Short stories are a joy because they are a concise and focused literary form, and they are quick to read! Please enjoy a selection of 2008 publications in the short story format.
(Click on the book cover or title to link to library holdings information.)

Our Story Begins: new and selected stories
By Tobias Wolff
Contains 10 spare, elegant new stories, and 21 stories from previous collections. Wolff expertly uses irony and empathy to explore facets of contemporary life.

Wild Nights! stories about the last days of Poe, Dickinson, Twain, James and Hemingway
By Joyce Carol Oates
The title says it all. Oates writes fictional death scenes for five major American writers, in a voice that adopts elements of their signature styles.

Dangerous Laughter: thirteen stories
By Steven Millhauser
Contemporary life viewed in a fantastical way, while focusing on the misery that comes from misdirected human desire and ambition.

Unaccustomed Earth
By Jhumpa Lahiri
A collection of eight stories that look at how daily life affects immigrants, and explores the complexities that lie at the heart of familial relationships.

The Deportees and other stories
By Roddy Doyle
A first collection of short stories, by a sharp witted author, that focuses on the effects of immigration on Irish culture.

 

Early Novel and Stories
By William Maxwell
Author Maxwell died in 2000 and this is the Library of America collection of some of his outstanding works, including his lighthearted first novel, Bright Center of Heaven.  

Escondido Public Library.
  Revised: 07/17/08.