This year's guest editor, Tobias Wolff, has assembled a lively collection that is certain to secure the series' place on bestseller lists across the nation. Includes stories by Thom Jones, Carol Anshaw, Chris Offutt and many more.

    Sharif.Selected from U.S. and Canadian magazines by Margaret Atwood with Shannon Ravenel; with an introduction by Margaret Atwood.

    The preeminent short fiction series since 1915, The Best American Short Stories is the only volume that annually offers the finest works chosen by a distinguished best-selling author.Hermit's story / Rick Bass --Sun, the moon, the stars / Junot Diaz --Mrs. Dutta writes a letter / Chitra Divakaruni --Kansas / Stephen Dobyns --Tumblers / Nathan Englander --Piano tuner / Tim Gautreaux --Uncharted heart / Melissa Hardy --The 5:22 / George Harrar --Islands / A. Hemon --Best girlfriend you never had / Pam Houston --In the kindergarten / Ha Jin --Marry the one who gets there first / Heidi Julavits --Live life king-sized / Hester Kaplan --Africans / Sheila Kohler --Interpreter of maladies / Jhumpa Lahiri --Real estate / Lorrie Moore --Save the reaper / Alice Munro --Bunchgrass edge of the world / Annie Proulx --Robbers of Karnataka / James Spencer --Good shopkeeper / Samrat Upadhyay --Rest of her life / Steve Yarbrough

    Last year's collection marched on to bestseller lists across the country and met with acclaim from critics who declared it "a brilliant work of art." Marking the eightieth anniversary of the series, the 1995 volume portrays the stunning range of American life in all its various colors, styles, regions, and concerns. This year's guest editor, Jane Smiley, selected stories without knowing their authors' identities. Drawn to tales with "a sharp taste," she gathered a piquant sampling of new voices as well as rich works by such masters as Don DeLillo, Ellen Gilchrist, Thom Jones, Joy Williams, Stephen Dobyns, Kate Braverman, and Jamaica Kincaid. Smiley was attracted to "an element of the exotic" in the tapestry of ordinary lives, and the stories in this collection reveal the powerful dramas constantly unfolding beneath the surface

     Foreword --Introduction / Louise Erdrich --Playing with dynamite / John Updike --The girl on the plane / Mary Gaitskill --A real life / Alice Munro --Silent passengers / Larry Woiwode --Queen Wintergreen / Alice Fulton --The man who rowed Christopher Columbus ashore / Harlan Ellison --Poltergeists / Jane Shapiro --Red moccasins / Susan Power --I want to live! / Thom Jones --Charlotte / Tony Early --What the thunder said / Janet Peery --Naked ladies / Antonya Nelson --Man, woman and boy / Stephen Dixon --Winter barley / Andrea Lee --Concerning mold upon the skin, etc. / Joanna Scott --Pray without ceasing / Wendell Berry --Gold / Kim Edwards --Great Barrier Reef / Diane Johnson --Terrific mother / Lorrie Moore --The important houses / Mary Gordon --Contributor's notes --100 other distinguished stories of 1992 --Editorial addresses of American and Canadian magazines publishing short stories

    Edited by the award-winning Robert Stone, the 1992 volume gathers 20 of the year's richest stories from magazines large and small. Includes such outstanding authors as Joyce Carol Oates, Alice Munro, and Reynolds Price among others.

    Short Stories by Ann Beattie, Ethan Canin, Joy Williams, Richard Ford, Tobias Wolff, Alice Munro, Thomas McGuane, Lord Tweedsmuir, Donald Barthelme, Raymond Carver, and many others.

    Selected from an unusually wide variety of publications, John Edgar Wideman's choices for 1996 place stories from esteemed national magazines alongside those from some of the smallest and most innovative literary journals. Dazzling new work from favorite authors includes Mary Gordon's" Intertextuality," in which a sentence by Proust propels the narrator into an intricate portrait of her Irish American grandmother. From Robert Olen Butler comes the wry and warm tale " Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot," in which a man learns the consequences of marital distrust. Alice Adams employs her customary finesse to contrast the stinging vulnerability of early adolescence with the burdens and pleasures of midlife. Including contributions from Joyce Carol Oates, Lynn Sharon Schwartz, Rick Bass, and an array of stunning new talent, The Best American Short Stories 1996 is a rewarding, en

    For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind. Lending a fresh perspective to a perennial favorite, Walter Mosley has chosen unforgettable short stories by both renowned writers and exciting newcomers. The Best American Short Stories 2003 features poignant tales that explore the nuances of family life and love, birth and death. Here are stories that will, as Mosley writes in his introduction, "live with the reader long after the words have been translated into ideas and dreams. That's because a good short story crosses the borders of our nations and our prejudices and our beliefs."Dorothy Allison Edwidge Danticat E. L. Doctorow Louise Erdrich Adam Haslett ZZ Packer Mona Simpson Mary Yukari Waters

    The freedom to tell each other the stories of ourselves, to retell the stories of our culture and beliefs, is profoundly connected to the larger subject of freedom itself.”—Salman Rushdie, editorIntroduction / by Salman Rushdie --Admiral / T.C. Boyle --The year of silence / Kevin Brockmeier --Galatea / Karen Brown --Man and wife / Katie Chase --Virgins / Danielle Evans --Closely held / Allegra Goodman --May we be forgiven / A.M. Homes --From the desk of Daniel Varsky / Nicole Krauss --The king of sentences / Jonathan Lethem --The worst you ever feel / Rebecca Makkai --The wizard of West Orange / Steven Millhauser --Nawabdin Electrician / Daniyal Mueenuddin --Child's play / Alice Munro --Buying Lenin / Miroslav Penkov --Vampires in the lemon grove / Karen Russell --Puppy / George Saunders --Quality of life / Christine Sneed --Missionaries / Bradford Tice --Straightaway / Mark Wisniewski --Bible / Tobias Wolff

    This year, E. Annie Proulx's selection includes dazzling stories by Tobias Wolff, Donald Hall, Cynthia Ozick, Robert Stone, Junot Diaz, and T. C. Boyle as well as an array of stunning new talent. In her introduction, Proulx writes that beyond their strength and vigor, these stories achieve "a certain intangible feel for the depth of human experience, not uncommonly expressed through a kind of dry humor." As ever, this year's volume surprises and rewards.100 Distinguished Stories Citations, including How to Have Heart Disease (Without Really Trying), Jane Eaton Hamilton

    For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind. Lorrie Moore brings her keen eye for wit and surprise to the volume, and The Best American Short Stories 2004 is an eclectic and enthralling gathering of well-known voices and talented up-and-comers. Here are stories that probe the biggest issues: ambition, gender, romance, war. Here are funny and touching and striking tales of a Spokane Indian, the estranged wife of an Iranian immigrant, an American tutor in Bombay. In her introduction Lorrie Moore writes, "The stories collected here impressed me with their depth of knowledge and feeling of character, setting, and situation . . . They spoke with amused intelligence, compassion, and dispassion."

    and Canada” (PUBLISHERS WEEKLY). To usher in the new millennium, THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2000 brims with a rich variety of lyrical and wise stories about our country’s past, present, and future. This year’s editor, the best-selling author E. L. Doctorow, has chosen new works by Raymond Carver, Amy Bloom, Ha Jin, Walter Mosley, and Jhumpa Lahiri, among others. The most popular compendium of its kind, THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES is the only volume that offers the finest short fiction each year, chosen by a distinguished author.

    Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of magazines, journals, and websites. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the best twenty or so pieces to publish. This unique system has made the Best American series the most respected — and most popular — of its kind. The Best American Short Stories 2011 includes Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Megan Mayhew Bergman, Jennifer Egan, Nathan Englander, Allegra Goodman, Ehud Havazelet, Rebecca Makkai, Steven Millhauser, George Saunders, Mark Slouka, and others

    Stories increasingly change point of view, switch location, and sometimes pack as much material as a short novel might,” writes guest editor Elizabeth Strout. “It’s the variety of voices that most indicates the increasing confluence of cultures involved in making us who we are.” The Best American Short Stories 2013 presents an impressive diversity of writers who dexterously lead us into their corners of the world.In “Miss Lora,” Junot Díaz masterfully puts us in the mind of a teenage boy who throws aside his better sense and pursues an intimate affair with a high school teacher. Sheila Kohler tackles innocence and abuse as a child wanders away from her mother, in thrall to a stranger she believes is the “Magic Man.” Kirstin Valdez Quade’s “Nemecia” depicts the after-effects of a secret, violent family trauma. Joan Wickersham’s “The Tunnel” is a tragic love story about a mother’s declining health and her daughter’s helplessness as she struggles to balance her responsibility to her mother and her own desires. New author Callan Wink’s “Breatharians” unsettles the reader as a farm boy shoulders a grim chore in the wake of his parents’ estrangement.“Elizabeth Strout was a wonderful reader, an author who knows well that the sound of one’s writing is just as important as and indivisible from the content,” writes series editor Heidi Pitlor. “Here are twenty compellingly told, powerfully felt stories about urgent matters with profound consequences.”