Ten Short Story Collections Worth Your Shelf Space

There is a persistent myth that short stories are what writers produce before they are ready to write novels. Anyone who has read Alice Munro knows this is nonsense. The short story is a distinct form with its own rules, its own pleasures, and its own capacity to devastate in twenty pages. Here are ten collections that earn their place on any serious reader's shelf.

Start with Munro's Selected Stories if you have never read her. She writes about ordinary people in rural Ontario, and she does it so well that you will find yourself rereading sentences just to see how she did it. Then try Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies, which examines the lives of Indian immigrants and their children with a precision that never tips into cruelty.

For something stranger, pick up Kelly Link's Get in Trouble. Link writes stories that begin in the recognizable world and quietly slide sideways into the fantastic. A teenage girl falls for a superhero. A haunted house is also a rental property. The effect is unsettling and delightful in equal measure.

Voices You Might Not Know

Denis Johnson's Jesus' Son is a linked collection about addiction and drift, narrated by a man who is not always reliable and not always kind. Johnson's prose is so clean it feels inevitable. Ted Chiang's Exhalation does for science fiction what Munro does for domestic realism: it takes big ideas and grounds them in human feeling.

Lucia Berlin's A Manual for Cleaning Women was published posthumously and became a surprise bestseller, which is a rare and happy story. Berlin writes about working-class life, alcoholism, and the American West with a voice that is wry and unsparing. George Saunders's Tenth of December is another essential, particularly the title story, which turns a small act of kindness into something almost unbearably moving.

Do not overlook newer voices. Carmen Maria Machado's Her Body and Other Parties blends horror, fairy tale, and memoir. Danielle Evans's The Office of Historical Corrections takes on race, history, and the stories we tell about ourselves. And Yiyun Li's Gold Boy, Emerald Girl is quiet, precise, and quietly devastating.

How to Read a Collection

Resist the urge to binge. A good collection is not a novel. Read one story, put the book down, let it settle. Come back the next day. You will remember more and feel more.

If you are new to short fiction, start with Munro or Lahiri. If you want to be surprised, start with Link or Machado. If you want to be wrecked, start with Berlin. There is no wrong order, only the one you choose.