Best of the South

When Anne Tyler helped us celebrate the first ten yers of New Stories from the South, 1986-1995, the reviews were ecstatic. "The twenty tales here epitomize the qualities readers treasure in the best southern literature: a rich appreciation of language and humor, as well as a dead-on sense of place and character," said People. "A triumph of authentic voices and unforgettable characters," said Southern Living. "Classics of the Southern short story form....Any one of them deserves a review of its own," raved the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

Now that the anthology has reached its twentieth birthday, Anne Tyler has done it again. She has picked her twenty favorites from the ten volumes published between 1996 and 2005 and has introduced them with warmth, insight, and her own brand of quiet literary authority.