One of the books I have used this year in my undergraduate English classes is The Best Short Stories 2025: The O. Henry Prize Winners.

It’s a remarkable collection. It contains some masters of the short story form, like Dave Eggers and Clyde Edgerton, and some writers that are new, even to me, like Zak Salih.

It likewise addresses themes students and older adults can all identify with–spiritual homelessness, struggles to assimilate, and the longing to matter.

If you’re given to reading literature of substance, this is a solid volume of short stories. It showcases some contemporary talent out there in the world of writers and encourages me (and others, too, I hope) that good literature still matters and still continues to be written.