Jane Smiley Books In Order

Ellen and Ned Books In Publication Order

  1. Riding Lessons (2018)
  2. Saddles & Secrets (2019)
  3. Taking the Reins (2020)

Horses Of Oak Valley Ranch Books In Publication Order

  1. The Georges and the Jewels / Nobody’s Horse (2009)
  2. A Good Horse / Secret Horse (2010)
  3. True Blue / Mystery Horse (2011)
  4. Pie in the Sky / Champion Horse (2012)
  5. Gee Whiz / Star Horse (2013)

Last Hundred Years: A Family Saga Books In Publication Order

  1. Some Luck (2014)
  2. Early Warning (2015)
  3. Golden Age (2015)

Standalone Novels In Publication Order

  1. Barn Blind (1980)
  2. At Paradise Gate (1981)
  3. Duplicate Keys (1984)
  4. The Greenlanders (1988)
  5. A Thousand Acres (1991)
  6. Moo (1995)
  7. The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton (1998)
  8. Horse Heaven (1999)
  9. Good Faith (2003)
  10. Ten Days in the Hills (2007)
  11. Private Life (2010)
  12. Twenty Yawns (2016)
  13. Perestroika in Paris (2020)

Short Stories/Novellas In Publication Order

  1. Lily (2016)

Collections In Publication Order

  1. The Age of Grief (1987)
  2. Ordinary Love and Good Will: Two Novellas (1989)

Non-Fiction Books In Publication Order

  1. The Sagas of Icelanders (1200)
  2. Catskill Crafts: Artisans of the Catskill Mountains (1987)
  3. A Year At the Races: Reflections On Horses, Humans, Love, Money And Luck (2004)
  4. Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel (2005)
  5. The Man Who Invented the Computer: The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer (2010)
  6. An Innocent Abroad: Life-Changing Trips from 35 Great Writers (With: Dave Eggers) (2014)
  7. March Sisters: On Life, Death, and Little Women (With: Carmen Maria Machado,,Jenny Zhang) (2019)

Warmer Collection Books In Publication Order

  1. The Way the World Ends (By:Jess Walter) (2018)
  2. Boca Raton (By:Lauren Groff) (2018)
  3. Controller (By:Jesse Kellerman) (2018)
  4. There’s No Place Like Home (By:Edan Lepucki) (2018)
  5. Falls the Shadow (By:Skip Horack) (2018)
  6. At the Bottom of New Lake (By:Sonya Larson) (2018)
  7. The Hillside (2018)

Best American Short Stories Books In Publication Order

  1. The Best Short Stories of 1915 (1916)
  2. The Best Short Stories of 1916 (1916)
  3. The Best Short Stories of 1917 (1917)
  4. The Best Short Stories of 1918 (1918)
  5. The Best Short Stories of 1919 (1919)
  6. The Best Short Stories of 1921 (1921)
  7. The Best Short Stories of 1922 (1922)
  8. The Best Short Stories of 1923 (1923)
  9. The Best Short Stories 1924 (1924)
  10. The Best Short Stories of 1925 (1925)
  11. The Best Short Stories 1926 (1926)
  12. The Best Short Stories 1927 (1927)
  13. The Best Short Stories of 1928 (1928)
  14. The Best Short Stories of 1929 (1929)
  15. The Best Short Stories 1930 (1930)
  16. The Best Short Stories 1931 (1931)
  17. The Best Short Stories of 1932 (1932)
  18. The Best Short Stories 1933 (1933)
  19. The Best Short Stories 1934 (1934)
  20. The Best Short Stories 1935 (1935)
  21. The Best Short Stories 1936 (1936)
  22. The Best Short Stories 1937 (1937)
  23. The Best Short Stories of 1938 (1938)
  24. 50 Best American Short Stories, 1915-1939 (1939)
  25. The Best Short Stories 1939 (1939)
  26. The Best Short Stories of 1940 (1940)
  27. The Best Short Stories 1941 (1941)
  28. The Best American Short Stories 1942 (1942)
  29. The Best American Short Stories 1943 (1943)
  30. The Best American Short Stories 1944 (1944)
  31. The Best American Short Stories 1945 (1945)
  32. The Best American Short Stories 1946 (1946)
  33. The Best American Short Stories 1947 (1947)
  34. The Best American Short Stories 1948 (1948)
  35. The Best American Short Stories 1949 (1949)
  36. The Best American Short Stories 1950 (1950)
  37. The Best American Short Stories 1951 (1951)
  38. The Best American Short Stories 1952 (1952)
  39. The Best American Short Stories 1953 (1953)
  40. The Best American Short Stories 1955 (1955)
  41. The Best American Short Stories 1956 (1956)
  42. The Best American Short Stories 1957 (1957)
  43. The Best American Short Stories 1958 (1958)
  44. The Best American Short Stories 1959 (1959)
  45. The Best American Short Stories 1960 (1960)
  46. The Best American Short Stories 1961 (1961)
  47. The Best American Short Stories 1962 (1962)
  48. The Best American Short Stories 1963 (1963)
  49. The Best American Short Stories 1964 (1964)
  50. The Best American Short Stories 1965 (1965)
  51. The Best American Short Stories 1966 (1966)
  52. The Best American Short Stories 1967 (1967)
  53. The Best American Short Stories 1968 (1967)
  54. The Best American Short Stories of 1969 (1969)
  55. The Best American Short Stories 1970 (1970)
  56. The Best American Short Stories 1971 (1971)
  57. The Best American Short Stories 1972 (1972)
  58. The Best American Short Stories 1973 (1973)
  59. The Best American Short Stories 1974 (1974)
  60. The Best of Best American Short Stories 1915-1950 (1975)
  61. The Best American Short Stories 1975 (1975)
  62. The Best American Short Stories 1976 (1976)
  63. The Best American Short Stories 1977 (1977)
  64. The Best American Short Stories 1978 (1978)
  65. The Best American Short Stories 1979 (1979)
  66. The Best American Short Stories 1980 (1980)
  67. The Best American Short Stories 1981 (1981)
  68. The Best American Short Stories 1982 (1982)
  69. The Best American Short Stories 1983 (1983)
  70. The Best American Short Stories 1984 (1984)
  71. The Best American Short Stories 1985 (1985)
  72. The Best American Short Stories 1986 (1986)
  73. The Best American Short Stories 1987 (1987)
  74. The Best American Short Stories 1988 (1988)
  75. The Best American Short Stories 1989 (1989)
  76. The Best American Short Stories of the Eighties (1990)
  77. The Best American Short Stories 1990 (1990)
  78. The Best American Short Stories 1991 (1991)
  79. The Best American Short Stories 1992 (1992)
  80. The Best American Short Stories 1993 (1993)
  81. The Best American Short Stories 1994 (1994)
  82. The Best American Short Stories 1995 (1995)
  83. The Best American Short Stories 1996 (1996)
  84. The Best American Short Stories 1997 (1997)
  85. The Best American Short Stories 1998 (1998)
  86. The Best American Short Stories 1999 (1999)
  87. The Best American Short Stories 2000 (2000)
  88. The Best American Short Stories of the Century (2000)
  89. The Best American Short Stories 2001 (2001)
  90. The Best American Short Stories 2002 (2002)
  91. The Best American Short Stories 2003 (2003)
  92. The Best American Short Stories 2004 (2004)
  93. The Best American Short Stories 2005 (2005)
  94. The Best American Short Stories 2006 (2006)
  95. The Best American Short Stories 2007 (2007)
  96. The Best Short Stories of 1921, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story (2007)
  97. The Best American Short Stories1921 (2007)
  98. The Best American Short Stories 2008 (2008)
  99. The Best American Short Stories 2009 (2009)
  100. The Best American Short Stories 2010 (2010)
  101. The Best American Short Stories 2011 (2011)
  102. The Best American Short Stories 2012 (2012)
  103. The Best American Short Stories 2013 (2013)
  104. The Best American Short Stories 2014 (2014)
  105. The Best American Short Stories 2015 (2015)
  106. 100 Years of The Best American Short Stories (2015)
  107. The Best American Short Stories 2016 (2016)
  108. The Best American Short Stories 2017 (2017)
  109. The Best American Short Stories 2018 (2018)
  110. The Best American Short Stories 2019 (2019)
  111. The Best American Short Stories 2020 (2020)

Best New American Voices Books In Publication Order

  1. Best New American Voices 2000 (By:) (2000)
  2. Best New American Voices 2001 (By:) (2001)
  3. Best New American Voices 2003 (By:) (2002)
  4. Best New American Voices 2004 (By:) (2003)
  5. Best New American Voices 2005 (By:) (2004)
  6. Best New American Voices 2006 (2005)
  7. Best New American Voices 2007 (By:Sue Miller) (2006)
  8. Best New American Voices 2008 (By:) (2007)
  9. Best New American Voices 2009 (By:Mary Gaitskill) (2008)
  10. Best New American Voices 2010 (By:) (2009)

Anthologies In Publication Order

  1. Great American Short Stories (1990)

Ellen and Ned Book Covers

Horses Of Oak Valley Ranch Book Covers

Last Hundred Years: A Family Saga Book Covers

Standalone Novels Book Covers

Short Stories/Novellas Book Covers

Collections Book Covers

Non-Fiction Book Covers

Warmer Collection Book Covers

Best American Short Stories Book Covers

Best New American Voices Book Covers

Anthologies Book Covers

Jane Smiley Books Overview

The Georges and the Jewels / Nobody’s Horse

A Pulitzer Prize winner makes her debut for young readers. Abby Lovitt has been riding horses for as long as she can remember, but Daddy hasn t let her name a single one. He calls all their geldings George and their mares Jewel and warns her not to get attached. The horses are there on the ranch to be sold, plain and simple. But with all the stress at school the Big Four Linda, Mary A., Mary N., Joan have turned against her and home nothing feels right with her brother, Danny, gone, Abby can t help but seek comfort in the Georges and the Jewels, who greet her every day with soft nickers. Except for one: the horse who won t meet her gaze, the horse who bucks her off, the horse Daddy insists she ride and train. Abby knows not to cross her father, but she knows, too, that she can t get back on Ornery George. And suddenly the horses seem like no refuge at all. From Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley comes an emotionally charged and action filled novel for young readers, set in the vibrant landscape of 1960s California horse country.

A Good Horse / Secret Horse

When eighth grader Abby Lovitt looks out at those pure gold rolling hills, she knows there’s no place she d rather be than her family s ranch even with all the hard work of tending to nine horses. But some chores are no work at all, like grooming young Jack. At eight months, his rough foal coat has shed out, leaving a smooth, rich silk, like chocolate. As for Black George, such a good horse, it turns out he s a natural jumper. When he and Abby clear four feet easy as pie, heads start to turn at the ring buyers heads and Abby knows Daddy won t turn down a good offer. Then a letter arrives from a private investigator, and suddenly Abby stands to lose not one horse but two. The letter states that Jack s mare may have been sold to the Lovitts as stolen goods. A mystery unfolds, more surprising than Abby could ever expect. Will she lose her beloved Jack to his rightful owners?Pulitzer Prize winner Jane Smiley raises horses of her own, and her affection and expertise shine through in this inviting horse novel for young readers, set in 1960s California horse country and featuring characters from The Georges and the Jewels.

Barn Blind

The verdant pastures of a farm in Illinois have the placid charm of a landscape painting. But the horses that graze there have become the obsession of a woman who sees them as the fulfillment of every wish: to win, to be honored, to be the best. Her ambition is the galvanizing force in Jane Smiley’s first novel, a force that will drive a wedge between her and her family, and bring them all to tragedy. Written with the grace and quiet beauty of her Pulitzer Prize winning novel, A Thousand Acres, Barn Blind is a spellbinding story on the classic American themes of work, love, and duty, and the excesses we commit to achieve success.’Chilling…
Jane Smiley handles with skill and understanding the mercurial molas*ses of adolescence, and the inchoate, cumbersome love that family members feel for one another.’ The New York Times

At Paradise Gate

Infused with sharp insight, honesty, and emotion, At Paradise Gate is a treat for both the heart and the intellect. In this poignant story, best selling author Jane Smiley pens a graceful portrait of an ordinary midwestern family confronting the mysteries of death and regeneration. While her 77 year old husband lies upstairs, dying, Anna Robison spends her depleting energy defending their home. Their three middle aged daughters and 23 year old granddaughter have invaded, radiating vigor and good intentions. But the younger women temper their help with squabbling, ill considered advice, and an abundant supply of their own problems. Pulitzer Prize winning author Jane Smiley brilliantly captures the simple pleasures and troubles common to everyday life. With her dramatic performance, narrator Suzanne Toren highlights the satisfying family ties and the underlying domestic tensions. You won’t want to miss another spell binding title by Jane Smiley: A Thousand Acres

Duplicate Keys

Alice Ellis is a Midwestern refugee living in Manhattan. Still recovering from a painful divorce, she depends on the companionship and camaraderie of tightly knit circle of friends. At the center of this circle is a rock band struggling to navigate New York’s erratic music scene, and an apartment/practice space with approximately fifty key holders. One sunny day, Alice enters the apartment and finds two of the band members shot dead. As the double murder sends waves of shock through their lives, this group of friends begins to unravel, and dangerous secrets are revealed one by one. When Alice begins to notice things amiss in her own apartment, the tension breaks out as it occurs to her that she is not the only person with a key, and she may not get a chance to change the locks.

Jane Smiley applies her distinctive rendering of time, place, and the enigmatic intricacies of personal relationships to the twists and turns of suspense. The result is a brilliant literary thriller that will keep readers guessing up to its final, shocking conclusion.

The Greenlanders

‘HAUNTING.’ The New York Times Book ReviewJane Smiley, the Pultizer Prize winning author of A Thousand Acres, gives us a magnificent novel of fourteenth century Greenland. Rich with fascinating detail about the day to day joys and innumerable hardships of remarkable people, The Greenlanders is also the compelling story of one family proud landowner Asgeir Gunnarsson; his daughter Margret, whose willful independence leads her into passionate adultery and exile; and his son Gunnar, whose quest for knowledge is at the compelling center of this unforgettable book. Echoing the simple power of the old Norse sagas, here is a novel that brings a remote civilization to life and shows how it was very like our own.’TOTALLY COMPELLING…
FASCINATING…
In the manner of the big books of the nineteenth century, in which complex family and community matters unravel Dickens, Dumas, Tolstoy The Greenlanders sweeps the reader along…
. Jane Smiley is a true storyteller.’ The Washington Post’A POWERFUL, MOVING STUDY OF HUMAN FRAILTY AND THE EPHEMERAL NATURE OF COURAGE AND LOVE.’ USA Today’WONDERFUL…
A HISTORICAL NOVEL WITH THE NEARNESS OF CONTEMPORARY FICTION.’ The New Republic’ AN EPIC MASTERPIECE…
SPELLBINDING.’ Newsday

A Thousand Acres

‘BRILLIANT…
A THRILLING WORK OF ART.’ Chicago Sun TimesWhen Larry Cook, the aging patriarch of a rich, thriving farm in Iowa, decides to retire, he offers his land to his three daughters. For Ginny and Rose, who live on the farm with their husbands, the gift makes sense a reward for years of hard work, a challenge to make the farm even more successful. But the youngest, Caroline, a Des Moines lawyer, flatly rejects the idea, and in anger her father cuts her out setting off an explosive series of events that will leave none of them unchanged. A classic story of contemporary American life, A Thousand Acres strikes at the very heart of what it means to be a father, a daughter, a family.’While she has written beautifully about families in all of her seven preceding books, this effort is her best: a family portrait that is also a near epic investigation into the broad landscape, the thousand dark acres, of the human heart.’ The Washington Post Book World’A full, commanding novel…
This is a story bound and tethered to a lonely road in the Midwest, but drawn from a universal source…
. A profoundly American novel.1 The Boston Globe’A TOUR DE FORCE.’ Newsweek’POWERFUL AND POIGNANT.’ The New York Times Book ReviewWinner of the Pulitzer Prize

Moo

‘DELECTABLY ENTERTAINING…
. An uproariously funny and at the same time hauntingly melancholy portrait of a college community in the Midwest.’ The New York TimesNestled in the heart of the Midwest, amid cow pastures and waving fields of grain, lies Moo University, a distinguished institution devoted to the art and science of agriculture. Here, among an atmosphere rife with devious plots, mischievous intrigue, lusty liaisons, and academic one upmanship, Chairman X of the Horticulture Department harbors a secret fantasy to kill the dean; Mrs. Walker, the provost’s right hand and campus information queen, knows where all the bodies are buried; Timothy Nonahan, associate professor of English, advocates eavesdropping for his creative writing assignments; and Bob Carlson, a sophomore, feeds and maintains his only friend: a hog named Earl Butz. In this wonderfully written and masterfully plotted novel, Jane Smiley, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of A Thousand Acres, offers us a wickedly funny comedy that is also a darkly poignant slice of life.’FAST, HILARIOUS, AND HEARTBREAKING…
Not for a minute does Moo lose its perfect satiric pitch or its pacing…
. Don’t skip a page, don’t skip a paragraph. It’s going to be on the final.’ People’SMART, IRREVERENT, AND WICKEDLY TENDER…
Moo suggests a mix of Tom Wolfe’s wit and John Updike’s satiny reach…
Engaging.’ The Boston Globe’ENTERTAINING…
Displays a wicked wit and an unerring eye for American foibles…
Stuffed with memorable characters, sparkling with deliciously acid humor, Moo is a rare bird in today’s literary menagerie: a great read that also makes you think.’ Chicago Sun TimesFrom the Trade Paperback edition.

The All-True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton

THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERPulitzer Prize winning author of A Thousand Acres’Rousing…
Action packed…
A gripping story about love, fortitude, and convictions that are worth fighting for.’ Los Angeles TimesA NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK’POWERFUL…
Smiley takes us back to Kansas in 1855, a place of rising passions and vast uncertainties. Narrated in the spirited, unsentimental voice of 20 year old Lidie Newton, the novel is at once an ambitious examination of a turning point in history and the riveting story of one woman’s journey into uncharted regions of place and self.’ Chicago Tribune’ A grand tale of the moral and political upheavals igniting antebellum frontier life and a hero*ine so wonderfully fleshed and unforgettable you will think you are listening to her story instead of reading it. Smiley may have snared a Pulitzer for A Thousand Acres…
but it is with Lydia Lidie Harkness Newton that she emphatically captures our hearts…
. The key word in Smiley’s title is Adventures, and Lydia’s are crammed with breathless movement, danger, and tension; populated by terrifically entertaining characters and securely grounded in telling detail.’ The Miami Herald’SMILEY BRILLIANTLY EVOKES MID 19TH CENTURY LIFE…
. Richly imagined and superbly written, Jane Smiley’s new novel is an extraordinary accomplishment in an already distinguished career.’ Atlanta Journal Constitution’A SPRAWLING EPIC…
A garrulous, nights by the hearth narrative not unlike those classics of the period it emulates. In following a rebellious young woman of 1855 into Kansas Territory and beyond, the novel is so persuasively authentic that it reads like a forgotten document from the days of Twain and Stowe.’ The Boston Sunday Globe’CONSISTENTLY ENTERTAINING, FILLED WITH ACTION AND IDEAS.’ The New York Times Book Review’ENGAGING…
A HARROWING ADVENTURE…
This picaresque tale presents a series of remarkable characters, particularly in the inexperienced narrator, whose graphic descriptions of travel and domestic life before the Civil War strip away romantic notions of simpler times…
. Smiley has created an authentic voice in this struggle of a young woman to live simply amid a swirl of deadly antagonism.’ The Christian Science Monitor’A fine historical novel that describes a fascinating time and place…
It is both funny and subtle, rich in ideas…
Smiley has created a better all around piece of fiction than any of her previous work, including the Pulitzer Prize winning A Thousand Acres.’ The Wall Street Journal’Smiley is a writer of rare versatility who travels widely in her creative endeavors. She proved her mastery of both short fiction and the novel with three sterling works The Age of Grief, Ordinary Love and Good Will, and A Thousand Acres; her fondness for history had already been established with The Greelanders. In 1995, she successfully extended her repertoire to comedy with the hilarious academic satire Moo. What her new novel shares with all these works is its authorial intelligence.’ The Boston Sunday Globe ‘Jane Smiley is nothing if not protean, a literary ventriloquist of incredible range…
. This is a novel that manages to combine the evocative storyteller’s voice with the moviemaker’s sense of drama and visuals, an old fashioned tale told with contemporary steam and panache.’ The Philadelphia Inquirer’Not only is this a rollicking feminist tale of a woman who can handle herself in the thick of the Kansas Wars, The All True Travels and Adventures of Lidie Newton is also a coming of age story as well as a lasting portrait of the genuinely tumultuous time just before the Civil War.’ The Raleigh News & Observer’A tale of love and war, revenge and betrayal, Smiley’s fictional memoir invites comparisons with Gone with the Wind, even War and Peace…
. Lidie Newton has the ring of honesty and truth. It also carries the stamp of its author’s historical sense, stylistic verve, and moral passion.’ St. Louis Post Dispatch’Full of the same arresting authenticity of detail that carried A Thousand Acres.’ New York Daily News’LIDIE IS AN UNFORGETTABLE CHARACTER…
The All True Travels is a showcase for Smiley’s range and dexterity, dead on in its emotional impact and resonant in the painful truths it conveys.’ San Diego Union Tribune’Rendered in sharply lucid prose and filled with wonderful period detail…
Lidie’s story reads like a long and various dream, brightly colored and brilliantly observed a journey into a world as troubled, ambiguous, and full of life as our own.’ Chicago Tribune’An adventure story, full of suspense, near misses, and coincidence…
The first and sustaining marvel of Smiley’s new novel is Lydia Newton’s voice: grounded in 19th century reserve, yet honest, self aware, and curious.’ Toronto Globe & Mail’Smiley nabbed a Pulitzer for A Thousand Acres. This stunning new effort should win equally thunderous acclaim.’ Mademoiselle ‘An immensely appealing hero*ine, a historical setting conveyed with impressive fidelity and a charming and poignant love story make Smiley’s new novel a sure candidate for bestseller longevity…
. Propelled by Lidie’s spirited voice, this narrative is packed with drama, irony, historical incident, moral ambiguities, and the perception of human frailty…
. This novel performs all the functions of superior fiction: in reading one woman’s moving story, we understand an historical epoch, the social and political conditions that produced it, and the psychological, moral, and economic motivations of the people who incited and endured its violent confrontations.’ Publishers Weekly starred review’Gloriously detailed and brilliantly told, this is a hugely entertaining, illuminating, and sagacious vision of a time of profound moral and political conflict, and of one woman’s coming to terms with the perilous, maddening, and precious world.’ Booklist starred review’Smiley scales another peak with this bighearted and thoughtful picaresque novel…
. A richly entertaining saga of a woman who might have been well matched with Thomas Berger’s Little Big Man, and whom Huck Finn would have been proud to claim as his big sister.’ Kirkus Reviews starred review ‘HER FINEST WORK YET…
Resembling a cross between the writing of Jane Austen, Stephen Crane, and Mark Twain…
A fast paced historical ride through a defining moment in our nation’s history as seen through the eyes of a remarkable woman…
. Smiley’s biggest triumph is in the character of Lidie. One can actually ‘see’ her growth throughout the story as Lidie learns about the ambiguity of human morality and that true justice is rarely served.’ San Antonio Express News’Highly recommended…
Trust Smiley to take a situation charged with both social significance and novelistic opportunity and ride it for all its worth…
. Smiley gives us a rich lode of historical detail yet keep the story moving, so that it seems to flow by like a river while at the same time yielding up its riches in leisurely fashion.’ Library Journal starred review’Like Cold Mountain and Beloved and with more than a casual nod to Mark Twain this sprawling saga by the Pulitzer winning author of A Thousand Acres connects readers to the historical issues of the time.’ Glamour’Our hero*ine is a horse riding, river swimming, plain faced young woman with a distinctly well calibrated mind of her own.’ The Baltimore Sun’A long, wild adventure…
Lidie never loses her pluck, and her story becomes both a rich homage to Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and a thrilling variation on the derring do of Lonesome Dove.’ Outside magazine’ A gripping, epic new novel…
The All True Travels is consistently absorbing, thanks in large part to the strong, vibrant voice of the unforgettable Lidie Newton.’ Good Housekeeping’Packed with action in a setting worthy of a Western shoot ’em up.’ Newark Star Ledger ‘ROUSING…
ACTION PACKED…
A gripping story about love, fortitude, and convictions that are worth fighting for regardless of the outcome…
. T…

Horse Heaven

‘It’s not true,’ says a character in Jane Smiley’s funny, passionate, and brilliant new novel of horse racing, ‘that anything can happen at the racetrack,’ but many astonishing and affecting things do and in Horse Heaven, we find them woven into a marvelous tapestry of joy and love, chicanery, folly, greed, and derring do. Haunting, exquisite Rosalind Maybrick, wife of a billionaire owner, one day can’t quite decide what it is she wants, and discovers too late that her whole life is transformed…
Twenty year old Tiffany Morse, stuck in her job at Wal Mart, prays, ‘Please make something happen here…
This time, I mean it,’ and something does…
Farley, a good trainer in a bad slump; Buddy, a ruthless trainer who can’t seem to lose even though he knows that his personal salvation depends upon it; Roberto, an apprentice jockey who has ‘the hands’ but is growing too big for his dream career with every passing day; Leo the gambler and his earnest son, Jesse, who understands everything about his father’s ‘system’ except why it doesn’t work; Elizabeth, the sixty two year old theorist of sex and animal communication, and her best friend, Joy, the mare manager at the ranch at the center of the universe all are woven together by the horses that pass among them: two colts and two fillies who begin with the promise of talent and breeding, and now might or might not achieve stardom. There are the geldings Justa Bob, the plain brown horse who always wins by a nose, a lovable claimer who pas*ses from owner to owner on a heart wrenching journey down from the winner’s circle; and the beautiful Mr. T., raced in France and rescued in Texas, who is discovered to have some unusual and amazing talents. And then there is the Jack Russell terrier, Eileen, a dog with real convictions and the will to implement them. The strange, compelling, sparkling, and mysterious universe of horse racing that has fascinated generations of punters and robber barons, horse lovers and wits, has never before been depicted with such verve and originality, such tenderness, such clarity, and, above all, such sheer exuberance.

Good Faith

Jane Smiley brings her extraordinary gifts-comic timing, empathy, emotional wisdom, an ability to deliver slyly on big themes and capture the American spirit-to the seductive, wishful, wistful world of real estate, in which the sport of choice is the mind game. Her funny and moving new novel is about what happens when the American Dream morphs into a seven-figure American Fantasy.

Joe Stratford is someone you like at once. He makes an honest living helping nice people buy and sell nice houses. His not-very-amicable divorce is finally settled, and he’s ready to begin again. It’s 1982. He is pretty happy, pretty satisfied. But a different era has dawned; Joe’s new friend, Marcus Burns from New York, seems to be suggesting that the old rules are ready to be repealed, that now is the time you can get rich quick. Really rich. And Marcus not only knows that everyone is going to get rich, he knows how. Because Marcus just quit a job with the IRS.

But is Joe ready for the kind of success Marcus promises he can deliver? And what’s the real scoop on Salt Key Farm? Is this really the development opportunity of a lifetime?

And then there’s Felicity Ornquist, the lovely, feisty, winning and married daughter of Joe’s mentor and business partner. She has finally owned up to her feelings for Joe: she’s just been waiting for him to be available.

The question Joe asks himself, over and over, is, Does he have the gumption? Does he have the smarts and the imagination and the staying power to pay attention-to Marcus and to Felicity-and reap the rewards?

Good Faith captures the seductions and illusions that can seize America during our periodic golden ages every Main Street an El Dorado. To follow Joe as he does deals and is dealt with in this newly liberated world of anything goes is a roller-coaster ride through the fun park of the 1980s. It is Jane Smiley in top form.

4/2003

Ten Days in the Hills

A glorious new novel from the Pulitzer Prize winner: a big, smart, bawdy tale of love and war, sex and politics, friendship and betrayal and the allure of the movies. With Giovanni Boccaccio’s Decameron as her model, Jane Smiley takes us through ten transformative, unforgettable days in the Hollywood hills.

It is the morning after the 2003 Academy Awards. Max an Oscar winning writer/director whose fame has waned and his lover, Elena, luxuriate in bed, still groggy from last night s red carpet festivities. They are talking about movies, talking about love, and talking about the war in Iraq, recently begun. But soon their house will be full of guests, and guests like these demand attention. There is Max s ex wife, the legendary Zoe Cunningham, a dazzling half Jamaican movie star, with her new lover, the enigmatic healer, Paul fraudulent? enlightened?. Max s agent, Stoney, a perhaps too easygoing version of his legendary agent father, can t stay away, and neither can Zoe and Max s daughter, Isabel, though she would prefer to maintain her hard won independence. And of course there is the next door neighbor, Cassie, who seems to know everyone s secrets.

As they share their stories of Hollywood past and present, watch films in Max s opulent screening room, gossip by the swimming pool, and tussle in the many bedrooms, the tension mounts, sparks fly, and Smiley delivers an exquisitely woven, virtuosic work a Hollywood novel as only she could fashion it, told with bravura, rich with delightful characters, spiced with her signature wit. It is a joyful, sexy, and wondrously insightful pleasure.

Private Life

A riveting new novel from the Pulitzer Prize winner that traverses the intimate landscape of one woman’s life, from the 1880s to World War II. Margaret Mayfield is nearly an old maid at twenty seven in post Civil War Missouri when she marries Captain Andrew Jackson Jefferson Early. He s the most famous man their small town has ever produced: a naval officer and a brilliant astronomer a genius who, according to the local paper, has changed the universe. Margaret s mother calls the match a piece of luck. Margaret is a good girl who has been raised to marry, yet Andrew confounds her expectations from the moment their train leaves for his naval base in faraway California. Soon she comes to understand that his devotion to science leaves precious little room for anything, or anyone, else. When personal tragedies strike and when national crises envelop the country, Margaret stands by her husband. But as World War II approaches, Andrew s obsessions take a different, darker turn, and Margaret is forced to reconsider the life she has so carefully constructed. Private Life is a beautiful evocation of a woman s inner world: of the little girl within the hopeful bride, of the young woman filled with yearning, and of the faithful wife who comes to harbor a dangerous secret. But it is also a heartbreaking portrait of marriage and the mysteries that endure even in lives lived side by side; a wondrously evocative historical panorama; and, above all, a masterly, unforgettable novel from one of our finest storytellers. From the Hardcover edition.

The Age of Grief

The luminous novella and stories in The Age of Grief explore the vicissitudes of love, friendship, and marriage with all the compassion and insight that have come to be expected from Jane Smiley, the Pulitzer Prize winning author of A Thousand Acres. In The Pleasure of Her Company, a lonely, single woman befriends the married couple next door, hoping to learn the secret of their happiness. In Long Distance, a man finds himself relieved of the obligation to continue an affair that is no longer compelling to him, only to be waylaid by the guilt he feels at his easy escape. And in the incandescently wise and moving title novella, a dentist, aware that his wife has fallen in love with someone else, must comfort her when she is spurned, while maintaining the secret of his own complicated sorrow. Beautifully written, with a wry intelligence and a lively comic touch, The Age of Grief captures moments of great intimacy with grace, clarity, and indelible emotional power.

Ordinary Love and Good Will: Two Novellas

From Jane Smiley, author of the Pulitzer Prize winning novel A Thousand Acres: a pair of novellas chronicling difficult choices that reshape the dynamics of two very different families. In Ordinary Love, Smiley focuses on a woman’s infidelity and the lasting, indelible effects it leaves on her children long after her departure. Good Will describes a father who realizes how his son has been affected by his decision to lead a counterculture life and move his family to a farm. As both stories unfold, Smiley gracefully raises the questions that confront all families with the characteristic style and insight that has marked all of her work.

The Sagas of Icelanders

Commemorating the 1000th anniversary of Leif Eriksson’s pioneering voyage to the New World, Viking will proudly publish a major new translation of the very greatest of the Icelanders’ Sagas. A unique body of medieval literature, the Sagas rank with the world’s greatest literary treasures as epic as Homer, as deep in tragedy as Sophocles, as engagingly human as Shakespeare. Set during the Viking Age, these epic stories depict with an astonishingly modern realism the lives and deeds of the Norseme*n and Norsewomen who first settled Iceland and of their descendants, who ventured farther west to Greenland and, ultimately, the coast of North America. The Sagas of Icelanders collects a dozen of the most outstanding Sagas, including the celebrated ‘Vinland Sagas,’ which contain the oldest descriptions of the North American continent. Much more than rousing adventure narratives, though, the Sagas introduce modern readers to a now vanished world separated from ours by a thousand years a richly imagined and psychologically complex world, comparable in realistic effect with the novelistic genius of Austen or Dickens. The publication of these volumes is a reminder that the Icelandic Sagas can hold their own with the literature of the Mediterranean.’ Seamus Heaney, Nobel Laureate, 1995The Icelandic Sagas remain one of the great marvels of world literature, a great human achievement.’ Ted Hughes

A Year At the Races: Reflections On Horses, Humans, Love, Money And Luck

Every horse story is a love story, writes Jane Smiley, who has loved horses for most of her life and owned and bred them for a good part of it. To love something is to observe it with more than usual attention, and that is precisely what Smiley does in this irresistibly smart, witty, and engaging chronicle of her obsession. In particular she follows a sexy filly named Waterwheel and a grey named Wowie he tells a horse communicator that he wants it changed from Hornblower as they begin careers at the racetrack. Filled with humor and suspense, and with discourses on equine intelligence, affection, and character, A Year at the Races is a winner.

Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel

Over an extraordinary twenty year career, Jane Smiley has written all kinds of novels: mystery, comedy, historical fiction, epic. Is there anything Jane Smiley cannot do? raves Time magazine. But in the wake of 9/11, Smiley faltered in her hitherto unflagging impulse to write and decided to approach novels from a different angle: she read one hundred of them, from classics such as the thousand year old Tale of Genji to recent fiction by Zadie Smith, Nicholson Baker, and Alice Munro. Smiley explores as no novelist has before her the unparalleled intimacy of reading, why a novel succeeds or doesn t, and how the novel has changed over time. She describes a novelist as right on the cusp between someone who knows everything and someone who knows nothing, yet whose job and ambition is to develop a theory of how it feels to be alive. In her inimitable style exuberant, candid, opinionated Smiley invites us behind the scenes of novel writing, sharing her own habits and spilling the secrets of her craft. She walks us step by step through the publication of her most recent novel, Good Faith, and, in two vital chapters on how to write a novel of your own, offers priceless advice to aspiring authors. Thirteen Ways of Looking at the Novel may amount to a peculiar form of autobiography. We see Smiley reading in bed with a chocolate bar; mulling over plot twists while cooking dinner for her family; even, at the age of twelve, devouring Sherlock Holmes mysteries, which she later realized were among her earliest literary models for plot and character. And in an exhilarating conclusion, Smiley considers individually the one hundred books she read, from Don Quixote to Lolita to Atonement, presenting her own insights and often controversial opinions. In its scope and gleeful eclecticism, her reading list is one of the most compelling and surprising ever assembled. Engaging, wise, sometimes irreverent, Thirteen Ways is essential reading for anyone who has ever escaped into the pages of a novel or, for that matter, wanted to write one. In Smiley’s own words, ones she found herself turning to over the course of her journey: Read this. I bet you ll like it.

The Man Who Invented the Computer: The Biography of John Atanasoff, Digital Pioneer

From one of our most acclaimed novelists, a David and Goliath biography for the digital age. One night in the late 1930s, in a bar on the Illinois Iowa border, John Vincent Atanasoff, a professor of physics at Iowa State University, after a frustrating day performing tedious mathematical calculations in his lab, hit on the idea that the binary number system and electronic switches, com bined with an array of capacitors on a moving drum to serve as memory, could yield a computing machine that would make his life and the lives of other similarly burdened scientists easier. Then he went back and built the machine. It worked. The whole world changed. Why don t we know the name of John Atanasoff as well as we know those of Alan Turing and John von Neumann? Because he never patented the device, and because the developers of the far better known ENIAC almost certainly stole critical ideas from him. But in 1973 a court declared that the patent on that Sperry Rand device was invalid, opening the intellectual property gates to the computer revolution. Jane Smiley tells the quintessentially American story of the child of immigrants John Atanasoff with technical clarity and narrative drive, making the race to develop digital computing as gripping as a real life techno thriller.

The Best American Short Stories 1981

Short Stories by Ann Beattie, John Updike, Cynthia Ozick, Louis D. Rubin, Mavis Gallant, Alice Munro, Elizabeth Tallent, Hortense Calisher, Joyce Carol Oates, Elizabeth Hardwick, and many others.

The Best American Short Stories 1983

Short Stories by Ann Tyler, Bill Barich, John Updike, Carolyn Chute, Ursula K. Le Guin, Raymond Carver, and many others.

The Best American Short Stories 1986

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.

The Best American Short Stories of the Eighties

The 1980s were one of the most fertile and controversial times for the Amer ican short story. Rich in craft and variety, this collection includes such c lassic and beloved stories as Peter Taylor’s ‘The Old Forest,’ Raymond Carve r’s ‘Cathedral,’ and other works by Joyce Carol Oates, Russell Banks, and a host of exciting, newer talents. Hardcover edition also available. Houghton Mifflin

The Best American Short Stories 1993

The preeminent annual collection of short fiction features the writing of John Updike, Alice Munro, Wendell Berry, Diane Johnson, Lorrie Moore, Stephen Dixon, and Mary Gaitskill.

The Best American Short Stories 1994

These twenty short stories boldly and insightfully explore the extremes of human emotions. In her story ‘Night Talkers,’ Edwidge Danticat reunites a young man and the elderly aunt who raised him in Haiti. Anthony Doerr brings readers a naturalist who discovers the surprising healing powers of a deadly cone snail. Louise Erdrich writes of an Ojibwa fiddler whose music brings him deep and mysterious joy. Here are diverse and intriguing characters a kidnapper, an immigrant nanny, an amputee blues musician who are as surprised as the reader is at what brings them happiness. In his introduction, Walter Mosley explores the definition of a good short story, and writes, ‘The writers represented in this collection have told stories that suggest much larger ideas. I found myself presented with the challenge of simple human love contrasted against structures as large as religion and death. The desire to be loved or to be seen, represented on a canvas so broad that it would take years to explain all the roots that bring us to the resolution.’ Each of these stories bravely evokes worlds brim*ming with desire and loss, humanity and possibility. Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. 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 AllisonEdwidge DanticatE. L. DoctorowLouise ErdrichAdam HaslettZZ PackerMona SimpsonMary Yukari Waters

The Best American Short Stories 1995

These twenty short stories boldly and insightfully explore the extremes of human emotions. In her story ‘Night Talkers,’ Edwidge Danticat reunites a young man and the elderly aunt who raised him in Haiti. Anthony Doerr brings readers a naturalist who discovers the surprising healing powers of a deadly cone snail. Louise Erdrich writes of an Ojibwa fiddler whose music brings him deep and mysterious joy. Here are diverse and intriguing characters a kidnapper, an immigrant nanny, an amputee blues musician who are as surprised as the reader is at what brings them happiness. In his introduction, Walter Mosley explores the definition of a good short story, and writes, ‘The writers represented in this collection have told stories that suggest much larger ideas. I found myself presented with the challenge of simple human love contrasted against structures as large as religion and death. The desire to be loved or to be seen, represented on a canvas so broad that it would take years to explain all the roots that bring us to the resolution.’ Each of these stories bravely evokes worlds brim*ming with desire and loss, humanity and possibility. Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. 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 AllisonEdwidge DanticatE. L. DoctorowLouise ErdrichAdam HaslettZZ PackerMona SimpsonMary Yukari Waters

The Best American Short Stories 1996

Each fall, The Best American Short Stories provides a fresh showcase for this rich and unpredictable genre. Selected from an unusually wide variety of publications, the choices for 1996 place stories from esteemed national magazines alongside those from some of the smallest and most innovative literary journals. Contributors include Joyce Carol Oates, Mary Gordon, Robert Olen Butler, Alice Adams, Lynn Sharon Schwartz, and an array of stunning new talent.

The Best American Short Stories 1997

The preeminent short fiction series since 1915, The Best American Short Stories is the only annual that offers the finest works chosen by a distinguished best selling guest editor. This year, E. Annie Proulx’s selection includes dazzling stories by Tobias Wolff, Donald Hall, Cynthia Ozick, Robert Stone, Junot D’az, 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.

The Best American Short Stories 1998

Edited by beloved storyteller Garrison Keillor, this year’s volume promises to be full of humor, surprises, and, as always, accomplished writing by new and familiar voices. 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.

The Best American Short Stories 1999

‘What I look for most in a story,’ writes Amy Tan in her introduction to this year’s volume of The Best American Short Stories, ‘what I crave, what I found in these twenty one, is a distinctive voice that tells a story only that voice can tell.’ Tan found herself drawn to wonderfully original stories that satisfied her appetite for the magic and mystery she loved as a child, when she was addicted to fairy tales. In this vibrant collection, fantasy and truth coexist brilliantly in new works by writers such as Annie Proulx, Lorrie Moore, Nathan Englander, and Pam Houston. ‘The Sun, the Moon, the Stars,’ by Junot Diaz, features a young man trying to stave off heartbreak in a sacred cave in Santo Domingo. In ‘Mrs. Dutta Writes a Letter,’ by Chitra Divakaruni, a mother moves from India to California to be closer to her son, only to sacrifice something crucial along the way. In Melissa Hardy’s haunting story ‘The Uncharted Heart,’ a geologist unearths a shocking secret in the wilds of northern Ontario. ‘Maybe I’m still that kid who wants to see things I’ve never seen before,’ writes Tan. ‘I like being startled by images I never could have conjured up myself.’ With twenty one tales, each a fabulously rich journey into a different world, The Best American Short Stories 1999 is sure to surprise and delight.

The Best American Short Stories 2000

Still the only anthology shaped each year by a different guest editor always a preeminent master of the form THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES is the essential yearbook of the American literary scene. Here are the most talked about short stories of the year alongside undiscovered gems. In his introduction, guest editor E. L. Doctorow writes, ‘Here is the felt life conferred by the gifted storyteller…
who always raises two voices into the lonely universe, the character’s and the writer’s own.’ Doctorow has chosen a compelling variety of voices to usher in the new millennium, attesting to the astonishing range of human experience our best writers evoke. /Content /EditorialReview EditorialReview Source Amazon. com Review /Source Content When a great annual collection comes out, it’s hard to know the reason why. Was there a bumper crop of high quality stories, or was this year’s guest editor especially gifted at winnowing out the good ones? Either way, the 2000 edition of The Best American Short Stories is a standout in a series that can be uneven. Its editor, E.L. Doctorow, seems to have a fondness for the ‘what if?’ story, the kind of tale that posits an imagination prodding question and then attempts to answer it. Nathan Englander’s ‘The Gilgul of Park Avenue’ asks: What if a WASPy financial analyst, riding in a cab one day, discovers to his surprise that he is irrevocably Jewish? In ‘The Ordinary Son,’ Ron Carlson asks: What if you are the only average person in a family of certifiable geniuses? And Allan Gurganus’s ‘He’s at the Office’ asks: What if the quintessential postwar American working man were forced to retire? This last story is narrated by the man’s grown son, who at the story’s opening takes his dad for a walk. Though it’s the present day, the father is still dressed in his full 1950s businessman regalia, including camel hair overcoat and felt hat. The two walk by a teenager. ‘The boy smiled. ‘Way bad look on you, guy.”

My father, seeking interpretation, stared at me. I simply shook my head no. I could not explain Dad to himself in terms of tidal fashion trends. All I said was ‘I think he likes you.’

The exchange typifies the writing showcased in this anthology: in these stories, again and again, we find a breakdown of human communication that is sprightly, humorous, and devastatingly complete. A few more of the terrific stories featured herein: Amy Bloom’s ‘The Story,’ a goofy metafiction about a villainous divorcee; Geoffrey Becker’s ‘Black Elvis,’ which tells of, well, a black Elvis; and Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘The Third and Final Continent,’ a story of an Indian man who moves to Cambridge, Massachusetts. Like the collection itself, Lahiri’s story amas*ses a lovely, funny mood as it goes along. Claire Dederer

The Best American Short Stories of the Century

Since the series’ inception in 1915, the annual volumes of The Best American Short Stories have launched literary careers, showcased the most compelling stories of each year, and confirmed for all time the significance of the short story in our national literature. Now The Best American Short Stories of the Century brings together the best of the best fifty five extraordinary stories that represent a century’s worth of unsurpassed accomplishments in this quintessentially American literary genre. Here are the stories that have endured the test of time: masterworks by such writers as Ernest Hemingway, William Faulkner, Willa Cather, F. Scott Fitzgerald, William Saroyan, Flannery O’Connor, John Cheever, Eudora Welty, Philip Roth, Joyce Carol Oates, Raymond Carver, Cynthia Ozick, and scores of others. These are the writers who have shaped and defined the landscape of the American short story, who have unflinchingly explored all aspects of the human condition, and whose works will continue to speak to us as we enter the next century. Their artistry is represented splendidly in these pages. THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES series has also always been known for making literary discoveries, and discovery proved to be an essential part of selecting the stories for this volume too. Collections from years past yielded a rich harvest of surprises, stories that may have been forgotten but still retain their relevance and luster. The result is a volume that not only gathers some of the most significant stories of our century between two covers but resurrects a handful of lost literary gems as well. Of all the great writers whose work has appeared in the series, only John Updike’s contributions have spanned five consecutive decades, from his first appearance, in 1959, to his most recent, in 1998. Updike worked with coeditor Katrina Kenison to choose stories from each decade that meet his own high standards of literary quality.

The Best American Short Stories 2001

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred and twenty outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the 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.A wonderfully diverse collection, this year’s BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES from Hollywood to Hong Kong, from the Jersey shore to Wales, considering the biggest issues: love, war, health, success. Edited by the critically acclaimed, best selling author Barbara Kingsolver, The Best American Short Stories 2001 includes selections by Rick Bass, Ha Jin, Alice Munro, John Updike, and others. Highlighting exciting new voices as well as established masters of the form, this year’s collection is a testament to the good health of contemporary short fiction in this country.

The Best American Short Stories 2002

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. 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 the 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.

This year’s Best American Short Stories features a rich mix of voices, from both intriguing new writers and established masters of the form like Michael Chabon, Edwidge Danticat, Richard Ford, Jhumpa Lahiri, and Arthur Miller. The 2002 collection includes stories about everything from illicit love affairs to family, the immigrant experience and badly behaved children stories varied in subject but unified in their power and humanity. In the words of this year’s guest editor, the best selling author Sue Miller, ‘The American short story today is healthy and strong…
These stories arrived in the nick of time…
to teach me once more what we read fiction for.’

The Best American Short Stories 2003

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. 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 Best American Short Stories 2004

Story for story, readers can’t beat The Best American Short Stories series…
Each year it offers the opportunity to dive into the current trends and fresh voices that define the modern American short story’ Chicago Tribune. This year’s most beloved short fiction anthology is edited by the best selling novelist Sue Miller, author of While I Was Gone, and, most recently, The World Below. The volume includes stories by Edwidge Danticat, Jill McCorkle, E. L. Doctorow, Arthur Miller, and Akhil Sharma, among others. /Content /EditorialReview EditorialReview Source Amazon. com Review /Source Content In her opening remarks to The Best American Short Stories 2002, guest editor Sue Miller notes the difficulty of reading fiction produced during 2001, the year of the September 11 terrorist attacks. She also remarks that by the time she had finalized her 20 selections, this act of reading had restored her faith both in fiction’s significance and its ability to tap into timeless themes. The 2002 anthology includes stories best described as realist fiction or traditional fiction, many set in contemporary times. The tales range from E.L. Doctorow’s ‘A House on the Plains,’ a murder set at the turn of the century, to pieces with more recent settings, like ‘Puppy’ by Richard Ford, which shows how a New Orleans couple deals or doesn’t deal with the appearance of a stray dog. Both Jhumpa Lahiri’s ‘Nobody’s Business’ and Edwidge Danticat’s ‘Seven’ deftly portray the disconnection a semi assimilated Indian American and Haitian American couple experience both as partners and as U.S. citizens. Leonard Michael’s ‘Nachman from Los Angeles,’ in contrast, adds some levity to the mix. Miller adds in her preface that maybe next year the tales will depart further from tradition, but judging from this volume no departure is necessary: the selections take the reader on a delightful journey through some of America’s best contemporary writers. Jane Hodges

The Best American Short Stories 2005

The Best American Series First, Best, and Best Selling

The Best American series has been the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction since 1915. Each volume’s series editor selects notable works from hundreds of periodicals. A special guest editor, a leading writer in the field, then chooses the very 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 2005 includes

Dennis Lehane Tom Perrotta Alice Munro Edward P. Jones Joy Williams Joyce Carol Oates Thomas McGuane Kelly Link Charles D’Ambrosio Cory Doctorow George Saunders and others

Michael Chabon, guest editor, is the best selling author of The Mysteries of Pittsburgh, Wonder Boys, A Model World, and, most recently, The Final Solution. His novel The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay won the Pulitzer Prize in 2000.

The Best American Short Stories 2006

While a single short story may have a difficult time raising enough noise on its own to be heard over the din of civilization, short stories in bulk can have the effect of swarming bees, blocking out sound and sun and becoming the only thing you can think about, writes Ann Patchett in her introduction to The Best American Short Stories 2006.

This vibrant, varied sampler of the American literary scene revels in life’s little absurdities, captures timely personal and cultural challenges, and ultimately shares subtle insight and compassion. In The View from Castle Rock, the short story master Alice Munro imagines a fictional account of her Scottish ancestors emigration to Canada in 1818. Nathan Englander s cast of young characters in How We Avenged the Blums confronts a bully dubbed The Anti Semite to both comic and tragic ends. In Refresh, Refresh, Benjamin Percy gives a forceful, heart wrenching look at a young man s choices when his father along with most of the men in his small town is deployed to Iraq. Yiyun Li s After a Life reveals secrets, hidden shame, and cultural change in modern China. And in Tatooizm, Kevin Moffett weaves a story full of humor and humanity about a young couple s relationship that has run its course.

Ann Patchett brought unprecedented enthusiasm and judiciousness to The Best American Short Stories 2006 , writes Katrina Kenison in her foreword, and she is, surely, every story writer s ideal reader, eager to love, slow to fault, exquisitely attentive to the text and all that lies beneath it.

The Best American Short Stories 2007

In his introduction to this volume, Stephen King writes, Talent does more than come out; it bursts out, again and again, doing exuberant cartwheels while the band plays ‘Stars and Stripes Forever’…
Talent can t help itself; it roars along in fair weather or foul, not sparing the fireworks. It gets emotional. It struts its stuff. In fact, that’s its job. Wonderfully eclectic, The Best American Short Stories 2007 collects stories by writers of undeniable talent, both newcomers and favorites. These stories examine the turning points in life when we, as children or parents, lovers or friends or colleagues, must break certain rules in order to remain true to ourselves. In T. C. Boyle s heartbreaking Balto, a thirteen year old girl provides devastating courtroom testimony in her father s trial. Aryn Kyle s charming story Allegiance shows a young girl caught between her despairing British mother and motherly American father. In The Bris, Eileen Pollack brilliantly writes of a son struggling to fulfill his filial obligations, even when they require a breach of morality and religion. Kate Walbert s stunning Do Something portrays one mother s impassioned and revolutionary refusal to accept her son s death. And in Richard Russo s graceful Horseman, an English professor comes to understand that plagiarism reveals more about a student than original work can. New series editor Heidi Pitlor writes, Stephen King s dedication, unflagging hard work, and enthusiasm for excellent writing shone through on nearly a daily basis this past year…
We agreed, disagreed, and in the end very much concurred on the merit of the twenty stories chosen. The result is a vibrant assortment of stories and voices brim*ming with attitude, deep wisdom, and rare compassion.

The Best Short Stories of 1921, and the Yearbook of the American Short Story

Edward Joseph Harrington O’Brien 1890 1941 was an American author, poet, editor and anthologist. He was born in Boston, Massachusetts, and attended Boston College and Harvard University. He was noted for compiling and editing an annual collection of The Best Short Stories by American authors at the beginning of the twentieth century, and also a series of The Best Short Stories by British authors. They proved to be highly influential and popular. He was also a noted author, his works including White Fountains 1917 and The Forgotten Threshold 1918.

The Best American Short Stories 2008

This brilliant collection, edited by the award winning and perennially provocative Salman Rushdie, boasts a magnificent array Library Journal of voices both new and recognized. With Rushdie at the helm, the 2008 edition reflects the variety of substance and style and the consistent quality that readers have come to expect Publishers Weekly. We all live in and with and by stories, every day, whoever and wherever we are. 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, editorThe Best American Short Stories 2008 includes KEVIN BROCKMEIER ALLEGRA GOODMAN A. M. HOMES NICOLE KRAUSS JONATHAN LETHEM STEVEN MILLHAUSER DANIYAL MUEENUDDIN ALICE MUNRO GEORGE SAUNDERS TOBIAS WOLFF and others

The Best American Short Stories 2009

Edited by critically acclaimed, best selling author Alice Sebold, the stories in this year’s collection serve as a provacative literary ‘antenna for what is going on in the world’ Chicago Tribune. The collection boasts great variety from ‘famous to first timers, sifted from major magazines and little reviews, grand and little worlds’ St. Louis Post Dispatch, ensuring yet another rewarding, eduring edition of the oldest and best selling Best American.

The Best American Short Stories 2010

Edited by the award winning, best selling author Richard Russo, this year’s collection boasts a satisfying chorus of twenty stories that are by turns playful, ironic, somber, and meditative Wall Street Journal. With the masterful Russo picking the best of the best, America s oldest and best selling story anthology is sure to be of enduring quality Chicago Tribune this year.

The Best American Short Stories 2011

With a New AfterwordAs a prizewinning foreign correspondent for The Wall Street Journal, Geraldine Brooks spent six years covering the Middle East through wars, insurrections, and the volcanic upheaval of resurgent fundamentalism. Yet for her, headline events were only the backdrop to a less obvious but more enduring drama: the daily life of Muslim women. Nine Parts of Desire is the story of Brooks’ intrepid journey toward an understanding of the women behind the veils, and of the often contradictory political, religious, and cultural forces that shape their lives. Defying our stereotypes about the Muslim world, Brooks’ acute analysis of the world’s fastest growing religion deftly illustrates how Islam’s holiest texts have been misused to justify repression of women, and how male pride and power have warped the original message of a once liberating faith.

Best New American Voices 2000 (By:)

Culled from over one hundred prestigious writing programs around the United States and Canada, Best New American Voices 2000 offers a remarkable panoply of writing talent that showcases the literary stars of tomorrow. Included here are twenty of the finest stories to come out of such programs as Breadloaf, the Sewanee Conference, the Banff Centre for the Arts, the University of Iowa, and the PEN/Prison Writing Committee, as nominated by the directors of those programs. Represented are all facets of North American life, a diverse collection of visions and voices that will satisfy the most exacting of short story readers. This dynamic collection is must reading for all fans of innovative, cutting edge new writing.

Best New American Voices 2001 (By:)

A marvelous collection of fiction by America’s best new writers. Upon its launch in 2000, Best New American Voices received acclaim for the range and originality of its selections, which represented the best writing from new American writers who are generally unknown but promise to become the literary stars of tomorrow. For the 2001 edition, National Book Award finalist Charles Baxter, together with series editors John Kulka and Natalie Danford, judged short stories from more than one hundred writing programs around the country to find the very best, most interesting, and most accomplished pieces by outstanding writing students. The result is presented here in a collection of seventeen tales that will be sure to attract attention and critical acclaim. Ranging from stories of passion, loneliness, and humor to masterful accounts of discovery and family politics, and set in locales from Burma and Japan to the Middle West and New England, these tales are eclectic, vivid, and cutting edge, and showcase the best writing talent of tomorrow.

Best New American Voices 2003 (By:)

Since its launch in 2000, the Best New American Voices series has been acclaimed for the range and originality of its selections, which represent the writers who promise to become the literary stars of tomorrow. The 2003 collection continues the tradition, featuring innovative, powerful stories selected by one of our finest writers of contemporary fiction, Joyce Carol Oates. With pieces culled from more than one hundred prestigious writing programs around the country and Canada, including the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and the Sewanee Conference, this volume showcases a remarkable array of talent and offers the excitement of discovering a new generation of writers.A Harvest Original

Best New American Voices 2004 (By:)

Adam Johnson, William Gay, David Benioff, Ana Menendez, Maile Meloy, Timothy Westmoreland, Amanda Davis, Jennifer Vanderbes, and John Murray: These are just some of the acclaimed writers whose early work has appeared in Best New American Voices since its launch in 2000. This year’s volume, featuring seventeen new stories selected by award winning novelist John Casey, continues the tradition of identifying the best young writers on the cusp of their careers. With pieces culled from hundreds of prestigious writing programs such as the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Johns Hopkins and from summer conferences including Sewanee and Bread Loaf and with a complete list of contact information for these programs this rich, entertaining collection showcases tomorrow’s literary stars.

Best New American Voices 2005 (By:)

Julie Orringer, Adam Johnson, William Gay, David Benioff, Ana Menendez, Maile Meloy, Amanda Davis, Jennifer Vanderbes, Alix Ohlin, and John Murray: These are just some of the acclaimed writers whose early work has appeared in Best New American Voices since its launch in 2000. The 2005 edition features a new crop of promising stories selected by novelist Francine Prose, who continues the tradition of identifying the best young writers on the cusp of their careers. With pieces culled from hundreds of prestigious writing programs, such as the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Johns Hopkins, and from summer conferences including Sewanee and Bread Loaf and with a complete list of contact information for these programs this rich collection showcases tomorrow’s literary stars.A Harvest Original

Best New American Voices 2006

The best new American voices are heard here first: Writers like Julie Orringer, Adam Johnson, William Gay, David Benioff, Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Maile Meloy, Amanda Davis, Jennifer Vanderbes, and John Murray are just some of the acclaimed authors whose early work has appeared in this series since its launch in 2000. The new volume features a new crop of promising stories selected by renowned novelist Jane Smiley, who continues the tradition of identifying the best young writers on the cusp of their careers. Culled from hundreds of writing programs like the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and Johns Hopkins and from summer conferences like Sewanee and Bread Loaf and including a complete list of contact information for these programs this exciting collection showcases tomorrow’s literary stars.

Best New American Voices 2007 (By:Sue Miller)

Bestselling novelist and acclaimed teacher Sue Miller continues the tradition of identifying the best young writers on the cusp of their careers in this year’s volume of Best New American Voices. Here are stories culled from hundreds of writing programs like the Iowa Writers Workshop and Johns Hopkins and from summer confer ences like Sewanee and Bread Loaf as well as a complete list of contact information for these programs. This collection showcases tomorrow s literary stars: Julie Orringer, Adam Johnson, William Gay, David Benioff, Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Maile Meloy, Amanda Davis, Jennifer Vanderbes, and John Murray are just some of the acclaimed authors whose early work has appeared in this series since its launch in 2000. The best new American voices are heard here first.

Best New American Voices 2008 (By:)

Critically acclaimed novelist and short story writer Richard Bausch continues the tradition of identifying the best young writers on the cusp of their careers in this year’s volume of Best New American Voices. Here are stories culled from hundreds of writing programs such as the Iowa Writers Workshop and Johns Hopkins and from summer conferences such as Sewanee and Bread Loaf as well as a complete list of contact information for these programs. This collection showcases tomorrow s literary stars: Julie Orringer, Adam Johnson, William Gay, David Benioff, Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Maile Meloy, Amanda Davis, Jennifer Vanderbes, and John Murray are just some of the acclaimed authors whose early work has appeared in this series since its launch in 2000. The best new American voices are heard here first.

Best New American Voices 2009 (By:Mary Gaitskill)

Critically acclaimed novelist and short story writer Mary Gaitskill continues the tradition of identifying the best young writers on the cusp of their careers in this year’s volume of Best New American Voices. Here are stories culled from hundreds of nominations submitted by writing programs such as the Iowa Writers Workshop and Johns Hopkins and from summer conferences such as Sewanee and Bread Loaf. Joshua Ferris, Julie Orringer, Adam Johnson, William Gay, Lauren Groff, Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Maile Meloy, Amanda Davis, and John Murray are just some of the acclaimed authors whose early work has appeared in this series since its launch in 2000. Discover for yourself the dazzling variety of great fiction being produced in the top writers’ workships with a complete list of contact information included and hear the best new American voices here first.

Best New American Voices 2010 (By:)

Bestselling novelist and memoirist Dani Shapiro brings her expertise to this year’s volume of Best New American Voices. Now in its eleventh year, this series gathers the best fiction from hundreds of nominations submitted by writing programs such as the Iowa Writers Workshop and Johns Hopkins, and from summer conferences such as Sewanee and Bread Loaf. Joshua Ferris, Julie Orringer, Adam Johnson, William Gay, Lauren Groff, Rattawut Lapcharoensap, Maile Meloy, Amanda Davis, and Nam Le are just some of the acclaimed authors whose early work has appeared in this series since its launch in 2000. Discover for yourself the dazzling variety of great fiction being produced in the top writers’ workships with a complete list of contact information included and find the best new American voices here first.

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