The Best American Short Stories 2022

Best American

By: Andrew Sean Greer - editor, Heidi Pitlor - series editor

Narrated by: Andrew Sean Greer, Reynaldo Piniella, Shawn K. Jain, Carolina Hoyos, Cherise Boothe, Cindy Kay

Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins

Publisher's summary

A collection of the year’s best short stories, selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Andrew Sean Greer and series editor Heidi Pitlor.

Andrew Sean Greer, “an exceptionally lovely writer, capable of mingling humor with sharp poignancy” (Washington Post), selects twenty stories out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.

Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2022 Heidi Pitlor (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers

I had to stop listening

The ones I listened too where all just sad a depressing for the most part. I kept think there would be some up and down but they were seemingly all downers. I just don’t have time for that in my life. Especially when you want light enjoyment while heading to work.

I would suggest a new performer, at least.

I would suggest a different performer. Can't get to the stories. I must be out of the demographic. unlistenable.

Best Collection of Stories

I loved this! The stories are of a high quality, diverse, and imaginative. The narrators are talented. The collection is so good that I am going to listen to it again and look up the authors to see if they wrote their own collection. I’m hooked on this series. I look forward to The Best American Short Stories of 2023!

So depressing

Mr.Greer clearly has an agenda. I actually agree with many of these issues. But this is a collection of sad, doomsday, angry, and over the top depressing stories. Going into this I was going to pick a magazine and subscribe. Not now. I could barely get through them. One worse than the other.

America’s WORST short stories of 2022

Since when did the criteria for “best” have to do with subject matter that is utterly dismal and depressing? This is crappy writing at its best. The introduction was brutally long and painful only to be followed by the dismal stories.
TOTAL BUMMER. Never let anyone tell you what is “best”…. Use your own hood radar.

The most boring

I’m very interested in short stories, but all of these with the exception of three are AWFUL-and three male narrators are awful.

This book was covered in a class I took led by George Clack.

Another Great Year of Shorts

I have been reading this series since the 1980s and look forward to the new volume each year.
Although there are only a few GREAT stories in each volume, I have found this series has the best curation of any of the annual short story collections I read. Each volume has 20 of the best American short stories of the year. Audible now has all the volumes since 2019.

RANT: This is a curated collection of American shorts. It is not really a “Best” collection because diversity and inclusion appear to be an important editorial factor. Inclusive curated collections are great but are a different thing from a true “best of” collection.

This year I really liked The Wind, The Beyuglu Municipality Waste Management Orchestra, and The Meeting. There are six other very good stories along with a dozen or so ranging from OK to Good.

The narration varies but overall good to excellent.