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Excellent anthology. If you like short stories, get this book! I didn't see any "misses" in the quality. Consistently good.
Pretty good selection. B A Johnston's Caiman is poignant and terse and just perfect, but there are others that are pretty good also.
Overall, I liked these stories but really thought the best ones started with Marjorie Kemper's "Discovered America". Tim Gautreaux is always a pleasure to read, as well.
This was hit or miss, but I hope it widens the audience for the always excellent stories of Ann Pancake, Kevin Wilson, and Wells Tower. I also look forward to reading more by Emily Quinlan.
adam atlas is good. but my god these stories are super sad, super graphic, some gems, but cut you like broken glass. the kind that hurts. amy hempel, you're one sick puppy, which is a good thing i guess, keep up the good work. now i gotta go get a bandaid.
The entire collection is deserving of a read. Other reviews have selected and explained their reasons for highlighting favorite stories and I have one as well.Nightblooming by Kenneth Calhoun deserves extra kudos for his choice of narrator, characters and plot. An outsider, with only one thing in common with the group,makes for the perfect narrator. He stands aloof from the plot at times and other times the plot forces him into the group interaction. A masterful tale of lining up to die. Old age...
I ended up skipping most of the stories :(.
This is a fantastic collection of short stories from some of America's most prestigious literary journals and some of it's most talented writers, some famous, some less well known. Highly recommended. I'll be looking for other editions in the series.
Zomg yum yum yum. I am now officially committed to reading this series every year. This is a particularly good collection. I try to get rid of books after I have read them, but I will be hanging on to this book.
Really loved this, becoming a big Ron Rash fan, "Ascent" was fantastic. This collection often gets overlooked, but it shouldn't. Three from this collection made it into the BASS as well.
I read short stories because they are: A) short and B) that's all I can handle at the end of a long fricking day sometimes, OK, Hoss? So get off my back. NSFTS is a mixed bag; there seems to be a lot of misery in this "New South" (located somewhere outside Saginaw, MI, BTW). Swamps, miscarriages, arsonists, floods, angry stupid people, angry stupid teenagers, and really poor drivers. Like many contemporary short stories, these often go nowhere. And what they lack in movement, growth, and evoluti...
a mix, of course. typical southern themes, but all well done. Interesting - added a statement from each author about what inspired each story.
Notes for myself (not really a review, sorry folks) - WORTH REREADINGBrad Watson "Noon" "Visitation"Danielle Evans "Someone Ought to Tell Her There's Nowhere To Go" (Miley Cyrus, Iraqi vet, mall scheme)Megan Mayhew Bergman "The Cow That Milked Herself" (veterinarians, pregnancy)Emily Quinlan "The Green Belt" (party gone bad - quick, smart)Stepehn Marion "The Coldest Night of the Twentieth Century" (prison outbreak, Lysol drunk)Padgett Powell "Cry For Help From France" (self-explanatory)Kenneth C...
If you are not reading this annual publication, there is something seriously wrong with you! The beauty of the short story is that it's short -- you can dip into this volume of great fiction by writers with a Southern connection at will. Read the last one first, skip around! Whatever. Just read and enjoy some of the best writing from 2010. Once you start, you'll find it hard to stop, and yet you'll want to pause to think on what you just read before jumping into the next selection. Some stories
A solid collection of stories make up the 25th annual version of this anthology. Highlights include Kenneth Calhoun's NIGHTBLOOMING Aaron Gwyn's DRIVE, and Megan Mayhew Bergman's THE COW THAT MILKED HERSELF. I read this more than five years after they were first published, but unlike some Best Of collections, all of these stories sit in a Southern state of timelessness that is well worth your attention today.
Liked this collection-- more than Best American and probably more than Pen/O'Henry... several repeats from those anthologies in here. Liked "Discovered America" and "This Trembling Earth" and "Nightblooming". And definitely NOT "Drive". Story stories with nothing to prove.
Read for the Duke Libraries bookclub. I liked most of the stories, though they tended toward the dark and depressing.
I loved this collection. My favorite short stories were the deep and depressing pieces like Evans “Someone Ought To Tell Her There’s Nowhere To Go” and Pederson’s “Small and Heavy World.” One of the lessons I learned while reading these short stories is the importance of character development. Especially when writing or reading a short story, the character needs to stand out,to grow, or to fall. For example, in Rash’s “The Ascent” Jared, a young boy of 10 realizes his parents are addicted to met...
Reading from these annual collections of short stories from Southern writers is a year-long delight. The book makes, not only good reading for yourself, but a good present or a night stand book in a guest room.One of the best stories is Fish Story by Rick Bragg.
