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jwmcoaching's review against another edition
4.0
4 1/2 stars. I must admit that I'm shocked at the amount of negative and underwhelmed reviews of this on GR. I haven't read a lot of the Best Short Stories collections, but I thought this one was pretty close to perfect. There are a bunch of highly entertaining stories here...standouts include:
The Night of the Satellite
The Judge's Will
La Pulchra Nota
God
Madame Bovary's Greyhound
And my three favorites are: Medium Tough, This is Not a Love Song, and Antarctica.
The Night of the Satellite
The Judge's Will
La Pulchra Nota
God
Madame Bovary's Greyhound
And my three favorites are: Medium Tough, This is Not a Love Song, and Antarctica.
roochel's review against another edition
4.0
this was my first time reading one of the best american short story collections, and i will definitely be reading more of them in the future. the variety was great, and even if one story didn't quite keep attention, the very next one always seemed to.
rebecca_isreading's review against another edition
4.0
An excellent collection of short stories from a wide array of authors with a variety of styles. Whether your taste tends towards literary fiction, historical fiction, or contemporary, there is something to appeal to just about any reader in this collection. E-galley provided by NetGalley.
swampyaugust's review
3.0
I read this for my creative writing class, and obviously an anthology will be a mixed bag. I started out hating the stories, and I'm not sure if the quality gradually got better or I just started looking harder for something to enjoy. The stories I liked most were:
The Night of the Satellite by T.C. Boyle
God by Benjamin Nugent (this story has the lightest tone of all of them, which is not saying much. All these stories are ridiculously depressing.)
Antarctica by Laura Van Der Berg (I read her first novel Find Me, which was plagued by a messy plot, but I think her writing works much, much better in the short-story format.)
I have a more love-hate relationship with many of the other stories, like Next to Nothing. The only two stories I aggressively disliked were Charity and Medium Tough.
The Night of the Satellite by T.C. Boyle
God by Benjamin Nugent (this story has the lightest tone of all of them, which is not saying much. All these stories are ridiculously depressing.)
Antarctica by Laura Van Der Berg (I read her first novel Find Me, which was plagued by a messy plot, but I think her writing works much, much better in the short-story format.)
I have a more love-hate relationship with many of the other stories, like Next to Nothing. The only two stories I aggressively disliked were Charity and Medium Tough.
imalwayswrite's review
3.0
It isn't that the stories in this collection are mediocre (they're all really good), but I gave the book 3 stars because most of the stories are. Utterly. Depressing. I don't know how many times I felt like harming myself while reading this book. I'm not even kidding. Maybe the stories seemed really depressing because I'm struggling with depression and seasonal affective disorder right now, but I don't know. Hard to say. Three stars. That is all.
jberg216's review
1.0
I really did not enjoy this book at all. My book club is reading it and so I gave it a go. I don’t have much experience with short stories but it sounded interesting. To be honest, every story in here was wildly depressing. Also, most of them were forgettable for me the moment I finished it. The only one what really got me thinking was Long Tom Lookout by Nicole Cullen. To say I enjoyed it would be too far, but it gave me thoughts to ponder. I may be willing to check out a different year, but the 2014 collection was just not for me.
harrietnbrown's review
2.0
A very uneven collection with a few standouts and quite a few stories I literally couldn't finish.
roochel's review
4.0
this was my first time reading one of the best american short story collections, and i will definitely be reading more of them in the future. the variety was great, and even if one story didn't quite keep attention, the very next one always seemed to.
icameheretoread's review
4.0
Many of the stories in here are truly exceptional. I would recommend Hover, Breeze, Antarctica (in fact I have already ordered Van Den Burg's new collection). Some were -meh- as in most story collections. Glad I read it, though. Could have used some Saunders ;)
jenhi's review
3.0
My husband has been giving me a copy of this short story anthology for Christmas every year since 1990.(Wow! 25 years of the same gift...we are predictable and faithful to our traditions). It's the book that sits on my bedside table throughout the year. I pick it up and read a story or two when I've just finished a big, meaty novel, but don't feel ready to dive into another. I take it with me on vacations as my "back up read" in case whatever novel I've brought doesn't pan out, and finally I spend a little time towards the end of the year to finish it up. How much I enjoy the stories depends so much on the editor. I was really looking forward to Jennifer Egan's picks since I loved her "A Visit from the Goon Squad" so much, but I suppose just because I love her writing, doesn't mean we have the same taste in literature. There are stories from other years that will stay with me forever (I think it was "In the Gloaming" from one of the collections in the early 1990s that got me hooked on this series, and I go back and read it regularly), but honestly, I don't think I'll remember any of the stories from this edition past New Years Day. Oh well...the good news is that I have the 2015 edition under the Christmas tree with an untracked spine, ready for me to dig in and find new favourite writers and stories.