This site is BrowseAloud enabled
Text size
Small Medium Large
Contrast
Default Black on white Yellow on black
More help with accessibility
Home > Books and reading > Short stories > Booklists
Share

American short story collections

Ten American short story collections we love.

  • The Dead Fish Museum

    The Dead Fish Museum

    by Charles D'Ambrosio
    Knopf US
    The range and depth of the stories in The Dead Fish Museum is matched only by the attention to detail which D'Ambrosio has invested in every line. Here are multi-layered tales of masculinity, botched relationships, psychological breakdown, sexual desire and...
    Read about 'The Dead Fish Museum'
  • One More Year

    One More Year

    by Sana Krasikov
    Portobello Books
    A numbing, almost debilitating melancholia infects the exiled, as Sana Krasikov shows in this haunting debut collection.
    Read about 'One More Year'
  • Unaccustomed Earth

    Unaccustomed Earth

    by Jhumpa Lahiri
    Bloomsbury
    In Jhumpa Lahiri's beautifully crafted stories about Bengali families in America, the sense of cultural and emotional dislocation is never far from the surface.
    Read about 'Unaccustomed Earth'
  • Dead Girls

    Dead Girls

    by Nancy Lee
    Faber
    Loosely linked by a man's conviction for the murder of a number of prostitutes, Lee's stories all have a dark undercurrent of despondency running through them: the fumblings of teenage sex; recreational drug use gone wrong; fractured relationships between parents...
    Read about 'Dead Girls'
  • Gallatin Canyon

    Gallatin Canyon

    by Thomas McGuane
    Vintage
    Thomas McGuane is a very funny writer, but the almost desperate humour in his stories is leavened by a sense of deep loneliness.
    Read about 'Gallatin Canyon'
  • The Secret Goldfish

    The Secret Goldfish

    by David Means
    Harper Perennial
    This collection opens with a story about a man who has been repeatedly struck by lightning and is waiting for a final blast to finish him off for good.
    Read about 'The Secret Goldfish'
  • How to Breathe Underwater

    How to Breathe Underwater

    by Julie Orringer
    Penguin
    'Outstanding'; 'unbelievably good'; 'pitch perfect'; clear, cool and enticing'; 'subtle and multi-layered': these are just some of the justified reactions to Julie Orringer's first collection of short stories.
    Read about 'How to Breathe Underwater'
  • Last Night: Stories

    Last Night: Stories

    by James Salter
    Picador
    In some ways the ten disturbing, compelling stories in Last Night are old-fashioned; men are manly, women are beautiful, and each one comes with a killer twist. Yet the stories' central themes - betrayal and the way it almost carelessly...
    Read about 'Last Night: Stories'
  • Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

    Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned

    by Wells Tower
    Granta Books
    Tower has an uncanny and slightly alarming gift for bringing society's downbeats to our appalled attention. Also like Pollock, he roots these unfortunates in the small, tortured worlds of their relationships, from which, it seems, there is little chance of...
    Read about 'Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned'
  • The Maples Stories

    The Maples Stories

    by John Updike
    Everymans Library
    Written over a period of more than twenty years, John Updike's stories about Richard and Joan Maple and their family sit handsomely together in this beautiful little volume.
    Read about 'The Maples Stories'