Small Odysseys: Selected Shorts Presents 35 New Stories edited by Hannah Tinti ~ a Review

by Susan Roberts

 

Published in partnership with a beloved literary radio program and live show Selected Shorts in honor of its thirty-fifth anniversary, this collection of thirty-five stories captures its spirit in print for the first time.

Amazon affiliate links are used on this site. A Free book was provided for an honest review.

March 2022; Algonquin Books; 978-1643751993
ebook, print (336 pages); anthology

Short stories are not my favorite genre but this anthology from Selected Shorts on PBS was a great compilation by some fantastic authors.  I'm making a list of some of my favorite stories from this book so that I can search out other books by these authors.  Like any book of short stories, some of them are a hit and some are not as appealing but this book had more hits than misses for me.

This book is divided into three sections:

Departures - stories about leaving home and saying goodbye. My favorite story in this section was "The King of Bread" about a father and his son and their time together on a bakery truck in the mid-50s.

The second part is called Journeys and it follows characters as they make changes in their lives.  My favorite story in this section was "Home" about a daughter putting her mother in assisted living because of her dementia.  Their roles have now switched as the daughter becomes the parent while the parent becomes the child.

The final section is called New Worlds and it looks at the small steps at the beginning of a new journey.  My favorite was "Dandelions" which was about a small town's attitude toward those pesky weeds and how they set out to create the perfect dandelion - but does anyone really care?

I really enjoyed that each author shared their inspiration for their story at the end.  It was interesting to see where their idea for the story started.  This book of short stories is well worth reading.  Most of the stories are excellent and it's a chance to find out about authors that you have never read before and it might even help readers see their own world in a different light.

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Susan Roberts lives in North Carolina with her husband of over 50 years.  She grew up in Michigan but now calls North Carolina home. She enjoys reading, traveling, and spending time with her family. She reads almost anything (and the piles of books in her house prove that) but her favorite genres are Southern fiction, women's fiction, and historical fiction. Susan is a top 1% Goodreads Reviewer. You can connect with Susan on Facebook.

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