Picking your favourite short stories is akin to choosing favourite songs: nigh on impossible. So rather than list my all-time loves, these are the ones that I’m thinking about the most right now. What links them is a quiet, unsettling quality… and the fact that I swore with sheer wonder after reading each one:
1. “Everything In This Country Must” (title story from 3rd collection) – Colum McCann
2. “Ideas” (from Paris Review 191) – Patricio Pron
3. “The Ascent” (from Burning Bright) – Ron Rash
4. “Like All Other Men” (from Creatures of the Earth)- John McGahern
5. “Here Is What You Do” (from Granta: Aliens) – Chris Dennis
Download Niven’s fine new story — “A Fiesta” — here.
[Related: 3:AM interview.]
