Short Stories / English literature

Dictionary Stories

by Jez Burrows

"Dictionary Stories isn’t just a book for word nerds, but for anyone for whom language and story matter. Everybody will find themselves thoroughly in love with this book."  —Kory Stamper, editor for Merriam-Webster,...

Beautiful Days

by Joyce Carol Oates

A new collection of thirteen mesmerizing stories by American master Joyce Carol Oates, including the 2017 Pushcart Prize–winning “Undocumented Alien”

The diverse stories of Beautiful Days, Joyce Carol Oates...

We Are Taking Only What We Need

by Stephanie Powell Watts

In these powerfully rendered, prizewinning stories, working-class African Americans across the South strive for meaning and search for direction in lives shaped by forces beyond their control

The ten stories...

Points North

by Howard Frank Mosher

The final book by one of America’s most treasured writers.

Upon his passing in January 2017, Howard Frank Mosher was recognized as one of America’s most acclaimed writers. His fiction set in the world of...

Watch With Me

by Wendell Berry

In these newly reissued stories, Wendell Berry transports readers to Port William, Kentucky, the fictional community he’s lovingly created across multiple novels, stories, and poems

Never has Berry seemingly...

Make Way for Her

by Katie Cortese

A girl afflicted with pyrokinesis tries to control her fire-starting long enough to go to a dance with a boy she likes. A woman trapped in a stalled marriage is excited by an alluring ex-con who enrolls in her...

The Vanishing Princess

by Jenny Diski

The only story collection from the beloved Jenny Diski—darkly funny, subversive, sexy, and eccentric tales from one of the most original and intelligent voices of our time

“Mordant and talon-sharp.” —Dwight...

Debriefing

by Susan Sontag

A collection of one of our most powerful intellectual’s short fiction

Debriefing collects all of Susan Sontag’s shorter fiction, a form she turned to intermittently throughout her writing life. The book ranges...

A Selfie as Big as the Ritz

by Lara Williams

“Lara Williams makes a bold debut with this razor-sharp, magnificently humane story collection.” —Entertainment Weekly

She finds herself single, twenty-nine, partially-employed, and about a half a stone...

He Played For His Wife And Other Stories

by Anthony Holden & Natalie Galustian

He Played For His Wife…And Other Stories continues a rich tradition of fictional writing on one of the world’s greatest games.

A ghost at the table, a heads-up with Shakespeare, a high stakes stick-up,...

Fresh Complaint

by Jeffrey Eugenides

The first collection of short fiction from the Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jeffrey Eugenides

Jeffrey Eugenides’s bestselling novels have shown him to be an astute observer of the crises of adolescence, self-discovery,...

Her Body and Other Parties

John Leonard Award 2017

by Carmen Maria Machado

Finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction

“[These stories] vibrate with originality, queerness, sensuality and the strange.”—Roxane Gay

“In these formally brilliant and emotionally charged tales,...

The Relive Box and Other Stories

by T.C. Boyle

While T.C. Boyle is known as one of our greatest American novelists, he is also an acknowledged master of the short story and is perhaps at his funniest, his most moving, and his most surprising in the short...

What Can You Do?

by Cynthia Flood

In these twelve stories that unfold over a few hours or a weekend or five decades, adults deceive themselves about their motives — greed, desire for control, jealousy, fear, ambition. With unflinching realism,...

The Mountain: Stories

by Paul Yoon

A Best Books of 2017 Selection by * NPR * Publishers Weekly * Library Journal * Southern Living *

From Paul Yoon, the award-winning and critically acclaimed author of Once the Shore and Snow Hunters, comes a...

That Was a Shiver, and Other Stories

by James Kelman

A trucker passes through a town he used to know and a local tries to sell him his sister; a couple put their children to bed and hear a loud scratching at the wall; a Principal and his associate examine the...

Madame Zero

by Sarah Hall

From one of the most accomplished British writers working today, the Man Booker Prize-shortlisted author of The Wolf Border, comes a unique and arresting collection of short fiction that is both disturbing and...

The Dark Dark

by Samantha hunt

A Best Book of the Year: NPR, Vogue, The Huffington Post, The Chicago Review of Books, The National Post, Electric Literature, Kirkus

“Wields such a subtle and alien power . . . Wonderfully spooky.” —Jia...

The Graybar Hotel: Stories

by Curtis Dawkins

In this stunning debut collection, Curtis Dawkins, an MFA graduate and convicted murderer serving life without parole, takes us inside the worlds of prison and prisoners with stories that dazzle with their humor...

Continent

by Jim Crace

Jim Crace’s imaginative first book, seven linked stories, now available in a deluxe paperback edition in Ecco’s The Art of the Story Series

“Makes us see our own world more clearly . . . brilliant, provocative...