--Amazon

Heartbroke : stories by Chelsea Bieker

A collection of short stories set in California from the author of Godshot include the tales of a woman stealing a baby from a shelter, a phone-sex operator who meets a lavender-eyed cowboy and teenagers playing a dangerous online game

A manual for cleaning women : selected stories by Lucia Berlin

Reward system : stories by Jem Calder

"Jem Calder's Reward System is a set of ultra-contemporary and electrifyingly fresh fictions about a generation on the cusp, enmeshed in Zooms and lockdowns, loneliness and love"--

After the quake : stories by Haruki Murakami

A collection of stories inspired by the January 1995 Kobe earthquake and the poison gas subway attacks two months later takes place between the two disasters and follows the experiences of people who found their normal lives undone by surreal events.

And I do not forgive you : stories and other revenges by Amber Sparks

"Exciting fans of such writers as Kelly Link, Karen Russell, and Carmen Maria Machado with prose that shimmers and stings, Amber Sparks holds a singular role in the canon of the weird. Now, she reaches new, uncanny heights with And I Do Not Forgive You. In "Mildly Happy, With Moments of Joy," a friend is ghosted by a simple text message; in "Everyone's a Winner at Meadow Park," a teen precariously coming of age in a trailer park befriends an actual ghost. At once humorous and unapologetically fierce, these stories shine an interrogating light on the adage that "history likes to lie about women"- as the subjects of "A Short and Speculative History of Lavoisier's Wife" and "You Won't Believe What Really Happened to the Sabine Women" (it's true, you won't) will attest. Blending fairy tales and myths with apocalyptic technologies, all tethered intricately by shades of rage, And I Do Not Forgive You offers a mosaic of an all- too- real world that fails to listen to its silenced goddesses"--

A blind corner : stories by Caitlin Macy

"In an era of 'hot takes' and easy generalizations, this collection reclaims the absurdities and paradoxes of life as it is actually lived from the American fantasy of 'niceness'. In Macy’s world, human desires and fatal blind spots slam headlong into convenient, social-media-driven narratives that would sort us into neat boxes of insider or outsider; good or bad; with us or against us. Time and again, whether at home or in the age-old role of Americans abroad, Macy’s women see their good intentions turn awry. A woman who tries to do a good deed for an underprivileged child sees it go horribly wrong. A wife, attempting to be a good host to a friend’s strange ex-boyfriend, finds herself in a compromised situation. And, in the title story, a newlywed fancies herself a Euro-sophisticate until an accident reminds her just how truly foreign she really is. In tales where shocking and sometimes brutal events disabuse characters of their most cherished beliefs, Macy forgoes easy moralization in favor of uncomfortable truths that reveal the complexity of what it means to be human." --book jacket

Daddy : stories by Emma Cline

"An absentee father collects his son from boarding school after a shocking act of violence. A nanny to a celebrity family hides out in Laurel Canyon in the aftermath of a tabloid scandal. A young woman sells her underwear to strangers. A notorious guest arrives at a placid, not-quite rehab in the Southwest. In ten remarkable stories, Emma Cline portrays moments when the ordinary is disturbed, when daily life buckles, revealing the perversity and violence pulsing under the surface. She explores characters navigating the edge, the limits of themselves and those around them: power dynamics in families, in relationships, the distance between their true and false selves. They want connection, but what they provoke is often closer to self-sabotage. What are the costs of one's choices? Of the moments when we act, or fail to act? These complexities are at the heart of Daddy, Emma Cline's sharp-eyed illumination of the contrary impulses that animate our inner lives"--

Dear life : stories by Alice Munro

A brilliant new collection of stories from one of the most acclaimed and beloved writers of our time

Where the wild ladies are by Aoko Matsuda

"In this witty and exuberant collection of linked stories, Aoko Matsuda takes the rich, millenia-old tradition of Japanese folktales-shapeshifting wives and foxes, magical trees and wells-and wholly reinvents them, presenting a world in which humans are consoled, guided, challenged, and transformed by the only sometimes visible forces that surround them. A busybody aunt who disapproves of hair removal; a pair of door-to-door saleswomen hawking portable lanterns; a cheerful lover who visits every night totake a luxurious bath; a silent house-caller who babysits and cleans while a single mother is out working. Where the Wild Ladies Are is populated by these and many other spirited women-who also happen to be ghosts. This is a realm in which jealousy, stubbornness, and other excessive "feminine" passions are not to be feared or suppressed, but rather cultivated; and, chances are, a man named Mr. Tei will notice your talents and recruit you, dead or alive (preferably dead), to join his mysterious company"--

You think it, I'll say it : stories by Curtis Sittenfeld

A dazzling collection of short stories from the New York Times bestselling author of Prep, American Wife, and Eligible Curtis Sittenfeld has established a reputation as a sharp chronicler of the modern age who humanizes her subjects even as she skewers them. Now, with this first collection of short fiction, her "astonishing gift for creating characters that take up residence in readers' heads" ( The Washington Post ) is showcased like never before. Throughout the ten stories in You Think It, I'll Say It, Sittenfeld upends assumptions about class, relationships, and gender roles in a nation that feels both adrift and viscerally divided. In "The World Has Many Butterflies," married acquaintances play a strangely intimate game with devastating consequences. In "Vox Clamantis in Deserto," a shy Ivy League student learns the truth about a classmate's seemingly enviable life. In "A Regular Couple," a high-powered lawyer honeymooning with her husband is caught off guard by the appearance of the girl who tormented her in high school. And in "The Prairie Wife," a suburban mother of two fantasizes about the downfall of an old friend whose wholesome-lifestyle empire may or may not be built on a lie

Squirrel seeks chipmunk : a modest bestiary by David Sedaris

Acclaimed non-fiction author David Sedaris presents a collection of three animal-themed essays. In The Toad, the Turtle, and the Duck, a group of complete strangers bitterly discuss the order of things within the animal kingdom. In Hello Kitty, a miserable alcoholic cat attends AA. In The Squirrel and the Chipmunk, two lovers are torn apart by their quarrelling families

You have a friend in 10A by Maggie Shipstead

"In this collection of stories, Maggie Shipstead dives into eclectic and vivid settings, from an Olympic village to a deathbed in Paris to a Pacific atoll, and illuminating a cast of indelible characters, Shipstead traverses ordinary and unusual realities with cunning, compassion, and wit. In "Acknowledgments," a male novelist reminisces bitterly on the woman who inspired his first novel, attempting to make peace with his humiliations before the book goes to print. In "The Cowboy Tango," spanning decades in the open country of Montana, a triangle of love and self-preservation plays out among an aging rancher called the Otter, his nephew, and a young woman named Sammy who works the horses"--

The ghost variations : one hundred stories by Kevin Brockmeier

"The author of the acclaimed novel The Brief History of the Dead now gives us one hundred funny, poignant, scary, and thought-provoking ghost stories that explore all aspects of the afterlife. A spirit who appears in a law firm reliving the exact moment she lost her chance at love, a man haunted by the trees cut down to build his house, nefarious specters that snatch anyone who steps into the shadows in which they live, and parakeets that serve as mouthpieces for the dead--these are just a few of the characters Kevin Brockmeier presents in this extraordinary compendium of spectral emanations and their wildly various purposes in (after) life. These tales are by turns playful, chilling, and philosophical, paying homage to the genre while audaciously subverting expectations. The ghosts in these pages are certain to haunt you well after you've closed the book"--

Afterparties : stories by Anthony Veasna So

"A debut story collection about Cambodian-American life-immersive and comic, yet unsparing-that marks the arrival of an indisputable new talent in American fiction"--

Love in color : mythical tales from around the world, retold by Bolu Babalola

"A highborn Nigerian goddess who has been beaten down and unappreciated by her gregarious love longs to be truly seen. A young businesswoman attempts a great leap in her company-and an even greater one in her love life. A powerful Ghanaian spokeswoman is forced to decide whether she should uphold her family's politics or be true to her heart. In her debut collection, internationally acclaimed writer Bolu Babalola retells the most beautiful love stories from history and mythology with incredible new detail and vivacity. Although Babalola focuses mainly on the magical folktales of West Africa, she also reimagines Greek myths, ancient legends from the Middle East, and stories from long-erased places. With an eye toward decolonizing tropes inherent in our favorite tales of love, Babalola has created captivating stories that traverse perspectives, continents, and genres. Love in Color is a celebration of romance in all its many splendid forms."--book jacket

That old country music : stories by Kevin Barry

"Stories of rural Ireland in the classic mode: full of love (and sex), melancholy and magic"--

The best short stories 2021 : the O. Henry prize winners

Twenty prizewinning stories selected from the thousands published in magazines over the previous year—continuing the O. Henry Prize's century-long tradition of literary excellence

The best American short stories 2020 : selected from U.S. and Canadian magazines

"Sittenfeld was met by the same feeling selecting the stories for this year's edition. The result is a striking and nuanced collection, bringing to life awkward college students, disgraced public figures, raunchy grandparents, and mystical godmothers. To read these stories is to experience the transporting joys of discovery and affirmation, and to realize that story writing in America continues to flourish."--Provided by publisher

Land of big numbers by Te-Ping Chen

"A debut story collection offering a kaleidoscopic portrait of life for contemporary Chinese people, set between China and the United States"--

Daddy : stories by Emma Cline

"An absentee father collects his son from boarding school after a shocking act of violence. A nanny to a celebrity family hides out in Laurel Canyon in the aftermath of a tabloid scandal. A young woman sells her underwear to strangers. A notorious guest arrives at a placid, not-quite rehab in the Southwest. In ten remarkable stories, Emma Cline portrays moments when the ordinary is disturbed, when daily life buckles, revealing the perversity and violence pulsing under the surface. She explores characters navigating the edge, the limits of themselves and those around them: power dynamics in families, in relationships, the distance between their true and false selves. They want connection, but what they provoke is often closer to self-sabotage. What are the costs of one's choices? Of the moments when we act, or fail to act? These complexities are at the heart of Daddy, Emma Cline's sharp-eyed illumination of the contrary impulses that animate our inner lives"--

So we can glow : stories by Leesa Cross-Smith

"From Kentucky to the California desert, these forty-two short stories expose the glossy and matte hearts of girls and women in moments of obsessive desire and fantasy, wildness and bad behavior, brokenness and fearlessness, and more"--

After the sun by Jonas Eika

"Under Cancún's hard blue sky, a beach boy provides a canvas for tourists' desires, seeing deep into the world's underbelly. An enigmatic encounter in Copenhagen takes an IT consultant down a rabbit hole of speculation that proves more seductive than sex. The collapse of a love triangle in London leads to a dangerous, hypnotic addiction. In the Nevada desert, a grieving man tries to merge with an unearthly machine. After the Sun opens portals onto our newest realities, haunting the margins of a globalized world that's both saturated with yearning and brutally transactional. Infused with an irrepressible urgency, Eika's fiction seems to have conjured these far-flung characters and their encounters in a single breath. Juxtaposing startling beauty with grotesquery, balancing the hyperrealistic with the fantastical--"as though the worlds he describes are being viewed through an ultraviolet filter," in one Danish reviewer's words--he has invented new modes storytelling for an era when the old ones no longer suffice"--

The dangers of smoking in bed : stories by Mariana Enriquez

"Mariana Enriquez has been critically lauded for her unconventional and sociopolitical stories of the macabre: populated by unruly teenagers, crooked witches, homeless ghosts, and hungry women, they walk the uneasy line between urban realism and horror. The stories in her next collection are as terrifying as they are socially conscious, and press into being the unspoken -- fetish, illness, the female body, the darkness of human history -- with unsettling urgency. A woman is sexually obsessed with the human heart; a lost, rotting baby crawls out of a backyard and into a bedroom; a pair of teenage girls can't let go of their idol; an entire neighborhood is cursed to death by a question of morality they fail to answer correctly. Written against the backdrop of contemporary Argentina, and with resounding tenderness towards those in pain, in fear, and in limbo, this new collection from one of Argentina's most exciting writers finds Enriquez at her most sophisticated, and most chilling"--

The office of historical corrections : a novella and stories by Danielle Evans

In "The Office of Historical Corrections, [author Danielle] Evans zooms in on particular moments and relationships in her characters’ lives in a way that allows them to speak to larger issues of race, culture, and history. She introduces us to Black and multiracial characters who are experiencing the universal confusions of lust and love, and getting walloped by grief—all while exploring how history haunts us, personally and collectively. Ultimately, she provokes us to think about the truths of American history—about who gets to tell them, and the cost of setting the record straight. In 'Boys Go to Jupiter,' a white college student tries to reinvent herself after a photo of her in a Confederate-flag bikini goes viral. In “Richard of York Gave Battle in Vain,” a photojournalist is forced to confront her own losses while attending an old friend’s unexpectedly dramatic wedding. And in the eye-opening title novella, a black scholar from Washington, DC, is drawn into a complex historical mystery that spans generations and puts her job, her love life, and her oldest friendship at risk." --publisher's website

I have the answer by Kelly Fordon

If you thought the suburbs were boring, think again. Kelly Fordon's I Have the Answer artfully mixes the fabulist with the workaday and illuminates relationships and characters with crisp, elegant prose and dark wit. The stories in Fordon's latest collection are disquieting, humorous, and thought-provoking.

F*ckface : and other stories by Leah Hampton

"A brassy, bighearted debut collection of twelve short stories about rurality, corpses, honeybee collapse, and illicit sex in post-coal Appalachia"--

Life among the terranauts : stories by Caitlin Horrocks

A story collection that moves between the real and the surreal features tales of the residents of a Midwestern town who decide to hibernate through the bitter winters, and six people who move into an experimental biodome for two years for a chance at a million dollars

Deceit and other possibilities : stories 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. From a Hong Kong movie idol fleeing a sex scandal, to an obedient daughter turned Stanford imposter, to a Chinatown elder summoned to his village, to a Korean-American pastor with a secret agenda, the characters in these ten stories vividly illustrate the conflict between self and society, tradition and change. In "What We Have is What We Need," winner of The Atlantic student fiction prize, a boy from Mexico reunites with his parents in San Francisco. When he suspects his mother has found love elsewhere, he fights to keep his family together. With insight and wit, she writes about what wounds us and what we must survive. Her searing stories explore the clash of cultures and the complex, always shifting allegiances that we carry in ourselves, our family, and our community. DECEIT AND OTHER POSSIBILITIES marks the emergence of a remarkable new writer"--

Hitting a straight lick with a crooked stick : stories from the Harlem Renaissance by Zora Neale Hurston

"Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick is an outstanding collection of stories about love and migration, gender and class, racism and sexism that proudly reflect African American folk culture. Brought together for the first time in one volume, they include eight of Hurston’s “lost” Harlem stories, which were found in forgotten periodicals and archives. These stories challenge conceptions of Hurston as an author of rural fiction and include gems that flash with her biting, satiric humor, as well as more serious tales reflective of the cultural currents of Hurston’s world. All are timeless classics that enrich our understanding and appreciation of this exceptional writer’s voice and her contributions to America’s literary traditions." --book jacket

My Monticello : fiction by Jocelyn Nicole Johnson

"An irresistibly accessible yet startlingly bold book of short stories and a novella, inspired by Black lives in America and featuring the gripping eponymous work "My Monticello.""--

No presents please : Mumbai stories by Jayanta Kāykiṇi

"Jayant Kaikini's gaze takes in the people in the corners of Mumbai--a bus driver who, denied vacation time, steals the bus to travel home; a slum dweller who catches cats and sells them for pharmaceutical testing; a father at his wit's end who takes his mischievous son to a reform institution. In this metropolis, those who seek find epiphanies in dark movie theaters, the jostle of local trains, and even in roadside keychains and lost thermos flasks. Here, in the shade of an unfinished overpass, a factory-worker and her boyfriend browse wedding invitations bearing wealthy couples' affectations--"no presents please"--and look once more at what they own"--

Five Tuesdays in winter : stories by Lily King

"With Writers & Lovers and Euphoria, Lily King's books catapulted onto bestseller and best-of-the-year lists across the country, further cementing her reputation as one of the most "brilliant" (NYTBR), "wildly talented" (Chicago Tribune), and beloved authors in contemporary fiction. Now, for the first time, King collects ten of her finest short stories-half published in leading literary magazines and half brand new-opening fresh realms of discovery for fans and new readers alike. Told in the intimate voices of uniquely endearing characters of all ages, these tales explore desire and heartache, loss and discovery, moments of jolting violence and the inexorable tug toward love at all costs. A bookseller's unspoken love for his employee rises to the surface,a neglected teenage boy finds much-needed nurturing from an unlikely pair of college students hired to housesit, a girl's loss of innocence in her summer job becomes a catalyst for strength and confidence, and a proud nonagenarian rages helplessly in hisgranddaughter's hospital room. Romantic, hopeful, brutally raw, and unsparingly honest, some even slipping slyly into the surreal, these stories are, above all, about King's enduring subject of love"--

To be a man : stories by Nicole Krauss

"In one of her strongest works of fiction yet, Nicole Krauss plunges fearlessly into the struggle to understand what it is to be a man and what it is to be a woman, and the arising tensions that have existed from the very beginning of time. Set in our contemporary moment, and moving across the globe from Switzerland, Japan, and New York City to Tel Aviv, Los Angeles, and South America, the stories in To Be a Man feature male characters as fathers, lovers, friends, children, seducers, and even a lost husband who may never have been a husband at all. The way these stories mirror one other and resonate is beautiful, with a balance so finely tuned that the book almost feels like a novel. Echoes ring through stages of life: aging parents and new-born babies; young women’s coming of age and the newfound, somewhat bewildering sexual power that accompanies it; generational gaps and unexpected deliveries of strange new leases on life; mystery and wonder at a life lived or a future waiting to unfold. To Be a Man illuminates with a fierce, unwavering light the forces driving human existence: sex, power, violence, passion, self-discovery, growing older. Profound, poignant, and brilliant, Krauss’s stories are at once startling and deeply moving, but always revealing of all-too-human weakness and strength."--inside jacket

We love Anderson Cooper : short stories by R Maizes

Here, characters are treated as outsiders because of their sexual orientation, racial or religious identity, or simply because they look different. A young man courts the publicity that comes from outing himself at his bar mitzvah. When a painter is shunned because of his appearance, he learns to ink tattoos that come to life. A paranoid Jewish actuary suspects his cat of cheating on him--with his Protestant girlfriend. In this debut collection, humor complements pathos. Readers will recognize themselves in these stories and in these protagonists, whose backgrounds are vastly different from their own--we've all been outsiders at some point

Animal spirit : stories by Francesca Marciano

"Centering us in Rome, but transporting us seamlessly into worlds as varied and exotic as they are emotionally real, these stories paint landscapes that are populated-vividly, hauntingly-by animals: from squawking, violent seagulls to magical snakes to atiny dog on the side of a deserted road to starlings circling the evening sky in exhilarating formation. In the foreground, in unforgettable, cinematic frames, events unfold, especially in the lives of women: an affair ends painfully at a dinner table; anactress's past comes crashing down on her during an audition; an unhappy wife seeks but can't quite find respite in a historic palazzo sublet; two couples imagine parenthood in the home of a woman named for the Greek goddess Hera; a young girl returns from drug rehab and sets out anew, with a traveling circus; a man in crisis draws his ex-girlfriend deep into the New Mexico desert. Each story tells of deeply human moments of realization and recognition, instants of irrevocable change, and, for the fortunate, of unexpected clarity"--

The souvenir museum : stories by Elizabeth McCracken

"Award-winning author Elizabeth McCracken is an undisputed virtuoso of the short story, and this new collection features her most vibrant and heartrending work to date"--

Joy : and 52 other very short stories by Erin McGraw

"Claire Messud described Erin McGraw's last collection of stories as "at once laugh-out-loud funny and utterly serious, [exploring] life's profundity through its details." This is even more true with McGraw's new collection, Joy. In these very short stories, narrators step out of themselves to explain their lives to us, sometimes defensively, sometimes regretfully, other times deceitfully. Voices include those of the impulsive first-time murderer, the depressed pet sitter, the assistant of Patsy Cline, the anxiety-riddled new mother, the aged rock-and-roller, the girlfriend of your husband--human beings often (incredibly) unaware of the turning points staring them in the face. Crossing time, states, class, and religions, McGraw's stories are on the edge, causing you to wince even as you laugh. And McGraw will draw you to a deep need to read some sentences aloud--a sweet voice, a shrewd insight, some uneasy charm."--

Milk blood heat : stories by Dantiel W Moniz

"Set among the cities and suburbs of Florida, each story in Milk Blood Heat delves into the ordinary worlds of young girls, women, and men who find themselves confronted by extraordinary moments of violent personal reckoning. These intimate portraits of people and relationships scour and soothe and blast a light on the nature of family, faith, forgiveness, consumption, and what we may, or may not, owe one another. A thirteen-year-old meditates on her sadness and the difference between herself and her white best friend when an unexpected tragedy occurs; a woman recovering from a miscarriage finds herself unable to let go of her daughter-whose body parts she sees throughout her daily life; a teenager resists her family's church and is accused of courting the devil; servers at a supper club cater to the insatiable cravings of their wealthy clientele; and two estranged siblings take a road trip with their father's ashes and are forced to face the troubling reality of how he continues to shape them. Wise and subversive, spiritual and seductive, Milk Blood Heat forms an ouroboros of stories that bewitch with their truth, announcing the arrival of a bright new literary star"--

The awkward black man : stories by Walter Mosley

"Bestselling author Walter Mosley has proven himself a master of narrative tension, both with his extraordinary fiction and gripping writing for television. The Awkward Black Man collects seventeen of Mosley's most accomplished short stories to display the full range of his remarkable talent. Mosley presents distinct characters as they struggle to move through the world in each of these stories-heroes who are awkward, nerdy, self-defeating, self-involved, and, on the whole, odd. He overturns the stereotypes that corral black male characters and paints a subtle, powerful portrait of each of these unique individuals. In "The Good News Is," a man's insecurity about his weight gives way to a serious illness and the intense loneliness that accompanies it. Deeply vulnerable, he allows himself to be taken advantage of in return for a little human comfort in a raw display of true need. "Pet Fly" follows a man working as a mailroom clerk for a big company-and the unforeseen repercussions he endures when he attempts to forge a connection beyond the one he has with the fly buzzing around his apartment. And "Almost Alyce" chronicles failed loves, family loss, alcoholism, and a Zen approach to the art of begging that proves surprisingly effective. Touching and contemplative, each of these unexpected stories offers the best of one of our most gifted writers"--

First person singular : stories by Haruki Murakami

"A riveting new collection of short stories from the beloved, internationally acclaimed, Haruki Murakami. The eight masterful stories in this new collection are all told in the first person by a classic Murakami narrator: a lonely man. Some of them (like "With the Beatles," "Cream," and "On a Stone Pillow" ) are nostalgic looks back at youth. Others are set in adulthood--"Charlie Parker Plays Bossa Nova," "Carnaval," "Confessions of a Shinagawa Monkey" and the stunning title story. Occasionally, a narrator who may or may not be Haruki himself is present, as in "The Yakult Swallows Poetry Collection." Is it memoir or fiction? The reader decides. The stories all touch beautifully on love and loss, childhood and death . . . all with a signature Murakami twist"--

Walking on cowrie shells : stories by Nana Nkweti

In her powerful, genre-bending debut story collection, Nana Nkweti’s virtuosity is on full display as she mixes deft realism with clever inversions of genre. In the Caine Prize finalist story 'It Takes a Village, Some Say,' Nkweti skewers racial prejudice and the practice of international adoption, delivering a sly tale about a teenage girl who leverages her adoptive parents to fast-track her fortunes. In 'The Devil Is a Liar,' a pregnant pastor's wife struggles with the collision of western Christianity and her mother's traditional Cameroonian belief system as she worries about her unborn child. In other stories, Nkweti vaults past realism, upending genre expectations in a satirical romp about a jaded PR professional trying to spin a zombie outbreak in West Africa, and in a mermaid tale about a Mami Wata who forgoes her power by remaining faithful to a fisherman she loves. In between these two ends of the spectrum there's everything from an aspiring graphic novelist at a comic con to a murder investigation driven by statistics to a story organized by the changing hairstyles of the main character. -- Amazon.com

The (other) you : stories by Joyce Carol Oates

"Joyce Carol Oates ponders alternate destinies: the other lives we might have led if we’d made different choices. An accomplished writer returns to her childhood home of Yewville, but the homecoming stirs troubled thoughts about the person she might have been if she’d never left. A man in prison contemplates the gravity of his irreversible act. A student’s affair with a professor results in a pregnancy that alters the course of her life forever. Even the experience of reading is investigated as one that can create a profound transformation: 'You could enter another time, the time of the book.' The (Other) You is an arresting and incisive vision into these alternative realities, a collection that ponders the constraints we all face given the circumstances of our birth and our temperaments, and that examines the competing pressures and expectations on women in particular." --book jacket

What it might feel like to hope : stories by Dorene O'Brien

'What It Might Feel Like to Hope', the second collection from award-winning author D. O'Brien, is a masterful and eclectic mix of stories that considers the infinitely powerful, and equally naïve and damning force that is human hope.

Prayer for the living : stories by Ben Okri

"Okri's new collection of short stories blur parallel realities and walk the line between darkness and magic. Is what you see all there is? Look again. Playful, frightening, even shocking--the stories in this collection blur the lines between illusion and reality. Stories here are set in London, in Byzantium, in the ghetto, in the Andes, in a printer's shop in Spain. The characters include a murderer, a writer, a detective, a man in a cave, a man in a mirror, two little boys, a prison door, and the author himself. There are twenty-three stories in all. Each one will make you wonder if what you see in the world is all there is ..."--Publisher

The night archer : and other stories by Michael B Oren

"A medieval slave-turned-sultan, an alien who declines to visit Earth, a prophet who dares to ask "is God funny?" and a ghost who fears the living--these are among the terrifying, tragic, passionate, and comic characters who animate Michael Oren's stories. Crisscrossing genres, they explore the outer bounds of imagination and artistic freedom, exposing the reader to a kaleidoscope of human emotions and experience. In The Night Archer, the acclaimed historian, political commentator, and statesman Michael Oren is revealed as a writer of bold versatility."--

A place like home : short stories by Rosamunde Pilcher

"Celebrate life's journeys with the beloved author whose stories of life and love touched the world. Together for the first time in one collection, 15 short stories by bestselling author Rosamunde Pilcher. A Place Like Home is a collection of Rosamunde Pilcher's most enduring short stories, never before published in book form. The collection contains fifteen stories, which range from The Holiday, in which a wife surprises her husband of twenty-five years with a holiday full of Mediterranean sunshine, redrocks and blue seas in an effort to rekindle the romance they had before children; The Eye of Love which takes the reader to a village by the sea where old flames meet again; and A Place Like Home, where a lonely young woman goes to recuperate in a Scottish countryside after a brief illness. Each is the perfect slice of romance written with warmth and passion featuring wonderfully memorable, smart, and feisty female characters that will transport the reader to another time and place"--

New teeth : stories by Simon Rich

"Two murderous pirates find a child stowaway on board and attempt to balance pillaging with co-parenting. A woman raised by wolves prepares for her parents' annual Thanksgiving visit. An aging mutant superhero is forced to learn humility when the mayor kicks him upstairs to a desk job. And in the hard-boiled caper--The Big Nap--a weary two-year-old detective struggles to make sense of a world gone mad. Equal parts silly and sincere, New Teeth is an ode to growing up, growing older, and what it means to make a family"--

The ones who don't say they love you : stories by Maurice Carlos Ruffin

"Maurice Carlos Ruffin has an uncanny ability to create spaces. These perspectival, character-driven stories center on the margins and are deeply rooted in New Orleanian culture. In "Beg Borrow Steal," a boy relishes time spent helping his father find work after just coming home from prison; in "Ghetto University," a couple whose been struggling financially turn to crime after hitting rock bottom; in "Before I Let You Go," a woman who's been in NOLA for generations fights to keep her home; in "Fast hands, Fast Feet," an army vet and a runaway teen find companionship while sleeping under a bridge; in "Mercury Forges," a flash fiction piece among several in the collection, a group of men hurriedly make their way to a home where an elderly gentleman lives, trying to reach him before the water from Hurricane Katrina does; and in the title story, a young man works the street corners of the French Quarter, trying to achieve a freedom not meant for him"--

Orange world and other stories by Karen Russell

"From the Pulitzer finalist and universally beloved author of the New York Times best sellers Swamplandia! and Vampires in the Lemon Grove, a stunning new collection of short fiction that showcases her extraordinary gifts of language and imagination"--

American estrangement : stories by Saïd Sayrafiezadeh

"Stories that capture our times by "a young author who has already established himself as a unique American voice" (Elle). Saïd Sayrafiezadeh has been hailed by Philip Gourevitch as "a masterful storyteller working from deep in the American grain." His new collection of stories-some of which have appeared in The New Yorker, the Paris Review, and The Best American Short Stories-are set in a contemporary America full of the kind of emotionally bruised characters familiar to readers of Denis Johnson and George Saunders. These are people contending with internal struggles-a son's fractured relationship with his father, the death of a mother, the loss of a job, drug addiction-even as they are battered by larger, often invisible, economic and political forcesof American society. Searing, intimate, often slyly funny, and always marked by a deep imaginative sympathy, American Estrangement is a testament to our addled times. It will cement Sayrafiezadeh's reputation as one of the essential twenty-first-century American writers"--

Objects of desire : stories by Clare Sestanovich

"A debut collection of witty, elegant short stories that follow women from the brink of adulthood, to the labyrinthine gap between twenty and thirty, to middle age and the quiet instants in which certain possibilities disappear -- exploring themes of identity, yearning, aspiration, and family"--

Are you enjoying? : stories by Mira Sethi

"An exhilarating debut by a young writer from Pakistan: provocative, funny, disarmingly original stories that upend traditional notions of identity and family, and peer into the vulnerable workings of the human heart. From the high-stakes worlds of television and politics to the intimate corridors of home--including the bedroom--these wryly observed, deeply revealing stories look at life in Pakistan with humor, compassion, psychological acuity, and emotional immediacy. Childhood best friends agree to marry in order to keep their sexuality a secret. A young woman with an anxiety disorder discovers the numbing pleasures of an illicit love affair. A radicalized student's preparations for his sister's wedding involve beating up the groom. An actress is forced to grow up fast on the set of her first major tv show, where the real intrigue takes place off-screen. Every story bears witness to the all-too-universal desire to be loved, and what happens when this longing gets pushed to its limits. Are You Enjoying? is a free-spirited, confident, indelible introduction to a galvanizing new talent"--

Last one out shut off the lights : stories by Stephanie Soileau

Last One Out Shut Off the Lights is a vivid portrait of the last-chance towns of southwest Louisiana, where oil development, industrial pollution, dying wetlands, and the ever-present threat of devastating hurricanes have eroded their inhabitants' sense of home. These stories feature characters struggling to find a foothold in a world that is forever washing out from under them, people who must reckon with their ambivalence about belonging to a place so continually in flux.

Stories from suffragette city

"From a chorus of bestselling historical fiction writers, a breathtaking book inspired by the day tens of thousands of women marched for the right to vote on October, 23, 1915. Includes an introduction by Kristin Hannah and stories by Lisa Wingate, M. J. Rose, Steve Berry, Paula McLain, Katherine J. Chen, Christina Baker Kline, Jamie Ford, Dolen Perkins-Valdez, Megan Chance, Alyson Richman, Chris Bohjalian, and Fiona Davis."--

Great American desert : stories by Terese Svoboda

"A collection of short stories, visualizing the Great American Desert as an imagined world unto itself, traced from prehistoric times to the future. Explores water--its use and abuses--and the consequences of the land's mistreatment over time"--

How to pronounce knife : stories by Souvankham Thammavongsa

"In her stunning debut, Souvankham Thammavongsa captures the day-to-day lives of immigrants and refugees in a nameless city, illuminating hopes, disappointments, love affairs, and above all, the pursuit of a place to belong. An ex-boxer turned nail salon worker falls for a pair of immaculate hands; a mother and daughter harvest earthworms in the middle of the night; a country music-obsessed housewife abandons her family for fantasy; and a young girl's love for her father transcends language. Uncannily and intimately observed, written with prose of exceptional precision, the stories in How to Pronounce Knife speak of modern location and dislocation, revealing lives lived in the embrace of isolation and severed history - but not without joy, humour, resilience, and constant wonder at the workings of the world."--Publisher's description

Universal love : stories by Alexander Weinstein

"Universal Love welcomes readers to a near-future world where our everyday technologies have fundamentally altered the possibilities and limits of how we love one another. In these gripping stories, a young boy tries to understand what keeps his father tethered to the drowned city they call home. A daughter gets to know her dead mother's hologram better than she ever knew her living mother. And, at a time when unpleasant memories can be erased, a man undergoes electronic surgery to have his depression, and his past, forever removed. In an age when technology offers the easiest cures for loneliness, these characters must wrestle with what it means to stay human in an increasingly cybernetic future, and how love can endure even the most alluring upgrades. In the vein of Weinstein's critically-acclaimed first collection, Universal Love is a visionary book, written with one foot in the real world and one stepping bravely into the future"--

Love & other crimes : stories by Sara Paretsky

New York Times bestselling author Sara Paretsky is the master of twisting suspense and propulsive plot. She has been hailed by the crime community as 'a legend' (Harlan Coben) and 'one of the all-time greats' (Karin Slaughter). Her acclaimed novels featuring detective V.I. Warshawski rank among the most celebrated crime series in modern fiction. Now in this spellbinding collection, Paretsky showcases her extraordinary talents with fourteen short stories, eight of which feature the indomitable detective, and a new V.I. story. For longtime fans of V.I. Warshawski, new readers discovering her for the first time, or any lover of crime and bone-chilling suspense, it is a celebration of Paretsky's exceptional storytelling skill and a searing exploration of the dark conspiracies and desperate human acts hiding in plain sight

Being various : new Irish short stories

"Ireland is going through a golden age of writing: that has never been more apparent. I wanted to capture something of the energy of this explosion, in all its variousness... Following her own acclaimed short-story collection, Multitudes, Lucy Caldwell guest-edits the sixth volume of Faber's long-running series of all new Irish short stories, continuing the work of the late David Marcus and subsequent guest editors, Joseph O'Connor, Kevin Barry and Deirdre Madden."--Publisher description

Made to order : robots and revolution

"100 years after Karel Capek coined the word, “robots” are an everyday idea, and the inspiration for countless stories in books, film, TV and games. They are often among the least privileged, most unfairly used of us, and the more robots are like humans, the more interesting they become. This collection of stories is where robots stand in for us, where both we and they are disadvantaged, and where hope and optimism shines through."--back cover

Speculative Los Angeles

As an incubator of the future, Los Angeles has long mesmerized writers from Philip K. Dick to Aldous Huxley. With its natural disasters, Hollywood artifice, staggering wealth and poverty, urban sprawl, and diversity, Los Angeles is already so weird, surreal, irrational, and mythic that any fiction emerging from this place should be considered speculative. This debut title of a new city-based anthology series features brand-new tales from 14 of the city's most prophetic voices

Love after the end : an anthology of Two-spirit & Indigiqueer speculative fiction

"A bold and breathtaking anthology of queer Indigenous speculative fiction, edited by the author of Jonny Appleseed. This exciting and groundbreaking fiction anthology showcases a number of new and emerging 2SQ (Two-Spirit and queer) Indigenous writers from across Turtle Island. These visionary authors show how queer Indigenous communities can bloom and thrive through utopian narratives that detail the vivacity and strength of 2SQness throughout its plight in the maw of settler colonialism's histories"--

Recipient of the National Medal, the nation's highest honor for libraries.