Helen Schulman's Fools for Love collects 10 of her short stories, including a new one about the marriage of a playwright and her gay husband. Below, the award-winning author of This Beautiful Life , Lucky Dogs , and five other novels names six favorite story collections.

'What We Talk About When We Talk About Love' by Raymond Carver (1981)

When I was in college at Cornell, I dated a literary boy who was a protégé of Harold Brodkey's—who I'd never heard of—and this boy gave me a copy of Carver's collection as a gift. My first thought was, "People who are alive now write short stories?" Today I still read these stories. My favorite is "Why Don't You Dance?" Buy it here .

'Criers & Kibitzers, Kibitzers & Criers' by Stanley Elkin (1966)

"A Poetics for Bullies" is a lyrical master

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