Growing up in an intellectual household with a New Yorker subscription, I became a fan of the short story early on, with J.D. Salinger, Ann Beattie, and Raymond Carver forming a baseline of personal taste and inspiration. I especially love stories that resonate with my own sense of yearning for life and love—and the deep losses that inevitably come our way. Decades of reading would pass before I began writing stories myself, and I’m thrilled to have a chance to recommend these moving and beautifully written collections.
I absolutely loved King’s novel Writers & Lovers, and her story collection did not disappoint! Here, too, are the struggles of writers—to find the right words and something meaningful from loss.
There’s nothing typical in King’s diverse array of characters, and her intimate portrayal of their desires—their strengths and failings, their glimmers of hope as they brave new starts—drew me in and kept me turning the pages.
"Five Tuesdays in Winter moved me, inspired me, thrilled me. It filled up every chamber of my heart. I loved this book." —Ann Patchett
By the award-winning, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers and Euphoria comes a masterful new collection of short stories
Lily King, one of the most "brilliant" (New York Times Book Review), "wildly talented" (Chicago Tribune), and treasured authors of contemporary fiction, returns after her recent bestselling novels with Five Tuesdays in Winter, her first book of short fiction.
Told in the intimate voices of complex, endearing characters, Five Tuesdays in Winter intriguingly subverts…
I’m a big fan of stories about people striving for creative expression and the ups and downs that accompany that path, even better when that desire is tangled up in and complicated by love—or picking oneself up after catastrophe.
I was deeply moved by the emotional richness and psychological complexity that Taylor achieves. I read this book when it first came out in 2021, but I still sometimes think about the love triangle that carries across some of these linked stories between a graduate student in mathematics and a pair of dancers in an open relationship.
NAMED A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY USA TODAY, NPR, VULTURE, MARIE CLAIRE, THE TIMES OF LONDON, GOOD HOUSEKEEPING, AND PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A group portrait of young adults enmeshed in desire and violence, a hotly charged, deeply satisfying new work of fiction from the author of Booker Prize finalist Real Life
In the series of linked stories at the heart of Filthy Animals, set among young creatives in the American Midwest, a young man treads delicate emotional waters as he navigates a series of sexually…
Ophelia, a professor of Dante, is stricken when she discovers that her husband Andy has been cheating on her with a winsome colleague. What follows is Ophelia’s figurative descent into hell as she obsessively tracks her subjects, performs surveillance in her beat-up Volvo, and moves into the property next door…
This is a collection after my own heart as a reader and writer. I love how tenderly Porter portrays his characters—people so much like ones I’ve known—as they try to come to terms with who they’ve become and who they used to be.
I felt like these stories spoke directly to the way I often find myself tripping through time, mourning friendships or romantic relationships that were suddenly cut short, and others that simply faded over time.
A collection of stories that trace the threads of loss and displacement running through all our lives, by the acclaimed, award-winning author of The Theory of Light and Matter
“What a beautiful book about the profound mystery of ordinary life.” —Alix Ohlin, author of We Want What We Want
A husband and wife hear a mysterious bump in the night. A father mourns the closeness he has lost with his son. A friendship with a married couple turns into a dangerous codependency. With gorgeous sensitivity, assurance, and a propulsive sense of menace, these stories center on disappearances both literal and…
Alcott’s prose is stunning, and I found these stories haunting in the best possible way. Her vivid descriptions of place add authenticity to these stories of women seeking a modicum of happiness in their struggle for personal and financial freedom. To pick up the pieces, or finally be rid of what’s best left behind. For me, every complicated relationship, every aspiration and self-destructive choice, rang true.
A professor finds a photograph of her deceased mother in a compromising position on the wall of a museum. A twenty-something's lucrative remote work sparks paranoia and bigotry. A transplant to a new city must make a choice about who she trusts when her partner reveals a violent history. The summer after her divorce from an older man, an exiled painter's former friends grapple with rumors that she attempted to pass as a teenager.
In this long-awaited debut collection, Kathleen Alcott turns her skills as a stylist on the unfreedoms of American life-as well as the guilt that stalks those…
One summer night in a small prairie city, 18-year-old Gabriel Reece accidentally outs himself to his redneck brother Colin, flees on his motorcycle, and gets struck by lightning on his way out of town.
He’s strangely fine, walking away from his melted pile of bike without a scratch. There’s no…
I’ve been a fan of Tessa Hadley’s for years and tore through this book from 2023. There’s so much humor and surprise in these stories. And I loved the vivid details and painfully sharp contrast between what her characters hope for and what they wind up with in the aftermath of both minor and major events.
Heartbreaking tales of everyday life, of family and romantic relationships, filled with nuanced gestures, fateful misunderstandings, and raw emotion. I couldn’t ask for more from a story collection.
Sunday Times bestseller Tessa Hadley explores the big consequences of small events in this new collection
'You've either got it or you haven't. Hadley's got it' FINANCIAL TIMES
Heloise's father died in a car crash when she was a little girl; at a dinner party in her forties, she meets someone connected to that long-ago tragedy. Janey's bohemian mother plans to marry a man close to Janey's own age - everything changes when an accident interrupts the wedding party. A daughter caring for her elderly mother during the pandemic becomes obsessed with the woman next door; in the wake of…
Contemporary characters strive for new beginnings—or to recapture the past—in this collection of linked short stories. A coke-fueled night with a photographer costs a young woman her job in the display department of Bloomingdale’s but holds a hidden promise. A sculptor tries to resurrect his relationship with an old flame on the same day her best friend is undergoing a bone marrow transplant. An aspiring actress drifts from house-sit to house-sit until an armed robbery at the restaurant where she works makes her question a lifelong pattern of impermanence.
Moody, elegiac, and full of longing, with ricocheting themes of desire and loss, these stories are steeped in the highs and lows inherent in the pursuit of love and creative expression.
Unsettled weather has caused life-threatening rip currents to sprout up seemingly at random in the usually tranquil sea around Grand Cayman. Despite posted warnings to stay out of the surf, several women lose their life when caught in the turbulent waters. Fin attempts some dangerous rescues, and nearly loses her…
Four sisters in hiding. A grand duchess in disguise. Dark family secrets revealed. An alternate future for the Romanovs from Jennifer Laam, author of The Secret Daughter Of The Tsar.
With her parents and brother missing and presumed dead, former Grand Duchess Olga Romanova must keep her younger sisters…
