5 Feel-Good Short Story Collections

Drinking Coffee Elsewhere, by ZZ Packer
ZZ Packer’s stories frequently take unexpected turns, such as in “Brownies,” whose irresistible young narrator is attending Camp Crescendo with the other members of her Brownie troop. All the members of Troop 909 are African-American, which makes them stick out in the largely all-white camp. When one of them thinks she hears a girl in another troop calling them offensive names, they plot revenge, only to discover that the girls in that troop are developmentally disabled and echolalic—prone to repeating whatever words they hear. Just when you think you have the story figured out, Packer turns the tables.

Nine Inches, by Tom Perrotta
Tom Perrotta’s stories qualify as feel-good tales because their scenarios will be familiar to anyone who has lived, worked, or raised children in a suburb or small town, and their denouements often serve as wish fulfillment for the reader. Ever been annoyed by a fellow parent at a Little League game? Well, the characters in “The Smile on Happy Chang’s Face” lose their cool so you don’t have to. Many stories have funny scenarios that sound like they could have happened down the street, yesterday—like “Nine Inches,” in which teachers serving as chaperones at a junior high dance must keep their charges that far apart because the last dance devolved into a “a drunken brawl/gropefest,” forever immortalized on YouTube.

A Guide to Being Born, by Ramona Ausubel
Anything is possible in this magical story collection: a world in which people in love grow an extra arm, a collection of grandmothers find themselves in the afterlife on an endless cruise, and a man whose wife is pregnant discovers his body changing too—he develops a chest full of drawers. Love is the unifying element to all these unexpected tales. Love binds the characters to each other, and makes their differences—from extra arms to unusual communions with the natural world—not seem so significant.

Varieties of Disturbance, by Lydia Davis
Davis’s droll, precise, concise stories always leave me in a good mood, such as “Idea for a Short Documentary Film,” which reads, in its entirety, “Representatives of different food products manufacturers try to open their own packaging.” Davis’s cerebral musings elevate even base concerns into something worth considering, such as in “Passing Wind,” in which the narrator ponders whether her dog or her guest is responsible for a bad smell. Davis’s stories can serve as an amuse-bouche whenever you need a little pick-me-up.

No One Belongs Here More Than You, by Miranda July
Writer, filmmaker, and crack Rihanna-interviewer Miranda July can always be counted on for an experience that defies expectations, as can the characters in the stories in this collection. For example, in “The Swim Team,” a former swimming champion arrives at a town so small that they don’t have a pool, but doesn’t let that stop her from giving people swim lessons on her apartment’s floor, using “three bowls of warm tap water” to teach them how to breathe underwater.
What short story collections cheer you up?