12 super story collections

A great short story can convey a world in just a few well-written pages. (They have to be well-written, because the author has such a short space to hook the reader!)

I have always had a soft spot for short fiction, especially when I have limited time. Do you take public transportation to work, or want the satisfaction that comes from reading a complete story before you go to bed (instead of just a few chapters of a novel)? Are you traveling this summer, and want to be able to pick up and put down your book without worrying about losing the plot? Sounds like you need to read some short stories!

Here are a few of our favorite collections. What collections are at the top of your list?

Among the Missing
by Dan Chaon
Dan Chaon’s Among the Missing contains stories of families that have stepped off the path to the American dream, with characters left to figure out where and how they stumbled. (If you like this one, check out his new collection, Stay Awake, which came out in February.) Read more>>

Animal Crackers
by Hannah Tinti
It’s hard not to like Hannah Tinti even before you read Animal Crackers. She’s the lone editor and half of a two-woman crew at the avant-garde literary magazine One Story, which consists of one story per issue. While anyone who can persist at such a labor of love and still manage to put Ramen noodles on the table deserves admiration, Tinti also somehow found time to pen a stunningly original collection of stories on the human condition. Read more>>

Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self
by Danielle Evans
Danielle Evans’ book of eight stories, Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self, is long anticipated. Her first story, “Virgins,” was published in the Paris Review and then selected for The Best American Stories 2008. “Virgins” is a quietly devastating tale of two teenage girls navigating the rocky road to adulthood. Read more>>

Blueprints for Building Better Girls
by Elissa Schappell
Mothers, daughters, friends, wives and lovers—from the late ’70s to the present day—fill the pages of Elissa Schappell’s wise and witty linked short story collection, Blueprints for Building Better Girls. Schappell, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair with an impressive literary pedigree, paints a multifaceted portrait of modern womanhood with the conflicted, interconnected female protagonists of her eight compelling stories. Read more>>

The Boat
by Nam Le
The single-author short story collection has its devoted fans. But The Boat is so engaging, so unequivocally well done, that it’s sure to appeal to any fan of good writing. From the opening tale of The Boat, it’s hard not to be giddy: Wait, was that a brilliantly self-conscious and humorous slice of the writing life, which doubled as a poignant story about fathers and sons and family tragedies? Yes. Yes, it was. Read more>>

Burning Bright
by Ron Rash
The short stories in New York Times bestseller and PEN/Faulkner award finalist Ron Rash’s new collection, Burning Bright, flow so seamlessly into each other that the reader is tempted to devour them all in one sitting like a novel. But doing so would mean losing the formidable power of each individual story. Read more>>

Going Away Shoes
by Jill McCorkle
Jill McCorkle’s Going Away Shoes concentrates on the plight of mostly middle-aged women struggling with the consequences of their flawed relationships. McCorkle is an acute observer of the foibles of domestic life, blending empathy for her characters’ predicaments with an unsparing take on those grim circumstances. Read more>>

Gold Boy, Emerald Girl
by Yiyun Li
In Gold Boy, Emerald Girl, Yiyun Li explores the big themes—individuality, honor, family ties and love—and sets them against a richly detailed tapestry of Chinese life. Though each story takes place in modern-day China, they are formally rigorous and crafted with an elegance that harkens back to stylists like Chekhov and William Trevor. Read more>>

Magic for Beginners
by Kelly Link
Kelly Link’s second short story collection is aptly titled Magic for Beginners, for the short fiction she presents here is truly magical, with masterfully crafted stories that are as dark as they are delightful. Link’s first story collection, Stranger Things Happen (2001), became a cult favorite, with surreal and bizarre stories such as the Nebula Award-winning “Louise’s Ghost.” She gained considerable industry attention when she turned down offers to publish her second collection with a major publishing house, choosing instead to stick with Small Beer Press, the independent press she co-owns with her husband Gavin Grant (a BookPage contributor). Read more>>

Natasha and Other Stories
by David Bezmozgis
David Bezmozgis’ Natasha: and Other Stories,  seven stories about growing up a poor Russian Jewish immigrant in Toronto are so Russian in tone they should be read with a glass of tea at hand and a cube of sugar between one’s teeth. Yet they are so Western in theme that even if you’ve never set foot outside your hometown, they’ll make your heart ache.  Read more>>

St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves
by Karen Russell
Karen Russell’s startlingly original collection, St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves, features graceful and seductive prose that transports the reader into surreal and yet utterly plausible realms. Many of the stories are set in Russell’s native region of South Florida, but it’s not the familiar territory of high-rise condos and golf courses. Read more>>

Where the God of Love Hangs Out
by Amy Bloom
Amy Bloom has what I might have thought were magical powers if I hadn’t learned that she’s spent time as a psychotherapist. She can jump from one character’s perspective to another’s in the space of a paragraph, fully inhabiting each, as smoothly and unmistakably as if she were doing impressions of famous people onstage. In two lines she can telegraph the essence of a character’s personality, the sum of his years, the battles he’s won and lost and the ones that still rage. The stories she tells in her new collection, Where the God of Love Hangs Out, vary widely, but she never overreaches or missteps. Read more>>