20 New Must-Read Short Story Collections

Jean Chen Ho’s debut is a collection of linked stories following Fiona Lin and Jane Shen, two Taiwanese American women who have been best friends since the 2nd grade. Growing up in Los Angeles, Fiona and Jane have very different but equally tumultuous family lives. As with most friendships, there are moments in time when Fiona and Jane grow closer to one another, and other periods of time where they drift apart. Each short story explores a different moment in their friendship throughout their lives. Together, these stories paint a vivid portrait of friendship, love, loss, and coming of age in contemporary America.

If you are already a fan of Laura Lippman’s work, then you absolutely have to add her latest short story collection to your TBR list. But even if you’ve never read Lippman before, you’re in for a treat. Seasonal Work is a collection of psychological suspense/thriller stories featuring murder, mystery, love gone wrong, deception, scandals, and so much more. If you only read one crime fiction short story in 2022, make it one from this short story collection.

Seeking Fortune Elsewhere is the debut short story collection from O. Henry Prize winning author Sindya Bhanoo. From Pittsburgh to Washington to Tamil Nadu, these stories explore the lives of South Indian immigrants and the families they leave behind. Bhanoo’s stories show how the lives of these characters and the decisions they make are complicated, filled with moments of regret, hope, and triumph.

What strange and eerie secrets lurk beneath the lives of seemingly ordinary people? That’s what Kate Folk examines in her short story collection Out There. These highly imaginative short stories infuse elements of horror, fantasy, and science fiction into the literary fiction landscape. Each story looks deep into the reader’s subconscious dreams and nightmares.

This collection consists of 12 short stories that look at life in Maine’s Native Penobscot Nation in the 21st century. These dark but honest stories follow a troubled family dealing with issues of grief, depression, substance abuse, domestic violence, and more. But these stories are filled with hope and magic as well. At the center of Night of the Living Rez is David. Each story explores the lives of David, his family, and his friends at different points in their lives.

Life Ceremony is Sayaka Murata’s first short story collection to ever be translated into English. In these 12 stories, the award-winning author of Convenience Store Woman mixes her signature blend of the humorous, the awkward, and the terrifying to tell stories of loners and outcasts who buck traditions and societal expectations. Murata’s stories will have you questioning what it means to be human in this world and what is sacrificed when we try too hard to fit in.

From New York Times bestselling author Lisa Taddeo comes a stunning collection of nine short stories you won’t want to miss. This collection includes two Pushcart Prize winners and a finalist for the National Magazine Award as well as previously unpublished work. Ghost Lover tells stories of complicated, fascinating, and flawed women and their experiences of deep love, wild obsession, and uncontrollable grief.

Kim Fu’s Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st Century is a collection of 12 speculative fiction short stories where the ordinary is made strange and the strange becomes ordinary. Each story in this collection creates a strange world where readers will get lost. From a group of children who steal a haunted doll to an insomniac seduced by the Sandman, each of these short stories digs deep into human nature and the contradictions that live within us all.

Ling Ma stunned readers with her debut novel Severance in 2018, and now she’s back with a short story collection that’s just as mesmerizing. Through eight short stories, Ma introduces readers to characters and stories that examine the realities of motherhood, friendship, love, loneliness, and more. In one story, a woman lives in a house with all of her ex-boyfriends. In another, a toxic friendship is built around a drug that makes you invisible. These situations seems strange, but the emotions and characters are entirely relatable.

The six short stories in Andrea Barrett’s collection Natural History feature characters Barrett has written about in her work since 1996’s Ship Fever. But even if this is your first Andrea Barrett book, you will connect with these characters right away. In these interconnected stories, Barrett allows readers into the intertwined lives of a family of scientists, teachers, and innovators. Following their lives throughout the years, readers see the ways women’s lives and the expectations put upon them have changed over the years.

What We Fed to the Manticore is a really fun short story collection because it consists of nine short stories all told from a different animal’s perspectives. Through these animals’ eyes, debut author Talia Lakshmi Kolluri discusses environmentalism, conservation, identity, belonging, loss, and family. Whether the story is told from the perspective of a donkey, a vulture, or a pigeon, readers will become full immersed in these characters and their stories.

Tomorrow in Shanghai is May-lee Chai’s beautiful follow-up collection to her award-winning collection Useful Phrases for Immigrants. These stories examine the lives of people in China, the Chinese diaspora in America, and people of Chinese descent living throughout the world. Whether the characters are rich or poor, male or female, living in the city or the country, each story looks at issues of prejudice, power dynamics, and interpersonal struggles in the globalized world.

The Memory Librarian is like a literary tie-in for Janelle Monáe’s high-concept album Dirty Computer, set in a world in which thoughts can be erased or controlled. This collection expands on the totalitarian existence imagined in Dirty Computer. To fully flesh out this sci-fi world, Monáe also collaboraties with several talented sci-fi/fantasy authors, including Yohanca Delgado, Eve L. Ewing, Alaya Dawn Johnson, Danny Lore, and Sheree Renée Thomas — just to name a few.

Seven Empty Houses is a short story collection that just made the National Book Award longlist for best book in translation. In this collection, Samanta Schweblin tells seven stories about seven strange houses that are all empty in different ways. Some are devoid of love. Some don’t have any furniture. Or any people. But in every case, something always creeps in: trespassers, a ghost, a list of things to do before you die…you get the idea. Samanta Schweblin has already wowed readers with her collection Mouthful of Birds, and this one is just as good if not better!

This debut short story collection from author C. J. Tudor features 10 tales that are creepy, twisty, and mind-bending. For instance, there’s “The Lion at the Gate,” a story about a strange piece of graffiti that leads four school friends into a horrifying encounter. And as the world descends into darkness in “Final Course,” a group of old friends find time for one last dinner party. Then there’s “I’m Not Ted,” in which a case of mistaken identity turns deadly. This one is a must-read for horror fans and anyone who is hungry for stories that will stick with you long after you’ve finished the final page.

Chelsea Bieker, the acclaimed author of Godshot, is back with a remarkable collection of short stories set in California’s Central Valley. From a woman who steals a baby from a shelter, to a mother and son selling dreamcatchers along the highway, to two teenage girls playing a dangerous online game, all of Bieker’s characters burn with deep and reckless desires. And all are heartbroken in their own ways.

The last collection was set entirely in California, and Milk Blood Heat is all about Florida. In the cities and suburbs of Florida, the characters in these stories each find themselves confronted by moments of violent personal reckonings. Dantiel W. Moniz’s debut collection is filled with intimate, emotional moments that shed light on the nature of family, faith, forgiveness, and how we are all connected to one another.

Jeff VanderMeer, who has been called “the weird Thoreau,” is probably most known for his sci-fi/weird fiction Southern Reach trilogy (Annihilation, Authority, and Acceptance). In City of Saints and Madmen, VanderMeer introduces readers to the world of Ambergris, a place unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before. Through this interwoven collection of stories, histories, and “eyewitness” reports, VanderMeer creates a fantasy world that feels incredibly real.

With each story in K-Ming Chang’s Gods of Want, the author mixes myth, memory, and surrealism to tell feminist stories about Asian American women from different walks of life. In “Xífù,” a mother-in-law goes to torturous ends in an attempt to get a wife out of her home. In “Virginia Slims,” a woman from a cigarette ad becomes real. And in “Auntland,” a stream of aunts attempt to adjust to American life in strange ways. These uncanny stories explore questions of power, identity, and memory.

All of the stories in Sidik Fofana’s Stories from the Tenants Downstairs are set in a low-income Harlem high rise where gentrification weighs heavy on the tenants’ minds. Each of the eight interconnected stories explores the hopes, struggles, and strengths of the tenants in the Banneker Homes. Every tenant there has a unique, touching, and thought-provoking story to tell.