I wrote about my all-time favorite short story collections for The Atlantic—feat. some of my favorite contemporary writers (César Aira! Claire-Louise Bennett! Mieko Kawakami!)

I was a novels-only girl for YEARS, but there’s nothing like a fresh, exciting, strange, and appealing short story…and the emotions they leave you with feel quite different, too:

short stories favor uncertain and searching conclusions—a quality that makes them feel more similar to the incomplete journeys of our own lives.