Designed for introduction to fiction and fiction-writing courses, 30/30 is part of Longman’s Penguin Academics series of portable, value-priced texts. This anthology offers an array of fiction that not only teaches craft, but also provides a context in which to study formal and thematic trends of the past 30 years. The stories are represented by a mix of well-established authors and newer voices, offering a stylistic range, from the traditional narrative to experimental forms, and thematic range as well, with stories that address issues including family and culture, love and loss, ethnicity and gender.

30/30: Thirty American Stories from the Last Thirty Years

Literature & Fiction

Shreve, Porter

Nguyen, Bich Minh

History & Criticism

Longman

This comprehensive anthology of contemporary American short fiction focuses on the story and its context from 1960 to the present. A special Introduction discusses the elements of tone, point of view, character, etc. and ideas such as realism and postmodernism. 
 The over 50 stories featured in Nguyen and Shreve's anthology range in style from the traditional narrative to experimental forms. Classic stories are juxtaposed with newer, emerging voices. The stories featured are thematically diverse as well, addressing issues of family and culture, love and loss, ethnicity and gender. 1

Contemporary American Short Story, The

Nguyen, Bich

United States

Pearson

This anthology brings together 50 diverse works of contemporary creative nonfiction, from memoirs to personal essays to literary journalism, along with 15 craft essays.

Contemporary Creative Nonfiction: I & Eye

Reference

Foreign Language Study & Reference

Designed for introduction to fiction and fiction-writing courses, 30/30 is part of Longman’s Penguin Academics series of portable, value-priced texts. This anthology offers an array of fiction that not only teaches craft, but also provides a context in which to study formal and thematic trends of the past 30 years. The stories are represented by a mix of well-established authors and newer voices, offering a stylistic range, from the traditional narrative to experimental forms, and thematic range as well, with stories that address issues including family and culture, love and loss, ethnicity and gender.

30/30: Thirty American Stories from the Last Thirty Years (Penguin Academics Series)

Gordie Hatch is twenty-two, charmingly naive, and certain that his first job as a writer for the ST LOUIS INDEPENDENT'S obituary page will be a stepping stone to a crackerjack career in journalism. The year is 1989, and Gordie watches helplessly while dramatic events -- the very events that could be his lucky break -- unfold in the world around him. But nothing can prepare him for the call he gets from Alicia Whiting, a young widow with an accent he can't quite place. When Gordie agrees to meet Alicia, against his better judgment, his journalistic curiosity quickly turns into an obsessive search for the outrageous truth behind the Whiting family. Shot through with affectionate humor and surprising twists and turns, THE OBITUARY WRITER introduces an author of enormous talent and heart. Porter Shreve brings a deft touch to the moments that mark a young person's entrance into the world, and a sharp eye to the ways in which the lead story can be wonderfully, seductively misleading.

The Obituary Writer

Mariner Books

Chronicles the nervous breakdown of Lydia Modine, a sixty-one-year-old woman whose husband and family have abandoned her while she is in the midst of writing a difficult book about Detroit's automobile industry.

Drives Like a Dream

Humor & Satire

Houghton, mifflin, harcourt

The New York Times called Porter Shreve’s first novel, The Obituary Writer, “an involving and sneakily touching story whose twists feel less like the conventions of a genre than the convolutions of a heart—any heart.” Newsday hailed the book as “a substantial achievement,” and Tim O'Brien described it as “taut, compelling, and moving . . . beautifully written, engrossing from start to finish.” Shining with the same heart and humor, Shreve’s second novel, Drives Like a Dream, is a smart, wry tale about a modern-day mother in the midst of a lifestyle crisis—and her outlandish attempts to get her family back. Lydia Modine is sixty-one and about to come undone. Her three grown-up children have flown the coop. She hasn’t seen them together in more than a year, and now her ex-husband is about to remarry a woman half his age. And the insults keep coming: Lydia is stuck on a book she’s writing about Detroit’s car industry, which uncannily parallels her own life — out with the old model, in with the new. She's poured her soul into her family, only to be abandoned in the City of Dream Machines. But then a twist of fate introduces her to Norm, an eco-car fanatic out to remake her and the world. Is he the answer to all of her problems, or does he hold the one secret that just might get her children back to Detroit, home for good? A warm, funny, and affecting novel that's sure to appeal to anyone who has longed for an alternate life, Drives Like a Dream confirms that sometimes when you set out for a spin, the twists and turns can be perfectly rewarding—and right.

Drives Like A Dream: A Novel

Loosely based on Porter Shreve’s own childhood, When the White House Was Ours is the atmospheric and captivating story of a family’s struggle to stay together against great odds. It’s 1976, and while the country prepares to celebrate the bicentennial, Daniel Truitt’s family is falling apart. His father, Pete, has been fired from yet another teaching job, and his mother, Valerie, is one step away from leaving for good. But when Pete lucks into a crumbling mansion in the nation’s capital, he makes a bold plan to start a school under his own roof where students and teachers will be equals. Replete with the wry humor, human insight, and cultural resonance that characterizes Shreve’s critically acclaimed fiction, When the White House Was Ours will be a joy to anyone whose family has lived through an idealistic time and ended up in an era of compromise.

When The White House Was Ours

Sherman Alexie, David Sedaris, and fifteen other writers on their recent experiences in American classrooms Tales Out of School is a luminous collection of diverse and passionate life stories—on-the-ground testimonies of sitting in an American classroom today. Sherman Alexie writes of the "sweet, almost innocent choices that Indian boys [are] forced to make" in school. Stuart Dybek tells his own story of highly instructive Catholic grade-school field trips to the county jail and the stockyards, and David Sedaris narrates a horribly funny account of life underground as a gay eighth grader. These and other writers contribute original essays that tease out the powerful, flawed, wildly diverse experience of school in America. A book for teachers wanting to understand, parents needing to make decisions, and anyone who's sat in a classroom and can't ever forget it. "Give this book an A+. . . . Unlike many books about American education, Tales Out of School avoids the temptation to pigeonhole our system. There are no rights or wrongs here. Only truths." —Vineyard Gazette

Tales Out of School: Contemporary Writers on Their Student Years

SHREVE, SUSAN RICHARDS

Essays & Correspondence

Beacon Pr

The End of the Book is the story of an aspiring contemporary novelist who may or may not be writing a sequel to Sherwood Anderson's classic Winesburg, Ohio. Adam Clary works in Chicago for a famous internet company on a massive project to digitize the world's books, but secretly he hates his job and wishes to be a writer at a time when the book as physical object and book culture itself have never been more threatened. Counterpointing Adam's story is that of George Willard, the young protagonist of Anderson's book, who arrives in Chicago around 1900 when it was the fastest-growing city in American history. Through alternating chapters, we follow George's travails, including his marriage to the wealthy daughter of his boss, his affair with his hometown sweetheart, his artistic crisis, breakdown and flight, and along the way we see the echoes and intersections between his life and Adam's as they struggle in two similar Americas through two similar times in the life of the book.

The End of the Book: A Novel (Yellow Shoe Fiction)

Contemporary

LSU Press

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Shreve, Porter. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Shreve, Porter