1. The Open Boat by Stephen Crane First published in 1897, it was based on Crane's experience of surviving a shipwreck off the coast of Florida earlier that year while traveling to Cuba to work as a newspaper correspondent. Crane was stranded at sea for thirty hours when his ship, the SS Commodore, sank after hitting a sandbar. He and three other men were forced to navigate their way to shore in a small boat; one of the men, an oiler named Billie Higgins, drowned after the boat overturned.

2. The Garden Party by Katherine Mansfield The Sheridan family is preparing to host a garden party. Laura is supposed to be in charge but has trouble with the workers who appear to know better, and her mother (Mrs. Sheridan) has ordered lilies to be delivered for the party without Laura's approval. Her sister Jose tests the piano, and then sings a song in case she is asked to do so again later. After the furniture is rearranged, they learn that their working-class neighbor Mr. Scott has died. While Laura believes the party should be called off, neither Jose nor their mother agree.

3. The Fall of the House of Usher by Edgar Allan Poe The story begins with the unnamed narrator arriving at the house of his friend, Roderick Usher, having received a letter from him in a distant part of the country complaining of an illness and asking for his help. As he arrives, the narrator notes a thin crack extending from the roof, down the front of the building and into the lake.

4. River of Names by Dorothy Allison River of Names is the story of a young woman, now identified as a lesbian, and the discrepancies between her childhood and her present. The story cuts back and forth between her childhood in a large poor family, and her present relationship with Jesse, a kind woman who had a pleasant childhood. In the past, the first-person narrator remembers molestation and death and terrible accidents. In the present, Jesse is amazed by the narrator's taste for violence and her unwillingness to have children.

5. The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy "The Death of Ivan Ilych" opens with Ivan Ilych's colleagues discussing cases in Shebek's private room. Amidst their friendly disagreements on a specific point of jurisdiction, Peter Ivanovich reads of Ivan Ilych's death in the papers and conveys this information to his colleagues. Half of them are startled that someone so close to them in age and position should die, and half have pleasant expectations of the benefits which the opening of Ivan Ilych's job will create.

6. A&P by John Updike Sammy, the teenage narrator, begins the story by describing the three girls who have walked into the A & P grocery store where he works. They are wearing nothing but bathing suits. He is so distracted by them that he cannot remember if he rang up a box of crackers or not. As it turns out, he did ring them up, a fact that his customer, "a witch about fifty," lets him know quickly and loudly.

7. A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka This story is told primarily from the perspective of a "hunger artist," who fasts for up to forty days at a time while sitting in a cage scattered with straw, which is placed on display in a public location, as a form of mass entertainment. In the opening line, the reader is informed that public interest in the "art" of fasting has declined in recent years. At the height of the hunger artist's career, and of public interest in his performances, things were different.

8. Cathedral by Raymond Carver “Cathedral” opens with the narrator telling the reader in a conversational tone that a blind friend of his wife’s is coming to visit them. The narrator is clearly unhappy about the upcoming visit. He then flashes back to the story of how his wife met the blind man when she worked for him as a reader. At the time, she was engaged to marry an officer in the Air Force. When she tells the blind man goodbye, he asks if he can touch her face. The touch of his fingers on her face is a pivotal moment in her life, something the narrator does not understand.

9. Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne "Young Goodman Brown" opens with Young Goodman Brown about to embark on an evening's journey. His young wife, Faith, fearful for some unknown reason, beseeches him to delay his journey. Goodman Brown, however, stresses that he has a task that must be accomplished before sunrise, and so the newlyweds reluctantly part. As he walks down the street, Goodman Brown chides himself for leaving Faith while he goes on his journey and resolves that, after this night, he will stay by the side of his good and pious wife. Pleased with himself, Goodman Brown then hurries through the forest to accomplish some unknown task.

10. Where Are You Going? Where Have You Been? by Joyce Carol Oates Connie is a fifteen-year-old teenager growing up in suburbia in the 1960s. She is preoccupied with typical teenage concerns: her looks and popular music. She argues with her mother, makes fun of her older, plainer sister, and hangs out with her friends in restaurants, movie theaters, and shopping malls. During these summertime social ventures, she and her friends try to attract the attention of the older high-school boys. One evening, while on a date, Connie notices a boy with black hair and a gold "jalopy"-a beat-up sports car- staring at her.

11. All the Way in Flagstaff, Arizona by Richard Bausch All the Way in Flagstaff, Arizona, is the story of a man's descent into alcoholism and the effects it has on his family. The story goes back and forth between the past, particularly one day at a family picnic, and the present, where Walter, the protagonist, is praying in a church in Flagstaff, Arizona. At the picnic, he has been drinking, and while the family has a good time, he eventually starts picking on his son William, and finally starts chasing the kids around in what he thinks is a game but is actually terrifying for them.

12. Rock Springs by Richard Ford Rock Springs is the story of Earl, the narrator, Edna, his girlfriend, and Cheryl, his daughter by another woman. Edna and Earl steal a Mercedes from an ophthalmologist and try to make it out of the state, because Earl's written some bad checks and has to escape from the police. However, the car breaks down outside of Rock Springs, Wyoming, and Earl walks over to a trailer park settlement, where he calls for a taxi.