First published 2006
This comprehensive anthology brings together sixty short stories that span over a century of literary achievement. The collection opens with Sherwood Anderson's exploration of small town mysteries and extends through contemporary voices like Tobias Wolff and Amy Tan. Readers encounter James Joyce's paralyzed Dubliners, Flannery O'Connor's troubled Southern families, and Raymond Carver's blue collar struggles. The volume includes canonical works like Kafka's "Metamorphosis," Hemingway's "Hills Like White Elephants," and Joyce's "The Dead" alongside stories by Baldwin, Chopin, Faulkner, and Alice Walker. Each story demonstrates the form's power to capture pivotal moments when characters face moral choices, unexpected revelations, or life changing encounters. The anthology also features critical essays and author interviews that illuminate the craft behind these narratives, making it both a reading experience and a study of how writers approach their art.
Genres: fiction, short-stories, literary-fiction, anthologies, 20th-century, 21st-century
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: found-family, life-changing-events, moral-dilemmas
Setting: Dubliners, Southern
Period: 20th-century, 21st-century
929 pages · Paperback · W W Norton & Co Inc