Monday, December 8, 2008

The Twenty-Seventh City Weighs in

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch lists 32 notable 2008 works of fiction including a mere three short story collections:

Kevin Brockmeier's The View from the Seventh Layer (I knew this would make some of the lists)
Jhumpa Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth (again)
Cynthia Ozick'z Dictation

And St. Louis area booksellers that the Post-Dispatch polled list one collection:

Kelly Link's Pretty Monsters (which Subterranean Books chose)

Salon lists zero short story collections among it's five fiction choices.

New York magazine lists Nam Le's The Boat as its Best Debut book of the year, but story collections are a no show in it's top five fiction books.

(Thanks to Publishers Lunch for the links.)

Addendum (with a nod to Readerville): Lahiri's Unaccustomed Earth is No. 5 on Time's top ten fiction list.