About this book

Part One: Stories -- Chinua Achebe / Civil Peace -- Sherman Alexie / The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven -- Isabelle Allende / An Act of Vengeance -- Sherwood Anderson / Hands -- Margaret Atwood / Happy Endings -- Isaac Babel / My First Goose -- James Baldwin / Sonny's Blues --Toni Cade Bambara / The Lesson -- Russell Banks / Black Man and White Woman in Dark Green Rowboat -- Lynda Barry / San Francisco [graphic story] -- Donald Barthelme / At the Tolstoy Museum -- Ann Beattie / Janus -- Alison Bechdel / From Fun Home: "Old Father, Old Artificer" [graphic story] -- Ambrose Bierce / Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge -- Roberto Bolano / Jim -- Jorge Luis Borges / The South -- Tadeusz Borowski / This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen -- T. Coraghessan Boyle / Birnam Wood -- Ray Bradbury / August 2026: There Will Come Soft Rains -- Albert Camus / The Guest -- Alejo Carpentier / Journey to The Seed -- Angela Carter / The Kiss -- Raymond Carver / Cathedral -- Raymond Carver / A Small, Good Thing -- Raymond Carver / What We Talk About When We Talk About Love --Willa Cather / Paul's Case -- John Cheever / The Swimmer -- Anton Chekhov / The Darling -- Anton Chekhov / The Lady with the Little Dog -- Kate Chopin / Désirée's Baby Kate Chopin / The Story of an Hour Sandra Cisneros / Barbie-Q -- Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) / Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County -- Joseph Conrad / Heart of Darkness -- Julio Cortázar / Axolotl -- Stephen Crane / The Open Boat -- Edwidge Danticat / Night Women -- Lydia Davis / Blind Date -- Junot Díaz / How to Date a Browngirl, Blackgirl, Whitegirl, or Halfie -- Edith Maud Eaton (Sui Sin Far) / The Story of One White Woman Who Married a Chinese -- Edith Maud Eaton (Sui Sin Far) / Her Chinese Husband -- Larry Eigner / Act -- Ralph Ellison / Battle Royal -- Nathan Englander / What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank -- Louise Erdrich / The Red Convertible -- William Faulkner / A Rose for Emily William Faulkner / That Evening Sun -- F. Scott Fitzgerald / Winter Dreams -- Janet Frame / Two Sheep -- Carlos Fuentes / Pain -- Mary Gaitskill / The Other Place -- Gabriel García Márquez / A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings -- William Gass / A Fugue -- Dagoberto Gilb / Love in L.A. -- Charlotte Perkins Gilman / The Yellow Wallpaper -- Nikolai Gogol / The Overcoat -- Nathaniel Hawthorne / The Minister's Black Veil Nathaniel Hawthorne / Young Goodman Brown -- Ernest Hemingway / Hills Like White Elephants -- Zora Neale Hurston / the Gilded Six-Bits --Zora Neale Hurston / Sweat -- Washington Irving / Rip Van Winkle -- Shirley Jackson / The Lottery -- Henry James / The Real Thing -- Sarah Orne Jewett / A White Heron -- Ha Jin / Saboteur -- Denis Johnson / Work -- James Joyce / Araby James Joyce / The Dead Franz Kafka / A Hunger Artist -- Franz Kafka / The Metamorphosis -- Etgar Keret / Not Human Beings -- Jamaica Kincaid / Girl -- Nora Krug / Kamikaze [graphic story] -- Jhumpa Lahiri / Interpreter of Maladies -- D.H. Lawrence / Odour of Chrysanthemums -- D.H. Lawrence / The Rocking Horse Winner -- Ursula K. Le Guin / The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas -- Doris Lessing / To Room 19 -- Clarice Lispector / The Smallest Woman in the World -- Jack London / To Build a Fire -- Katherine Mansfield / Miss Brill -- Bobbie Ann Mason / Shiloh -- Guy de Maupassant / The Necklace -- Herman Melville / Bartleby, the Scrivener Steven Millhauser / Flying Carpets -- Lorrie Moore / Referential -- Alice Munro / Age of Faith -- Haruki Murakami / UFO in Kushiro -- Vladimir Nabokov / Signs and Symbols -- Santiago Nazarian / Fish Spine -- Joyce Carol Oates / The Lady with the Pet Dog -- Joyce Carol Oates / Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? -- Tim O'Brien / The Things They Carried -- Flannery O'Connor / Everything That Rises Must Converge -- Flannery O'Connor / Good Country People -- Flannery O'Connor / A Good Man Is Hard to Find -- Frank O'Connor / Guests of the Nation -- Tillie Olsen / I Stand Here Ironing -- Daniel Orozco / Orientation -- Julie Otsuka / The Children -- Cynthia Ozick / The Shawl -- ZZ Packer / Brownies -- Grace Paley / A Conversation with My Father -- Grace Paley / Mother -- Octavio Paz / My Life with the Wave -- Edgar Allan Poe / The Cask of Amontillado Edgar Allan Poe / The Fall of the House of Usher Edgar Allan Poe / The Tell-Tale Heart Katherine Anne Porter / Maria Concepción -- W.S. Porter (O. Henry) / The Gift of the Magi -- Annie Proulx / Job History -- Jamie Quatro / 1.7 To Tennessee -- Philip Roth / The Conversion of the Jews -- Joe Sacco / From Palestine: Refugeeland [graphic story] -- Marjane Satrapi / From Persepolis: The Veil [graphic story] -- George Saunders / Sticks -- Saïd Sayrafiezadeh / A Brief Encounter with The Enemy -- Leslie Marmon Silko / Yellow Woman -- Art Spiegelman / Prisoner on the Hell Planet: A Case History [graphic story] -- John Steinbeck / The Chrysanthemums -- Amy Tan / Two Kinds -- Leo Tolstoy / The Death of Ivan Ilych -- Jean Toomer /

Subjects

  • 20th century english fiction
  • american horror tales
  • american literature
  • british and irish fiction
  • burial vaults
  • catalepsy
  • children's fiction
  • christian fiction
  • christmas
  • christmas fiction
  • christmas stories
  • classic literature
  • copyists
  • crime
  • crime fiction
  • crime in fiction
  • criticism and interpretation
  • daily express
  • death
  • delitos
  • detective and mystery stories
  • dragons
  • fiction
  • first-person narrative
  • gothic fiction
  • gothic fiction (literary genre)
  • hermitages
  • heroic romances
  • history and criticism
  • homicide
  • horror
  • horror fiction
  • horror stories
  • horror tales
  • hyperesthesia
  • hysteria
  • juvenile fiction
  • knights
  • maces
  • murder
  • murder in fiction
  • psychogenic death
  • psychology
  • revenge
  • securities industry
  • short stories
  • short stories (single author)
  • short story
  • tarns
  • young men