Recommended reading - The Best American Mystery Stories 2001 (2001)

 

The Best American Mystery Stories 2001 (2001).

 

The Best American Series.

 

Edited by Lawrence Block and Otto Penzler.

 
ISBN-10: 0618124918
ISBN-13: 978-0618124916
 
Contents:
 

Foreword; Introduction by Lawrence Block; Things that make your heart beat faster, by Jennifer Anderson; Lobster night, by Russell Banks; Prison food, by Michael Downs; In the zone, by Leslie Edgerton; Paperhanger, by William Gay; Book of Kells, by Jeremiah Healy; Erie's last day, by Steve Hockensmith; Under suspicion, by Clark Howard; Her Hollywood, by Michael Hyde; Family, by Dan Leone; Blood sport, by Thomas Lynch; Carnie, by David Means; Tides, by Kent Nelson; Girl with the blackened eye, by Joyce Carol Oates; Easy street, by T. Jefferson Parker; Big bite, by Bill Pronzini; Missing in action, by Peter Robinson; Face-lift, by Roxana Robinson; Big ranch, by John Salter; Push comes to shove, by Nathan Walpow.

 

Description:
 

Since its inception in 1915, the Best American series has become the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction. For each volume, a series editor reads pieces from hundreds of periodicals, then selects between fifty and a hundred outstanding works. That selection is pared down to the twenty or so very best pieces by a guest editor who is widely recognized as a leading writer in his or her field. This unique system has helped make the Best American series the most respected – and most popular – of its kind.

 

The Best American Mystery Stories 2001 will thrill fans of all reached of the genre. The legendary mystery writer Lawrence Block offer chilling tales from best-selling writers as well as talented up-and-comers. Ranging from traditional detective cases to psychological studies to atmospheric scene-setters, these stories illustrate the variety and scope of styles, plots, and characters Block admires. With Block as guest editor and a stellar roster of suspense veterans and rising stars, the 2001 edition will delight mystery afficionados and all lovers of great fiction.

Recommended reading - In Sunlight or In Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper (2016)

 

In Sunlight or In Shadow: Stories Inspired by the Paintings of Edward Hopper (2016).

Edited by Lawrence Block.

ISBN: 9781681772455

Description:
A truly unprecedented literary achievement by author and editor Lawrence Block – a newly commissioned anthology of seventeen superbly crafted stories inspired by the paintings of Edward Hopper.

"Edward Hopper is surely the greatest American narrative painter. His work bears special resonance for writers and readers, and yet his paintings never tell a story so much as they invite viewers to find for themselves the untold stories within."

So says Lawrence Block, who has invited seventeen outstanding writers to join him in an unprecedented anthology of brand-new stories: In Sunlight or In Shadow. The results are remarkable and range across all genres, wedding literary excellence to storytelling savvy.

Contributors include Stephen King, Joyce Carol Oates, Robert Olen Butler, Michael Connelly, Megan Abbott, Craig Ferguson, Nicholas Christopher, Jill D. Block, Joe R. Lansdale, Justin Scott, Kris Nelscott, Warren Moore, Jonathan Santlofer, Jeffery Deaver, Lee Child, and Lawrence Block himself. Even Gail Levin, Hopper’s biographer and compiler of his catalogue raisonée, appears with her own first work of fiction, providing a true account of art theft on a grand scale and told in the voice of the country preacher who perpetrated the crime.

In a beautifully produced anthology as befits such a collection of acclaimed authors, each story is illustrated with a quality full-color reproduction of the painting that inspired it.