Recommendations
Books Like Tenth of December
Best books to read after Tenth of December by George Saunders
George Saunders's Tenth of December is his most celebrated story collection — satirical, funny, deeply empathic. These recommendations continue the Saunders canon, explore the contemporary American story tradition, or offer companion reading in the tradition of the morally serious comic short story.
- 1Buy
Lincoln in the Bardo
by George Saunders
The essential Saunders novel — Abraham Lincoln grieving in a Georgetown graveyard, hundreds of ghost voices, the Man Booker Prize winner that shows Saunders at novel length using the same formal inventiveness as his short fiction.
- 2Buy
Pastoralia
by George Saunders
The earlier Saunders collection — 'Sea Oak,' 'Winky,' and the title story, the best of his satirical theme park fiction, essential after Tenth of December for readers who want more Saunders.
- 3Buy
A Visit from the Goon Squad
by Jennifer Egan
The Pulitzer Prize-winning companion in formal inventiveness — thirteen interconnected stories in the music industry, Egan's PowerPoint chapter and Saunders's near-future satire occupying the same space in contemporary American fiction.
- 4Buy
Jesus' Son
by Denis Johnson
The essential American story collection companion — eleven stories narrated by a nameless junkie, Johnson's prose as distinctive as Saunders's in a completely different register, both collections centered on the desperate edges of American life.
- 5Buy
Interpreter of Maladies
by Jhumpa Lahiri
The other celebrated contemporary American story collection — Lahiri's nine stories of the Indian diaspora in America and India, the Pulitzer Prize-winning collection that shows the full range of what the American story can be alongside Saunders's satire.
- 6Buy
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
by Raymond Carver
The American story collection that most shaped the tradition Saunders works in — Carver's minimalism is the polar opposite of Saunders's verbal exuberance, but both writers are intensely focused on the working-class American experience and the moments when ordinary life reveals something unbearable.
- 7Buy
The Collected Stories
by Grace Paley
The New York story collection companion — Paley's Faith and her Bronx community, the feminist political American story that influenced Saunders's interest in giving voice to characters on the margins of American prosperity.
- 8Buy
Bloodchild and Other Stories
by Octavia E. Butler
The speculative story collection companion — Butler's 'Bloodchild' (Hugo and Nebula winner) and 'Speech Sounds,' the other essential American story collection of the late twentieth century for readers who want speculation alongside Saunders's satire.
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