The Best American Short Stories 2024

I’m torn here. There were some short stories that I really liked, but there were more than a few others that I either actively disliked or wondered why they were included in a best of anthology. I liked “The Best Short Stories 2024” more than this collection of American stories. Still, there are some......more

Best American Short Stories 2024 I am a huge fan of short story analogies. I consider them the best way to obtain a snapshot of an author’s style and genre. I have found many new authors this way. I have read this particular collection for many years, edited by the fabulous Heidi Pietlor who will be......more

This was a slog. I avoided the book altogether for days at a time. Considerable cruelty, which authors may have assumed was edgy, some errors, something else . . . The sense that I am not the intended reader? Not liking these much, though they are not all bad stories—maybe not any that were actually......more

I don't envy the editors whose job it was to read thousands of stories published in 2023 to decide which 20 were "the best" published that year. Each of these stories, some in familiar settings and some not, is its own world, whether set in the past, the future, or now, whether featuring surreal char......more

The Best American Short Stories 2024edited by Lauren croft is a mixed bag of entertainment. I usually cannot put the annual collection down but this year it was only OK. They do have some outstanding stories such as The privileged, seeing through Maps, the mall of America and last but definitely not......more