Exploring Top Books of Shelfari

An intense collection of interconnected stories that portray life through the eyes of a young man in a small Iowa town, by the author of Already Dead: A California Gothic, Angels and Resuscitation of a Hanged Man.

The Pushcart Prize XXV: Best of the Small Presses, 2001 Edition

The Pushcart Prize XXV: Best of the Small Presses, 2001 Edition

by The Pushcart Prize Editors

The quarter-century edition of a "distinguished annual literary event" (Anne Tyler, New York Times Book Review ). For its twenty-fifth year, The Pushcart Prize surpasses itself with a stunning presentation of new and celebrated authors. Over sixty stories, essays, and poems appear in this landmark edition, picked from more than 5,000 nominations. Over the years more than 400 presses have been honored with... (more)

Rock Springs (Vintage Contemporaries)

by Richard Ford

In these ten stories, Ford mines literary gold from the wind-scrubbed landscape of the American West--and from the guarded hopes and gnawing loneliness of the people who live there. Rock Springs is a masterpiece of taut narration, cleanly chiseled prose, and empathy so generous that it feels like a kind of grace. "Beautifully imagined and crafted stories, by turns heartrending and wickedly funny; and just plain... (more)

Mendocino and Other Stories (Vintage Contemporaries)

Mendocino and Other Stories (Vintage Contemporaries)

by Ann Packer

With humor, wisdom and tenderness, Ann Packer offers ten short stories about women and men--wives and husbands, sisters and brothers, daughters, sons, mothers, fathers, friends, and lovers--who discover that life's greatest surprises may be found in that which is most familiar. In the title story, on the anniversary of their father's suicide a young woman discovers that her brother may have found a "reason for... (more)

Waltzing the Cat

by Pam Houston

Relationships and extreme adventures collide with deadpan humor and female wisdom in Pam Houston's transcendent follow-up to her bestselling Cowboys Are My Weakness. Through eleven interlinked stories, we follow roving photographer Lucy O'Rourke as she survives a home life where her parents engage in rather peculiar feeding rites for the family cat in a "title story that deserves to be anthologized into... (more)

Same Place, Same Things

by Tim Gautreaux

In this collection of stories, Tim Gautreaux chronicles the lives of "ordinary" people who face extraordinary circumstances and decisions: a farmer faced with the prospect of raising his infant granddaughter; a young man who falls in love with a voice on the radio; a train engineer who causes a colossal disaster. In stories filled with heart and humor, event and consequence, the customs and culture of Louisiana... (more)

Welding With Children

by Tim Gautreaux

A master storyteller's triumphant, moving collection about lost souls, found love, and rediscovered tradition Tim Gautreaux returns to the form that won him his first fans, with tales of family, sin, and redemption: from a man who realizes his grandchildren are growing up without any sense of right or wrong, and he's to blame; to a camera repairman who uncovers a young woman's secret in the undeveloped film she... (more)

The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales (Oxford Books of Prose)

The Oxford Book of Modern Fairy Tales (Oxford Books of Prose)

by Alison Lurie

The stories of magic and transformation that we call fairy tales are one of the oldest known forms of literature, and also one of the most popular and enduring. While most people think of the fairy tale as having come into existence almost magically long ago, they are in fact still being created. And while they are principally directed to children and have child protagonists, these modern fairy tales, like the... (more)

Troublemakers

by John McNally

Winner of the 2000 John Simmons Short Fiction Award Troublemakers is an often hilarious, sometimes frightening, occasionally off-the-wall collection of stories about men living on the edge. From the streets of Chicago's southwest side to the rural roads of Nebraska to the small towns of southern Illinois, these men tread a very fine line between right and wrong, love and hate, humor and horror. Each... (more)

Angel on the Roof

by Russell Banks

With The Angel on the Roof, Russell Banks offers readers an astonishing collection of thirty years of his short fiction, revised especially for this volume and highlighted by the inclusion of nine new stories that are among the finest he has ever written. As is characteristic of all of Bank's works, these stories resonate with irony and compassion, honesty and insight, extending into the vast territory of the... (more)

Monkeys (Vintage Contemporaries)

by Susan Minot

NATIONAL BESTSELLER In this luminous story of family life--the first novel by Susan Minot, author of the highly acclaimed Evening --the seven Vincent children follow their Catholic mother to Mass and spend Thanksgiving with their father's aging parents who come from a world of New England priviledge. As they grow older, they meet with the perplexing lives of adults. Susan Minot writes with delicacy and a... (more)

The Pushcart Prize XXVIII: Best of the Small Presses, 2004 Edition

The Pushcart Prize XXVIII: Best of the Small Presses, 2004 Edition

by The Pushcart Prize Editors

The Pushcart Prize XXVII continues as a testament to the flourishing of American literature in our small presses. Edited with the assistance of over 200 distinguished contributing editors—including Philip Levine, Rick Bass, Rosellen Brown, Joyce Carol Oates, Billy Collins, and Stephen Dunn—this edition includes over sixty stories, essays, and poems from scores of little magazines and small presses, both print and... (more)

Rope Burns: Stories from the Corner

by F. X. Toole

Seventy-year-old F.X. Toole has exploded onto the literary scene with this astonishing first collection of stories drawn from his own experiences in boxing. In these powerful and moving tales, he reveals a complex web of athletes, trainers, and promoters and their extended families, all players in an unforgiving business where victory, like defeat, comes at a dark and painful price. F. X. Toole breathes life into... (more)

Prize Stories 1999: The O. Henry Awards (Prize Stories (O Henry Awards))

Prize Stories 1999: The O. Henry Awards (Prize Stories (O Henry Awards))

by Larry Dark

The seventy-ninth anniversary of this annual collection of short stories "widely regarded as the nation's most prestigious awards for short fiction." ( The Atlantic Monthly ). Edited and with an introduction by Larry Dark 1999 Top-Prize Selection Jury: Sherman Alexie, Stephen King, Lorrie Moore Established in 1918 as a memorial to O.Henry, this esteemed annual collection has presented a remarkable collection of... (more)

Best New American Voices 2000 (Best New American Voices)

Best New American Voices 2000 (Best New American Voices)

by John Kulka, Natalie Danford

Culled from over one hundred prestigious writing programs around the United States and Canada, Best New American Voices 2000 offers a remarkable panoply of writing talent that showcases the literary stars of tomorrow. Included here are twenty of the finest stories to come out of such programs as Breadloaf, the Sewanee Conference, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the University of Iowa, and the PEN/Prison Writing... (more)

The House on Mango Street

by Sandra Cisneros

Told in a series of vignettes stunning for their eloquence, The House on Mango Street is Sandra Cisneros's greatly admired novel of a young girl growing up in the Latino section of Chicago. Acclaimed by critics, beloved by children, their parents and grandparents, taught everywhere from inner-city grade schools to universities across the country, and translated all over the world, it has entered the canon of... (more)

Like Life (Vintage Contemporaries)

by Lorrie Moore

In Like Life ’s eight exquisite stories, Lorrie Moore’s characters stumble through their daily existence. These men and women, unsettled and adrift and often frightened, can’t quite understand how they arrived at their present situations. Harry has been reworking a play for years in his apartment near Times Square in New York. Jane is biding her time at a cheese shop in a Midwest mall. Dennis, unhappily... (more)

Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (Vintage Contemporaries (Paperback))

Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories (Vintage Contemporaries (Paperback))

by Sandra Cisneros

A collection of stories, whose characters give voice to the vibrant and varied life on both sides of the Mexican border. The women in these stories offer tales of pure discovery, filled with moments of infinite and intimate wisdom.

Reasons to Live: Stories by

by Amy Hempel

Hempel's now-classic collection of short fiction is peopled by complex characters who have discovered that their safety nets are not dependable and who must now learn to balance on the threads of wit, irony, and spirit.

Tumble Home: A Novella and Short Stories

Tumble Home: A Novella and Short Stories

by Amy Hempel

Long admired for her "tough-minded, original, and fully felt" short stories ("The New York Times Book Review"), Hempel takes her art to new heights in her first remarkable novella--as well as in her latest collection of stories that comment on life's ironies with decidedly offbeat intelligence.

Shelfari Book Activity

Tags: contemporary short stories

by Denis Johnson

by The Pushcart Prize Editors

by Richard Ford

by Ann Packer

by Pam Houston

by Tim Gautreaux

by Tim Gautreaux

by Alison Lurie

by John McNally

by Russell Banks

by Susan Minot

by The Pushcart Prize Editors

by F. X. Toole

by Larry Dark

by John Kulka, Natalie Danford

by Sandra Cisneros

by Lorrie Moore

by Sandra Cisneros

by Amy Hempel

by Amy Hempel