Books like Gates of Eden by Ethan Coen

A collection of short stories by George Saunders, featuring unforgettable characters and Saunders’s signature blend of exuberant prose, deep humanity, and stylistic innovation.

A collection of eight short stories that follows modern Bengali‑American families across India, Thailand, Cambridge, and Seattle, revealing the quiet mysteries of love, duty, and identity.

John Grisham’s debut short‑story collection, Ford County, gathers seven novellas set in Mississippi, exploring human foibles and Mississippi life with Grisham’s trademark blend of suspense and moral inquiry.

Laura Groff’s Florida navigates the state’s weather, wildlife, and history as backdrop for stories of love, loss, and loneliness that pulse with wit, sadness, and hunger for connection.

Joyce Carol Oates’ collection of thirteen short stories explores the dark, complex depths of human desire and moral ambiguity in vivid, American settings.

A New York Times‑reviewed collection of American short stories where a student, a late‑night dinner party and a matchmaker each explore love, loss, and the past.

In this collection of surreal short stories, Aimee Bender weaves fantastical worlds where extraordinary beings—a boy with key‑fingers, a woman’s potato children, a pumpkin‑headed family—explore themes of love, identity, and the human condition.

A collection of 11 uncollected stories that follow the unlikely friendship between Elizabeth Short, the Black Dahlia, and her roommate Norma Jeane Baker, who would become Marilyn Monroe, exploring the hidden menace of 1940s Los Angeles and its transformative cost.

First short‑story collection by Aurelie Sheehan, featuring lyrical, often humorous portraits of women who challenge gender expectations, set amid American social norms.

A collection of Jim Shepard’s short stories that has earned recognition in The New York Times.

Fenstad's Mother / Charles Baxter -- Customs of the country / Madison Smartt Bell -- Living to be a hundred / Robert Boswell -- The black hand girl / Blanche McCrary Boyd -- Kubuku Rides (This is it) / Larry Brown -- Ralph the Duck / Frederick Busch -- White angel / Michael Cunningham -- The flowers of boredom / Rick DeMarinis -- Edie: a life / Harriet Doerr -- The concert party / Mavis Gallant -- Why I decide to kill myself and other jokes / Douglas Glover -- Disneyland / Barbara Gowdy -- Aunt Moon's young man / Linda Hogan -- Displacement / David Wong Louie -- The management of grief / Bharati Mukherjee -- Meneseteung / Alice Munro -- What men love for / Dale Ray Phillips -- Strays / Mark Richard -- The boy on the train / Arthur Robinson -- The letter writer / M.T. Sharif. Responsibility: selected from U.S. and Canadian magazines by Margaret Atwood with Shannon Ravenel ; with an introduction by Margaret Atwood.