Short Story Recs

[Brooke]

What collections do you recommend or wish to read with the group?? All genres welcome.

[Wina]

Some Kelly Link, please! :) I definitely think that Magic For Beginners is a good collection, but I would like to discuss her latest book Get In Trouble.

I've also had Donald Barthelme on the brain but I don't know whether it would be good to discuss an entire collection by him. :D

Other thoughts/suggestions: A.M. Holmes' Things You Should Know and/or Safety of Objects, Sheila Heti's Middle Stories.

Aaaaand (although I'm not sure how well-received this will be) David Foster Wallace's Girl With Curious Hair.

[Brooke]

Here are some collections from my wishlist:

Ghost Summer: Stories by Tananarive Due
The Bus Driver Who Wanted To Be God & Other Stories by Etgar Keret
Upright Beasts by Lincoln Michel
The Uninnocent: Stories by Bradford Morrow
A Wild Swan: And Other Tales by Michael Cunningham, Yuko Shimizu
This Angel on My Chest (Pitt Drue Heinz Lit Prize)by Leslie Pietrzyk
Stone Mattress: Nine Tales by Margaret Atwood
A Manual for Cleaning Women: Selected Stories by Lucia Berlin, Stephen Emerson, Lydia Davis
Prophecies, Libels & Dream​s: Stories by Ysabeau S. Wilce
Crackpot Palace: Stories by Jeffrey Ford
Gifts for the One Who Comes After by Helen Marshall
Monstress: Stories by Lysley Tenorio
I Was a Revolutionary: Stories by Andrew Malan Milward
Dragon's Breath: and Other True Stories by MariNaomi
My Life as a Mermaid, and Other Stories by Jen Grow
North American Lake Monsters: Stories by Nathan Ballingrud
Damage Control: Stories by Amber Dermont
Bright Shards of Someplace Else (Flannery O'Connor Award for Short Fiction) by Monica McFawn
Beneath the Bonfire: Stories by Nickolas Butler
The Secret Games of Words: Stories by Karen Stefano
The Necessity of Certain Behaviors (Pitt Drue Heinz Lit Prize) by Shannon Cain
Ship Fever: Stories by Andrea Barrett
Red Spikes by Margo Lanagan
Portable Childhoods by Ellen Klages, Neil Gaiman
Portraits of a Few of the People I've Made Cry: Stories by Christine Sneed
Sweet Talk by Stephanie Vaughn
If I'd Known You Were Coming (Iowa Short Fiction Award) by Kate Milliken
Lungs Full of Noise (Iowa Short Fiction Award) by Tessa Mellas
Walk the Blue Fields: Stories by Claire Keegan
Refund: Stories by Karen E. Bender
Meet Me in the Moon Room: Stories by Ray Vukcevich
Jagannath: Stories by Karin Tidbeck
Errantry: Strange Stories by Elizabeth Hand
If I Would Leave Myself Behind: Stories by Lauren Becker
Honeydew: Stories by Edith Pearlman
Mothers, Tell Your Daughters: Stories by Bonnie Jo Campbell
Fortune Smiles: Stories by Adam Johnson
Little Sinners, and Other Stories (Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Fiction) by Karen Brown
This Isn't the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You: Stories by Jon McGregor
The People in the Castle: Selected Strange Stories by Joan Aiken, Lizza Aiken
If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This: Fiction by Robin Black
Roald Dahl's Book of Ghost Stories by Roald Dahl
Dreams Underfoot: A Newford Collection by Charles de Lint, John Jude Palencar
The State We're In: Maine Stories by Ann Beattie
The Lovers Set Down Their Spoons (Iowa Short Fiction Award)
by Heather A. Slomski
This Close: Stories by Jessica Francis Kane
Ghosts of Wyoming: Stories by Alyson Hagy
Bloodchild and Other Stories by Octavia E. Butler
When Mystical Creatures Attack! (Iowa Short Fiction Award)
by Kathleen Founds
A Guide to Being Born: Stories by Ramona Ausubel
Safe as Houses (Iowa Short Fiction Award) by Marie-Helene Bertino
Karate Chop: Stories (Lannan Translation Selection (Graywolf Paperback))by Dorthe Nors, Martin Aitke
The UnAmericans: Stories by Molly Antopol
American Innovations: Stories by Rivka Galchen
Spectacle: Stories by Susan Steinberg
The Fun Parts: Stories by Sam Lipsyte
Thunderstruck​ & Other Stories by Elizabeth McCracken
Night at the Fiestas: Stories by Kirstin Valdez Quade
The Beautiful Indifference: Stories (P.S.) by Sarah Hall
Music for Wartime: Stories by Rebecca Makkai
In the Country: Stories by Mia Alvar
Questionable Practices: Stories by Eileen Gunn
Love Begins in Winter: Five Stories by Simon Van Booy
A Piece of Mine: Stories by J. California Cooper

I think I'll stop there, lol. I'm a bit obsessive about adding collections to my wishlist.

[Mercedes]

What an epic list! And don't worry I have over 100 on my to buy list! Lots of the ones you mentioned are on there :) I'll add my list at the weekend when I can copy it from my computer xx

[Erika]

That is such an epic list, Brooke! Some (but not all) of the ones I'd like to get to soon are:

Runaway by Alice Munro (or anything by Alice Munro! I've read a few of her collections and absolutely adore her.)
Pretty Monsters: Stories by Kelly Link
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline and In Persuasion Nationby George Saunders
Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson
Birds of America by Lorrie Moore
Vampires in the Lemon Grove by Karen Russell
You'll Enjoy It When You Get There: The Stories of Elizabeth Taylor by Elizabeth Taylor
The Woman Who Borrowed Memories: Selected Stories by Tove Jansson
Krik? Krak! by Edwidge Danticat
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
Blackberries, Blackberries by Crystal Wilkinson
In the Country: Stories by Mia Alvar
Oye What I'm Gonna Tell You by Ceclia Rodriguez Milanes
Delicate Edible Birds and Other Stories by Lauren Groff

[Erica]

I've only read one short story collection this year...I'm still new to them. But I absolutely loved this collection, I thought the stories were so clever and beautifully written so would highly recommend.

Only the Animals by Ceridwen Dovey

[Linda]

These are some of my favorite collections:


Faceoff by David Baldacci
The Night and the Music by Lawrence Block
Twisted: The Collected Stories by Jeffery Deaver
More Twisted: Collected Stories Vol. II by Jeffery Deaver
Trouble in Mind: The Collected Stories, Volume 3 by Jeffery Deaver
Different Seasons by Stephen King
Night Shift by Stephen King
Eight The Hard Way by Nick Stephenson