A novel by Paul Murray, a poem by Diane Seuss, short stories by Jess Walter, and memoirs by Stephanie Foo and Frank McCourt

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She didn't want to devalue her mother in Elaine's eyes. At the same time, she didn't know how Elaine could think Imelda had mystique. To spend time with her mother was to get a running commentary on the contents of her mind – an incessant barrage of thoughts and sub-thoughts and random observations, each in itself insignificant but cumulatively overwhelming. I must book you in for electrolysis for that little moustache you're getting, she'd say; and then while you were still reeling, Are those tulips or begonias? There's Marie Devlin, do you know she has no sense of style, none whatsoever. Is that man an Arab? This place is filling up with Arabs. Where's this I saw they had that nice chutney? Kay Connor told me Anne Smith's lost weight but the doctor said it was the wrong kind. I thought it was supposed to be sunny today, that's not one bit sunny. Who invented chutney, was it Gorbachev? And on, and on – listening to her was like walking through a blizzard, a storm of frenzied white nothings that left you snow-blind.
—From The Bee Sting, a novel by Paul Murray (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2023). This segment is from page 7 of the hardcover. 

I’d just brushed the dog, there on the dog's couch.
I was wearing a black—well, to call it a gown is a criminal
overstatement—a black rag. 
—From "Gertrude Stein," a poem by Diane Seuss, The New Yorker (August 16, 2021), p. 52.

Another time, when I went into a bar near my apartment to pick him up, he raised his glass as I approached. "Another one of these," he said. I could see he had no idea who I was. 
          "Dad? I'm not the bartender. It's Jay. Your son." 
          He stared at me. He was quiet a moment. Then: "Why don't you ever bring girlfriends home?"
          So. This was to be our Sisyphean hell—me coming out to my fading father every day for the rest of his life.
—From The Angel of Rome, a collection of short stories by Jess Walter (HarperCollins, 2022). My favorites were probably "Mr. Voice" (first published in Tin House and then in Best American Short Stories 2015) and the story excerpted above, "Town & Country," which appeared on pages 149-174 in the hardcover (from Scribd Originals, 2020).

My troop leader pulled out her guitar . . . As we sang, all the mothers became misty-eyed, stroking their daughters' hair, kissing the tops of their heads. The other girls leaned into their embraces. My mother did not touch me but stood alone and wept loudly. She cried all the time in the privacy of our home—ugly, bent-in-half sobs—but she never fell apart in public, and the sight alarmed me.
—From What My Bones Know, a memoir by Stephanie Foo (Ballantine Books, 2022). There is also an unabridged audiobook, which is narrated by the author (Random House Audio). A short excerpt from the book and a sample of the audiobook are available at the link above.

Bonus book to read again: 

My father and mother should have stayed in New York where they met and married and where I was born. Instead, they returned to Ireland when I was four, my brother, Malachy, three, the twins, Oliver and Eugene, barely one, and my sister, Margaret, dead and gone. 
—From Angela's Ashes, a memoir by Frank McCourt (Scribner, 1996). If you have the option, I highly recommend listening to the unabridged audiobook, which is narrated by the author. He was an excellent speaker, and the audiobook really captures that. 

Ship Fever by Andrea Barrett

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Ship Fever (W.W. Norton, 1996), which won the National Book Award for fiction in 1996, is a collection of eight stories by Andrea Barrett. 

When I first picked up the book, I didn't realize that I'd already read the first story, "The Behavior of the Hawkweeds."  It was originally printed in The Missouri Review, and I'd read the reprint in Best American Short Stories, 1995 (guest edited by Jane Smiley).     

My favorite stories in the collection were "The Littoral Zone" (originally published in Story), "Birds with No Feet," and the rather stunning title story, "Ship Fever."  It, like several of the other stories in the collection, weaves together fiction and scientific or historical record.

In Other Rooms, Other Wonders by Daniyal Mueenuddin

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In Other Rooms, Other Wonders (W.W. Norton, 2009) is Daniyal Mueenuddin's debut collection, a set of eight linked stories set mainly in Pakistan. Among other things, the book was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, a National Book Award finalist, and a New York Times bestseller.

This is a pretty phenomenal collection overall, and it is difficult to single out individual pieces, but my favorite stories were the bookends: "Nawabdin Electrician" and "A Spoiled Man."

He flourished on a signature capability, a technique for cheating the electric company by slowing down the revolutions of electric meters, so cunningly done that his customers could specify to the hundred-rupee note the desired monthly savings.
--From "Nawabdin Electrician," pp. 13-28 in the paperback version, originally published in The New Yorker (August 27, 2007) and later in Best American Short Stories 2008.

There he stood at the stone gateway of the Harounis' weekend home above Islamabad, a small bowlegged man with a lopsided battered face. When the American wife's car drove up, turning off the Murree road, Rezak saluted, eyes straight ahead, not looking at her.
--From "A Spoiled Man," pp. 221-247, originally published in The New Yorker (September 15, 2008).

(If I absolutely had to choose a third, it would be "Our Lady of Paris," pp. 143-168, originally from Zoetrope: All Story, Volume 10, Number 3 (Fall 2006). Sohail and Helen had begun dating two years earlier, at Yale, where she was an undergraduate and he at the law school. After graduating the previous summer he had returned to his home in Pakistan, while she completed her senior year.)

However, the collection is really more than the sum of its parts. "A Spoiled Man" is incredible on its own, but every bit of the story, even of the title, is more nuanced and meaningful when read with the other stories. It was, I thought, a perfect ending to the book.

The Hunger Games trilogy and two stories from BASS

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The Hunger Games, Catching Fire, and Mockingjay, novels by Suzanne Collins (Scholastic, 2008, 2009, and 2010, respectively). Not that the books in this trilogy need any additional publicity, but they are remarkable.

"The Ambush," a short story by Donna Tartt, first published in Tin House (Vol. 7, No. 2, Winter 2005/2006) and reprinted in The Best American Short Stories 2006, edited by Ann Patchett and series editor Katrina Kenison (Houghton Mifflin, 2006, pp. 30-42).

"So Much for Artemis," a short story by Patrick Ryan, first published in One Story (No. 53, March 10, 2005) and reprinted in Send Me by Patrick Ryan (Dial, 2006) and in The Best American Short Stories 2006, edited by Ann Patchett and series editor Katrina Kenison (Houghton Mifflin, 2006, pp. 70-90).