In a recent post on short stories, one my local booksellers (hi, Amy!) said her store would put up an end-cap display of collections, and would take suggestions for which collections could be interesting. So I’ve decided to ask here, where many of the people who visit this journal are readers and writers of short stories, what collections of stories you’d include in that display.
The beginning of a list:
Magic for Beginners, by Kelly Link
Map of Dreams, by M. Rickert,
Pastoralia, by George Saunders
Willful Creatures, by Aimee Bender
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, by Z.Z. Packer
Your suggestions?
Christopher Barzak 
Twenty Epics!
Drown, by Junot Diaz
For the Relief of Unbearable Urges, Nathan Englander
Nine Stories, J.D. Salinger
Black Tickets, Jayne Anne Phillips
The Martian Chronicles or The October Country, Bradbury
*off to think of more*
Something by Theodore Sturgeon — ideally whichever volume of the Complete Stories is newest (I think that’s The Nail and the Oracle now).
The Imago Sequence by Laird Barron
In the Forest of Forgetting by Theodora Goss.
Howard Who? by Howard Waldrop
Portable Childhoods by Ellen Klages
(I could go on… and, ahem, I had a collection come out last year, for what that’s worth)
Not a definitive list by any means, but a few favorites that come to mind and haven’t already been mentioned…
Last Evenings on Earth by Roberto Bolano
The Death of Picasso by Guy Davenport
The Avram Davidson Treasury
Aye, and Gomorrah by Samuel R. Delany
All Around Atlantis by Deborah Eisenberg
White Walls by Tatyana Tolstaya
Jenny and the Jaws of Life by Jincy Willett and Black Glass by KJF.
Oh and I just reread Carl Sandburg’s Rootabaga Stories — so wonderfully odd. All the others I’m thinking of that haven’t been named are out of print.
Seven Gothic Tales, Isak Dinesen
Collected Fictions, Borges
The Rediscovery of Man, Cordwainer Smith
Rashomon & 17 Other Stories – Ryunosuke Akutagawa
Bradbury Stories – Ray Bradbury
Novelties & Souvenirs – John Crowley
Twenty Grand & Other Tales of Love and Money – Rebecca Curtis
Fragile Things + Smoke & Mirrors – Neil Gaiman
Casting the Runes & Other Ghost Stories – M.R. James
The Mark Of The Beast & Other Fantastical Tales – Rudyard Kipling
White Time + Black Juice + Red Spikes – Margo Lanagan
The Man From the Diogenes Club + The Secret Files of the Diogenes Club – Kim Newman
High Lonesome: Selected Short Stories 1966-2006 – Joyce Carol Oates
St. Lucy’s Home For Girls Raised by Wolves – Karen Russell
Her Smoke Rose Up Forever – James Tiptree, Jr.
Innocents Abroad + Starwater Strains – Gene Wolfe
A few I would have suggested already have been; there are some really good suggestions already. My problem – as someone mentioned above – is trying to get away from all the out of print collections I’d happily recommend without reservation. Anyway, all of the above were published in the last couple of years, and, I’d like to think, are all still in print.
Too … many … choices …
The big retrospectives Subterranean’s been doing — Sterling’s Ascendancies, Willis’ The Winds Of Marble Arch, The Best of Lucius Shepard, etc.
Vinland The Dream and The Martians by Kim Stanley Robinson, at least until Subterranean get around to doing a retrospective for him.
Axiomatic and Luminous by Greg Egan
Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang
Some Paul di Filippo — probably Ribofunk and Strange Trades.
Skinny-Dipping in the Lake of the Dead by Alan DeNiro
Twentieth Century Ghosts by Joe Hill
The complete Angela Carter — don’t know if this exists in the US, but there’s a UK one-volume edition of all her short story collections
Breathmoss and Other Exhalations, Voyages by Starlight and Past Magic by Ian MacLeod (but especially the first of those)
Saffron and Brimstone by Elizabeth Hand
Mothers and Other Monsters by Maureen McHugh (there must be enough uncollected McHugh stories for a second book, surely?)
Looking for Jake by China Mieville
The Whole Story and Other Stories, and Other Stories and Other Stories, both by Ali Smith
Traces and Phase Space by Stephen Baxter
Some Emshwiller — I Live With You for starters.
The Lilac Bus by Maeve Binchy.
Damascus Nights by Rafik Schami.
Crackling Mountain and Other Stories by Osamu Dazai.
The Birds and Other Stories by Daphne du Maurier.
The Dogwalker by Arthur Bradford
The Emporium by Adam Johnson
The Mother Garden by Robin Romm
Voodoo Heart by Scott Snyder
Red Ant House by Anne Cummins
Things That Fall from the Sky by Kevin Brockmeier
Bad Haircut by Tom Perrotta
Plus part of Schismatrix Plus by Bruce Sterling or his A Good Old Fashioned Future
Welcome to the Arrow-Catcher Club +The All-Girl Football Team by Lewis Nordan
In the Palace of Repose by Holly Phillips
Love in Vain by Lewis Shiner
Jaguar Hunter by Lucius Shepard
The Light at the End of the Universe by Terry Carr (if it’s still available)
Maybe I would like to hide some of them from the public eyes. Those are my treasure.
Yoshio, I love your list! We have the same taste in short stories! The only other person that I personally know who has read Lewis Nordan is Kelly Link. I absolutely LOVE his stories. And I just read Robin Romm’s collection “The Mother Garden” last month. It was wonderful.
yoshio – we have the same taste, too! from romm to bradford and beyond. thanks so much for including voodoo heart. means a lot. scott
Hi Yoshio and Scott and Chris,
Thanks for reading the Mother Garden, all. I’m so happy you liked it. Chris – sorry I fell off the face of the earth. I did read One For Sorrow. What an odd and beautiful story. I’ll write more to you soon.
And I loved Scott’s book, Voodoo Heart.
Also, I’m into Gina Berriault these days. “The Stone Boy” is one of my favorite stories. And of course, everything by Flannery O’Connor and Andre Dubus.
Robin
Hey Robin! Sorry I fell off the face of the earth too! Thank you for the compliments! I’ll get in touch with you again soon!
I am a huge Flannery O’Connor fan too. She can be real mean, but her stories are simply like nothing else.