Anthologies are fun because you discover new authors. "Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned" by Wells Tower blew me away. "Sea Oak" by George Saunders also stuck with me. Also, I was briefly obsessed with the book's cover design.

Some good stories but mostly quirky shit. Which I like. They put me to sleep good.

There are four absolutely terrific stories in this book:"The Caretaker" by Anthony Doerr"When Mr. Pirazda Came to Dine" by Jhumpa Lahiri"Tiny, Smiling Daddy" by Mary Gaitskill"Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned" by Wells TowerSome of the contributions, although they don't fully succeed, are well worth reading:"Gentlemen's Agreement" by Mark Roth"Someone to Talk To" by Deborah Eisenberg"Sea Oak" by George Saunders"Field Events" by Rick Bass"X Number of Possibilities" by Joanna Scott"The Old Di...

This book is the literary equivalent of a wine tasting experience. Some wines I found myself spitting all over the wall, but some others were incredibly delicious, and made the whole experience worth it.Sea Oak by George Saunders. 5 stars. Just out-of-this-world wonderful story. Great balance of humour, social commentary and a sprinkle of magic. But mostly humour. Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned by Wells Tower. 4 stars. Vikings feeling the blues. Without the crass attention-grabbing "blood...

But the best was probably Field Events by Rick Bass.Thought I also liked Scarliotti and the Sinkhole and Anne Carson. But do we sometimes mistake inaccessibility for brilliance?

Brought this with me during my bookstore shift thinking, okay, Rachel, let's knock this out! Didn't happen. 3 stories from the finish and I have got some feelings to share. The authors I already knew (Gaitskill, Homes, Doerr, Richard) have exceptional examples of their work in this - Evenson's "Two Brothers" especially was a violent treat - so hats off to them. There's another third of authors I hadn't heard of whose work I immediately wanted more of, which is the true beauty of anthologies like...

This 2004 collection is notable because of the narrow slice of time from which it draws its selections. With just five exceptions - the oldest being a Diane Williams story from 1988 - these 29 stories were all published between 1997 and 2003. So that is Marcus laying down his marker for the primacy of the stories from these six years. What does Marcus find so exciting? What is the aesthetic driving his selections? In his strong introductory essay he asks what is the story's tactic of mattering,

(4.4/5.0) Even if many of these stories are unreadable, Ben Marcus is has become one of my literary heroes. He rallies for language and the unexpected and together, the best of these stories come off as real marvels– the worst, interesting studies in narrative failure.

This was an excellent short story anthology! Ben Marcus's introduction is fantastic and offers helpful and moving thoughts on the short story as a form. The stories he selected for this anthology are so wide-ranging, it's like a wine tasting of stories. There's something for everyone! It was so interesting to see the variety of styles presented here. Lots of amazing writing, and some stuff that just wasn't for me.Absolute favorites included:-Sea Oak by George Saunders (had read this one before)-...

Tourists stay in the city so on our trip to San Francisco we slept in Oakland. The friends we stayed with worked from home but still worked so Tian and I had a full day on our own to metro into the city to eat and shop. We had some pretty alright meals of pizza and smoothies in the morning but by late afternoon we were warming up and Tian especially was winding down. There's a bookstore I went into with my dad seven-ish years ago we dipped into to buy books. Tian bought one she'd heard of before...

When I finished this collection of thirty stories by as many authors, I almost decided not to review it because the very thought set my mind in a tailspin. How do you begin to sort out your reactions to such a cornucopia. Cornucopia isn’t even the appropriate word because the collection wasn’t entirely full of good things —about half-full at best, but then how can I have any certainty about the quality when I can't remember much of what I read. This review will be mainly relying on the ticks I p...

"The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories" was edited by Ben Marcus and was actually the first short story collection that I got for my Kindle, and I just got around to finishing it (shows how good I am about keeping up with things, huh?). It contains 29 stories by the authors listed on the cover. Some of the authors are famous and well-known, while others will be new discoveries for readers. It was published in 2004, before some of them became established. Wells Tower's story "Everything R...

I'll be teaching this anthology as my primary fiction text in an intro to creative writing course this fall. As far as introducing student who have had little exposure to contemporary fiction and also providing a myriad of examples for beginning writers to think about constructing stories, this is an excellent source. You get some more traditional methods (Jhumpa Lahiri, Mary Gaitskill) mixed with highly lyrical stories. the George Saunders, Brian Evenson, William and Rick Bass stories are likel...

I was given this a few years back and I actually think it's a pretty fantastic collection and I've gone on to read books by many of the authors in it. I saw a copy for cheap on the library sale rack and picked it up to pass along to a friend. I never really liked George Saunders until I read SeaOak in here which is so funny and sad. And also way big ups to Mathew Derby, that story and the collection that it's from are fantastic. Even A.M. Homes, who I get the feeling kind of drops the ball with

So I had to read a few of these short stories for a class and decided "eh, why not, I'll read them all." I was both pleased and displeased with this decision. I really loved a few short stories in this collection, but honestly for the most part I felt like they were trying too hard to be *unique* and *thought-provoking* and *literary* that they just came across as grotesque or stupid and uggghhh. I hated that. The only reason this book is 3 stars is for the few stories in here that were, like, l...

Brilliant selection of stories! You cannot miss with this one!

My favorites in this anthology were: “The Caretaker” by Anthony Doerr; “I’m Slavering” by Sam Lipsyte; “The Paperhanger” by William Gay; “Two Brothers” by Brian Evenson; “Tiny, Smiling Daddy” by Mary Gaitskill; “Someone To Talk To” by Deborah Eisenberg; and “Field Events” by Rick Bass.

Very disappointing collection. No surprises - the short story authors that I already knew were great had great stories (William Gay, using probably the most anthologized story in recent history, "The Paperhanger", A.M. Holmes, George Saunders) while more than 3/4 of the book's stories are limp and uninteresting. I did learn of one author that is new to me, though - Lydia Davis. Her story, "The Old Dictionary", all of 2.5 pages long, is *amazing*.

This was a really weak collection.Stand-outs:"Tiny, Smiling Daddy" by Mary Gaitskill (about a father/daughter relationship)"X Number of Possibilites" by Joanna Scott (which I enjoyed for the beautiful, tight language of the prose)"Short Talks" by Anne Carson (such poetry!)"Letters to Wendy's" by Joe Wenderoth (this is a really humorous, absurd piece)"The Caretaker" by Anthony Doerr (one of the longest in the collection, but it held me until the end)One reviewer has mentioned the phrase "navel-ga...