If you’re unfamiliar with Jon Ronson, he’s been writing about the strange, absurd, and downright wacky fringes of society for some time now. A dear friend told me about his first collection, Them: Adventures with Extremists, several years ago. Ronson tracked down and interviewed a cross section of people who believe that a secret elite group controls the world. Many of them believe this elite group are actually alien lizards. Are you intrigued yet? He has continued to write highly readable investigate essays ever since.

Lost at Sea is a collection of Ronson’s more recent essays from The Guardian and GQ. Essays cover a broad range of topics from juggalos to indigo children to Stanley Kubrick to the evils of predatory credit card companies. What I enjoy about Jon Ronson is how present he is in his essays. Rather than take a standard objective reporting approach, he inserts himself into the story and reflects (a lot) on what is happening. You learn as much about Ronson at times as you do about his subjects.

Jon Ronson has a canny ability to blend a funny, fast-paced, and addictive reading experience with heavy, thought-provoking ideas and themes. You think you’re just having fun, but Ronson is dropping serious philosophical quandaries on you to ponder. That’s a tricky task to accomplish. Don’t miss out on Lost at Sea.

-Brad Allen

Years ago, near the beginning of my obsession with NYRB Classics, I had the great pleasure to come across a fully merchandised display of these wonderful books at Three Lives and Company, a delightful bookshop in the West Village. (Booklovers: please visit this gem of a bookshop whenever you’re in NYC.) Of all the books on display, the strikingly stark cover of Stoner piqued my attention; the description on the back of the book intrigued me further. I soon read it, and it more than surpassed my expectations.

Stoner is the quiet, entrancing story of William Stoner, the son of hard-scrabble Missouri farmers. Sent to the University of Missouri by his parents to study agriculture in order to return to and inherit the family farm, Stoner discovers the magical world of literature and scholarship which alters the path of his life dramatically. He continues his studies to become a Ph.D. in English and ends up working as a faculty member at his alma mater. The book follows the quiet life of a quiet man. Williams is a gifted writer who writes in what he refers to as “plain style.” This book enchanted me from start to finish. It describes the drama of a simply lived, quiet life. It is a classic waiting for you to rediscover it. – Brad Allen, Director

So, bearing this in mind, included below are a handful of great collections of short stories to get you started. If you’re like me and have dismissed short stories for far too long, fret not, it won’t take long to read a few to see what you think. If you’re already a fan of short stories and I’ve left out a favorite collection of yours, please add it to the comments section below! - Brad Allen, Library Director

What He’s Poised To Do by Ben Greenman
From a portrait of an unfaithful man contemplating his own free will to the saga of a young Cuban man’s quixotic devotion to a woman he may never have met; and from a nineteenth-century weapons inventor’s letter to his young daughter to an aging man’s wistful memory of a summer love affair in a law office—each of these stories demonstrates Greenman’s maturity as a chronicler of romantic angst and as an explorer of the ways our yearning for connection informs our selves and our souls. -Publisher’s Description

The Collected Short Stories of Richard Yates 
Whether addressing the smothered desire of suburban housewives, the white-collar despair of Manhattan office workers, or the moments of terrified peace experienced by American soldiers in World War II, Yates examines every frayed corner of the American dream. His stories, as empathetic as they are unforgiving, are like no others in our nation’s literature. -From the Publisher’s Description

Call It What You Want by Keith Lee Morris
Call It What You Want, a stunning story collection inhabited by dreams and disappointments, good intentions and small triumphs, chronicles the lives of men lost in the liminal spaces between adolescence and adulthood. For all their flaws – as husbands, as fathers, as friends – the characters are portrayed with depth, tenderness, and humanity. Morris’ writing has been compared to that of Denis Johnson, Richard Ford, and Richard Russo, and Call It What You Want balances realism with the surreal, humor with sadness, and explores all the hidden places in between. -From the Publisher’s Description

The Girl in the Flammable Skirt by Aimee Bender
Aimee Bender’s stories portray a world twisted on its axis, a place of unconvention that resembles nothing so much as real life, in all its grotesque, beautiful glory. From the first line of each tale she lets us know she is telling a story, but the moral is never quite what we expect. Bender’s prose is glorious: musical and colloquial, inimitable and heartrending. Here are stories of men and women whose lives are shaped–and sometimes twisted–by the power of extraordinary desires, erotic and otherwise. – From the Publisher’s Description

Long, Last Happy by Barry Hannah
Hannah’s wit is caustic, shot through with social commentary and gleefully interspersed with bursts of slapstick comedy. Hannah easily links themes, characters, and places–particularly his longtime home of Oxford, Miss., and its flagship school, Ole Miss–without drawing unnecessary attention to connections. This collection reminds that Hannah, even in death, will always be “on the black and chrome Triumph, riding right into your face.” -From a Publisher’s Weekly review

Pasquale Tursi returns home to Porto Vergogna from Florence following the unexpected death of his father. He wants to put his family’s sleepy hotel on the map. So he’s building a beach. Maybe a tennis court. A beautiful and mysterious American actress arrives to stay at his hotel to convalesce. Her name is Dee Moray, and she has just learned she has stomach cancer. Then, the story jumps forward fifty years to Claire Silver and Michael Deane, production assistant and famous Hollywood producer. After a long day of listening to bad pitches, an old Italian man tells her he is looking for Dee Moray. Claire calls Michael Deane. He drops everything the minute he hears the name, Dee Moray. Jess Walter introduces more and more characters with each passing chapter. As I read some of these chapters, they reminded me of character-driven short stories. Page by page, however, these stories begin to knit together, closer and closer as the book reaches its conclusion. Jess Walter’s ability to connect all the dots is masterful.

I’ve been a fan of Jess Walter for a few years now. The Financial Lives of the Poets brilliantly depicts the desperate actions of a man who overextends himself assuming the late 20th Century American boom economy will never waver. It’s like the TV show Weeds, but better. The Zero is the best meditation on the crass marketing of the tragedy of 9/11 I’ve read. So, my expectations for Beautiful Ruins were exceptionally high, and it did not disappoint. With this book and the many stories that lie within, Jess Walter asks us to think about what we live for, what we love and why. This is perhaps his best novel yet, and the one I hope brings him a deservedly larger audience. Don’t miss out on one of the best books of the year so far! - Brad, Library Director