Fiction: An Introduction to Reading and Writing

This anthology is obviously designed to be used as a classroom text, but it contains an excellent and very substantial selection of short stories (about 75) that would be of interest to anyone who enjoys short fiction. Although most of the authors represented are American, they include a wide range of voices within our culture, both past and present, and there are over a dozen selections from other countries as well. I've used the text many times in my introduction to fiction courses and have found that it lends itself well to exploring particular themes (such as coming of age stories, gender issues, ethnicity and racism, etc.) and to teaching students how to analyze fiction. Because it is designed as a course textbook, it contains explanatory material about the elements of fiction and about how to write essays about fiction. These sections are less satisfactory than the stories themselves, and I suggest to students that they either skip those sections altogether or read them after reading the stories in each chapter. Better readers don't need the explanatory sections, but students who have had little or no prior experience in studying fiction find the explanations and sample essays helpful. Those portions of the book would not be of interest to the general reader who simply wants to enjoy a collection of fine short stories.