1st Quarter 2026 favorites

1st Quarter 2026

The 1st Quarter (Jan-Mar) stories ordered solely by my personal tastes.

  1. ‘Attraction’ by David Long
  2. ‘Red Light’ by Zach Williams
  3. ‘Wrong Object’ by Mona Simpson
  4. ‘The Ladder’ by V.S. Pritchett
  5. ‘Treelaw’ by Anna Noyes
  6. ‘Electric Car, El Paso’ by Lucia Berlin
  7. ‘The Necklace’ by V.S. Pritchett
  8. ‘Air Fair’ by Richard Leise
  9. ‘The Eighth Day’ by Max Apple
  10. ‘Neighbors’ by Zach Williams
  11. ‘Mousetraps’ by Zach Williams
  12. ‘Trial Run’ by Zach Willams
  13. ‘Head And Shoulders’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  14. ‘Nine Inches’ by Tom Perrotta
  15. ‘Matinee’ by Robert Coover
  16. ‘Effie Whittlesy’ by George Ade
  17. ‘In Retail’ by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
  18. ‘Hibernation’ by Anna Noyes
  19. ‘Geese’ by ZZ Packer
  20. ‘Bijou’ by Stuart Dybek
  21. ‘Arrogance’ by Megan Staffel
  22. ‘The New Toe’ by Zach Williams
  23. ‘When Flashers Meet’ by Pamela Painter
  24. ‘The Little Widow From The Capital’ by Yohanca Delgado
  25. ‘Time Invents Us’ by Anita Felicelli
  26. ‘The Woman Who Lived In A Restaurant’ by Leone Ross
  27. ‘The Chaser’ by John Collier

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May 2023 favorites

May 2023

The May stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘A Strange And Sometimes Sadness’ by Kazuo Ishiguro
  2. ‘Some Of Us Had Been Threatening Our Friend Colby’ by Donald Barthelme
  3. ‘My Father’s Friends’ by William Maxwell
  4. ‘The Young Painters’ by Nicole Krauss
  5. ‘The First Day’ by Edward P. Jones
  6. ‘The Things They Carried’ by Tim O’Brien
  7. ‘Panther Eyes’ by Luisa Valenzuela
  8. ‘The Baby Party’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  9. ‘The War Of The Alligators’ by Horacio Quiroga
  10. ‘New York Girl’ by John Updike
  11. ‘Baster’ by Jeffrey Eugenides
  12. ‘Circus At Dawn’ by Thomas Wolfe
  13. ‘Future Cat’ by Xuan Juliana Wang
  14. ‘A Nursery Tale’ by Vladimir Nabokov
  15. ‘The Sorrows Of Gin’ by John Cheever
  16. ‘Tomorrow’ by Lu Xun
  17. ‘Apple Cake’ by Allegra Goodman
  18. ‘When We Were Happy We Had Other Names’ by Yiyun Li
  19. ‘Everything Is Far From Here’ by Cristina Henríquez
  20. ‘The Flood’ by Emile Zola
  21. ‘Now More Than Ever’ by Zadie Smith
  22. ‘Talpa’ by Juan Rulfo
  23. ‘Gideon’ by ZZ Packer
  24. ‘Alms’ by Stuart Dybek
  25. ‘They Tell Me… Now I Know’ by Shay Youngblood
  26. ‘In The West Country’ by Leslie Norris
  27. ‘The Starlet Apartments’ by Jonathan Lethem
  28. ‘The Voter’ by Chinua Achebe
  29. ‘The $30,000 Bequest’ by Mark Twain
  30. ‘The Huntress’ by Sofia Samatar
  31. ‘Two Ruminations On A Homeless Brother’ by David Means

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September 2022 favorites

September 2022

The September stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘Willing’ by Lorrie Moore
  2. ‘The Man Who Knew Belle Starr’ by Richard Bausch
  3. ‘A Father-To-Be’ by Saul Bellow
  4. ‘A Vermont Tale’ by Mark Helprin
  5. ‘The Five Wounds’ by Kirstin Valdez Quade
  6. ‘Nemecia’ by Kirstin Valdez Quade
  7. ‘Where The Mountains Are’ by Bill Barich
  8. ‘Seeing Clear’ by Cara Blue Adams
  9. ‘Sugar Babies’ by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
  10. ‘The Beautiful Mountains’ by John Cheever
  11. ‘Afternoon In Linen’ by Shirley Jackson
  12. ‘Sauerkraut Soup’ by Stuart Dybek
  13. ‘Our Lady Of Peace’ by ZZ Packer
  14. ‘Sunday Lunch’ by Nancy Hale
  15. ‘Benediction’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  16. ‘With Reference To An Incident At A Bridge’ by William Maxwell
  17. ‘Along The Frontage Road’ by Michael Chabon

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February 2022 favorites

February 2022

The February stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘Are You All Right?’ by Wendell Berry
  2. ‘Three-Ten To Yuma’ by Elmore Leonard
  3. ‘Talkin Bout Sonny’ by Toni Cade Bambara
  4. ‘Detroit Skyline 1949’ by Bobbie Ann Mason
  5. ‘Dalyrimple Goes Wrong’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  6. ‘The Terrapin’ by Patricia Highsmith
  7. ‘Something Nice’ by Mary Gaitskill
  8. ‘A Visit’ by Steven Millhauser
  9. ‘Sun City’ by Caitlin Horrocks
  10. ‘The Tin Butterfly’ by Mary McCarthy
  11. ‘Do With Me What You Will’ by Joyce Carol Oates
  12. ‘A Figure Of Speech’ by Tess Gallagher
  13. ‘Death Of A Favorite’ by J.F. Powers
  14. ‘Haircut’ by Ring Lardner
  15. ‘Ghost Patrol’ by Sinclair Lewis
  16. ‘I Walk Between The Raindrops’ by T. Coraghessan Boyle

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December 2018 favorites

December 2018

The December stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘Unlighted Lamps’ by Sherwood Anderson
  2. ‘The Doll’ by Edna O’Brien
  3. ‘Flowers For Algernon’ by Daniel Keyes
  4. ‘Homecoming’ by William Maxwell
  5. ‘Clap Hands, Here Comes Charlie’ by Beryl Bainbridge
  6. ‘The Christmas Miracle’ by Rebecca Curtis
  7. ‘Christmas Longings’ by Elizabeth Spencer
  8. ‘The Enchanted Bluff’ by Willa Cather
  9. ‘New York Mining Disaster’ by Haruki Murakami
  10. ‘Christmas Song’ by Langston Hughes
  11. ‘Present For Joyce’ by Langston Hughes
  12. ‘Lost In The City’ by Edward P. Jones
  13. ‘The Cat’ by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
  14. ‘Leg’ by Stephen Polansky
  15. ‘The Cold Outside’ by John Burnside
  16. ‘Stuff’ by Joy Williams
  17. ‘Horatio’s Trick’ by Ann Beattie
  18. ‘The Night Of Chancellorsville’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
  19. ‘Home For Christmas’ by Jeffrey Shaffer

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