New Short Story Collections

Looking for something to read that may not take much time? Try a short story collection. Every one I have read has been incredibly different in terms of format and writing rhythms, plus they have been a great way to read new-to-me authors. For this list, I gathered titles that were published in 2025 and that are currently owned by the Davenport Public Library at the time of this writing. If you have a favorite short story collection, let us know in the comments! Descriptions are provided by the publishers.


The Blanket Cats by Kiyoshi Shigematsu

Seven struggling customers are given the unique opportunity to take home a “blanket cat” . . . but only for three days, the time it’ll take to change their lives.

A peculiar pet shop in Tokyo has been known to offer customers the unique opportunity to take home one of seven special cats, whose “magic” is never promised, but always received. But there are rules: these cats must be returned after three days. They must eat only the food supplied by the owner, and they must travel to their new homes with a distinctive blanket.

In The Blanket Cats, we meet seven customers, each of whom is hoping a temporary feline companion will help them escape a certain reality, including a couple struggling with infertility, a middle-aged woman on the run from the police, and two families in very different circumstances simply seeking joy.

But like all their kind, the “blanket cats” are mysterious creatures with unknowable agendas, who delight in confounding expectations. And perhaps what their hosts are looking for isn’t really what they need. Three days may not be enough to change a life. But it might just change how you see it. – G.P. Putnam’s Sons


The Poorly Made and Other Things by Sam Rebelein

There’s something wrong in Renfield County.

It’s in the water, the soil, the wood. But worst of all, it’s in the minds of the residents, slowly driving them mad. When Lawrence Renfield massacred his family and drew The Giant in his farmhouse with their blood, no one imagined the repercussions. At the very least, the bloodstained wood should have been set aflame, not chopped down and repurposed as furniture, décor, and heirlooms across the county. But that’s exactly what happened. Now regular people—like you and me—are sitting on… eating with… admiring… the cursed wood and reaping the consequences.

These are their stories.

In “My Name Is Ellie” a young girl uncovers disturbing secrets hiding in the walls of her beloved grandmother’s home. An unassuming box, built with reclaimed wood, connects a grieving widower with his late wife’s lingering spirit in “Hector Brim.” In “Detour” a father, desperate to return home, finds himself trapped in a dizzying maze, haunted by stories of lurking monsters that live off the remains of weary travelers.

Playing with the uncanny to explore themes of loneliness and grief, Sam Rebelein returns upstate to unravel the mysteries of Renfield. But regardless of what started the trouble, there’s one thing of which we can be certain: for those living here, the nightmare is far from over. – William Morrow Paperbacks


Show Don’t Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld


Stag Dance: A Novel & Stories by Torrey Peters

In this collection of one novel and three stories, bestselling author Torrey Peters’s keen eye for the rough edges of community and desire push the limits of trans writing.

In Stag Dance, the titular novel, a group of restless lumberjacks working in an illegal winter logging outfit plan a dance that some of them will volunteer to attend as women. When the broadest, strongest, plainest of the axmen announces his intention to dance as a woman, he finds himself caught in a strange rivalry with a pretty young jack, provoking a cascade of obsession, jealousy, and betrayal that will culminate on the big night in an astonishing vision of gender and transition.

Three startling stories surround Stag Dance: “Infect Your Friends and Loved Ones” imagines a gender apocalypse brought about by an unstable ex-girlfriend. In “The Chaser,” a secret romance between roommates at a Quaker boarding school brings out intrigue and cruelty. In the last story, “The Masker,” a party weekend on the Las Vegas strip turns dark when a young crossdresser must choose between two guides: a handsome mystery man who objectifies her in thrilling ways, or a cynical veteran trans woman offering unglamorous sisterhood.

Acidly funny and breathtaking in its scope, with the inventive audacity of George Saunders or Jennifer Egan, Stag Dance provokes, unsettles, and delights. – Random House


The Vanishing Point by Paul Theroux

The stories in Paul Theroux’s fascinating new collection are both exotic and domestic, their settings ranging from Hawaii to Africa and New England. Each focuses on life’s vanishing points—a moment when seemingly all lines running through one’s life converge, and one can see no farther, yet must deal with the implications. With the insight, subtlety, and empathy that has long characterized his work, Theroux has written deeply moving stories about memory, longing, and the passing of time, reclaiming his status, once again, as a master of the form. – Mariner Books


Waiting for the Long Night Moon by Amanda Peters

In her debut collection of short fiction, Amanda Peters describes the Indigenous experience from an astonishingly wide spectrum in time and place—from contact with the first European settlers, to the forced removal of Indigenous children, to the present-day fight for the right to clean water

In this intimate collection, Amanda Peters melds traditional storytelling with beautiful, spare prose to describe the dignity of the traditional way of life, the humiliations of systemic racism and the resilient power to endure. A young man returns from residential school only to realize he can no longer communicate with his own parents. A grieving mother finds purpose and healing on the front lines as a water protector. And a nervous child dances in her first Mawi’omi. The collection also includes the Indigenous Voices Award-winning and title story “Waiting for the Long Night Moon.”

At times sad, sometimes disturbing but always redemptive, the stories in Waiting for the Long Night Moon will remind you that where there is grief there is also joy, where there is trauma there is resilience and, most importantly, there is power. – Catapult

Cyclopedia Exotica by Aminder Dhaliwal

Aminder Dhaliwal has created a comic detailing the day-to-day of the minority cyclops community within the two-eye majority in Cyclopedia Exotica. This graphic novel is so relatable and heart-breaking. These comics were originally published on the artist’s Instagram page. Her drawing style is cartoonish, yet realistic, reminding me of some of my favorite comics.

The characters in this book come from the cyclops community and are pictured doing daily life. Some are using dating apps, others have families, some have jobs, and others are trying to figure out their identity. The cyclops are an immigrant community with physical differences from the two-eyes majority. Microaggressions occur in doctor’s offices, public transportation, museums, and every other place they visit. Despite the hardships they face, they are all just trying to live normal lives. Coexisting is hard. Being ‘othered’ is hard. Trying to find yourself is hard.

This comic is witty and full of social and cultural critiques. Even though this graphic novel is fiction, it handles real issues faced by marginalized groups today. It’s full of thought-provoking ideas. Characters face xenophia, highlighting disability, sexuality, race, and gender issues that can easily transfer to real life. Dhaliwal outlines cyclops passing as two-eyes, fetishization of cylops, interracial relationships between cyclops and two-eyes, and representation/misrepresentation of cyclops in the media. Cyclops are used as a metaphor for these issues, but this content is relatable to anyone and everyone. They are dealing with their own unique struggles, but are trying to live their daily lives the best they can while dealing with intense hate. Additionally this graphic novel has a large cast of characters, but the artist makes them all individuals and gives them all their own intriguing storylines. Cyclopedia Exotica is thoroughly engaging and full of social commentary.

Shadows Over Baker Street: A Holmes Meets Lovecraft Collection

I’ve been on a kick of discovering older books recently, and really enjoyed the classic Shadows Over Baker Street from 2003, edited by Michael Reeves and John Pelan. It’s a collection of short stories from a number of fantastic authors including Neil Gaiman and Billy Martin (writing at the time as Poppy Z Brite). The stories feature characters from Arthur Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes universe, set in a world of HP Lovecraft’s monsters. The notoriously logical Holmes faces mysteries without rational explanation, tied to eldritch beings and their fanatical human worshippers.

The benefits of a short story collection are many. For one thing, the short form keeps the book readable and fast-paced; in this case there was still some feeling of repetitiveness by the end of the book, but it still held your interest as it moved through various vignettes. Because in this format, each story can take a different approach, timeframe, and set of characters, which lets the reader discover not only more of Lovecraft’s plots and characters but also more of Holmes’ cases and adventures. While many of the stories do rely on a Watson-and-Holmes-at-Baker-Street structure, a good number find Holmes in different places, with different narrators or helpers. In one case, Holmes doesn’t appear at all, and the story connects to him through Irene Adler (Tiger! Tiger! by Elizabeth Bear). The overall effect is of a somehow cozy journey into the terrifying and impossible adventures of yesteryear, like ghost stories told by the fire. If you like Sherlock Holmes, HP Lovecraft, or similar universes like Doctor Who, this is a great book to curl up with as the nights start to get colder and spookier.

However, if you’re looking for something slightly more recent but with the same vibe/premise, I’m planning to try 2019’s The Affair of the Mysterious Letter by Alexis Hall, which is also a Sherlock Holmes retelling set in an alternative universe, with plenty of monsters and action, but with all of Alexis Hall’s charm, humor, and LGBTQIA diversity.

What’s YOUR favorite Sherlock Holmes read?

The City of Mist by Carlos Ruiz Zafón

 “And tell him he did, for the wine of storytelling ran through his veins… it was his practice to firstly tell himself the things of the world in order to understand them and then tell them to others, draped in the music and light of literature, because he sensed that if life was not a dream it was at least a pantomime where the cruel absurdity of the narrative always ran behind the scenery…”

Back in July of 2020, the world lost a remarkable storyteller with the passing of Carlos Ruiz Zafón. Renowned for his “Cemetery of Forgotten Books” series, Zafón was known for writing gorgeous, atmospheric stories with complex characters and haunted Gothic settings. As one of my favorite authors, I can personally attest to losing myself in his works. Needless to say, when I heard a posthumous collection of short stories was to be published, I anxiously awaited its release!

Compiled by Zafón himself before his untimely death, The City of Mist comprises of eleven stories, all of which are imbued with captivating characters and unique narratives set in Barcelona. These tales range from a young boy who is inspired to invent and tell stories after befriending a very special young girl, to a young woman who undergoes a harrowing experience while with child, to a gentleman who attempts to prolong the life of his lover through the written word, to a haunted architect who struggles to complete his life’s work and legacy. Not only do these stories pull at your heartstrings, they are also woven with timeless and compelling threads of human experience you won’t soon forget. Additionally, I was able to find hints and allusions to characters and landmarks within Zafón’s “Cemetery of Forgotten Books”  throughout these stories, which was an absolute treat. Another unique aspect of this collection is that many of these stories had never been published in English before. One of the most incredible things about Zafón’s writing is his beautiful crafting of words, and I tend to forget that his works were not originally written in English, but in Spanish.

All in all, reading this book has inspired me to reread Zafón’s entire series over again. It is a gorgeous work of literary fiction we are lucky to have, especially in light of his passing. Zafón is an author that will never be forgotten by his millions of readers, as he was truly a gem who created masterpieces every time he took pen to paper.

“Soon afterwards, like figures made of mist, father and son disappear into the crowd of the Ramblas, their steps lost forever in the shadow of the wind.”

Commendably Creepy Campfire Tales – Halloween

When thinking about the Halloween season, there is no more iconic way to celebrate the holiday then gathering your friends and family around the campfire and sharing short scary stories. In this blog post, I have collected some of the best scary short stories for you to share with loved ones around the campfire this Halloween season.

Haunted Nights edited by Lisa Morton and Ellen Datlow

This anthology of short stories all feature tales that focus their themes around the Halloween holiday itself. Urban legends, trick or treating, haunted Jack-o-Lanterns and more are all in this collection of short horror goodies.

The Bazaar of Bad Dreams by Stephen King

What better way to celebrate the season of horror than by reading a collection of works from the King of Horror fiction. This collection features a story about a man who is cursed to relive his life, death and birth over and over again in a never ending cycle, specters that haunt men in their dying days and many other creepy and deeply personal stories.

Scream and Scream Again! edited by R. L. Stine

The best part about the Halloween season is getting to share the frights with the whole family. This collection of short horror stories for Juvenile readers is exactly the thing to provide frights for those of all ages. Collected from some of the best selling authors across the horror and mystery genre, this anthology collection is sure to bring a chill down your spine as you bundle up around the campfire to share in the terrifying tales of this autumn holiday.

These titles and many more horrifying tales are all available at your Davenport Public Library. For more recommendations like these to get you into the Halloween spirit, check out our Halloween LibGuide for more wretched recommendations.

The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Yellow wallpaperIt isn’t a new book by any means, but I found the themes and the writing of the short stories in The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings so timeless that it could be.

Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote her stories about a hundred years ago. If you think of authors who lived at the turn of the 20th century to be stodgy, you may be as surprised as I was by Gilman’s candor and (sometimes) humor about gender identity, mental health and social norms. These themes are very much hot-button issues today.

“Herland” is the story that most made me want to check out the book, but I enjoyed all of them. In this utopian fantasy, a group of three male explorers set out to find a secret, all-female civilization rumored to exist in the seclusion of the forest. Their tantalizing visions of what they hope to encounter is not exactly what they actually find!

For a different -but no less interesting- take on the all-female society theme, you may want to check out the graphic novel Y: The Last Man by Brian K. Vaughan.

Short and Sweet

magazinesIt was a wonderful Sunday to spend outdoors, provided you’re the star of a murder mystery set in turn of the century London.  Idle away the afternoons of the April-May monsoon season with a couple picks from DPL.

If you have the attention span of a gnat and enjoy nonfiction like myself, it’s a good time to skim through Best American Essays 2008.  Here an editor has reviewed and picked the best of this genre.  You know, the kinds of thought pieces the Quad-City sophisticates and literati chortle over at all the premiere area intellectual salons.

We buy an edition every year, as well as Best American Magazine WritingBest Nonrequired Reading, and Best American Short Stories.  Think how many of those little advertiser cards would get strewn on your floor had you actually parsed through each magazine.