The Best Short Story Collections Of All-Time
“What are the best Short Story Collections Of All-Time??” We looked at 382 of the top books, aggregating and ranking them so we could answer that very question!
The top 25 titles, all appearing on 3 or more “Best Short Story” book lists, are ranked below by how many times they appear. The remaining 350+ books, as well as the lists we used, are in alphabetical order on the bottom of the page.
Happy Scrolling!
Top 25 Short Story Collections
25 .) 20th Century Ghosts by Joe Hill
Lists It Appears On:
- Av Club
- Goodreads
- Long Beach Public Library
“Imogene is young, beautiful . . . and dead, waiting in the Rosebud Theater one afternoon in 1945. . . .
Francis was human once, but now he’s an eight-foot-tall locust, and everyone in Calliphora will tremble when they hear him sing. . . .
John is locked in a basement stained with the blood of half a dozen murdered children, and an antique telephone, long since disconnected, rings at night with calls from the dead. . . .
Nolan knows but can never tell what really happened in the summer of ’77, when his idiot savant younger brother built a vast cardboard fort with secret doors leading into other worlds. . . .
The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past. . . .”
24 .) A Manual for Cleaning Women by Lucia Berlin
Lists It Appears On:
- Book Riot
- Paste Magazine
- Spectator
“A Manual for Cleaning Women compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With the grit of Raymond Carver, the humor of Grace Paley, and a blend of wit and melancholy all her own, Berlin crafts miracles from the everyday, uncovering moments of grace in the Laundromats and halfway houses of the American Southwest, in the homes of the Bay Area upper class, among switchboard operators and struggling mothers, hitchhikers and bad Christians.
Readers will revel in this remarkable collection from a master of the form and wonder how they’d ever overlooked her in the first place.”
23 .) Can’t And Won’t by Lydia Davis
Lists It Appears On:
- Bust
- Scottic Book Trust
- Paste Magazine
“Her stories may be literal one-liners: the entirety of “”Bloomington”” reads, “”Now that I have been here for a little while, I can say with confidence that I have never been here before.”” Or they may be lengthier investigations of the havoc wreaked by the most mundane disruptions to routine: in “”A Small Story About a Small Box of Chocolates,”” a professor receives a gift of thirty-two small chocolates and is paralyzed by the multitude of options she imagines for their consumption. The stories may appear in the form of letters of complaint; they may be extracted from Flaubert’s correspondence; or they may be inspired by the author’s own dreams, or the dreams of friends.
What does not vary throughout Can’t and Won’t, Lydia Davis’s fifth collection of stories, is the power of her finely honed prose. Davis is sharply observant; she is wry or witty or poignant. Above all, she is refreshing. Davis writes with bracing candor and sly humor about the quotidian, revealing the mysterious, the foreign, the alienating, and the pleasurable within the predictable patterns of daily life.”
22 .) Everything’s Eventual: 14 Dark Tales by Stephen King
Lists It Appears On:
- Ranker
- Goodreads
- Listverse
“A collection of fourteen dark tales, Everything’s Eventual includes one O. Henry Prize winner, two other award winners, four stories published by The New Yorker, and “Riding the Bullet,” King’s original ebook, which attracted over half a million online readers and became the most famous short story of the decade.
Two of the stories, “The Little Sisters of Eluria” and “Everything’s Eventual” are closely related to the Dark Tower series. “Riding the Bullet,” is the story of Alan Parker, who’s hitchhiking to see his dying mother but takes the wrong ride, farther than he ever intended. In “Lunch at the Gotham Café,” a sparring couple’s contentious lunch turns very, very bloody when the maître d’ gets out of sorts. “1408,” the audio story in print for the first time, is about a successful writer whose specialty is “Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Graveyards” or “Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Houses,” and though Room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel doesn’t kill him, he won’t be writing about ghosts anymore.”
21 .) In the Country by Mia Alvar
Lists It Appears On:
- Book Riot
- Knopf Doubleday
- Paste Magazine
In these nine globe-trotting tales, Mia Alvar gives voice to the women and men of the Philippines and its diaspora. From teachers to housemaids, from mothers to sons, Alvar’s stories explore the universal experiences of loss, displacement, and the longing to connect across borders both real and imagined. In the Country speaks to the heart of everyone who has ever searched for a place to call home—and marks the arrival of a formidable new voice in literature.
20 .) Jesus’ Son by Denis Johnson
Lists It Appears On:
- Ranker
- Cool Material
- Publishers Weekly
Jesus’ Son is a visionary chronicle of dreamers, addicts, and lost souls. These stories tell of spiraling grief and transcendence, of rock bottom and redemption, of getting lost and found and lost again. The raw beauty and careening energy of Denis Johnson’s prose has earned this book a place among the classics of twentieth-century American literature.
19 .) Night Shift by Stephen King
Lists It Appears On:
- Book Riot
- Goodreads
- Ranker
Night Shift—Stephen King’s first collection of stories—is an early showcase of the depths that King’s wicked imagination could plumb. In these 20 tales, we see mutated rats gone bad (“Graveyard Shift”); a cataclysmic virus that threatens humanity (“Night Surf,” the basis for The Stand); a smoker who will try anything to stop (“Quitters, Inc.”); a reclusive alcoholic who begins a gruesome transformation (“Gray Matter”); and many more. This is Stephen King at his horrifying best.
18 .) Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger
Lists It Appears On:
- Goodreads
- Huffington Post
- Ranker
The Stories: A Perfect Day for Bananafish, Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut, Just Before the War with the Eskimos, The Laughing Man, Down at the Dinghy, For Esme — With Love and Squalor, Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes, De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period, and Teddy.
17 .) No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July
Lists It Appears On:
- Bust
- Ranker
- Scottic Book Trust
Award-winning filmmaker and performing artist Miranda July brings her extraordinary talents to the page in a startling, sexy, and tender collection. In these stories, July gives the most seemingly insignificant moments a sly potency. A benign encounter, a misunderstanding, a shy revelation can reconfigure the world. Her characters engage awkwardly—they are sometimes too remote, sometimes too intimate. With great compassion and generosity, July reveals their idiosyncrasies and the odd logic and longing that govern their lives. No One Belongs Here More Than You is a stunning debut, the work of a writer with a spectacularly original and compelling voice.
16 .) Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Lists It Appears On:
- Book Riot
- Goodreads
- Scottic Book Trust
Stories of Your Life and Others delivers dual delights of the very, very strange and the heartbreakingly familiar, often presenting characters who must confront sudden change—the inevitable rise of automatons or the appearance of aliens—with some sense of normalcy. With sharp intelligence and humor, Chiang examines what it means to be alive in a world marked by uncertainty, but also by beauty and wonder. An award-winning collection from one of today’s most lauded writers, Stories of Your Life and Others is a contemporary classic.
15 .) The Best American Short Stories (annual)
Lists It Appears On:
- Acton Memorial Library
- Long Beach Public Library
- Acton Memorial Library
The Best American Short Stories 2017 casts a vote for and celebrates all that is our country. Here you’ll find a man with a boyfriend and a girlfriend, naval officers trapped on a submarine, a contestant on America’s Funniest Home Videos, and a gay man desperate to be a father—unforgettable characters waiting for an outcome, burning with stories to tell.
14 .) The Lottery and Other Stories by Shirley Jackson
Lists It Appears On:
- Book Riot
- Goodreads
- Ranker
“One of the most terrifying stories of the twentieth century, Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” created a sensation when it was first published in The New Yorker in 1948. “”Power and haunting,”” and “”nights of unrest”” were typical reader responses. Today it is considered a classic work of short fiction, a story remarkable for its combination of subtle suspense and pitch-perfect descriptions of both the chilling and the mundane.
The Lottery and Other Stories, the only one to appear during Shirley Jackson’s lifetime, unites “”The Lottery”” with twenty-four equally unusual short stories. Together they demonstrate Jackson’s remarkable range — from the hilarious to the horrible, the unsettling to the ominous — and her power as a storyteller.”
13 .) The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
Lists It Appears On:
- Book Riot
- Bust
- The Guardian
In these twelve dazzlng stories, the bestselling, award-winning Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explores the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Africa and the United States. Searing and profound, suffused with beauty, sorrow, and longing, these stories map, with Adichie’s signature emotional wisdom, the collision of two cultures and the deeply human struggle to reconcile them.
12 .) Welcome to the Monkey House: A Collection of Short Works by Kurt Vonnegut
Lists It Appears On:
- Goodreads
- Ranker
- Long Beach Public Library
Welcome to the Monkey House is a collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s shorter works. Originally printed in publications as diverse as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Atlantic Monthly, these superb stories share Vonnegut’s audacious sense of humor and extraordinary range of creative vision.
11 .) Drinking Coffee Elsewhere by ZZ Packer
Lists It Appears On:
- Bust
- Cool Material
- Huffington Post
- Ranker
Already an award-winning writer, ZZ Packer now shares with us her debut, Drinking Coffee Elsewhere. Her impressive range and talent are abundantly evident: Packer dazzles with her command of language, surprising and delighting us with unexpected turns and indelible images, as she takes us into the lives of characters on the periphery, unsure of where they belong. We meet a Brownie troop of black girls who are confronted with a troop of white girls; a young man who goes with his father to the Million Man March and must decides where his allegiance lies; an international group of drifters in Japan, who are starving, unable to find work; a girl in a Baltimore ghetto who has dreams of the larger world she has seen only on the screens in the television store nearby, where the Lithuanian shopkeeper holds out hope for attaining his own American Dream.
10 .) Dubliners by James Joyce
Lists It Appears On:
- Cool Material
- Goodreads
- Publishers Weekly
- Ranker
James Joyce’s Dubliners is a vivid and unflinching portrait of “dear dirty Dublin” at the turn of the twentieth century. These fifteen stories, including such unforgettable ones as “Araby,” “Grace,” and “The Dead,” delve into the heart of the city of Joyce’s birth, capturing the cadences of Dubliners’ speech and portraying with an almost brute realism their outer and inner lives. Dubliners is Joyce at his most accessible and most profound, and this edition is the definitive text, authorized by the Joyce estate and collated from all known proofs, manuscripts, and impressions to reflect the author’s original wishes.
9 .) Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson
Lists It Appears On:
- Book Riot
- Bookstr
- Cool Material
- Paste Magazine
“Throughout these six stories, Pulitzer Prize winner Adam Johnson delves deep into love and loss, natural disasters, the influence of technology, and how the political shapes the personal, giving voice to the perspectives we don’t often hear.
In “Nirvana,” a programmer whose wife has a rare disease finds solace in a digital simulacrum of the president of the United States. In “Hurricanes Anonymous,” a young man searches for the mother of his son in a Louisiana devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. “George Orwell Was a Friend of Mine” follows a former warden of a Stasi prison in East Germany who vehemently denies his past, even as pieces of it are delivered in packages to his door. And in the unforgettable title story, Johnson returns to his signature subject, North Korea, depicting two defectors from Pyongyang who are trying to adapt to their new lives in Seoul, while one cannot forget the woman he left behind.”
8 .) Get in Trouble by Kelly Link
Lists It Appears On:
- Bustle
- Goodreads
- Paste Magazine
- Book Riot
“She has been hailed by Michael Chabon as “the most darkly playful voice in American fiction” and by Neil Gaiman as “a national treasure.” Now Kelly Link’s eagerly awaited new collection—her first for adult readers in a decade—proves indelibly that this bewitchingly original writer is among the finest we have.
Link has won an ardent following for her ability, with each new short story, to take readers deeply into an unforgettable, brilliantly constructed fictional universe. The nine exquisite examples in this collection show her in full command of her formidable powers. In “The Summer People,” a young girl in rural North Carolina serves as uneasy caretaker to the mysterious, never-quite-glimpsed visitors who inhabit the cottage behind her house. In “I Can See Right Through You,” a middle-aged movie star makes a disturbing trip to the Florida swamp where his former on- and off-screen love interest is shooting a ghost-hunting reality show. In “The New Boyfriend,” a suburban slumber party takes an unusual turn, and a teenage friendship is tested, when the spoiled birthday girl opens her big present: a life-size animated doll.
Hurricanes, astronauts, evil twins, bootleggers, Ouija boards, iguanas, The Wizard of Oz, superheroes, the Pyramids . . . These are just some of the talismans of an imagination as capacious and as full of wonder as that of any writer today. But as fantastical as these stories can be, they are always grounded by sly humor and an innate generosity of feeling for the frailty—and the hidden strengths—of human beings. In Get in Trouble, this one-of-a-kind talent expands the boundaries of what short fiction can do.”
7 .) Pastoralia by George Saunders
Lists It Appears On:
- Av Club
- Cool Material
- Goodreads
- Huffington Post
Hailed by Thomas Pynchon as “graceful, dark, authentic, and funny,” George Saunders gives us, in his inventive and beloved voice, this bestselling collection of stories set against a warped, hilarious, and terrifyingly recognizable American landscape.
6 .) Runaway by Alice Munro
Lists It Appears On:
- Av Club
- Bustle
- Cool Material
- The Guardian
This acclaimed, bestselling collection also contains the celebrated stories that inspired the Pedro Almodóvar film Julieta. Runaway is a book of extraordinary stories about love and its infinite betrayals and surprises, from the title story about a young woman who, though she thinks she wants to, is incapable of leaving her husband, to three stories about a woman named Juliet and the emotions that complicate the luster of her intimate relationships. In Munro’s hands, the people she writes about–women of all ages and circumstances, and their friends, lovers, parents, and children–become as vivid as our own neighbors. It is her miraculous gift to make these stories as real and unforgettable as our own.
5 .) Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman
Lists It Appears On:
- Av Club
- Ranker
- Scottic Book Trust
- Book Riot
- Goodreads
Fragile Things is a sterling collection of exceptional tales from Neil Gaiman, multiple award-winning (the Hugo, Bram Stoker, Newberry, and Eisner Awards, to name just a few), #1 New York Timesbestselling author of The Graveyard Book, Anansi Boys, Coraline, and the groundbreaking Sandman graphic novel series. A uniquely imaginative creator of wonders whose unique storytelling genius has been acclaimed by a host of literary luminaries from Norman Mailer to Stephen King, Gaiman’s astonishing powers are on glorious displays in Fragile Things. Enter and be amazed!
4 .) Tenth of December by George Saunders
Lists It Appears On:
- Bookstr
- Goodreads
- Ranker
- Scottic Book Trust
- The Guardian
“One of the most important and blazingly original writers of his generation, George Saunders is an undisputed master of the short story, and Tenth of December is his most honest, accessible, and moving collection yet.
In the taut opener, “Victory Lap,” a boy witnesses the attempted abduction of the girl next door and is faced with a harrowing choice: Does he ignore what he sees, or override years of smothering advice from his parents and act? In “Home,” a combat-damaged soldier moves back in with his mother and struggles to reconcile the world he left with the one to which he has returned. And in the title story, a stunning meditation on imagination, memory, and loss, a middle-aged cancer patient walks into the woods to commit suicide, only to encounter a troubled young boy who, over the course of a fateful morning, gives the dying man a final chance to recall who he really is. A hapless, deluded owner of an antiques store; two mothers struggling to do the right thing; a teenage girl whose idealism is challenged by a brutal brush with reality; a man tormented by a series of pharmaceutical experiments that force him to lust, to love, to kill—the unforgettable characters that populate the pages of Tenth of December are vividly and lovingly infused with Saunders’s signature blend of exuberant prose, deep humanity, and stylistic innovation.
Writing brilliantly and profoundly about class, sex, love, loss, work, despair, and war, Saunders cuts to the core of the contemporary experience. These stories take on the big questions and explore the fault lines of our own morality, delving into the questions of what makes us good and what makes us human.”
3 .) Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Lists It Appears On:
- Book Riot
- Cool Material
- Goodreads
- Ranker
- The Guardian
- Long Beach Public Library
Navigating between the Indian traditions they’ve inherited and the baffling new world, the characters in Jhumpa Lahiri’s elegant, touching stories seek love beyond the barriers of culture and generations. In “A Temporary Matter,” published in The New Yorker, a young Indian-American couple faces the heartbreak of a stillborn birth while their Boston neighborhood copes with a nightly blackout. In the title story, an interpreter guides an American family through the India of their ancestors and hears an astonishing confession. Lahiri writes with deft cultural insight reminiscent of Anita Desai and a nuanced depth that recalls Mavis Gallant. She is an important and powerful new voice.
2 .) What We Talk About When We Talk About Love by Raymond Carver
Lists It Appears On:
- Book Riot
- Bustle
- Cool Material
- Goodreads
- Knopf Doubleday
- Ranker
In his second collection, including the iconic and much-referenced title story featured in the Academy Award-winning film Birdman, Carver establishes his reputation as one of the most celebrated short-story writers in American literature—a haunting meditation on love, loss, and companionship, and finding one’s way through the dark.
1 .) This is How You Lose Her by Junot Diaz
Lists It Appears On:
- Bookstr
- Book Riot
- Bustle
- Cool Material
- Goodreads
- Huffington Post
- Ranker
- Scottic Book Trust
“From the award-winning author, a stunning collection that celebrates the haunting, impossible power of love.
On a beach in the Dominican Republic, a doomed relationship flounders. In a New Jersey laundry room, a woman does her lover’s washing and thinks about his wife. In Boston, a man buys his love child, his only son, a first baseball bat and glove. At the heart of these stories is the irrepressible, irresistible Yunior, a young hardhead whose longing for love is equaled only by his recklessness–and by the extraordinary women he loves and loses.”
The 350+ Additional Short Story Books
# | Books | Authors | Lists |
(Titles Appear On 2 Lists Each) | |||
26 | A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories | Flannery O’Connor | Goodreads |
Ranker | |||
27 | After the Quake | Haruki Murakami | Book Riot |
Cool Material | |||
28 | American Housewife | Helen Ellis | Book Riot |
Knopf Doubleday | |||
29 | At the Mouth of the River of Bees: Stories | Kij Johnson | Book Riot |
Goodreads | |||
30 | Because They Wanted To | Mary Gaitskill | Book Riot |
Publishers Weekly | |||
31 | Dark Lies the Island | Kevin Barry | Book Riot |
Scottic Book Trust | |||
32 | Dear Life | Alice Munro | Knopf Doubleday |
Goodreads | |||
33 | Drown | Junot Díaz | Goodreads |
Ranker | |||
34 | Ficciones | Jorge Luis Borges | Goodreads |
Ranker | |||
35 | Girl Boy Etc | Michael Weinreb | Long Beach Public Library |
Ranker | |||
36 | Going to Meet the Man | James Baldwin | Publishers Weekly |
Ranker | |||
37 | Hateship, Friendship, Courtship, Loveship, Marriage | Alice Munro | Long Beach Public Library |
Scottic Book Trust | |||
38 | How to Escape from a Leper Colony | Tiphanie Yanique | Book Riot |
The Daily Beast | |||
39 | I Am An Executioner: Love Stories | Rajesh Parameswaran | Cool Material |
Scottic Book Trust | |||
40 | Just After Sunset | Stephen King | Goodreads |
Long Beach Public Library | |||
41 | Labyrinths: Selected Stories and Other Writings | Jorge Luis Borges | Book Riot |
Goodreads | |||
42 | Leaving the Sea | Ben Marcus | Book Riot |
Scottic Book Trust | |||
43 | Magic For Beginners | Kelly Link | Av Club |
Goodreads | |||
44 | Moral Disorder and Other Stories | Margaret Atwood | Book Riot |
Long Beach Public Library | |||
45 | Nightmares and Dreamscapes | Stephen King | Goodreads |
Listverse | |||
46 | Public Library | Ali Smith | Knopf Doubleday |
Spectator | |||
47 | Redeployment | Phil Klay | Goodreads |
Scottic Book Trust | |||
48 | St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised | Karen Russell | Goodreads |
Book Riot | |||
49 | Stone Mattress: Nine Tales | Margaret Atwood | Bustle |
Goodreads | |||
50 | The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes | Arthur Conan Doyle | Goodreads |
Long Beach Public Library | |||
51 | The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories | Angela Carter | Book Riot |
Goodreads | |||
52 | The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway | Ernest Hemingway | Cool Material |
Ranker | |||
53 | The Complete Stories | Franz Kafka | Cool Material |
Publishers Weekly | |||
54 | The Garden Party and Other Stories | Katharine Mansfield | Book Riot |
The Guardian | |||
55 | The Illustrated Man | Ray Bradbury | Book Riot |
Goodreads | |||
56 | The Martian Chronicles | Ray Bradbury | Goodreads |
Ranker | |||
57 | The O. Henry Prize Stories. SS Prize (annual) | Laura Furman | Knopf Doubleday |
Long Beach Public Library | |||
58 | The Tsar of Love and Techno | Anthony Marra | Book Riot |
Paste Magazine | |||
59 | There’s Something I Want You to Do | Charles Baxter | Book Riot |
Bookstr | |||
60 | This isn’t the Sort of Thing That Happens to Someone Like You | Jon McGregor | Scottic Book Trust |
The Guardian | |||
61 | Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances | Neil Gaiman | Bustle |
Goodreads | |||
62 | Vampires in the Lemon Grove | Karen Russell | Bookstr |
Goodreads | |||
63 | What is Not Yours Is Not Yours | Helen Oyeyemi | Book Riot |
Goodreads | |||
64 | You Are Not a Stranger Here | Adam Haslett | Huffington Post |
Knopf Doubleday | |||
(Titles Appear On 1 Lists Each) | |||
65 | 100 years of the best American short stories | Acton Memorial Library | |
66 | 20 under 40: stories from The New Yorker | Acton Memorial Library | |
67 | 50 Great Christmas Stories, Poems, and Books | American Literature | |
68 | 50 Great Short Stories. SS Fifty | Long Beach Public Library | |
69 | 999: new stories of horror and suspense | Acton Memorial Library | |
70 | A Better Angel | Chris Adrian | Book Riot |
71 | A Century of Great Western Stories. WES | Long Beach Public Library | |
72 | A Hand Reached Down to Guide Me | Spectator | |
73 | A Prisoner of Memory: And 24 of the Year’s Finest Crime and Mystery Stories. MYS | Long Beach Public Library | |
74 | A Safe Girl to Love | Casey Plett | Bust |
75 | A Taste of Honey | Jabari Asim | The Daily Beast |
76 | A Treasury of Short Stories: Favorities of the Past Hundred Years from Turgenev to Thurber, from Balzac to Hemingway | Bernardine Kielty | Long Beach Public Library |
77 | A Walk in My World: International Short Stories about Youth | Long Beach Public Library | |
78 | Adaptations: From Short Story to Big Screen: 35 Great Stories That Have Inspired Great Films | Long Beach Public Library | |
79 | Almost Famous Women | Megan Mayhew Bergman | Bustle |
80 | Alone With The Horrors | Ramsey Campbell | Listverse |
81 | Alone With You | Marisa Silver | The Daily Beast |
82 | American fantastic tales: terror and the uncanny | Acton Memorial Library | |
83 | Amor and Psycho | Carolyn Cooke | Book Riot |
84 | Ancient, Ancient | Kiini Ibura Salaam | Book Riot |
85 | Angels and Awakenings: Stories of the Miraculous by Great Modern Writers | Long Beach Public Library | |
86 | Anthropology | Dan Rhodes | Scottic Book Trust |
87 | Arranged Marriage: Stories | Chitra Divakaruni | Long Beach Public Library |
88 | Ayiti | Roxane Gay | Book Riot |
89 | Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction | Kurt Vonnegut | Book Riot |
90 | Barbara the Slut and Other People | Lauren Holmes | Bust |
91 | Bark | Lorrie Moore | Bookstr |
92 | Battleborn | Claire Vaye Watkins | Book Riot |
93 | Beautiful as the Moon, Radiant as the Stars: Jewish Women in Yiddish Stories: An Anthology | Long Beach Public Library | |
94 | Before You Suffocate Your Own Fool Self | Danielle Evans | Bust |
95 | Best of the South: From the Second Decade of New Stories from the South | Long Beach Public Library | |
96 | Binocular Vision | Edith Pearlman | Book Riot |
97 | Birds of America | Lorrie Moore | Book Riot |
98 | Bits of Paradise: 21 Uncollected Stories by F | F Fitzgerald | Long Beach Public Library |
99 | Blasphemy | Sherman Alexie | Book Riot |
100 | Bloodchild and Other Stories | Octavia Butler | Book Riot |
101 | Bobcat and Other Stories | Rebecca Lee | Book Riot |
102 | Books of Blood, Volumes 1-3 | Clive Barker | Listverse |
103 | Brief Interviews with Hideous Men | David Foster Wallace | Ranker |
104 | Brooklyn Noir. MYS | Long Beach Public Library | |
105 | Brownsville | Oscar Casares | Book Riot |
106 | Burning Bright | Ron Rash | Book Riot |
107 | Cat o’ Nine Tales: And Other Stories | Jeffrey Archer | Long Beach Public Library |
108 | Chelsea Girls | Eileen Myles | Bust |
109 | Chicago Blues | Long Beach Public Library | |
110 | Cities I Never Lived In | Sara Majka | Book Riot |
111 | Civilwarland in Bad Decline | George Saunders | Book Riot |
112 | Classic Yiddish Stories of S. Y. Abramovitsh, Sholem Aleichem, and I. L. Peretz | Long Beach Public Library | |
113 | Collected stories of Wallace Stegne | Wallace Stegner | Ranker |
114 | Complete Stories | Henry James | Long Beach Public Library |
115 | Coronado: Stories | Dennis Lehane | Long Beach Public Library |
116 | Cowboys Are My Weakness | Pam Houston | Book Riot |
117 | Cries For Help, Various | Padgett Powell | Paste Magazine |
118 | Crow Fair | Thomas McGuane | Book Riot |
119 | Death Dines at 8:30: A Short Story Anthology. MYS | Long Beach Public Library | |
120 | Delicate Edible Birds | by Lauren Groff | Book Riot |
121 | Different Seasons | Stephen King | Goodreads |
122 | Difficult Loves | Italo Calvino | Book Riot |
123 | Dog Run Moon | Callan Wink | Book Riot |
124 | Don’t Look Now | Daphne du Maurier | Ranker |
125 | Dreaming Again: Thirty-Five New Stories Celebrating the Wild Side of Australian Fiction | Long Beach Public Library | |
126 | East, West | Salman Rushdie | Book Riot |
127 | Ebony Rising: Short Fiction of the Greater Harlem Renaissance Era | Long Beach Public Library | |
128 | Eclipse One: New Science Fiction and Fantasy. SF | Long Beach Public Library | |
129 | Enormous Changes at the Last Moment | Grace Paley | Book Riot |
130 | Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned | Wells Tower | Book Riot |
131 | Everything That Rises Must Converge | Flannery O’Connor | Book Riot |
132 | Facing the Holocaust: Selected Israeli Fiction | Long Beach Public Library | |
133 | Fall of poppies: stories of love and the Great War | Acton Memorial Library | |
134 | Falling In Love With Hominids | Nalo Hopkinson | Book Riot |
135 | Family Furnishings | Alice Munro | Book Riot |
136 | Favorite Chekhov Short Stories – Volume I | Anton Chekhov | American Literature |
137 | Favorite Chekhov Short Stories – Volume II | Anton Chekhov | American Literature |
138 | Favorite Short Stories by H.H. Munro | H.H. Munro (aka SAKI) | American Literature |
139 | Favorite Short Stories from Bret Harte | Bret Harte | American Literature |
140 | Favorite Short Stories from Jack London | Jack London | American Literature |
141 | Favorite Short Stories from Mark Twain | Mark Twain | American Literature |
142 | Favorite Short Stories from Mary E. Wilkins Freeman | Mary E. Wilkins Freeman | American Literature |
143 | Final Reckonings | Robert Bloch | Listverse |
144 | Forty stories | Anton Chekhov | Ranker |
145 | Four Past Midnight | Stephen King | Goodreads |
146 | Full Dark, No Stars | Stephen King | Goodreads |
147 | Furnace | Wayne Price | Scottic Book Trust |
148 | Further Adventures in the Restless Universe | Dawn Raffel | The Daily Beast |
149 | Ghost Summer | Tananarive Due | Book Riot |
150 | Ghostly: a collection of ghost stories | Acton Memorial Library | |
151 | Ghosts and Grisly Things | Ramsey Campbell | Long Beach Public Library |
152 | Girls’ Night Out | Long Beach Public Library | |
153 | Goodbye, Columbus | Philip Roth | Ranker |
154 | Great Stories of the American West II. WES | Long Beach Public Library | |
155 | Gut Shot | Amelia Gray | Book Riot |
156 | Hardly Knew Her: Stories | Laura Lippman | Long Beach Public Library |
157 | High Lonesome | Joyce Carol Oates | Book Riot |
158 | Honeydew | Edith Pearlman | Bookstr |
159 | How This Night is Different | Elisa Albert | Bust |
160 | How to be Both | Spectator | |
161 | How to Leave Hialeah | Jennine Capó Crucet | Book Riot |
162 | How We Are Hungry | Dave Eggers | Scottic Book Trust |
163 | Hundreds of Great Ghost Stories | American Literature | |
164 | Hundreds of great stories, fables, fairy tales, & nursery rhymes | American Literature | |
165 | I, Robot | Isaac Asimov | Goodreads |
166 | If I Loved You, I Would Tell You This | Robin Black | The Daily Beast |
167 | In Cuba I Was a German Shepherd | Ana Menéndez | Book Riot |
168 | In Our Time | Ernest Hemingway | Ranker |
169 | In The Garden Of The North American Martyrs | Tobias Wolff | Ranker |
170 | Indigo | Satyajit Ray | Book Riot |
171 | Inferno: New Tales of Terror and the Supernatural | Long Beach Public Library | |
172 | Irish Girls Are Back in Town | Long Beach Public Library | |
173 | Kate Chopin’s Best Short Stories | Kate Chopin | American Literature |
174 | Krik? Krak! | Edwidge Danticat | Long Beach Public Library |
175 | Lady with the Dog and Other Stories | Anton Chekov | Book Riot |
176 | Leaf Storm | Gabriel García Márquez | Ranker |
177 | Legal Fictions: Short Stories about Lawyers and the Law | Long Beach Public Library | |
178 | Little Black Book of Stories | A.S. Byatt | Book Riot |
179 | Lost in the Funhouse | John Barth | Ranker |
180 | Love is Power, Or Something Like That | A. Igoni Barrett | Publishers Weekly |
181 | Lovers on All Saints’ Day | Juan Gabriel Vasquez | Book Riot |
182 | Masterpieces of Terror and the Unknown | Long Beach Public Library | |
183 | Miguel Street | V.S. Naipaul | Book Riot |
184 | Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories | Agatha Christie | Long Beach Public Library |
185 | Mixed: An Anthology of Short Fiction on the Multiracial Experience | Long Beach Public Library | |
186 | Monday or Tuesday | Virginia Woolf | Book Riot |
187 | Monstress | Lysley Tenorio | Book Riot |
188 | More Stories We Tell: The Best Contemporary Short Stories by North American Women | Long Beach Public Library | |
189 | Mothers, Tell Your Daughters | Bonnie Jo Campbell | Paste Magazine |
190 | Murder Is My Business. MYS | Long Beach Public Library | |
191 | My Father’s Tears And Other Stories | John Updike | Av Club |
192 | My True Love Gave to Me: Twelve Holiday Stories | Stephanie Perkins | Goodreads |
193 | Mystery Writers of America presents The blue religion : new stories about cops, criminals, and the chase | Acton Memorial Library | |
194 | Mystery Writers of America presents the prosecution rests: new stories about courtrooms, criminals, and the law | Acton Memorial Library | |
195 | Mystery Writers of America presents vengeance | Acton Memorial Library | |
196 | n Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge and Other Stories | Ambrose Bierce | Listverse |
197 | Naked | David Sedaris | Ranker |
198 | Nebula Awards Showcase. SF (annual) | Long Beach Public Library | |
199 | New and Selected Stories | Alan Sillitoe | Long Beach Public Library |
200 | Night at the Fiestas | Kirstin Valdez Quade | Paste Magazine |
201 | Night Shade: Gothic Stories by Women | Long Beach Public Library | |
202 | Nightmare at 20,000 Feet: Horror Stories | Richard Matheson | Listverse |
203 | Nightscape | David Morrell | Long Beach Public Library |
204 | Nine Favorite Short Stories | Edgar Allan Poe | American Literature |
205 | Nocturnes: Five Stories of Music and Nightfall | Kazuo Ishiguro | Goodreads |
206 | Nora Jane: A Life in Stories | Ellen Gilchrist | Long Beach Public Library |
207 | Norse Mythology | Neil Gaiman | Goodreads |
208 | North American Lake Monsters | Nathan Ballingrud | Book Riot |
209 | Not the End of the World | Kate Atkinson | Scottic Book Trust |
210 | Nothing but you: love stories from the New Yorker | Acton Memorial Library | |
211 | Notwithstanding | Louis de Bernières | Knopf Doubleday |
212 | Novelties & Souvenirs | John Crowley | Av Club |
213 | Oblivion | David Foster Wallace | Book Riot |
214 | Olive Kitteridge | Elizabeth Strout | Huffington Post |
215 | On the Way | Cyn Vargas | Bustle |
216 | One More Thing | B.J. Novak | Paste Magazine |
217 | Oye What I’m Gonna Tell You | Cecilia Rodriguez Milanes | Book Riot |
218 | Pale Horse, Pale Rider | Katherine Anne Porter | Book Riot |
219 | Paper Cities: An Anthology of Urban Fantasy. SF | Long Beach Public Library | |
220 | Paper Lantern: Love Stories | Stuart Dybek | Bookstr |
221 | Paradise Elsewhere | Kathy Page | Book Riot |
222 | Passport to Crime: The Finest Mystery Stories from International Crime Writers. MYS | Long Beach Public Library | |
223 | Peace in the House: Tales from a Yiddish Kitchen | Faye Moskowitz | Long Beach Public Library |
224 | Peaceable Kingdom | Jack Ketchum | Listverse |
225 | Poe’s children: the new horror: an anthology | Acton Memorial Library | |
226 | Portraits of the Few People I’ve Made Cry | Christine Sneed | Bustle |
227 | Presence: Stories | Arthur Miller | Long Beach Public Library |
228 | Pulse | Julian Barnes | The Guardian |
229 | Raymond Chandler: Collected Stories | Raymond Chandler | Long Beach Public Library |
230 | Revenge: Eleven Dark Tales | Yoko Ogawa | Book Riot |
231 | Rogues | George R.R. Martin | Goodreads |
232 | Science fiction hall of fame | Acton Memorial Library | |
233 | Seasonal Velocities | Ryka Aoki | Bust |
234 | Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story: Family Matters (CD) | Long Beach Public Library | |
235 | Selected Stories | Charles Beaumont | Listverse |
236 | Selected Stories | Alice Munro | Publishers Weekly |
237 | Self-Help | Lorrie Moore | Huffington Post |
238 | Shakespeare’s Kitchen | Lore Segal | Av Club |
239 | Shivers III | Long Beach Public Library | |
240 | Sholem Aleichem. Some Laughter, Some Tears: Tales from the Old World and the New. SS Aleichem | Long Beach Public Library | |
241 | Short Shorts: An Anthology of the Shortest Stories | Long Beach Public Library | |
242 | Short Stories | Langston Hughes | Long Beach Public Library |
243 | Short Stories by Latin American Women: The Magic and the Real | Long Beach Public Library | |
244 | Skeleton Crew | Stephen King | Goodreads |
245 | Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions | Neil Gaiman | Goodreads |
246 | Speaking with the Angel: Original Stories | Long Beach Public Library | |
247 | Spectacle | Susan Steinberg | Book Riot |
248 | Spooky Tales Inspired by Real Ghost Stories | Ranker | |
249 | Starting Over | Elizabeth Spencer | Huffington Post |
250 | Stories from Other Places | Spectator | |
251 | Sudden fiction international: sixty short-short stories | Acton Memorial Library | |
252 | Summer Morning | Ray Bradbury | Long Beach Public Library |
253 | T.C. Boyle Stories | T.C. Boyle | Cool Material |
254 | Tales of the Jazz Age | F. Scott Fitzgerald | Ranker |
255 | Tales of the Out & Gone | Amiri Baraka | Long Beach Public Library |
256 | Ten Favorite Short Stories | O. Henry | American Literature |
257 | Ten Favorite Short Stories | W.W. Jacobs | American Literature |
258 | That Glimpse of Truth | David Miller | The Guardian |
259 | The American short story: a collection of the best known and most memorable short stories by the great American authors | Acton Memorial Library | |
260 | The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories | Long Beach Public Library | |
261 | The Annotated Baseball Stories of Ring W. Lander | Ring Lardner | Long Beach Public Library |
262 | The art of the story: an international anthology of contemporary short stories | Acton Memorial Library | |
263 | The Barrens and Others | F. Paul Wilson | Book Riot |
264 | The Bazaar of Bad Dreams | Stephen King | Goodreads |
265 | The Beautiful Indifference | Sarah J. E. Hall | Scottic Book Trust |
266 | The Best American short stories of the eighties | Acton Memorial Library | |
267 | The best of McSweeney’s | Acton Memorial Library | |
268 | The best of the best. Volume 2, 20 years of the best short science fiction novels | Acton Memorial Library | |
269 | The Birthday of the World | Ursula K. Le Guin | Book Riot |
270 | The Black Lizard big book of locked-room mysteries: the most complete collection of impossible crime stories ever assembled | Acton Memorial Library | |
271 | The Boat | Nam Le | Book Riot |
272 | The Collected Short Stories of Louis L’Amour (5 vols | Louis L’Amour | Long Beach Public Library |
273 | The Collected Stories | Lydia Davis | Publishers Weekly |
274 | The Collected Stories | Katherine MAnsfield | Ranker |
275 | The Collected Stories | Lorrie Moore | The Guardian |
276 | The Collected Stories of Eudora Welty | Eudora Welty | Long Beach Public Library |
277 | The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter | Katherine Anne Porter | Ranker |
278 | The complete poems and stories of Edgar Allan Poe | Edgar Allan Poe | Ranker |
279 | The Complete Short Stories | H.G. Wells | Long Beach Public Library |
280 | The Complete Stories | Flannery O’Connor | Cool Material |
281 | The Complete Works | Isaac Babel | Publishers Weekly |
282 | The Dark Side of Guy de Maupassant: A Selection and Translation | Guy de Maupassant | Long Beach Public Library |
283 | The Dream Life of Astronauts | Patrick Ryan | Book Riot |
284 | The Elephant Vanishes | Haruki Murakami | Goodreads |
285 | The Essential Tales of Chekhov | Anton Chekhov | Long Beach Public Library |
286 | The Female of the Species: Tales of Mystery and Suspense | Joyce Carol Oates | Ranker |
287 | The Frangipani Hotel | Violet Kupersmith | Book Riot |
288 | The Giant Book of Scottish Short Stories | Long Beach Public Library | |
289 | The Girl in the Flammable Skirt | Aimee Bender | Book Riot |
290 | The Great Frustration | Seth Fried | Book Riot |
291 | The Great Short Works | Leo Tolstoy | Publishers Weekly |
292 | The Heaven of Animals | David James Poissant | Huffington Post |
293 | The Horror Writers Association presents Blood lite: an anthology of humorous horror stories | Acton Memorial Library | |
294 | The Ladies of Grace Adieu | Susanna Clarke | Ranker |
295 | The Life to Come and Other Stories | E. M. Forster | Ranker |
296 | The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven | Sherman Alexie | Goodreads |
297 | The Loss of All Lost Things | Amina Gautier | Book Riot |
298 | The Love Object | Edna O’Brien | Book Riot |
299 | The Magic of Blood | Dagoberto Gilb | Book Riot |
300 | The Mammoth Book of Lesbian Short Stories | Long Beach Public Library | |
301 | The Mammoth Book of Zombies | Long Beach Public Library | |
302 | The Metamorphosis and Other Stories | Franz Kafka | Book Riot |
303 | The Monkey’s Paw | Kate Chopin | American Literature |
304 | The most of P.G. Wodehouse | P. G. Wodehouse | Ranker |
305 | The New Mystery: The International Association of Crime Writers’ Essential Crime Writing of the Late 20th Century. MYS | Long Beach Public Library | |
306 | The New Space Opera. SF | Long Beach Public Library | |
307 | The Night in Question | Tobias Wolff | Ranker |
308 | The Norton Book of Science Fiction: North American Science Fiction, 1960-1990. SF | Long Beach Public Library | |
309 | The Oxford Book of American Detective Stories. MYS | Long Beach Public Library | |
310 | The Oxford book of American short stories | Acton Memorial Library | |
311 | The Oxford book of English short stories | Acton Memorial Library | |
312 | The Oxford book of Jewish stories | Acton Memorial Library | |
313 | The Oxford book of modern women’s stories | Acton Memorial Library | |
314 | The Oxford Book of Travel Stories | Long Beach Public Library | |
315 | The Paper Menagerie and Other Stories | Ken Liu | Goodreads |
316 | The Penguin book of Irish Fiction | Acton Memorial Library | |
317 | The Penguin Book of Jewish Short Stories | Long Beach Public Library | |
318 | The People on Privilege Hill: And Other Stories | Jane Gardam | Long Beach Public Library |
319 | The Pier Falls and Other Stories | Mark Haddon | Book Riot |
320 | The Pushcart Book of Short Stories: The Best Short Stories from a Quarter-Century of the Pushcart Prize | Long Beach Public Library | |
321 | The Red Convertible | Louise Erdrich | Book Riot |
322 | The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales | Kirsty Logan | Scottic Book Trust |
323 | The Return Journey | Maeve Binchy | Long Beach Public Library |
324 | The Safety of Objects | A.M. Homes | Book Riot |
325 | The Secret Goldfish | David Means | Ranker |
326 | The Southern Cross | Skip Horack | Book Riot |
327 | The Stone Thrower | Adam Marek | Scottic Book Trust |
328 | The Storytellers’ Collection: Tales of Faraway Places | Long Beach Public Library | |
329 | The Student Body: Short Stories about College Students and Professors | Long Beach Public Library | |
330 | The Subway Chronicles: Scenes from Life in New York | Long Beach Public Library | |
331 | The Tales of Beedle the Bard | J.K. Rowling | Goodreads |
332 | The Temple of Air | Patricia Ann McNair | Bustle |
333 | The Things They Carried | Tim O’Brien | Book Riot |
334 | The Triumph of the Egg | Sherwood Anderson | Ranker |
335 | The Turn of the Screw and Other Stories | Henry James | Ranker |
336 | The Vintage Book of Contemporary American Short Stories | Long Beach Public Library | |
337 | The Voice of the Turtle: An Anthology of Cuban Stories | Long Beach Public Library | |
338 | The Ways of White Folks | Langston Hughes | Ranker |
339 | The White People and Other Weird Stories | Arthur Machen | Listverse |
340 | The Whole Story and Other Stories | Ali Smith | Scottic Book Trust |
341 | The Woman Who Gave Birth to Rabbits | Emma Donoghue | Book Riot |
342 | The World of the Short Story: A Twentieth Century Collection | Long Beach Public Library | |
343 | The Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror. SF (annual) | Long Beach Public Library | |
344 | The Year’s Best Mystery and Suspense Stories. MYS (annual) | Long Beach Public Library | |
345 | The Year’s Best Science Fiction. SF (annual) | Long Beach Public Library | |
346 | There Once Lived a Girl Who Seduced Her Sisters Husband and He Hanged Himself | Ludmilla Petrushevskaya | Book Riot |
347 | These Heroic, Happy Dead | Luke Mogelson | Book Riot |
348 | Thirteen Ways of Looking | Colum McCann | Bookstr |
349 | This Is Chick-Lit | Long Beach Public Library | |
350 | This Is Not Chick Lit: Original Stories by America’s Best Women Writers | Long Beach Public Library | |
351 | Thunderstruck and Other Stories | Elizabeth McCracken | Book Riot |
352 | To Build a Fire | Mark Twain | American Literature |
353 | Toast | Charles Stross | Av Club |
354 | Trash | Dorothy Allison | Book Riot |
355 | Twenty Grand: And Other Tales of Love and Money | Rebecca Curtis | Long Beach Public Library |
356 | Twenty-first century science fiction | Acton Memorial Library | |
357 | Twilight Of The Superheroes | Deborah Eisenberg | Av Club |
358 | Unaccustomed Earth | Jhumpa Lahiri | Goodreads |
359 | Unusual Suspects: Stories of Mystery and Fantasy. MYS | Long Beach Public Library | |
360 | Up in the Old Hotel and Other Stories | Joseph Mitchell | Long Beach Public Library |
361 | Voices in the Night | Steven Millhauser | Bookstr |
362 | Volt | Alan Heathcock | Book Riot |
363 | Walk the Blue Fields | Claire Keegan | Scottic Book Trust |
364 | War Fever | J. G. Ballard | Ranker |
365 | Wasted in Love | Allan Wilson | Scottic Book Trust |
366 | Wastelands: Stories of the Apocalypse. SF | Long Beach Public Library | |
367 | We Live in Water | Jess Walter | Scottic Book Trust |
368 | We Should Never Meet | Aimee Phan | Book Riot |
369 | What the World Will Look Like When All the Water Leaves Us | Laura van den Berg | Book Riot |
370 | When You Are Engulfed in Flames | David Sedaris | Ranker |
371 | Where I’m Calling From | Raymond Carver | Ranker |
372 | Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns | J Cooper | Long Beach Public Library |
373 | Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? | Raymond Carver | The Guardian |
374 | Willful Creatures | Aimee Bender | Ranker |
375 | Wish I Was Here | Jackie Kay | Scottic Book Trust |
376 | Woman Hollering Creek | Sandra Cisneros | Book Riot |
377 | Women of Wonder: The Classic Years: Science Fiction by Women from the 1940s to the 1970s. SF | Long Beach Public Library | |
378 | Yesterday’s Weather: Stories | Anne Enright | Long Beach Public Library |
379 | You Can’t Keep a Good Woman Down | Alice Walker | Book Riot |
380 | Young Skins | Colin Barrett | Scottic Book Trust |
381 | Young Visiters | Spectator | |
382 | Zigzagger | Manuel Munoz | Book Riot |
20 Best Short Story Collection Sources/Lists
Source | Article |
Acton Memorial Library | A Selected List of Short Story Collections |
American Literature | Favorite Short Stories Collection |
Av Club | The 10 best short-story collections of the ’00s |
Book Riot | 100 MUST-READ SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS |
Bookstr | Ten Short Story Collections to Fit Into Your Busy Schedule |
Bust | 10 Short Story Collections Written By Women To Add To Your Reading List |
Bustle | 11 Short Story Collections Your Book Club Will Love Discussing |
Cool Material | 15 Short Story Collections Every Guy Should Read |
Goodreads | Popular Short Story Collection Books |
Huffington Post | Brevity Has Its Advantages: 9 Astounding Short Story Collections |
Knopf Doubleday | 8 Story Collections So Good They’ll Leave You Wanting More |
Listverse | Top 10 Spine Tingling Short Story Collections |
Long Beach Public Library | SELECTED SHORT STORY COLLECTIONS |
Paste Magazine | 10 Essential Short Story Collections |
Publishers Weekly | The 10 Best Short Story Collections |
Ranker | The Best Collections of Short Stories |
Scottic Book Trust | 25 Great Short Story Collections from the 21st Century so far |
Spectator | The best short story collections — from childish gabbling to jaded nihilism |
The Daily Beast | 5 Must-Read Short-Story Collections |
The Guardian | The 10 best short story collections |