Back in Beige

I'm back from my three-day soujourn to the Governor's Conference on Women, where I helped host author signings with the likes of Rachel Ray, Rocco DiSpirito, Jenny McCarthy, and Madeleine Albright. I'm very, very tired, so you'll forgive me if this post is brief. A few things to check out while I soak in a hot tub:

• Narrative Magazine has a new short story by Stuart Dybek available online (You have to sign up to read it, but it is free).

• The Times' Paper Cut blog has a playlist by Todd Hasak-Lowy, who will be appearing at Vroman's on November 11 to discuss and sign his new book Captives.

• Everybody in the world has already linked to this, so I should too: Rolling Stone has a lengthy profile of the last days of David Foster Wallace.

• A few of us here at Vroman's are huge Mad Men fans (It's clearly Originality Day here at the bookstore), and awhile back we were talking about putting together a Mad Men display of books that seemed in a similar vein to the show. The first book that popped into my head was The Man in the Gray Flannel Suit, but the second was Revolutionary Road. Turns out I was right (via The Morning News).
  

No Shortlist Required

Jhumpa Lahiri has won the world's richest short story prize, the Frank O'Connor award for about $55,000, for her collection of stories Unaccustomed Earth. Apparently, she so lapped the competition that the judges dispensed entirely with the formality of a shortlist. Which really sucks for the books that would've gotten the recognition of being shortlisted.

A Short Story Recommendation

Continuing with our celebration of National Short Story Month, I wanted to point people in the direction of one of the best short stories I've read in years. Actually, I read it a few years ago, back when I was working at a different independent bookstore. I had the 4pm to Midnight Friday and Saturday newsstand shift (or as I liked to call it, the Lonely Weirdo with No Social Life shift), and we weren't supposed to read at the newsstand (it made it too easy for people to steal porn). But one night, I did read at the newsstand, and what I read was "The Affairs of Each Beast" by David Benioff. It was unlike most of the other short fiction I had read in that it was set in Chechnya and featured Russian infantrymen as protagonists. Much porn was stolen that night, my friends. It's available online at the Zoetrope All-Story site. Enjoy.

David Benioff will be at Vroman's to read from and sign his excellent new book City of Thieves (click on the link to read my recommendation of the book!) on Wednesday, June 4 at 7 pm. See you there.

The Ten Best Living Short Story Writers

May is National Short Story Month. I didn't know this until recently. Why doesn't National Short Story Month get the same attention as National Poetry Month? I suspect it's due to the powerful poetry lobby in Washington. Just you wait until John McCain gets rid of their insidious influence, then the short stories will finally get their due!

In honor of the National Short Story Month, I thought I'd compile a list of the Ten Best Living Short Story Writers (according to me):

1. Lorrie Moore
2. Stuart Dybek
3. George Saunders
4. Denis Johnson
5. Amy Hempel
6. John Updike
7. Dan Chaon
8. Mary Gaitskill
9. Thom Jones
10. JD Salinger

Writers I haven't read enough of but who probably deserve to be on the list: Aimee Bender, Tobias Wolff, Ann Beattie, Edward P. Jones, David Foster Wallace. I happen to like AM Homes' novels better than her stories. I've never cared for Alice Munro, but I'm willing to give her another try. I think I'll never be able to like William Trevor as much as the editors at The New Yorker do.

Waiting for more evidence: Ander Monson. Sam Lipsyte. Edan Lepucki.

Honorable mention in a special category: Adrian Tomine.

Who would you have on your list? Post it in the comments.