His new collection, Tenth of December, is funny, poignant – in flashes, deeply moving – light as a feather, and consistently weird in the way that the suburbs are weird, which is to say quietly but intensely, under a surface as clean and bright as a newly waxed car.

George Saunders Extols the Virtues of Kindness in 2013 Speech to Syracuse University Gradsįree Philip K.S ince 1996, with the publication of his first collection CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, George Saunders's flamboyant satires of American life have become a major influence on a generation of younger short story writers, both in the US and internationally.

A Lack of Order in the Floating Object Room – Northwest Review, 1986.Tenth of December * – New Yorker, October 2011.The Semplica-Girl Diaries * – New Yorker, October 2012.All stories from the new collection have an asterisk next to the title. Even better, the list features three stories from Tenth of December, including the story after which the book takes its name. If you’re not familiar with Saunders’ writing, then we have you covered. Below we’ve collected 10 stories by the author, all free to read online. You can watch him give a reading at Google above, or make appearances on the PBS News Hour and The Colbert Report. Since then, Saunders has found himself in the limelight talking about Tenth of December, his newly-published collection of short stories. On that day, The New York Times published an article with the title, “George Saunders Has Written the Best Book You’ll Read This Year,” a pretty bold declaration given that 2013 still had 359 days to go. Over the years, he has gained the reputation of being a “writer’s writer,” with authors like Tobias Wolff saying about Saunders: “He’s been one of the luminous spots of our literature for the past 20 years.” But despite his literary accomplishments, and despite winning the prestigious MacArthur award in 2006, George Saunders never quite became a household name until January 6 of this year.

Saunders published his first short story with The New Yorker back in 1992, and his new stories have regularly debuted in the magazine’s Fiction section ever since. For writers and serious readers, George Saunders is anything but a newcomer.

Tenth of December by George Saunders