The Best American Short Stories

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country's finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected -- and most popular -- of its kind.
Lorrie Moore brings her keen eye for wit and surprise to the volume, and The Best American Short Stories 2004 is an eclectic and enthralling gathering of well-known voices and talented up-and-comers. Here are stories that probe the biggest issues: ambition, gender, romance, war. Here are funny and touching and striking tales of a Spokane Indian, the estranged wife of an Iranian immigrant, an American tutor in Bombay. In her introduction Lorrie Moore writes, The stories collected here impressed me with their depth of knowledge and feeling of character, setting, and situation . . . They spoke with amused intelligence, compassion, and dispassion.

Author: Katrina Kenison, Lorrie Moore
Publisher: Mariner Books
Published: 10/14/2004
Pages: 462
Binding Type: Paperback
Weight: 1.24lbs
Size: 8.20h x 5.48w x 1.27d
ISBN: 9780618197354

Review Citation(s):
Kirkus Reviews 08/15/2004 pg. 769
Publishers Weekly 10/04/2004 pg. 68
Booklist 10/15/2004 pg. 388
USA Today 11/03/2004 pg. 1

About the Author
Moore, Lorrie: - LORRIE MOORE is the author of the story collections Bark, Birds of America, Like Life, and Self-Help and the novels Who Will Run the Frog Hospital? and Anagrams. Her work has won honors from the Lannan Foundation and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, as well as the Irish Times International Prize for Fiction, the Rea Award for the Short Story, and the PEN/Malamud Award.