A Collection of Short Stories

Nowhere are these qualities more ingeniously brought together than in the works of short fiction she wrote throughout her life. Chaon mines the psychological landscape of his characters to dazzling effect. Each story radiates with sharp humor, mystery, wonder, and startling compassion. 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.

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.

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Strange himself and the Raven King. 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: 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. 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.

Without abandoning the tenets of classic storytelling, Elliott revels in lush lyricism, dark humor, and experimental play.

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In these stories, Evenson unsettles us with the everyday and the extraordinary—the terror of living with the knowledge of all we cannot know. In the hands of master storyteller Everett, the act of questioning leads to vistas more strange and unsettling than could ever have been expected.

We polled staff and contributors to pick our favorite short fiction of the year

In July of , in Hardin County, Ohio, a boy sees ghosts. 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. A medical procedure reveals an object of worship. A carnivorous reptile divides and cauterizes a town. Crime is a motif—sex crimes, a possible murder, crimes of the heart.

Some of the love has depths, which are understood too late; some of the love is shallow, and also understood too late. Amy Gustine exhibits an extraordinary generosity toward her characters, instilling them with a thriving, vivid presence. 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. Behind the Short Story: It is a thoughtfully put together book, designed as a craft book with writing prompts after each story.

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But the best parts are the essays accompanying each story, written by the author, commenting on the inspiration and the challenges to writing that story, and in the process demystifying the process of writing. The essays are so informal, speaking directly and honestly to the aspiring writer. George Saunders, Mary Gaitskill, etc. And do take note of her characterization and story structure, too!

Explaining the East-West Culture Gap.

This makes me tremendously happy. A man wakes up without his nose and chases it around town trying to talk it back onto his face. The anthology is an overwhelming display of substance and skill, with dazzling variations in style and voice. I read it when I first started writing and reading as a writer and it has been one of my best investments.

I also credit it with introducing me to the work of Anita Desai and Jean Rhys, who over the years became favorite, influential writers. A one-size-fits-all story collection does not exist, of course—sometimes a writer needs some Borges and sometimes she needs some Lydia Davis. She fuses childhood terrors with adult estrangement; her stories are gorgeous, delicate, spooky, human, and deeply layered. A wise and emotive writer, in this collection Adichie touches on her familiar themes of exile, cultural miscommunications and the human desire to reconcile internal and external worlds.

She also won the Man Booker International prize for her lifetime body of work and has been called a modern-day Chekhov. A pioneering modernist writer, Mansfield was born and brought up in colonial New Zealand before moving to Britain, where she became friends with DH Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. The title story, one of her best-known works, is written in the modernist style, with the deceptively simple setting of a family preparing for a garden party.

Against this backdrop Mansfield brilliantly interweaves meditations on class, life and death, illusion and reality. He is brilliant at evoking social nuance and has an unfailing eye for the tiniest detail that will shine light on the whole.

This deliciously fat collection gives the reader the chance to dip in and out of one of the best observers of human behaviour. Moore is notable for her arch tone and her sharp humour.