Téa Obreht "Blue Water Djinn" The New Yorker Fiction: 20 Under 40 August 2, 2010 issue We learn in the first paragraph that "Blue Water Djinn" is set in Egypt and a quick online search reveals beautiful images of Ras Um Sid (most of which are sneakily connected to advertisements for
Karen Russell "The Dredgeman's Revelation" The New Yorker Fiction: 20 Under 40 July 26, 2010 issue This is the first of The New Yorker's 20Under40 stories that has left me feeling absolutely certain that I'll be following up with a longer work by the writer. (Not including the writers whose work
Daphne Du Maurier's The Birds (1952) Arrow Books, 1992 Virago Modern Classic No. 498 My favourite story from this collection is "The Apple Tree". Partly because I've long believed that there is more to a tree than one might think, thanks to years of reading L.M. Montgomery's novels, in which
Dinaw Mengestu "An Honest Exit" The New Yorker Fiction: 20 Under 40 July 12/19, 2010 issue The story begins with an imagined conversation: "Thirty-five years after my father left Ethiopia, he died in a room in a boarding house in Peoria, Illinois, that came with a partial view of the
Sarah Schun-Lien Bynum "The Erlking" Summer Fiction: 20 Under 40 July 5, 2010 "The New Yorker" This short story felt like a cobbler baked with ingredients courtesy of Alice Hoffman, Tom Perotta, and Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eye. Oh, I know: some people hate it when someone says that a
