Here are 100 books that The Collected Stories of Carson McCullers fans have personally recommended if you like
The Collected Stories of Carson McCullers.
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I have always loved short stories for the way they pull readers into a complete universe and leave a lasting impact, all in a much shorter span than a novel. This is what makes them special! I love when an author presents an indelible image to recall later, or a passage that makes me go back to roll the words over my tongue again, or a turn of events that leaves me heartsore, or filled with longing, or purpose, or appreciation. Often, these shorter glimpses leave a longer impact because they are required to get and keep attention quickly. And the really good short stories do exactly that.
Although Tove Jansson’s characters are diverse in age, position, and location, each one is immediately knowable in her masterful short fiction.
I love the way she draws me in—often in a sentence or two—and makes me feel I’ve just stepped into the story in real time. Even when her topics are surprising and fantastical, the heart of humanity beats loudly, and I’m reminded of how much we all have in common.
Tove Jansson was a master of brevity, unfolding worlds at a touch. Her art flourished in small settings, as can be seen in her bestselling novel The Summer Book and in her internationally celebrated cartoon strips and books about the Moomins. It is only natural, then, that throughout her life she turned again and again to the short story. The Woman Who Borrowed Memories is the first extensive selection of Jansson's stories to appear in English.
Many of the stories collected here are pure Jansson, touching on island solitude and the dangerous pull of the artistic…
Magical realism meets the magic of Christmas in this mix of Jewish, New Testament, and Santa stories–all reenacted in an urban psychiatric hospital!
On locked ward 5C4, Josh, a patient with many similarities to Jesus, is hospitalized concurrently with Nick, a patient with many similarities to Santa. The two argue…
I have always loved short stories for the way they pull readers into a complete universe and leave a lasting impact, all in a much shorter span than a novel. This is what makes them special! I love when an author presents an indelible image to recall later, or a passage that makes me go back to roll the words over my tongue again, or a turn of events that leaves me heartsore, or filled with longing, or purpose, or appreciation. Often, these shorter glimpses leave a longer impact because they are required to get and keep attention quickly. And the really good short stories do exactly that.
Most certainly influenced by McCullers and other great voices from the American South is Michael Knight, whose stories are steeped in their setting and its particular concerns.
I love how he shows a community through the kaleidoscope of people living there, each with their own concerns and experiences. As a lover of stories with relatable characters and situations, the quiet honesty of these stories touches me on a deep level.
"Michael Knight is more than a master of the short story. He knows the true pace of life and does not cheat it, all the while offering whopping entertainment." Barry Hannah
Long considered a master of the form and an essential voice in American fiction, Michael Knight's stories have been lauded by writers such Ann Patchett, Elizabeth Gilbert, Barry Hannah, and Richard Bausch. Now, with Eveningland he returns to the form that launched his career, delivering an arresting collection of interlinked stories set among the "right kind of Mobile family" in the years preceding a devastating hurricane.
I have always loved short stories for the way they pull readers into a complete universe and leave a lasting impact, all in a much shorter span than a novel. This is what makes them special! I love when an author presents an indelible image to recall later, or a passage that makes me go back to roll the words over my tongue again, or a turn of events that leaves me heartsore, or filled with longing, or purpose, or appreciation. Often, these shorter glimpses leave a longer impact because they are required to get and keep attention quickly. And the really good short stories do exactly that.
If it’s one aspect of storytelling I truly appreciate, it’s the element of surprise, and Lisa Cupolo’s debut collection delivers that again and again.
She presents a broad range of characters in locations across the globe; they make unpredictable decisions and face forks in the road. Like the other books I’ve chosen, these stories highlight humanity and relationships in an intimate way that makes us feel empathy and curiosity, often unexpectedly.
"What exquisite stories these are, each of them immaculately composed, each of them powerfully transporting... This book deserves prizes." —Tim O'Brien, author of The Things They Carried
Each of the ten stories in Have Mercy on Us is an illuminating window into a human life. In the way of all the best fiction, these stories enlarge our understanding of what it means to be alive and to love, with characters who leap off the page. In this award-winning collection, the people are varied in age, race, and origin. An old man travels to a village in Kenya in an attempt…
Stealing technology from parallel Earths was supposed to make Declan rich. Instead, it might destroy everything.
Declan is a self-proclaimed interdimensional interloper, travelling to parallel Earths to retrieve futuristic cutting-edge technology for his employer. It's profitable work, and he doesn't ask questions. But when he befriends an amazing humanoid robot,…
I have always loved short stories for the way they pull readers into a complete universe and leave a lasting impact, all in a much shorter span than a novel. This is what makes them special! I love when an author presents an indelible image to recall later, or a passage that makes me go back to roll the words over my tongue again, or a turn of events that leaves me heartsore, or filled with longing, or purpose, or appreciation. Often, these shorter glimpses leave a longer impact because they are required to get and keep attention quickly. And the really good short stories do exactly that.
At times creepy and always provocative, Samanta Schweblin’s stories always make me look at the world in a new way.
From the moment I read her short novel Fever Dream, I knew I would read anything she writes, and this newest collection of short fiction did not disappoint. I feel a sort of delicious unsteadiness experiencing her visions, which create worlds that are shocking while being eerily recognizable, too.
A blazing new story collection that will make you feel like the house is collapsing in on you, from the three-time International Booker Prize finalist, 'lead[ing] a vanguard of Latin American writers forging their own 21st-century canon.' -O, the Oprah magazine
The world of Samanta Schweblin's short stories is dark and destabilising. Here, home is not a place of safety but the site of hidden danger, silent menace, unspoken resentment. Picture-perfect doors and spotless windows conceal lives in disarray, slowly unraveling in the face of obsession and fear, jealousy and desire.
I am a lifelong lover of books. As a child, one of my most prized possessions was my library card. It gave me entrance to a world of untold wonders from the past, present, and future. My love of reading sparked my imagination and led me to my own fledgling writing efforts. I come from a family of storytellers, my mother being the chief example. She delighted us with stories from her childhood and her maturation in the rural South. She was an excellent mimic, which added realism and humor to every tale.
This book paints a vivid picture of the symbiotic relationship between 19th-century Southern slave masters and the people they enslaved. It also underscores the fact that for oppressed Black people, allies and enemies came in all colors.
The protagonist, Hiram Walker, is a child prodigy whose intellect and ambition make him poorly suited for a life of servitude. Significantly, Coates speaks to the obligation to “reach back” which those who have achieved a measure of physical, spiritual, or intellectual freedom owe to those who are still enslaved.
Harriet Tubman plays an important role in his narrative because she embodies that ideal.
'One of the best books I have ever read in my entire life. I haven't felt this way since I first read Beloved . . .' Oprah Winfrey
Lose yourself in the stunning debut novel everyone is talking about - the unmissable historical story of injustice and redemption that resonates powerfully today
Hiram Walker is a man with a secret, and a war to win. A war for the right to life, to family, to freedom.
Born into bondage on a Virginia plantation, he is also born gifted with a…
I am Lecturer in US Foreign Policy at Queen Mary University of London, and I work on issues of national security and identity, political rhetoric and the role of the everyday in shaping politics, especially media and popular culture. I have written extensively on American politics and US foreign policy over these past years with two published monographs and more than a dozen articles in peer-reviewed academic journals, plus a couple of op-eds and multiple TV and radio appearances. My most recent research project explores the role of populism under the Trump presidency and its political impact in the United States.
This book is maybe my favorite novel ever written about politics and the lengths that some men are willing to go in the pursuit of power.
It features a memorable cast of characters, most importantly, of course, the figure of Governor Willie Stark, the quintessential populist politician, who manipulates others for his own gain and demonstrates a total lack of morals. Set in the 1930s, the story of Stark’s rise to power and eventual downfall always strikes me for how contemporary it feels and how many parallels it offers with the populist politics of our own time.
Nature writer Sharman Apt Russell tells stories of her experiences tracking wildlife—mostly mammals, from mountain lions to pocket mice—near her home in New Mexico, with lessons that hold true across North America. She guides readers through the basics of identifying tracks and signs, revealing a landscape filled with the marks…
I’ve always loved the idea of time travel. I was born in a Northern mill town where King Cotton ruled. By the time I was a teenager, all the mills had shut, leaving behind empty hulks. I desperately wanted to experience the town in its heyday. I devoured the Blackburn-set memoir The Road to Nab End, by William Woodruff: I could hear the clogs strike the cobbles, picture the waves of workers, smell the belching chimneys. While I couldn’t travel back in time for real, I could in my imagination. My debut children’s novel, out in Spring 2026, is about a time-travelling seventh son.
I’ve always been fascinated by terrible periods in history: the Nazis, witchcraft trials, and the American Deep South in the days of slavery. I need to know why people behaved in the heinous ways they did; paradoxically, a bit like time travel, the more I read, the less things make sense.
Our heroine is an African-American woman from modern times who finds herself sent back to early nineteenth-century Maryland when slavery was rife. We experience her reactions to it through a modern lens. It reminded me of the TV series Outlander in the way it builds whole lives back in time. It didn’t pull any punches and wasn’t always easy reading, but I couldn’t put it down.
From the New York Times bestselling author of Parable of the Sower and MacArthur “Genius” Grant, Nebula, and Hugo award winner
The visionary time-travel classic whose Black female hero is pulled through time to face the horrors of American slavery and explores the impacts of racism, sexism, and white supremacy then and now.
“I lost an arm on my last trip home. My left arm.”
Dana’s torment begins when she suddenly vanishes on her 26th birthday from California, 1976, and is dragged through time to antebellum Maryland to rescue a boy named Rufus, heir to a slaveowner’s plantation. She soon…
I’ve practiced criminal law in Appalachian Kentucky as both a defense attorney and a prosecutor—not at the same time—for twenty five years. I can tell what’s genuine from what’s contrived in no time flat. Sometimes I can suspend my disbelief, but usually I can’t, so I lean toward books that get the details and intricacies right. If you’re looking for some modern Appalachian crime tales told by people who know how to a tell a story and know how to get the details of the place right, this list is for you.
This was the first book I read written after 2000 that got modern life in Appalachia dead on right and it changed the way I looked at my own writing.
I love the way the past intersects with the present as Clay’s own life flirts with violence, all while he seeks the truth behind his mother’s death during his childhood. I was never sure where it was all headed until the final pages.
In his New York Times bestselling debut novel, Silas House introduced himself as an important voice for Appalachia, and indeed, for the entire rural South. In Clay's Quilt, now a touchstone for his many fans, House takes us to Free Creek, Kentucky, where a motherless young man forges his path to adulthood, surrounded by ancient mountains and his blood relatives and adopted kin: his Aunt Easter tied to her faith and foreboding nature; his Uncle Paul, the quilter; the wild girls Evangeline and Alma; and a fiddler whose music calls to Clay's heart. As he struggles to stitch up the…
After receiving my Ph.D. in history, I spent the next forty years teaching courses in Southern history and culture. Over that span, I somehow managed to publish roughly a dozen books and fifty articles focusing on the American South. All of this is to say that I have been involved in the "Making Sense of the South" business for quite a while now. This may help to account for the historic vintage of most of the books I list below, I suppose. Yet it should not imply that I am either ignorant or by any means dismissive of more recent additions, but rather that I am simply more interested in crediting the historic importance of books that have been critical to shaping its direction and expanding its parameters.
C. Vann Woodward easily ranks as the greatest historian of the American South to date, and his pre-eminence in the field was already established when this volume of his essays first appeared in 1960. Woodward's masterful sense of irony permeates this collection, in which he offers original alternative perspectives on the South's experience both within and apart from the nation's experience. The essays themselves were also marked by a literary grace rarely found in historical writing of any era. Though Flannery O'Connor was hardly given to praising southern writers not named Faulkner, after devouring the collection, she reported to a friend that she had "taken up reading C. Vann Woodward" because "this man knows how to write English."
C. Vann Woodward's The Burden of Southern History remains one of the essential history texts of our time. In it Woodward brilliantly addresses the interrelated themes of southern identity, southern distinctiveness, and the strains of irony that characterize much of the South's historical experience. First published in 1960, the book quickly became a touchstone for generations of students. This updated third edition contains a chapter, Look Away, Look Away, in which Woodward finds a plethora of additional ironies in the South's experience. It also includes previously uncollected appreciations of Robert Penn Warren, to whom the book was originally dedicated, and…
The Bridge provides a compassionate and well researched window into the worlds of linear and circular thinking. A core pattern to the inner workings of these two thinking styles is revealed, and most importantly, insight into how to cross the distance between them. Some fascinating features emerged such as, circular…
I am the author of The Lost Indictment of Robert E. Lee and A Fire in the Wilderness: The First Battle Between Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee. I’ve been a teacher, editor, and writer for over twenty-five years. The Civil War, in particular, has been my passion since I first read Bruce Catton’s The American Heritage Picture History of the Civil War as an elementary school student in the 1960s. My articles on Robert E. Lee and Ulysses S. Grant have been featured in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, and on the History News Network.
Alan Nolan became one of the first to challenge the Lee myth that had been created in the decades after the general’s death in 1870. He starts with the premise that Lee was a good man whose actions have been distorted beyond all recognition. He then subjects the historical record to a withering cross-examination. Nolan asks: Why did Lee commit treason? Did he really oppose slavery? Did his stubborn persistence harm his beloved state of Virginia? What did he do to unite the nation after the war? Nolan even challenges to the traditional belief that Lee was magnanimous to his enemies, writing, “The historical record shows that Lee constructed a demonic image of the Federals.” This book takes no quarter and may infuriate Lee’s supporters.
In a careful re-examination of the historical evidence, Alan Nolan explodes many long-standing myths about Robert E. Lee and the American Civil War. The book may change readers' perceptions of the South's premier icon, as Nolan separates the Lee of reality from the Lee of mythology. The book should be of interest to general readers as well as Civil War buffs.
