It's very difficult to make a bad collection out of the kind of writers in this book, and this isn't a bad collection, it's just a less necessary one than the original Granta Book of the American Short Story. There's no arc here; the eighties minimalists have won over the seventies experimentalists - only Barthelme gets any space in this edition - and the new people just aren't good enough to merit inclusion. I mean, Z.Z. Packer? Nell Freudenberger? It's not entirely Ford's fault, because the ea...

Any collection of short stories by different authors is going to have its highs and lows. There are plenty of lows in this, but about one-third of the stories resonated with me. Among my favorites were:- John Cheever's "Reunion," which managed, in probably only 1,000 words, to give us everything we needed to know about the history between a father and son -- and did so with much humor.- Tom Franklin's "Grit," which managed to toe the catwalk between darkness and roller coaster throughout its end...

This is a splendid read. In a boring, didactic introduction, the editor bangs on about the shortest of the stories, tempting the reader to ignore all the others, which would be a shame. The stories are all well crafted, though they vary considerably in content and style. Inevitably, not all will be to every reader’s taste, and though I found a few distasteful, I was happy enough to be forced out of my comfort zone for a short time. In several, I was struck by how surprisingly different the USA i...

As far as variety goes, this book has it. But the choices within did not impress me. I like short stories, but I think that I am not a fan of modern short stories. I want closure and most of these stories lacked closure. They did not even read like a story, but more like an exercise in wriitng and cleverness.

Anthologies are a dicey thing. You may either get some real good works and some new authors you have never heard of or if the editor is not up to the mark, you get some listless collection of works by the usual well known names. I have been lucky in this regard several times, I read Juan Rulfo the first time in one such latin american anathology. The Granta Anthology is a a collection of 44 stories written in the second half of the 20th century by American writers. Since the editor 'Richard Ford...

This did not knock me out but lemme tell you it would’ve if it had fell from the top shelf and caught me a curt blow upon the cranium. It’s a whopper. I think my reviewing career would have come to a sudden halt. I read it over about four years and finished it this week. Well of course I would like to spin some grand theory about The Short Story And Its Vastly Underappreciated Importance but who has the time. Not you, not me. What I can say is that now – right now – is a golden age, specifically...

Not a terrific collection - probably because the editor was bent on including a cross-section of what has been written recently. I would much preferred that he'd concentrated on using excellent stories rather than those representative of different styles.

Read in 2008 with Dad.What a behemoth of a book for us to have picked for our challenge. As you may remember, we wound out spreading this one out and reading it in both July AND October and even then it was touch and go whether we’d finish this one as it’s just too darn big for me to carry around (and I do apparently almost all my reading in transit).There were a few oldies thrown in at the beginning, where I thought “what is this one doing here?” (i.e., given the composition of the rest of the

This massive collection gets a 60:40 like:dislike ratio from me. The stories that stood out the most for a variety of reasons, and authors I plan to read into:- Ship Island: The Story of a Mermaid, Elizabeth Spencer- The Half-Skinned Steer, Annie Proulx- Get Some Young, Barry Hannah- The Rabbit Hole as Likely Explanation, Ann Beattie- Work, Denis Johnson- Nothing to Ask For, Dennis McFarland- Blue Boy, Kevin Canty- The Plague of Doves, Louise Erdrich- People Like That Are the Only People Here: C...

Not the author's fault, but nonetheless the amount of scanner errors in this book is unacceptable. Substitution of exclamation points for lower case t's transforms everyday statements into ecstatic slang, yes, but it's annoying.Most of the stories are excellent, but a couple have no qualification save for, apparently, the usage of unfamiliar ethnic words.I understand most of the United States and the rest of the world is upset with the second Bush presidency -- I'm no fan -- but how immature to

I've only read three stories and I was surprised to find that they while I think a lot of Welty and Bartheleme, I didn't fall in love with these. But I like the range of authors covered and the selection of old and new... my rating may yet change.

**read for class**The closest I can get to Pilgrims by Julie Orringer. The Pilgrims was a rollercoaster. I wish this was an actual novel.

A marvelous collection here. I have a few favourites but I think that Robert Stone's short story, "Helping" is just magic. Again we have the bumbling middle aged alcoholic, the cynical Vietnam veteran who is never far from shooting his neighbour just for the hell of it. He is the perfect metaphor for that generation of men who came of age in the 1960s America of free love and drugs and who left their youthful dreams behind in the jungles of Vietnam. There are so many others here. For the short s...

Following an inspiring Introduction by editor Richard Ford, I was disappointed by the early selections in this collection. Perseverance paid off, however, as I was pleased to later encounter over a dozen excellent stories I had not yet read in other anthologies. These included: “The Artificial Nigger” by Flannery O’Conner; “Oh, Joseph, I’m So Tired” by Richard Yates; “Killings” by Andre Dubus; “Helping” by Robert Stone; “Get Some Young” by Barry Hannah; “Ancient History” by Richard Bausch; “The

Finally finished this book. There were some good stories. Very few. Most of them were ghastly. Why do people need sex and profanity to tell a story? I am used to stories that actually make sense and teach a lesson. After reading some of them, I would shake my head and say, "What exactly did I just read?" I really need to be more picky with my reading choices. I do not recommend this book to my friends.

An amazing anthology of American short stories, nothing short of magic in effective storytelling.

Richard Ford's Introduction - 2 starsJohn Cheever's Reunion - 3 starsGrace Paley "Friends" -- 2 1/2 stars - strong content but the lack of quotation marks and the avoidance of reader friendly exposition (for too long I had no idea who was who and what was going on) are annoying.Richard Yates "Oh, Joseph, I'm So Tired" - 1 starUpdike "Natural Color" - 3 - the last thirteen words ruin the ending and make the story seem more of an exercise than it actually is.Andre Dubus "Killings" - 4 Bharati Muk

It's hard to read an anthology, despite the draw of Richard Ford's presence here as editor. A role he takes up with aplomb, providing an authoritative introduction on the short story, even as it brings out his bitterness toward the solipsism and weakness he associates with academic creative-writing courses. Gaitskill, Moore, Lee, and Cheever are great. Others suffer from the pointlessness of surreal thought, where things just happen.

By and large, an excellent collection. Plus, the intro by Ford is a must read for anyone interested in the aesthetics of the contemporary short story. He also writes a beautiful intro to Barry Hannah's AIRSHIPS. Ford really can write brilliantly from a theoretical stance; he impresses me more for this than through his own creative efforts, though I haven't tackled ROCK SPRINGS yet. Perhaps I'll revise my opinion then.

I have been only been able to read a story here and there, so my rating isn't on the entire collection, but I love what I have read so far! John Cheever is the man. I dig how this collection combines the "old school" with new gen. writers. This will def come with me on the plane for spring break, even though it weighs a few pounds (no kidding).