The Best American Short Stories

One man's viewpoint: I marked five stories as five-star works. So far, I'm happy with this. And...the story by Jeffrey Eugenides is a wonder to me. An all-time favorite. It goes into the spiritual sound current, the naturalness of death-into-the-next-level. Beautiful ending. And wonderful descriptions. Tops. If you read Twitchell's Eckankar, Key to Secret Worlds, you'll get into the JE story very nicely! ***Happy travels! =\=\=

Now that "Story" Magazine has tragically folded (I forgive you, Lois), the annual "Best of" series is just about my only source left for finding a large number of really high-quality short stories in one place. "Atlantic," "The New Yorker," "Playboy," and all the other standard fiction venues are nice occasionally, but they each publish two or three stories per month at the most.Just as I used to do with "Story," I try with these "Best of" compilations to ration the stories out, one per day, to make them last. A sure sign that the collection is truly wonderful is that I fail at this rationing, and devour it in much larger chunks. Perhaps the only reason I never finish them in a single day is that the really fine stories will make me think, or feel, so deeply that I cannot bear to continue immediately.This collection, the 1997 edition, is one of those; perhaps the 1994 was better, and I'm already enjoying the 1998 thoroughly. But every fan of the modern American short story should have a copy of the 1997.