You've Got to Read this: Contemporary American Writers Introduce Stories that Held Them in Awe

Ron Hansen, Jim Shepard

HarperPerennial, 1994 - Fiction - 630 pages

"An exciting new anthology of short fiction chosen by thirty-five of this country's most distinguished and popular fiction writers, You've Got to Read This offers readers an unusually intimate glimpse into how accomplished writers experience literature." "Here are stories that inspired today's leading novelists and short-story writers to embark on their own writing careers, stories that took their breath away and changed them, or the way they responded to literature, forever. Oscar Hijuelos confesses his debt to the great Argentine writer Jorge Luis Borges, whose brilliant story "The Aleph" inspired him to become a writer himself. Mary Gordon stands in awe of what James Joyce wrought in "The Dead," and wonders how writers who come after him can equal it. Robert Coover writes movingly of Angela Carter and her mysterious story "Reflections," while Kenneth A. McClane says that "Sonny's Blues" by James Baldwin literally saved his life." "Some of the stories presented here are classics, like Anton Chekhov's "Gooseberries," introduced by Eudora Welty, or Flannery O'Connor's "A Good Man Is Hard to Find," selected by Sue Miller. Some are less well known, like Lars Gustafsson's "Greatness Strikes Where It Pleases," introduced by Charles Baxter, or John Updike's "Packed Dirt, Churchgoing, a Dying Cat, a Traded Car," whose beauty stunned Lorrie Moore." "All were critically important to some of our finest contemporary writers - among them Annie Dillard, John Irving, Amy Tan, Louise Erdrich, Russell Banks, Jane Smiley, Bobbie Ann Mason, Tobias Wolff - and their comments about the selections offer fascinating entrances into the stories. For lovers of fiction, You've Got to Read This is a treasure trove, a dazzling collection of stories passionately and imaginatively chosen."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved

Contents

• Isaac Babel Guy de Maupassant: 19
• Donald Barthelme The School: 57
• Jane Bowles A Day in the Open: 77

About the author

Ron Hansen was born in Omaha Nebraska in 1947.He received a BA degree in English from Creighton University in Nebraska in 1970. He is the author of more than 20 books, stories, and anthologies. He received the Award in Literature from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters for his book Nebraska, a collection of short fiction, in 1989. Some of his other works include Mariette in Ecstasy; the children's book, The Shadowmaker; Desperadoes; the Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford, which won the John Edgar Wideman Award in 1984; and the novel Atticus, a suspenseful murder mystery detailing a father's fierce love for his son. Atticus was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1996. Among the anthologies written by Hansen are The Sun So Hot I Froze To Death, Can I Just Sit Here For A While?, and True Romance. His short stories, with titles ranging from "His Dog" to "Playland," have appeared in the Stanford Alumni Magazine, Atlantic Monthly, the Iowa Review, Esquire, and many others. Besides holding Guggenheim and National Endowment for the Arts fellowships, Hansen has received a Lyndhurst Foundation Grant and is a fellow of the University of Michigan Society of Fellows. Hansen has also held the position of Gerald Manley Hopkins S.J. Professor of Arts and Humanities at Santa Clara University. In May 2006 he was inducted into the College of Fellows at Dominican School of Philosophy and Theology. Also in that year The Assasination of Jesse James was adapted for the screen. In 2009 Mariette In Ecstasy was adapted for the stage at Lifetime Theater in Chicago. Jim Shepard was born on December 29, 1956 in Bridgeport, Connecticut. He received a BA from Trinity College and a MFA from Brown University. He teaches creative writing and film at Williams College and in the Warren Wilson MFA program. He received the Guggenheim Fellowship for Creative Arts, US and Canada. His short story collection, Like You'd Understand, won the 2007 Story Prize. His other short story collections include Battling against Castro, Love and Hydrogen, and You Think That's Bad. He won the 2005 Massachusetts Book Award for his novel, Project X. His other novels include Flights, Paper Doll, Lights Out in the Reptile House, Kiss of the Wolf, Nosferatu, and The Book of Aron.

Bibliographic information

• Title: You've Got to Read this: Contemporary American Writers Introduce Stories that Held Them in Awe
• Editors: Ron Hansen, Jim Shepard
• Publisher: HarperPerennial, 1994
• ISBN: 0060553588, 9780060553586
• Length: 630 pages
• Subjects: Fiction / Anthologies (multiple authors)