Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules edited by David Sedaris

Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules edited by David Sedaris

This book is a collection of short stories chosen by Mr. Sedaris just because they're some of his favorites. I don't think I've ever read an anthology linked together solely by author's taste and it resulted in an extremely varied group of excellent authors/stories. The stories included are;

"Oh, Joseph, I'm So Tired" by Richard Yates
"Gryphon" by Charles Baxter
"Interpreter of Maladies" by Jhumpa Lahiri
"The Garden Party" by Katherine Mansfield
"Half A Grapefruit" by Alice Munro
"Applause, Applause" by Jean Thompson
"I Know What I'm Doing About All the Attention I've Been Getting" by Frank Gannon
"Where the Door Is Always Open and the Welcome Mat Is Out" by Patricia Highsmith
"The Best of Betty" by Jincy Willett
"Song of the Shirt, 1941" by Dorothy Parker
"The Girl with the Blackened Eye" by Joyce Carol Oates
"People Like That Are the Only People Here: Canonical Babbling in Peed Onk" by Lorrie Moore
"Revelation" by Flannery O'Connor
"In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson Is Buried" by Amy Hempel
"Cosmopolitan" by Akhil Sharma
"Irish Girl" by Tim Johnston
"Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff

Quite a few authors on the list I've enjoyed reading over the years like Charles Baxter, Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oats, Lorrie Moore, Flannery O'Connor, Amy Hempel and Tobias Wolff but I'd only read 2 of the stories before which was nice. Great book and I love how it ended with Bullet in the Brain, it's one of those stories I've probably read a half a dozen times in different collections and appreciate it a little more with each rereading.