Introduction

In this selection I have focused on some of my favourite short story collections and have tried to highlight the stories I like best within each collection. These are the stories I keep returning to, always finding something new in each reading.

I love short stories, and I particularly love long short stories that boldly take up space with large casts of characters, and/or numbered sections that unfold like small chapters. I love how a story can be big and long and still slowly circle in around a tiny potent moment, or stay with a conversation, or illuminate a character’s silent solitary thoughts in tight-woven poetic language, with no excess.