Ultimate Popsugar Reading Challenge discussion

Reading a short story before bed has become a new favorite routine for me. I have trouble picking up a novel before bed because I know I won't get to read enough of the story or I'll be tempted to stay up too late reading. I'm running low on short story collections/anthologies on my TBR though and I'm looking for recommendations. What are your favorite collections or anthologies?

Here are my favorites. They're mostly sci-fi or fantasy.

The Beginning of the World in the Middle of the Night
Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd
Zombies Vs. Unicorns
Stories of Your Life and Others
Tortall and Other Lands: A Collection of Tales
Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories
Welcome to Bordertown
Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fiction and Illusions
Murder in the Mews
The Last Wish / Sword of Destiny / Season of Storms
The Winter Spirits: Ghostly Tales for Frosty Nights

I love recommending books! But at the same time, I think you and I have different reading tastes, so I'm not sure if these will hit right or not.

I see you've read Neil Gaiman - he has other collections: Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders & Trigger Warning: Short Fictions and Disturbances

If you've read Meyer's Lunar Cycle, she's got a collection of short stories in that same world: Stars Above

If you liked Maas's Throne of Glass, there are some short stories that are like prequels that I enjoyed (I liked the first few ToG books but eventually her writing style changed and I stopped reading her stuff - but the prequels were good!): The Assassin's Blade

And of course there are always all the Tor shorts, and also the "best of" collections that come out every year (for example: The Best American Short Stories 2023) - my aunt used to buy those for me every year.

Some other collections I've read and rated 4 or 5 stars:
Jesus’ Son & The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson
Nine Strange Stories ed by Betty M. Owen (out of print and hard to find, but worth looking for - thrift books has it sometimes)
How Long 'til Black Future Month? by N.K. Jemisin
Her Body and Other Parties: Stories by Carmen Maria Machado (note that I HATED her Dream House book, but I gave this collection 5 stars)
A Lucky Man by Jamel Brinkley
Lips Touch: Three Times by Laini Taylor
This Is Paradise: Stories by Kristiana Kahakauwila
After the People Lights Have Gone Off by Stephen Graham Jones

And of course the classic: The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes & The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

I have not read any yet, but I've heard Kelly Link's short stories are good.

And, finally, a collection of short stories by Ann Leckie is coming in April!!! Lake of Souls: The Collected Short Fiction

Across the Wall: A Tale of the Abhorsen and Other Stories and To Hold the Bridge These have some stories set in the Old Kingdom from the Sabriel series by Garth Nix.

Snow White Learns Witchcraft this is a collection of short stories and poems. World Fantasy Award winning author Theodora Goss.

An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good Old lady serial killer who feints being senile to get away with it. There's a sequel that's also good.

The Language of Thorns: Midnight Tales and Dangerous Magic stories from Leigh Bardugo's Grishaverse. A physical copy of this book was gorgeous because there were illustrations throughout.

Take Us To Your Chief And Other Stories indigenous sci-fi stories all by the same author.

Shifting Shadows all spoilery stories for the Mercy Thompson/Alpha & Omega series by Patricia Briggs.

This Is Paradise: Stories read this for the Pacific Islander heritage prompt. Just slice of life stuff.

Kelley Armstrong created The Women Of The Otherworld series and eventually had 5 books full of short stories called Otherworld Stories series.

There's always the classic The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter it's horror/fantasy. It wasn't scary to me.

These are not sci-fi/fantasy but rather character driven, but I read it last year after finding a copy on a used book shelf and loved it:

The Laws of Evening by Mary Yukari Waters

I also liked In The Gloaming: Stories by Alice Elliott Dark

Marple: 12 New Stories is a pretty good mystery collection.

In the world of Star Trek, there are anthologies for all sorts of things. Voyager and Deep Space Nine had some incredible collections called Distant Shores and Prophecy & Change, respectively.

More sci-fi/fantasy-ish: Lesser Known Monsters of the 21st century (Kim Fu)

Good Evening, Mrs Craven: The Wartime Stories of Mollie Panter-Downes - published by PersephoneClassics, 21 short stories set in Britain during WWII, written and published contemporaneously in The New Yorker. Average story length is about 7 pages. They are a delight.

Thank you for the recommendations! I'm starting by seeing what my library has available.

Nadine in NY wrote: "I love recommending books! But at the same time, I think you and I have different reading tastes, so I'm not sure if these will hit right or not."

Yeah, I think that might be true. I have noticed that I like some genres/plots a lot more in the form of a short story than I do in a novel. Maybe these will be very pleasant surprises.

Asimov wrote some great robot short stories. If you can find The Complete Robot, that is the one I would recommend. I, Robot is justly famous, and most library systems have it.

Ray Bradbury has some gems among his short story volumes. The Martian Chronicles is made up of a bunch of short stories that more or less hang together.

I second Brandon's recommendations. Both are really great collections!

Thanks for the suggestions! I like everything I've read by Bradbury so I'll add The Martian Chronicles to the list. I haven't read anything by Asimov yet. I didn't know where to begin. I, Robot sounds like a pretty good place.

I enjoyed Silver Birch, Blood Moon. There are also several others by these editors. Also Cat Pictures Please and Other Stories

Table for Two by Amor Towles