10 fantastic short story collections for your book club | members only

Sometimes you don’t get a chance to plow through a whole novel before your book club gathers to discuss it — or maybe you’ve read it cover to cover, but half the group hasn’t gone past the

first chapter. Life gets busy. Why not consider a great short story instead?​ ​The short story “offers a complete experience in one sitting,” says Deborah Treisman, the fiction editor at

_The New Yorker_, who selects a story for every issue. “You can sit down and have a full experience in half an hour, an hour, and walk away thinking about it. The investment is lower on your

part, and the payoff is higher per minute.”​  ​Your group might choose a fantastic collection — we’ve highlighted some wonderful ones below — and opt to read the whole book or settle on

just one story. “Like a song on an album, if you don’t like one of the short stories, you can just skip it,” says best-selling author Lauren Groff (_Matrix, The Vaster Wilds _and the

brilliant 2015 novel _Fates and Furies_), who guest-edited _The Best American Short Stories 2024_, described below, and last year opened The Lynx bookstore in Gainesville, Florida. “Play

around and have fun with it. Read for joy; if you read for joy, you won’t be disappointed.”​  ​Here are some collections to consider (we note where some individual stories can be found for

free online):​ _THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 2024_, EDITED BY LAUREN GROFF AND HEIDI PITLOR ​Pitlor says this collection offers readers a wide selection of new writers to try, and she

points to Suzanne Wang, author of “Mall of America.” “It’s about a grandfather who gets locked in a mall,” Pitlor says. “It’s incredibly moving.” And on the lighter side, Pitlor likes

Katherine Damm’s “The Happiest Day of Your Life,” a humorous tale centered on a wedding with dead-on details like a cutesy chalkboard announcing signature bride-and-groom cocktails,

predictable first-dance selections, and a well-told tale of_ _a wedding guest’s marriage narrated through his escalating drunkenness and correspondingly overly friendly choice of dance

partners. “It’s a funny one,” she says.  ​ ​_YOU THINK IT, I’LL SAY IT_, BY CURTIS SITTENFELD (2018) ​From her breakout first novel _Prep_ (2005) onward, Curtis Sittenfeld’s privileged

oddballs have sweated through various modern dilemmas. The acting out continues in this best-selling collection, which was a Reese’s Book Club pick. In “The Prairie Wife,” Kirsten, a married

lesbian, cyberstalks a former lover who has blown up as an internet lifestyle guru married to a man. Then there’s the posh Dallas couple in “The World Has Many Butterflies”; they are

married to other people but play a cruel, flirty, made-up game of “You Think, I’ll Say It” privately eviscerating their peers when they meet at country club parties and private school

fundraisers. Also, consider Sittenfeld’s superb new collection, _Show Don’t Tell_ (Feb. 25), which includes many stories featuring beautifully drawn middle-aged characters struggling with

very human insecurities, disappointments and conflicts with friends or lovers. In “Lost but Not Forgotten,” Lee Fiora, the older, mellower protagonist of _Prep_, returns to campus for her

30th reunion.  ​