Presents twenty of the best works of short fiction of the past year from a variety of acclaimed sources.

New York Times–bestselling author: Pub owner Maura Donovan tests the bonds of love and family when murder strikes County Cork in this charming, atmospheric Irish mystery
Maura Donovan hasn’t seen her mother for over twenty years, so when she suddenly shows up in Maura’s pub, Maura’s not sure what to expect. Her mother has moved back home and has taken a position working with the new owners of the Crann...

"An electrifying first collection from one of the most exciting short story writers of our time. Ottessa Moshfegh's debut novel Eileen was one of the literary events of 2015. Garlanded with critical acclaim, it was named a book of the year by The Washington Post and the San Francisco Chronicle, nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award, short-listed for the Man Booker Prize, and won the PEN/Hemingway Award for debut fiction. But as many critics...

Collects forty short stories published between 1915 and 2015, from writers that include Ernest Hemingway, John Updike, and Alice Munro that exemplify their era and stand the test of time.

A collection of the year's best stories selected by celebrated two-time National Book Award winner Jesmyn Ward

In her introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2021, guest editor Jesmyn Ward says that the best fiction offers the reader a "sense of repair." The stories in this year's collection accomplish just that, immersing the reader in powerfully imagined worlds and allowing them to bring some of that power into their own

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"The book opens with a woman, naked except for her high-heeled shoes, seated in front of the window in an apartment she cannot, on her own, afford. In this exquisitely tense narrative reimagining of Edward Hopper's Eleven A.M., 1926, the reader enters the minds of both the woman and her married lover, each consumed by alternating thoughts of disgust and arousal, as he rushes, amorously, murderously, to her door. In "The Long-Legged Girl," an aging,...

"There's only one solution for a nasty case of writer's block, and that's murder. Specifically, that of one Mercy McCabe, a stunning SoHo art dealer who was once our Latina narrator's rival for the scrumptious Bebe. When she discovers that McCabe has squandered Bebe's affections after stealing her away, revenge is not enough: McCabe must confess her guilt, sentence herself, and beg for her own execution, Soviet-style. In the all-too-terrifyingly-familiar...

Presents a selection of the best works of short fiction of the past year from a variety of acclaimed sources.

"The O. Henry Prize Stories 2015 gathers twenty of the best short stories of the year, selected from thousands published in literary magazines. The winning stories span the globe - from the glamorous Riviera to an Eastern European shtetl, from a Native American reservation to a tiny village in Thailand. But their characters are universally recognizable and utterly compelling, whether they are ex-pats in Africa, migrant workers crossing the Mexican...

Presents twenty of the best works of short fiction of the past year from a variety of acclaimed sources.