 | The Drowned Life (P.S.) by Jeffrey Ford
Buy new: $11.66 / Used from: $2.00 This is Ford's best anthology to date. He is one of the few masters of short fiction that are around today. His prose is poetic, entertaining, thought provoking, and simply amazing. His novels are good, his short fiction is great.
Notable stories: "The Drowned Life", "Under the Bottom of the Lake", "The Scribble Mind", and "In the House of Four Seasons".
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 | Burning Chrome by William Gibson
Buy new: $10.07 / Used from: $4.25 An anthology of sort fiction from the man who brought us Neuromancer and Johnny Mnemonic. This is more of his early stuff, but you can see his writing and story telling grow right before your eyes. He truly was a pioneer for Sci-Fi fiction in the early 80's.
Notable stories: "Burning Chrome", "Johnny Mnemonic", and "The Gernsback Continuum".
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 | A Dream Of Armageddon by H. G. Wells
Buy new: $17.12 / Used from: $22.10 A book of short fiction from one of the earliest masters of Sci-Fi. Can it really get much better? There are a few works that are a bit off, but it is a great set of shorts regardless. I still find his outlook of the future to be stunning.
Notable stories: "The Moth", "Under the Knife", "The Plattner Story", and "The Presence by the Fire"
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 | The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $0.65 The title short for this book will blow your mind. O'Brien writes with a clarity that won't let you pull your eyes away, regardless if you are horrified, disgusted, crying, or laughing. There are a lot of emotions in this book about Vietnam.
Notable stories: "The Things They Carried", "Spin", and "Speaking of Courage".
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 | Dubliners by James Joyce
Buy new: $3.99 / Used from: $2.04 Certainly not a book for everybody. People tend to either love or hate Joyce's work and that is understandable. He did write with a purpose and his prose is like a hammer. Every line has its purpose, every paragraph a meaning, and every story a life. If your into studying lit, then this is a must have book.
Notable stories: "The Dead", "Araby", and "Eveline".
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 | Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri
Buy new: $15.60 / Used from: $9.49 Another new and fresh writer who spins a wonderful series of tales. This book was the winner of a Pulitzer Prize for good reason. The look at Indian life that it offers it fascinating and the stories will hit home for you regardless of your culture.
Notable stories: "Interpreter of Maladies", "This Blessed House", "When Mr. Pirzada Came to Dine".
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 | World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War by Max Brooks
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $7.50 A series of shorts that detail mans last war on earth against the undead. This is a blast to read. If your a fan of zombie horror then this will fit right up your alley. No horror fan should be caught dead (pun intended) without it. Not so much an anthology of short stories, but rather news stories, clips, discussion, and other goodies piled into a book.
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 | O. Henry Prize Stories 2005 (Pen/O. Henry Prize Stories)
Buy new: $14.00 / Used from: $0.01 O. Henry prize story books have been around for a long while. I have yet to read many of them. Of those that I have read, this has been my favorite collection so far. good mixture of stories, many of which have a theme of abandonment or isolation. This is not a heartfelt collection.
Notable stories: "The Brief History of the Dead", "A Rich Man", and "The High Divide".
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 | The Best American Short Stories of the Century
Buy new: $13.57 / Used from: $1.89 I think the name here says it all. There are some really great gems in this book, some that you are likely to be familiar with, some your not. Although in some cases it seems that Updike chose to include the best authors rather than their best works. Everything in this work is notable in one way or another.
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 | The Best of H. P. Lovecraft: Bloodcurdling Tales of Horror and the Macabre by H.P. Lovecraft
Buy new: $10.17 / Used from: $4.57 A list of short fiction without including Lovecraft? Blasphemous! Really you could put any bit of his work here, I only chose this anthology because it is "the best of".
Notable stories: "Call of Cthulu", and "The Dunwich Horror".
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