There’s definitely something for everyone in this latest collection of short stories by Maggie Shipstead, author of The Great Circle. Each story is more entertaining than the last, making it a terrific read to pick up time and again. Shipstead is certainly making a name for herself in the literary world. Her fans will not be disappointed by this latest endeavor.

Having read and loved Maggie Shipstead's "Great Circle," I jumped at the chance to read her latest book. It is a collection of short fiction written over the last ten years and previously published in other anthologies. They offer the reader a chance to enjoy the author's talent in short bursts.

I am an infrequent reader of short fiction. I use Ray Bradbury's short stories as a palate cleanser before starting a new book, so I found myself comparing the two authors' stories and the comparison is favorable. Shipstead spends more time developing her characters with vivid descriptions and histories that feed into the plot of the story. Bradbury often ends his stories with a punch, but not always for Shipstead. Her literary twists may be inside the story, then end with a satisfied sigh. Her stories take place in current and historical times, and are scattered around the globe. Many of them seem to closely parallel what is in today's headlines, while others relate personal relationships irrespective of time and place. Shipstead's stories reveal great perception about small bits of human life.

To highlight a few of the stories:
Respective of recent news and the public's realization of the mental stress in athletes, "In the Olympic Village" is a brief story about what leads up to and what comes immediately after Olympic failure. Unlike the other stories, the characters remain nameless, depersonalizing the athletes and focusing the reader's attention on the Olympic struggles they battle both in and out of competition.

I know nothing more than headlines about the Church of Scientology, but the story "You Have a Friend in 10A" is loaded with often hilarious terminology about an actress and her search for Esteem that must be a literary jab at the spiritual journey of that church's members. The actress's road to stardom also crosses paths with a character too closely resembling the producer, and now jailed Weinstein.

In "Guano Company," environmental disaster and war on distant shores become a nightmare for an island's inhabitants. The Pacific atoll should have been paradise, but instead its lagoon is filthy and full of lice, and the island crawls with small aggressive crabs waiting to devour anything in its path. When their supply ship warns them that war may cut off future supply deliveries and offers to evacuate them, can the islanders leave the only place they've known? How will they survive if they stay? In many ways, this story reminded me of "Lord of the Flies."

These are just a few of the stories that make Shipstead's collection of short stories well worth the time.

This is a collection of short stories. They are wildly different and there is no way I can summarize. I don’t do this often but here’s the publisher’s description.

A love triangle plays out over decades on a Montana dude ranch. A hurdler and a gymnast spend a single night together in the Olympic village. Mistakes and mysteries weave an intangible web around an old man’s deathbed in Paris, connecting disparate destinies. On the slopes of an unfinished ski resort, a young woman searches for her vanished lover. A couple’s Romanian honeymoon goes ominously awry, and, in the mesmerizing title story, a former child actress breaks with her life in a Hollywood cult.

The stories are riveting and the writing is amazing. I just didn’t connect with them. For me there was an element of revulsion in each one. I was glad when it was over. It’s funny because that’s pretty much how I felt with the author’s book from last year, The Great Circle. Except that was very long and this collection rather brief.

I finally found a short story collection that I liked! This is definitely something new and unexpected for me. Most of the stories in this collection was so engaging; now I want them to be full novels on their own. I want to know about what actually happened between rancher, his nephew, and wrangler. I want to know how this child star ended up in a cult, I want to know how the women on that tiny island lived. I have so many questions about these unique characters yet there is not enough in these stories.

There is always that binding theme or sentiment between stories in these type of collections. I think I missed what it was for this collection, but interestingly I didn't feel so lost. Each story had such character that it didn't require to be connected to previous or next one with some anchor.

I'm truly looking forward to read more by Maggie Shipstead. I like the exciting environments she creates. She showed that she can do both brick-size novels and bite-size stories. If you are interested in short stories, this is a great option.

Maggie Shiptead is an absolutely beautiful writer and, as always, these stories reach deep into their characters for depth while simultaneously pulling the essence of the -- often naturalistically beautiful -- settings. I'm not a short story person, so I miss the immersion in lives that comes from a longer narrative arc, however I'll read anything that Shipstead writes.

When I read Maggie Shipstead's novel, Great Circle, it took me a while to decide it was one of my favorite books of the year simply because it was so massive. It's a huge book and I needed time to process everything. Once I did, I acknowledged all the good things about it outweighed the length. So obviously I had a great time with a book of short stories with the same writing style/quality. The stories have the same scope, and the characters are just as deep despite the shorter length. Shipstead is definitely on my watchlist from now on.

I want to thank Net Galley , Knopf Publishing and Emily Reardon for the chance to read this collection of short stories from Maggie Shipstead. I read her book Great Circle last year and was curious to read this one- a collection of short stories. I enjoyed Great Circle , but felt it was a bit too long. Paradoxically, I wanted most of these to be longer. It is an interesting collection of stories written over the past 10 years. Several of them feel like they have the potential to be expanded (Angel Lust, Souterrain), some are perfect as they are ( Cowboy Tango, Backcountry). I didn't love all of them, but to paraphrase a movie-life is like a book of short stories- you never know what you will get. Angel Lust is the story of a movie producer and his two daughters as they clean out his late fathers house. It speaks to relationships, and expectations, and loss. The characters are well written and engaging. This is one that I would like to see expanded, to see more of the family's story.The situations are unique, yet have a familiarity to them. All of the stories are worth a read, or two.They all show the talent and promise in Maggie Shipstead. I am very glad to have had this opportunity to read them.

Maggie Shipstead's work has been excellence in fiction, and now she presents a short story collection written over many years. Every story is set in a new locale, with new character developments, and the tone of each story is original.

Some stories work better than others, and it's subjective. For me, the most engrossing was the story of two men and a woman worker on a farm in Montana, told over many years and the changes in their relation to each other, the animals, and the land. Another powerful story is that of a couple on honeymoon in eastern Europe, the details of their perilous marriage outlined and the devastating conclusion to the marriage.

There is a story about two athletes at the Olympic Village who spend a night together . I wish their characters had been fleshed out as much as the details of their one-night stand had been.

Shipstead's writing is always complex, and there is much to read between the lines.