Story Collections I Can't Stop Thinking About
By Fred Venturini
By Fred Venturini
Do you like bite-sized, one-sitting reads? Then leap into the lost art of the short story collection. Each of these has at least one story that I will remember for the rest of my life, and I'll bet dollars to donuts you'll have a similar experience if you pick one up.
Stories of Your Life and Others
Ted Chiang
$18.00 $16.74"The Story of Your Life" became the big-budget sci-fi movie ARRIVAL, but the story hides its hand much better, and hits like a truck. The rare story that drove me to tears and demanded I re-read it again immediately.
Until We Have Faces: Stories
Michael Nye
$17.99 $16.73Michael Nye hits his stride early and stays there throughout this collection. When he threads sports into his stories, the collection peaks. The former NFL player with CTE simply broke my heart.
The Ones That Got Away
Stephen Graham Jones
$29.94I can't tell you much about why I love this without spoiling it, but the first tale in this collection is an all-timer.
Jesus' Son
Denis Johnson
$16.00 $14.88This is already in the college syllabus short-fiction hall of fame, but with good reason. No punches are pulled and there's so much grit you may have an abrasion when it's over.
Knockemstiff
Donald Ray Pollock
$16.95 $15.76My introduction to the formidable Donald Ray Pollock was like a surprise attack. Wear Kevlar while you read this.
Night Shift
Stephen King
$10.99 $10.22Perhaps the most influential book of my writing life. I read this when I was nine years old, I re-read it every year, and I'll never get over the slam-bang endings that King pulls off in this collection.
Suicide Woods: Stories
Benjamin Percy
$16.00 $14.88A recent release, but harrowing. Percy at his peak. I'm still numb from falling through the ice.
20th Century Ghosts
Joe Hill
$17.99 $16.73Reading this is when I realized that the son may surpass the master, and Pop Art is one of the most surreal and delightful stories I've ever read.
The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction: 50 North American Stories Since 1970
Michael Martone
$22.00 $20.46Sure, it's an anthology and not a collection, but this is the best "bang for the buck" when it comes to your hard-earned book budget. A hall-of-fame lineup and hours upon hours of reading for less than $20.
The Safety of Objects
A. M. Homes
$16.00 $14.88I read this thinking, "I'm so glad our only child is a girl." It's the Barbie story. You know the one.
Exhalation: Stories
Ted Chiang
$28.00 $26.04A double-dip of Ted Chiang in this list: this guy makes BLACK MIRROR look like amateur hour. Maybe the best time-travel story ever in this one.