When it comes to short stories, I have a particular like. I tend to enjoy stories that are funny, and that have a plot arc. Those stories that are meditative and in which not much happens don't do much for me.As one would imagine, the latest volume of Best American Short Stories (a series that goes back over thirty years) has some stories that I thought were wonderful and some that I thought were ho-hum, and one that I could not make heads or tails of. I give guest editor Richard Russo credit fo...

I adore the Best American Short Stories series. The short story is a difficult form, and I have such respect for writers who can carry it off. The short story is basically the middle child of writing. Longer than the poem, which can contain a flash of brilliance or insight and stand on its own, but shorter than the novel which can create a backstory and layers of conflict and self-discovery that the characters must work through. At it's worst, the short story can be perfectly awful - boring or s...

I read this a number of years ago and my biggest takeaway then was the foreword by Richard Russo. I don't always like the selections the visiting editors pick in these anthologies, but Russo did a terrific job and his forward about the purpose of writing was a significant essay for me on the subject.So I revisited this, I had to purchase it again, but the reason I did was that I did not recall any of the stories, just the foreword. I wrote a blog entry about it and referenced it online and notic...

This is the first collection of Best American Short Stories that I have read, and I was pretty disappointed. I really enjoyed some of the stories, specifically "The Seagull Army Descends on Strong Beach" by Karen Russell and "The Cowboy Tango" by Maggie Shipstead. Some of the stories in this collection do have heart, but the majority lack originality, vision, and even authenticity. Maybe it's a problem with the editor of this edition, but it does not make me feel very optimistic about the state

Always a weird experience reading a BASS anthology: so many solid stories, and yet such narrow bandwidth. It's like 20 stories all written by people who pretty much share exactly the same idea of what a short story can/should be. Hope you like realism, 'cause that's what you're getting! Nevertheless: good stories!Favorites:"Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events" by Kevin Moffett (bad title but great story!)"The Cowboy Tango" by Maggie Shipstead (left me sobbing)"The Hollow" by James Lasdun...

The Best American Short Stories series is for better or worse directed towards a certain type of reader. The stories contained in the 2010 collection skew decisively towards those readers who enjoy literary fiction over genre based fiction. By the same hand, I can’t say that readers of literary fiction will fall head over heels in love with this collection either. As a reader, I personally am looking for an emotional experience that sticks with me, even after I’ve put the book aside and most of

I'm going to refrain from assigning any stars to a collection I was fortunate enough to be a part of; and although there were so many amazing stories by writers I'd never encountered before (and some old favorites), it would probably be impolitic to list those without commenting on every single other story in the collection... So I won't do any of that. What I WOULD like to do is take an informal survey. For those of you who've read Maggie Shipstead's amazing story "The Cowboy Tango": If someone...

Oh gosh, I finished this so long ago I'm no longer sure of the date! Why did I leave this loose end for so long? Because there was one story in it that gripped me so strongly I told my husband "You have got to read this." In characteristic (his reading tastes are different than mine) yet uncharacteristic (he often takes my suggestions as demands) fashion, he never got around to it, but now that I am home to the two boxes of books I shipped from Texas to California (thanks, Half-Price Books!), I

Some of my favorites:"My Last Attempt to Explain What Happened with the Lion Tamer" - My favorite. It's told in second person which is so hard to do well. It's about a clown in a traveling circus who falls in love with the new trapeze artist, who has an affair with the lion tamer. A laugh-out-loud love triangle that is superbly written."Painted Ocean, Painted Ship" - My next favorite. A beautiful, successful college professor and her ridiculous self-doubt and inability to be happy with her life

Truly outstanding collection - one of the best ever. The book begins with one sotry about a psychiatrist who loses a poker game to a former patient, another about a deaf girl who meets a photographer who felt guilty about how his father abused his deaf mother, and a third about two cousins – a younger one who loved animals but had no money and an older one who became a lawyer but never found love in his life like the younger one. There is a sotry (Safari) by Jennifer Egan, who just won the Pulit...

I picked this book up from the library because a friend of mine loved Richard Russo's Empire Falls, and I figured reading his selection of 2010's best American stories would give me an idea of his sensibilities. Well, he's a bit of a downer.Which isn't to say he chose poorly. Many of the stories here are powerful and captivating - I'd flip the pages and suddenly find myself at the end, hungering for more. It's only detriment is that many of the stories present sad situations that only dig themse...

I thought this collection would be worth the read, but it really wasn't. Some stories are OK. They can pull you in, but some stories crumble halfway through. After I read the first story, Steve Almond's "Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets Punched", I thought the stories would get better, but they didn't, except for a few. Two stories I really liked was "The Laugh" by Tea Obreht and "The Cowboy Tango" by Maggie Shipstead. One story I particularly disliked (and ended up skipping) was Jim Shepard's "The Ne...

I devoured this book. All the rules I've been studying, all the presumed intelligentsia and invisible gatekeepers I've been cowering under have been pushed aside, fictionalized, for what I've learned from these stories. Established writers and emerging writers alike are represented in this annual collection of short fiction, each with a quick contributor bio and first account on how and why said story came to be. Here lies the lesson. Several of the authors - established at that - confessed said...

I always look forward, every year, to the latest edition of The Best American Short Stories. It is the mother load of all anthologies, the place to be, the Oscars for the literary short form, the hub of emerging stars and infamous masters. In this edition, Richard Russo has done, overall, a marvelous job of selecting truly gripping stories, ones that stick with you, gnaw at you long after you've read them. Most of the selections are truly stellar, with the top two stories--"Cowboy Tango," by Mar...

A hit or miss collection, but there were a number of 5's that just blew me away, including:Donkey Greedy, Donkey Gets PunchedSomeone Ought to Tell Her There's Nowhere to GoDelicate Edible Birds Painted Ocean, Painted ShipFurther Interpretation of Real-Life EventsAll BoyThere were a few other good ones, but the rest were fairly disappointing.I appreciated reading a story about a soldier returning from war (Someone Ought to Tell Her There's Nowhere to Go) that wasn't overly sentimental and didn't

I love this series...short stories are awesome. And these short stories are always incredible - so different from one another and so amazingly well-written. I especially loved:My last attempt to explain to you what happened with the lion tamer - Brendan MatthewsAll boy - Lori OstlundThe Netherland lives with water - Jim ShepardRaw water - Wells TowerOne of my favorite parts of this series is the section of Contributors' Notes at the back of the book. There is a (very) brief bio of each writer, a...

A great collection this year. My favorites, in no real order: "The Cowboy Tango" by Maggie Shipstead, "Painted Ocean, Painted Ship" by Rebecca Makkai, "All Boy" by Lori Ostlund. I was really disappointed by the Wells Tower story. I heard nothing but great stuff about him, and then the story was really overwritten. Also, it's too bad they had two different futuristic world-gets-flooded stories in close proximity. They were my two least favorites. But overall the best collection in a few years, my...

The Best American series, for those unfamiliar with the series, consists of a range of stories published in US and Canadian journals from the previous year. About a hundred of these are then read and selected by the guest editor, and, in this year’s case, Richard Russo did the choosing, selecting a final list of 20 stories, now collected in this volume. I found the stories in this volume exceptionally compelling and readable – with many being of the über-length variety, running to many pages, wi...

Five Favorites:1. The Valetudinarian by Joshua Ferris2. Delicate Edible Birds by Lauren Groff3. My Last Attempt to Explain to You What Happened with the Lion Tamer by Brendan Mathews4. Further Interpretations of Real-Life Events by Kevin Moffet5. The Ascent by Ron Rash