2025 4th Quarter favorites

4th Quarter 2025

The 4th Quarter (Oct-Dec) stories ordered solely by my personal tastes.

  1. ‘The Best Of Everything’ by Richard Yates
  2. ‘A Manual For Cleaning Women’ by Lucia Berlin
  3. ‘The Canal’ by Richard Yates
  4. ‘A Wrestler Of Sharks’ by Richard Yates
  5. ‘The Deposition’ by Tobias Wolff
  6. ‘A Really Good Jazz Piano’ by Richard Yates
  7. ‘Intruders Of Sleepless Nights’ by Pamela Painter
  8. ‘The Little Statue’ by Maeve Murphy
  9. ‘Minotaur’ by Jim Shepard
  10. ‘A Glutton For Punishment’ by Richard Yates
  11. ‘Liquid Papers’ by Nicolette Polek
  12. ‘American Beauty’ by Ethan Canin
  13. ‘The B.A.R. Man’ by Richard Yates
  14. ‘Xmas, Jamaica Plain’ by Melanie Rae Thon
  15. ‘The Romance Of Certain Old Clothes’ by Henry James
  16. ‘Delivery’ by Bruce Barrow
  17. ‘Dirt’ by Maud Casey
  18. ‘The Rider Was Lost’ by Nancy Hale
  19. ‘The Fir Tree’ by Hans Christian Andersen
  20. ‘Live Wires’ by Thomas Beller
  21. ‘Let’s Play Dead’ by Senaa Ahmad
  22. ‘Doggerland’ by Kaliane Bradley
  23. ‘Crouch End’ by Stephen King
  24. ‘Happy’ by Richard Ford
  25. ‘Dagon’ by H.P. Lovecraft

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4th Quarter 2024 favorites

4th Quarter 2024

The 4th Quarter (Oct-Dec) stories ordered solely by my personal tastes.

  1. ‘Peach Cobbler’ by Deesha Philyaw
  2. ‘The Pleasures Of Television’ by Rebecca Bernard
  3. ‘Pitch Memory’ by Ethan Canin
  4. ‘Hollywood Lanes’ by Megan Abbott
  5. ‘Former Marine’ by Russell Banks
  6. ‘Sarah Cole: A Type Of Love Story’ by Russell Banks
  7. ‘Eula’ by Deesha Philyaw
  8. ‘Rough Deeds’ by Annie Proulx
  9. ‘The Haunted And The Haunters’ by Edward Bulwer-Lytton
  10. ‘Christmas At The Cross’ by Maeve Murphy
  11. ‘The Finkelstein 5’ by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah
  12. ‘A Country Christmas’ by Louisa May Alcott
  13. ‘The Ascent’ by Ron Rash
  14. ‘The Dune’ by Stephen King
  15. ‘First Dark’ by Elizabeth Spencer
  16. ‘The Music School’ by John Updike
  17. ‘It’s Like A Whisper’ by Megan Abbott
  18. ‘The Adventure Of The Musgrave Ritual’ by Arthur Conan Doyle
  19. ‘Oxford Girl’ by Megan Abbott
  20. ‘The Wind In The Rose-Bush’ by Mary E. Wilkins Freeman
  21. ‘Footfalls’ by Wilbur Daniel Steele
  22. ‘Monster’ by Michael Czyzniejewski
  23. ‘Our Eyes Couldn’t Stop Opening’ by Megan Abbott
  24. ‘The Wrong Man’ by Nella Larsen
  25. ‘We’ by Mary Grimm
  26. ‘Freedom’ by Nella Larsen
  27. ‘The Fog Horn’ by Ray Bradbury
  28. ‘The Wrong Shape’ by G.K. Chesterton
  29. ‘Today We Hit’ by Megan Abbott

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January 2019 favorites

January 2019

The January stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘The Beginning Of A Long Story’ by Maeve Brennan
  2. ‘The Point’ by Charles D’Ambrosio
  3. ‘Guests Of The Nation’ by Frank O’Connor
  4. ‘Voices’ by Alice Munro
  5. ‘Dear Life’ by Alice Munro
  6. ‘The Enduring Chill’ by Flannery O’Connor
  7. ‘The Eye’ by Alice Munro
  8. ‘Armistice’ by Bernard Malamud
  9. ‘O Youth And Beauty’ by John Cheever
  10. ‘Real Estate’ by Lorrie Moore
  11. ‘Night’ by Alice Munro
  12. ‘The Trouble With Mrs. Blynn, The Trouble With The World’ by Patricia Highsmith
  13. ‘The Invisible Japanese Gentlemen’ by Graham Greene
  14. ‘The Slaves In New York’ by Tama Janowitz
  15. ‘Batman And Robin Have An Altercation’ by Stephen King
  16. ‘Tied In A Bow’ by Langston Hughes
  17. ‘The Stranger’ by Rainer Maria Rilke

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October 2017 favorites

October 2017

The October stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ by Ray Bradbury
  2. ‘The Hanging Stranger’ by Philip K. Dick
  3. ‘Landfill’ by Joyce Carol Oates
  4. ‘Closing Time’ by Neil Gaiman
  5. ‘A Resumed Identity’ by Ambrose Bierce
  6. ‘St. John’s Eve’ by Nikolai Gogol
  7. ‘Man From The South’ by Roald Dahl
  8. ‘The Terror’ by Guy de Maupassant
  9. ‘The Circular Ruins’ by Jorge Luis Borges
  10. ‘One Summer Night’ by Ambrose Bierce
  11. ‘A Vine On A House’ by Ambrose Bierce
  12. ‘Quitters, Inc.’ by Stephen King
  13. ‘The Beggarwoman Of Locarno’ by Heinrich von Kleist
  14. ‘The Boarded Window’ by Ambrose Bierce
  15. ‘A Baby Tramp’ by Ambrose Bierce
  16. ‘The White Maniac – A Doctor’s Tale’ by Mary Fortune

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January 2017 favorites

January 2017

The January stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘The Promise’ by John Steinbeck
  2. ‘A Loaf Of Bread’ by James Alan McPherson
  3. ‘The Necklace’ by Guy de Maupassant
  4. ‘The Emerald Light In The Air’ by Donald Antrim
  5. ‘The Adventure Of The Empty House’ by Arthur Conan Doyle
  6. ‘Coach’ by Mary Robison
  7. ‘Smother’ by Joyce Carol Oates
  8. ‘Most Die Young’ by Camille Bordas
  9. ‘Permission To Enter’ by Zadie Smith
  10. ‘The Peasant Marey’ by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  11. ‘An Honest Thief’ by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  12. ‘Game Plan’ by Don DeLillo
  13. ‘Two Men Arrive In A Village’ by Zadie Smith
  14. ‘A Novel In Nine Letters’ by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  15. ‘The Crocodile’ by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  16. ‘One Officer, One Man’ by Ambrose Bierce
  17. ‘Escape From New York’ by Zadie Smith
  18. ‘Rest Stop’ by Stephen King
  19. ‘Moonlit Landscape With Bridge’ by Zadie Smith
  20. ‘Bobok’ by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
  21. ‘Meet The President!’ by Zadie Smith

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