Recommended short story collections

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Free Therapy

Rebecca Ivory

A collection that shows us ourselves as we truly are from a wry and sharp new voice in fiction

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The Gorgon Flower

John Richards

These accomplished, gothic-infused stories impress in terms of their range and unexpected twists - this is an exceptional debut collection

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Your Utopia

Bora Chung, Anton Hur (trans.)

By the internationally acclaimed author of Cursed Bunny, in another thrilling translation from the Korean by Anton Hur, Your Utopia is full of tales of loss and discovery, idealism…

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Hardback

The White Cockatoo Flowers

Ouyang Yu

Ouyang Yu’s first collection of stories in English is both assured and tender and at times surprisingly funny.

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Maktub

Paulo Coelho, Margaret Jull Costa (trans.)

An essential companion to the inspirational classic The Alchemist, filled with timeless stories of reflection and rediscovery.

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Always Will Be

Mykaela Saunders

From the 2022 David Unaipon winner comes an outstanding and timely collection of speculative fiction imagining futures where Indigenous sovereignty is fully reasserted.

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Hardback

We All Lived in Bondi Then

Georgia Blain

From the author of the multi-award-winning bestseller Between a Wolf and a Dog, a powerful collection of previously unpublished stories.

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Roman Stories

Jhumpa Lahiri & Todd Portnowitz

Jhumpa Lahiri, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Interpreter of Maladies, returns to the form of short stories with an astonishing work of fiction, set in and around Rome.

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Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare

Megan Kamalei Kakimoto

A stunning collection of stories that weaves Hawaiian mythology with a vivid fabulism and rich sense of place.

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I Hear You’re Rich

Diane Williams

A new collection of stories from the 'godmother of flash fiction' (The Paris Review).

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Gunflower: Stories

Laura Jean McKay

The brilliant new short story collection from the Arthur C. Clarke Award-winning author of The Animals in That Country.

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Night Side of the River

Jeanette Winterson

A masterful and modern collection of ghost stories from Sunday Times bestselling author Jeanette Winterson

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Wednesday’s Child

Yiyun Li

A dazzling new collection of short stories, spanning 15 years of writing, from Yiyun Li, the prize-winning author of The Book of Goose and Where Reasons End

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Antarctica

Claire Keegan

The debut collection of stories from the author of Foster and Small Things Like These.

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Hardback

What You Are Looking for is in the Library

Michiko Aoyama, Alison Watts (trans.)

At once heart-rending and heartwarming, this bestselling shortlistee of the Japan Booksellers' Prize is a celebraton of community libraries and the life-changing power of book recommendation.

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Dear Chrysanthemums

Fiona Sze-Lorrain

A startling and vivid debut novel in stories from acclaimed poet and translator Fiona Sze-Lorrain, featuring deeply compelling Asian women who reckon with the past, violence, and exile — set…

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A Stroke of the Pen

Terry Pratchett

A beautifully packaged, illustrated collection of twenty rediscovered early short stories by award-winning and bestselling author, Sir Terry Pratchett.

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Normal Rules Don’t Apply

Kate Atkinson

From the Number One bestselling author of Shrines of Gaiety and Life After Life, a full collection of short stories to delight, intrigue and surprise.

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New Australian Fiction 2023

Suzy Garcia (ed.)

A new collection of short fiction from Kill Your Darlings.

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Firelight: Stories

John Morrissey

A wildly imaginative, page-turning collection featuring ghost stories, science fiction and satire, with Aboriginal characters at its heart

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Marple: Twelve New Stories

Agatha Christie

A brand new collection of short stories featuring the Queen of Crime’s legendary detective Jane Marple, penned by twelve remarkable bestselling and acclaimed authors.

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White Cat, Black Dog

Kelly Link

Seven ingeniously reinvented fairy tales that play out with astonishing consequences in the modern world, from one of today's finest short story writers - MacArthur 'Genius Grant' Fellow Kelly Link…

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Hardback

The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories

Bruce Fulton (ed.), Kwon Youngmin (intro.)

This eclectic, moving and wonderfully enjoyable collection is the essential introduction to Korean literature. Journeying through Korea’s dramatic twentieth century, from the Japanese occupation and colonial era to the devastating…

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I Meant It Once

Kate Doyle

With this sharp and witty debut collection, author Kate Doyle captures precisely that time of life when so many young women are caught in between, pre-occupied by nostalgia for past…

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If I Survive You

Jonathan Escoffery

A major debut, blazing with style and heart, that follows a Jamaican family in Miami navigating recession, racism and Hurricane Andrew.

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Hardback

After the Funeral

Tessa Hadley

From the incomparable Tessa Hadley, a masterful collection of stories that plumb the depths of everyday life to reveal the shifting tides and hidden undercurrents of ordinary relationships

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The Angel of Rome

Jess Walter

In this dazzling collection of stories, a son must repeatedly come out to his senile father while looking for a place that will care for the old man. An elderly…

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Hit Parade of Tears

Izumi Suzuki, Sam Bett (trans.), David Boyd (trans.), Helen O'Horan (trans.), Daniel Joseph (trans.)

A new collection from the cult author of Terminal Boredom

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Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird

Agustina Bazterrica

On hearing her neighbour’s body plummet on to her patio, a woman’s comfortable life seems to split open. A cab driver’s perfectly manicured nails may be concealing grisly secrets. A…

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Hardback

Dead-End Memories

Banana Yoshimoto, Asa Yoneda (trans.)

First published in Japan in 2003 and never before published in the United States, Dead-End Memories collects the stories of five women who, following sudden and painful events, quietly discover…

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Games and Rituals

Katherine Heiny

The beloved author of Early Morning Riser brings us eleven glittering stories of love – friendships formed at the airport bar, ex-husbands with benefits, mothers of suspiciously sweet teenagers, ill-advised…

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Furies

Margaret Atwood, Ali Smith, Emma Donoghue, Kirsty Logan, Chibundu Onuzo, Caroline O'Donoghue, Linda Grant, Susie Boyt, Stella Duffy, Kamila Shamsie

A fun and fearless anthology of feminist tales, by sixteen bestselling, award-winning writers.

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Total

Rebecca Miller

Arresting and darkly prescient - stories which deftly navigate the fault lines of relationships from the bestselling author of The Private Lives of Pippa Lee.

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Old Babes in the Wood

Margaret Atwood

A highly personal new collection of stories by the bestselling, twice Booker-winning cultural icon

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Rainbow Rainbow

Lydia Conklin

A collection of stories that celebrate the humour, darkness and depth of emotion of the queer and trans experience that’s not typically represented: liminal or uncertain identities, queer conception and…

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Hardback

Gods of Want

K-Ming Chang

Surreal and seductive collection of stories by Taiwanese American writer and poet K-Ming Chang. Themes of body, memory, queerness and family explored with boundless, dark imagination.

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Sarahland

Sam Cohen

This coyly revolutionary debut story collection imagines new origins and futures for its cast of unforgettable protagonists – almost all of whom are named Sarah.

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Illuminations

Alan Moore

In his first-ever short story collection, which spans forty years of work and features many never-before-published pieces Alan Moore, presents nine stories full of wonder and strangeness, each taking us…

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Walk the Blue Fields

Claire Keegan

The eagerly anticipated new collection from the author of Antarctica.

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Cautionary Tales for Excitable Girls

Anne Casey-Hardy

Excitable girls rush out to meet life; what could go wrong? A masterful debut about the terrifying thrills of innocence from a voice of experience.

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My Monticello

Jocelyn Nicole Johnson

A searing novel, a powerful call for collectivism, and one of the biggest American debuts of 2021.

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Afterparties

Anthony Veasna So (author)

A debut story collection about Cambodian-American life - immersive, comic and unsparing - by an indisputable talent.

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Life Ceremony

Sayaka Murata, Ginny Tapley Takemori (trans.)

Radical, untamed, always unexpected: a thrilling, can’t-look-away collection of stories from the author of the internationally bestselling phenomenon Convenience Store Woman.

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First Person Singular

Haruki Murakami

A brilliant new collection of short stories from the unique mind of the internationallly bestselling author of Men Without Women and Killing Commendatore. In these eight stories, Haruki Murakami explores…

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The Lottery and Other Stories

Shirley Jackson

Offers a collection of short stories, in which an excellent host finds himself turned out of home by his own guests; a woman spends her wedding day frantically searching for…

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Here Be Leviathans

Chris Flynn

A collection of funny, brilliant, boundary-pushing stories from the bestselling author of Mammoth.

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Between Two Worlds

SBS Emerging Writers' Competition

Between Two Worlds brings us thirty of the best short stories chosen from the thousands of entries in the SBS Emerging Writers’ Competition.

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Everything Feels Like the End of the World

Else Fitzgerald

Grief, loss, pain, love, and the future - an achingly human debut short story collection, from the winner of the Richell Prize.

In stock at 2 shops, ships in 3-4 daysIn stock at 2 shops

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Recommended short story collections

Free Therapy

The Gorgon Flower

Your Utopia

The White Cockatoo Flowers

Maktub

Always Will Be

We All Lived in Bondi Then

Roman Stories

Every Drop Is a Man’s Nightmare

I Hear You’re Rich

Gunflower: Stories

Night Side of the River

Wednesday’s Child

Antarctica

What You Are Looking for is in the Library

Dear Chrysanthemums

A Stroke of the Pen

Normal Rules Don’t Apply

New Australian Fiction 2023

Firelight: Stories

Marple: Twelve New Stories

White Cat, Black Dog

The Penguin Book of Korean Short Stories

I Meant It Once

If I Survive You

After the Funeral

The Angel of Rome

Hit Parade of Tears

Nineteen Claws and a Black Bird

Dead-End Memories

Games and Rituals

Furies

Total

Old Babes in the Wood

Rainbow Rainbow

Gods of Want

Sarahland

Illuminations

Walk the Blue Fields

Cautionary Tales for Excitable Girls

My Monticello

Afterparties

Life Ceremony

First Person Singular

The Lottery and Other Stories

Here Be Leviathans

Between Two Worlds

Everything Feels Like the End of the World