Here is a list (alphabetical by author) of other books we read in 2017—beyond the three finalists and The Story Prize Spotlight Award winner—that particularly stood out for us:
- What It Means When A Man Falls From the Sky by Lesley Nnekah Arimah (Riverhead Books)
- Large Animals by Jess Arndt (Catapult)
- The Man Who Shot Out My Eye Is Dead by Chanelle Benz (Ecco Press)
- Difficult Women by Roxane Gay (Grove Press)
- I Was Trying to Describe What It Feels Like by Noy Holland (Counterpoint)
- The Dark Dark by Samantha Hunt (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)
- Her Body and Other Stories by Carmen Maria Machado (Graywolf Press)
- Five Carat Soul by James McBride (Riverhead Books)
- The Refugees by Viet Thanh Nguyen (Grove Press)
- The Tower of the Antilles by Achy Obejas (Akashic Books)
- The Girl of the Lake by Bill Roorbach (Algonquin Books)
- A Life of Adventure and Delight by Akhil Sharma (W.W. Norton & Co.)
- Kiss Me Someone by Karen Shepard (Tin House)
- Wait Till You See Me Dance by Deb Olin Unferth (Graywolf Press)
- The Mountain by Paul Yoon (Simon & Schuster)
- Sour Heart by Jenny Zhang (Lenny)
In 2017, The Story Prize received as entries 120 books published by 93 publishers or imprints. As difficult as it is to choose three finalists, it is in many ways even more difficult to narrow the field down to a long list of other notable story collections—especially when the number of excellent books is as high as it was. Easily more than a dozen other titles we read this past year could have been on this list, but even a long list can only be so long.
Anyone who published a short story collection last year accomplished something significant and deserves an enormous amoount of credit. While, subjectively at least, short story collections seem to be garnering more space in major book reviews, too many of them still get far too little attention. And that means too few show up in end of year lists. So, please, if you're looking for something good to read, consider these and other recently published story collections.
So strong was the field this year, that to narrow it down, I decided to put aside a handful of books by stalwart short story writers so skillful and accomplished that they could easily have been finalists or made our long list. In fact, two have been finalists for The Story Prize before: Tessa Hadley and Jim Shepard. You can't go wrong with these short story collections (or hardly any of the stories in them):
- Living in the Weather of the World by Richard Bausch (Alfred A. Knopf)
- The Relive Box by T.C. Boyle (Ecco Presse)
- Signals by Tim Gautreaux (Alfred A. Knopf)
- Bad Dreams by Tessa Hadley (Harper)
- DIS MEM BER by Joyce Carol Oates (Mysterious Press)
- The World to Come by Jim Shepard (Alfred A. Knopf)
Keep in mind: We'll announce the winner of The Story Prize at an event co-sponsored with The New School's Creative Writing program at the auditorium at 66 W. 12 Street on Feb. 28. At the event, finalists Daniel Alarcón, Ottessa Moshfegh, and Elizabeth Strout will read from and discuss their work. You can buy tickets in advance online or that night at the box office. And in the days ahead, be on the lookout for an index of 2017 author posts that appeared on this blog.
