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Masters of the Short Story

There is a reason why teachers assign these gems. A good short story showcases what fine writing is all about and can have a meaning that enriches you for the rest of your life.

The Pacific and Other Stories

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By Mark Helprin

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"This collection of 16 stories displays the remarkable scope, incomparable wit, and deft prose that have come to be Helprin's signature. Lighthearted, glittering fables are met with starker tales that sound the depths of sacrifice and duty."
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The Granta Book of the American Short Story

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By Richard Ford, editor

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Granta believes these selections illustrate the comment by Frank O'Connor "that the short-story is handled so cleverly by Americans that it is our national art form."
Enjoy classics such as, "The Lottery", by Jackson, and discover new treasures like, "You're Ugly, Too", by Lorrie Moore.
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Stranger Things Happen

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By Kelly Link

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"The eleven stories in Kelly Link's debut collection are funny, spooky, and smart. They all have happy endings. They were all especially written for you. A Best of the Year pick from Salon.com, Locus, The Village Voice, and San Francisco Chronicle. Includes Nebula, World Fantasy, and Tiptree award-winning stories."

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Hotel of Saints

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By Ursula Hegi

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"A writer of great insight and imagination, Hegi manifests her bold range of vision as she enters the perspectives of lovers and loners, eccentrics and artists, children and parents: a young man waits in a hospital room with his father, who has received the heart of a twenty-seven-year-old woman; a musician tries to protect her daughter from loving a blind man; a seminary student yearns for the certainty of faith that belonged to him as a boy; a woman transcends her embarrassment for her first love, who has tripled in size; a feud between two brothers contaminates and redeems their hometown."
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Earth Song, Sky Spirit: Short Stories of the Contemporary Native American Experience

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By Clifford Trafzer, editor

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"A vibrant, vital anthology of stories that portray the lives of Native Americans today, featuring the work of N. Scott Momaday, Louise Erdrich, Leslie Marmon Silko, and more than two dozen other gifted, authentic voices."
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Valley So Low: Southern Mountain Stories

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By Manly Wade Wellman

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"This is a fine collection of Wellman's most recent Appalachian tales written in the 70's and 80's. Tales about Judge Pursuivant, John Thunstone, Silver John and others all make appearances."

Trill Coster’s Burden -- The Spring -- Owls Hoot in the Daytime -- Can These Bones Live? -- Nobody Ever Goes There -- Where Did She Wander? -- A Witch For All Seasons (originally by “Gans T Field”) -- The Beasts That Perish -- Willow He Walk -- Chastel -- Rouse Him Not -- Hundred Years Gone -- Keep Me Away -- Yare -- Chorazin -- The Petey Car -- Along About Sundown -- What of the Night -- Dead Man’s Chair (as “Rock Rock”) -- Lamia -- Caretaker -- The Ghastly Priest Doth Reign -- Goodman’s Place --

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Shatterday

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By Harlan Ellison

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"A revolutionary classic from one of science fiction's most highly regarded authors, this collection of 16 brilliant stories remains as scathing and influential today as it was when it was first published more than 20 years ago. These category-defying stories combine science fiction, horror, and fantasy with ironic humor, sardonic social criticism, and intense self-revelation.

"From 'Jeffty is Five,' the tragedy of an innocent child wrenched out of an idyllic past, to humanity's encounter with dangerously seductive aliens in 'How's the Night Life on Cissalda?' and 'Shatterday,' the dark allegory of an identity-stealing doppelganger replacing his inferior twin, this incendiary collection re-establishes its legendary author's place at the cutting edge of the short story form."

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Coronado

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By Dennis Lehane

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"A small southern town gives birth to a dangerous man with a broken heart and a high-powered rifle. . . .

 

"A young girl, caught up in an inner-city gang war, crosses the line from victim to avenger. . . . An innocent man is hunted by government agents for an unspecified crime.

." . . A boy and a girl fall in love while ransacking a rich man's house during the waning days of the Vietnam War. . . . A compromised psychiatrist confronts the unstable patient he slept with. . . . A father and a son wage a lethal battle of wits over the whereabouts of a stolen diamond and a missing woman. . . ."

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Cheating at Canasta

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By William Trevor

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"Trevor's precise and unflinching insights into the hearts and lives of ordinary people are evidenced once again in this stunning new collection. From a chance encounter between two childhood friends to the memories of a newly widowed man to a family grappling with the sale of their ancestral land, Trevor examines with grace and skill the tenuous bonds of our relationships, the strengths that hold us together, and the truths that threaten to separate us. Subtle yet powerful, his stories linger with the reader long after the words have been put away."
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Changing Planes

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By Ursula K. Le Guin

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"Missing a flight, waiting in an airport, listening to garbled announcements - who doesn't hate that misery? But Sita Dulip from Cincinnati finds a method of bypassing the crowds at the desks, the long lines at the toilets, the nasty lunch, the whimpering children and punitive parents, the bookless bookstores, and the blue plastic chairs bolted to the floor. A mere kind of twist and a slipping bend, easier to do than to describe, takes her not to Denver but to Strupsirts, a picturesque region of waterspouts and volcanoes, or to Djeyo where she can stay for two nights in a small hotel with a balcony overlooking the amber Sea of Somue.

"This new discovery - changing planes - enables Sita to visit bizarre societies and cultures that sometimes mirror our own and sometimes open doors into the alien."

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