Anthony Doerr, number-one New York Times best-selling author and Pulitzer Prize winner, brings his “stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) to selecting The Best American Short Stories 2019.

“As soon as you complete a description of what a good story must be, a new example flutters through an open window, lands on your sleeve, and proves your description wrong,” writes Anthony Doerr about the task of selecting The Best American Short Stories 2019. The year’s best stories are a diverse, addictive group exploring everything from America’s rich rural culture to its online teen culture to the fragile nature of the therapist-client relationship. This astonishing collection brings together the realistic and dystopic, humor, and terror. For Doerr, “with every new artist, we simultaneously refine and expand our understanding of what the form can be”.

Table of Contents:

Anthony Doerr. "Introduction"

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. "The Era"

Kathleen Alcott. "Natural Light"

Wendell Berry. "The Great Interruption: The Story of a Famous Story of Old Port William and How It Ceased to Be Told (1935-1978)"

Jamel Brinkley. "No More Than a Bubble"

Deborah Eisenberg. "The Third Tower"

Julia Elliott. "Hellion"

Jeffrey Eugenides. "Bronze"

Ella Martinsen Gorham. "Protozoa"

Nicole Krauss. "Seeing Ershadi"

Ursula K. Le Guin. "Pity and Shame"

Manuel Muñoz. "Anyone Can Do It"

Sigrid Nunez. "The Plan"

Maria Reva. "Letter of Apology"

Karen Russell. "Black Corfu"

SAïD Sayrafiezadeh. Audition"

Alexis Schaitkin. "Natural Disasters"

Jim Shepard. "Our Day of Grace"

Mona Simpson. "Wrong Object"

Jenn Alandy Trahan. "They Told Us Not to Say This"

Weike Wang. "Omakase"

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Product details

Listening Length	16 hours and 6 minutes
Author	Anthony Doerr, Heidi Pitlor
Narrator	Kevin R. Free, Gabra Zackman, full cast, Scott Shepherd
Whispersync for Voice	Ready
Audible.com Release Date	March 13, 2021
Publisher	HMH Adult Audio
Program Type	Audiobook
Version	Unabridged
Language	English
ASIN	B08Y2D5WGR
Best Sellers Rank	#56,486 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals) #308 in Literature Anthologies #425 in American Fiction Anthologies #451 in United States Literature

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Cast Iron Cowboy

American literature is in trouble

Reviewed in the United States on October 26, 2019

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Lack of subject matter, incoherent themes and crippling boredom are present in a majority of these shorts chosen as The Best American Short Stories. Suffer a head injury, get marooned on a desert plateau, became psychotic and you too can enjoy this collection of crap mislabeled as The Best. As sure as the sun will rise in predictable fashion Doerr knows better prose than this sorry mess represents and Doerr's representation was the reason for the purchase. We have all heard the cliche, "a fool and his money..." You got it I am the fool who parted. In my defense I had no fair warning. You do. Please feel free to purchase if you enjoy scrambled rambles spiced with schizophrenia. Alas I digress and give this collection far too much credit. Recommendation: Avoid as a reasonable person should also shy from the rabid.

100 people found this helpful

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S. Cummings

American Short Story is Doomed

Reviewed in the United States on December 20, 2019

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If this is the state of the American short story, the form is doomed. Dig out your old Hemingway, Steinbeck, Faulkner, Welty... books and read those again. Utterly dismayed at the incoherence and total lack of story. Forced myself to keep reading, give it a chance... halfway through I’m done.

52 people found this helpful

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Dr.C.J.Singh.Wallia

Brilliant Short Stories that Reflect Some of the Problems Humanity Currently Confronts

Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2019

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The Best American Short Stories 2019
Selected by
Anthony Doerr with Heidi Pitlor

Reviewed by C. J. Singh Wallia (Berkeley, CA)

Brilliant Short Stories that Reflect some of the Problems Humanity Currently Confronts

Heidi Pitlor is the current co-editor, since 2007, of "The Best American Short

Stories" series, which have been published annually since 1915. She is also the

co-editor, with Lorrie Moore, of "100 Years of the Best American Short Stories."

(See my detailed review of this great book on amazon.com)

In her Foreword, Pitlor writes, "The stories in this volume are bold, some are

transgressive, and all are relevant to this moment of time. . . But in this time of

so much bad news about our climate, intolerance, corruption, and violence, I'm

grateful for these stories" (page xi). This reviewer is certainly grateful for these

20 highly-engaging stories; so, will be many readers.

Anthony Doerr's introduces the book by describing his earliest efforts as a child

to become a writer; efforts engagingly described with humorous self-

deprecating examples.

Growing up, "A drip-drip of uncertainty sent me to the library, where I

discovered a paperback titled 'Writing in General and the Short Story in

Particular' which claimed to reveal 'the secrets of the craft.' Though the author,

Rust Hills, sounded more like a South Dakota land feature than a short story

expert, the jacket copy explained that Mr. Hills worked at 'Esquire ' and had

discovered all sorts of famous writers, and so it was with a mix of excitement

and terror that I toted the book to my attic bedroom" (page xiv).

Doerr notes that many of the twenty excellent contemporary short stories that

he and Pitlor selected flout Rust Hills' rules. For example, "Hills said a short

story shouldn't mess with subplots, but from a certain angle, Nicole Krauss

constructs her gorgeous 'Seeing Ershadi' entirely around subplots -- three of her

first five paragraphs are spent summarizing an Iranian film. Yet, her story

utterly wrecked me" (page xviii). In the Contributors' Notes Section, Nicole

Krauss describes in illuminating details the background of her writing this story

(pp. 353-356). Contributors' Notes, a regular feature of the annual edition of

"The Best American Short" series can serve to enhance readers' experiencing the

stories. They certainly enhance mine.

Another example from Doerr's selection: "Rust Hill suggested that a short story

stick with a single point of view, but Deborah Eisenberg, in her dystopic paean

to the imagination, 'The Third Tower' leaps into a doctor's mind in two of its

thirteen sections. Without those leaps away from her protagonist's point of

view, her story would collapse" (page xviii). Another apt example.

Doerr cites many other short-stories in the book, selected by him and Pitlor, as

flouting Rust Hills' rules; in particular, stories by Wendell Berry, Kathleen Alcott,

Jenn Alandy Trahan, Julia Elliot, Saïd Sayrafiezadeh, Sigrid Nunez, Jeffrey

Eugenides, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Jim Shepard (page xix)

Next, Doerr, without naming specific rule-makers, writes, "Anyone who thinks

short stories can't or shoudn't ask moral questions about our political moment

should turn to Weike Wang's "Omasake," (page xix).

I fully agree with Doerr on flouting this rule. (See my detailed review on

amazon.com of John Truby's book "The Anatomy of Story," which emphasizes

engaging in "moral argument" as an essential element in structuring fiction, be

it a short-story, novel, stage play, or screenplay. This amazon review can be

accessed at https://www.amazon.com/review/R29NU7U6LAHGBV )

Several other short stories in the selection that flout this rule on "moral

questions about the political moment" include Maria Reva's "Letter of Apology,

" which "'presents a hilarious and heartrending glimpse of life under a regime

where it is illegal to criticize or even joke about political leaders"; and Manuel

Munoz's "moving 'Anyone Can Do It' about a woman whose husband has been

rounded up by immigration police might be set in the 1980s but could not be

more timely" (page xix).

Doerr in his highly-acclaimed novel "All the Light We Cannot See" flouts the

suggestions of the widely adopted text-book in MFA programs, Janet

Burroway's Writing Fiction: A Guide to Narrative Craft, tenth edition, (See my

detailed amazon review at https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Fiction-Tenth-

Narrative-Publishing/dp/022661655X). Doerr chooses to use omniscient point

of view instead of the third-person close point of view. His wonderful novel

won the Pulitzer Prize. Great act of flouting back to the nineteenth-century

realistic novel.

Of the 20 stories selected by Doerr and Pitlor, I had already read the 4 published

in "The New Yorker," the 3 in "Zoetrope:All-Story," the 2 in "Harper's," the 1 in

"Granta," and the 1 in "ZYZZYVA." Reading the other 9 included in this

anthology was an equally engaging experience for me.

Here's the full list:

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah. "The Era" from "Guernica"
Kathleen Alcott. "Natural Light" from "Zoetrope:All-Story"
Wendell Berry. "The Great Interruption" from "Threepenny Review"
Jamel Brinkley. "No More Than a Bubble" from "LitMag"
Deborah Eisenberg. "The Third Tower" from "Ploughshares"
Julia Elliott. "Hellion" from "The Georgia Review"
Jeffrey Eugenides. "Bronze" from "The New Yorker"
Ella Martinsen Gorham. "Protozoa" from "New England Review"
Nicole Krauss. "Seeing Ershadi" from "The New Yorker"
Ursula K. Le Guin. "Pity and Shame" from "Tin House"
Manuel Munõz. "Anyone Can Do It" from "ZYZZYVA"
Sigrid Nunez. "The Plan" from "Lit Mag"
Maria Reva. "Letter of Apology" from "Granta"
Karen Russell. "Black Corfu" from "Zoetrope-All Story"
Saïd Sayrafiezadeh "Audition" from "The New Yorker"
Alexis Schaitkin "Natural Disasters" from "Ecotone"
Jim Shepard. "Our Day of Grace" from "Zoetrope-All Story"
Mona Simpson. "Wrong Object" from "Harper's"
Jenn Alandy Trahan. "They Told Us Not to Say This" from "Harper's
Weike Wang. "Omakase" from "The New Yorker."

Five-star book.

41 people found this helpful

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windiciti

Disappointing!

Reviewed in the United States on December 23, 2019

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If these are the "best" short stories which Anthony Doerr could cull from U.S. and Canadian print magazines, we are in trouble. Either Doerr has very bad taste in literature, or the level of writing in print is jejune, boring, and childish. Story after story disappointed me. One or two were readable, but the book is not worth buying. I am a writer, and would be embarrassed to have written such rubbish.

36 people found this helpful

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Betz

Sucked

Reviewed in the United States on November 18, 2019

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There were only a couple stories I liked in the whole collection:Mona simpson to be specific...I don't know what Doerr was thinking. Ick

35 people found this helpful

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Susan Day

2019’s Best Short Fiction entertains.

Reviewed in the United States on October 15, 2019

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Another great collection of short stories by contemporary writers including the late Ursala LaGuin and Wendell Berry as well as less familiar but very talented authors. From a series of letters from the Confederate perspective to magical fiction, each story contains rich vocabulary and striking characters. Great material for bedtime reading or class discussion.

11 people found this helpful

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Gemma

A great year for this collection

Reviewed in Canada on January 9, 2020

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I buy this collection every year, and most years there are one or two stories that don’t grab me. This year was different: I liked every story in the collection.

One person found this helpful

Ahmad Alfahad

Its a book

Reviewed in Canada on January 4, 2021

Verified Purchase

Bought for school

Amazon Customer

Disappointing

Reviewed in Canada on June 9, 2020

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After reading 5-6 stories I wondered if these were the BEST that American authors could produce

Gretchen

Nicht meins

Reviewed in Germany on December 4, 2020

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überwiegend gut geschrieben aber eher deprimierend. Gibt es keine erbauende oder positive-stimmende Kurzgeschichten?

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Carmem Rodrigues

Ok.

Reviewed in Brazil on February 9, 2021

Verified Purchase

Tudo OK.

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