Reviewing anthologies is tough. Different authors have contributed different things. Some will appeal to some readers and others will not. The best a reader can hope for is a high quality anthologist/editor, a person who has selected a good variety while also including enough to appeal to your particular tastes.
When selecting an anthology, I tend toward those where the entries have been selected based on criteria of excellence, rather than taste or genre, and have been selected by a jury of editors, not just a single one. The O'Henry Prize anthologies include stories that had won the O'Henry Prize, a test of their quality. But they hasd also been previously published elsewhere. Thus, the original publication and the prize selection committee have both considered that the work is high uality and worthwhile.
Every year, I get the "Best American Short Stories of----" and "The Best Non-Required Reading of ----" for the same reasons that I selected the O'Henry Prize collection. Their contents have been selected for their high quality, both when they were originally published and when they were anthologized. The additional benefit of these anthologies is thet the stories selected fall into a variety of genre: short mysteries, historical fiction, surprise endings, sci-fi, etc.
Thie 2015 collection was a satisfying read, I did not like not fully read all the stories, but that is as it should be with a collection. Overall, the collection was interesting enough to make me want to read it all the way through, much as I would a novel, before I moved on to my next book.
( )

I received an ARC copy of this short story collection from the publisher and NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

O’Henry to me represents an American archetype in literature and it is interesting to note how that archetype has changed, or one can argue, no longer exists. When I think of classic American style in short stories a few authors come to mind: O’Henry, London, Irving, Fitzgerald, Poe and O’Connor. Each represents a particular time, region or style. London the pioneering spirit, Fitzgerald the jazz age, Irving the colonial period and along with Poe the supernatural, O’Connor the South. O’Henry is quintessentially American in locale as well as representative of a style of story. These stories are O’Henry award winners because they have a particular style that evokes his spirit. Interestingly, I found these stories to be quintessentially American. I sit here drinking coffee from Mexico, wearing a shirt made in India, typing on a computer made in China. These stories are like that too. Some take place in the United States but they involve immigrants and their own personal integration to this country; others involve Americans living or travelling abroad (and behaving badly) or naturalized Americans dealing with feelings of being an outsider to their culture of birth. They are who we are now and they all, like Paul Simon says, sing an American tune.

I think it is important to not provide too much detail on the stories because many of them pack a surprise or some other twist (in the O’Henry tradition) that would be spoiled by too much information. Here are my favorites. The very first story, the comical yet vaguely sinister “Finding Billy White Feather—which leaves the reader reeling and in no better position than the confused story teller starts this collection off on a very high note. “A Permanent Member of the Family,” “The Seals,” “Cabins,” “Word of Mouth,” and “The Golden Rule” deal with the types of events that are defining moments in a family history and are all deeply moving in their own way. The collection contains notes from the authors and I was not surprised to read that another favorite “A Permanent Member of the Family” happened pretty much as described in the story. As I was reading it I couldn’t help but think that it, or something just like it, happened to the author. Many of the above stories have a strong sense of autobiography about them.

I also enjoyed the stories that took place in other countries and the internal cultural commentary within them. Another favorite was “A Ride Out of Phrao” in which a naturalized American woman of middle eastern descent has moved to a small village in rural China. She never felt completely at home in America, yet it has become her home. She is very much an outsider in China but is adapting. Finally, she is culturally separated from her successful daughter. I found the story fascinating and quite moving.

Other stories that I enjoyed:

“About My Aunt”—fascinating story about two women and how one’s primary value is independence and the other is completely dependent on others, yet both appear content, set in the back drop of Hurricane Sandy.

“My Grandmother Tells Me A Story”—I couldn’t help thinking that I was very glad my grandmother never told me a story like that—a story that would change the way you look at her forever.

Even though I have highlighted a few stories, I have to say that the entire collection is first rate and I wholeheartedly recommend it to anyone who enjoys well-crafted literary fiction.
( )

Reviewing anthologies is tough. Different authors have contributed different things. Some will appeal to some readers and others will not. The best a reader can hope for is a high quality anthologist/editor, a person who has selected a good variety while also including enough to appeal to your particular tastes.
When selecting an anthology, I tend toward those where the entries have been selected based on criteria of excellence, rather than taste or genre, and have been selected by a jury of editors, not just a single one. The O'Henry Prize anthologies include stories that had won the O'Henry Prize, a test of their quality. But they hasd also been previously published elsewhere. Thus, the original publication and the prize selection committee have both considered that the work is high uality and worthwhile.
Every year, I get the "Best American Short Stories of----" and "The Best Non-Required Reading of ----" for the same reasons that I selected the O'Henry Prize collection. Their contents have been selected for their high quality, both when they were originally published and when they were anthologized. The additional benefit of these anthologies is thet the stories selected fall into a variety of genre: short mysteries, historical fiction, surprise endings, sci-fi, etc.
Thie 2015 collection was a satisfying read, I did not like not fully read all the stories, but that is as it should be with a collection. Overall, the collection was interesting enough to make me want to read it all the way through, much as I would a novel, before I moved on to my next book.
( )

(I haven't even managed to read my O. Henry Prize Stories 2014 and already 2015 has come out. I'm never going to catch up.)

I like short stories. They're my potato chips or candy, snacking for my brain (even the serious short stories that should be more like a lump in my stomach). I pick up short story books or request them as ARCs because I like reading them. That's why I asked for The O. Henry Prize Stories 2015, okay Introduction? I don't need twenty pages of an English professor rah-rah-brigading me about short stories, then summarizing each story, then explaining to me why each story merits inclusion in the collection. Just let me at the stories! I hate introductions.

So let's get to the stories. Hooray! Stories! But they are American. I always struggle to articulate my feelings towards American fiction. The best I've ever come up with is insular. There's a self-importance too, but no one that is mean-spirited. It's not bragging or even humble-bragging. But it's whatever comes with the knowledge that due to population and money and global positioning and power: that being American can mean forcing an influence on the rest of the English speaking world that say me, as a Canadian, cannot force. The stories here vary between US-born to those who have chosen (or are in the process of choosing, as in Manuel Muñoz's "The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA") to locate themselves in the States, and this tone of American-ness washes the stories out. Even the ones that are stylistically different (the first person plural of Naira Kuzmich's "The Kingsley Drive Chorus", the fairy tale world of Elizabeth McCracken's "Birdsong from the Radio", the East Africa of Lionel Shriver's "Kilifi Creek") are still similar. One might believe that these were all written by the same author, each story investigating the subtle. It's like there was a memo in 2015: Forget what they told you in high school about short stories. No changes, epiphanies, or surprises. I can't say there are a lot of surprises here. There are a lot of abrupt endings in surprise's place. Many of these stories simply stop in another shared stylistic quirk. I can't be satisfied with a story that simply stops. I feel ripped off.

I should also crown my favourite, simply because the three person jury each wrote a little paragraph at the end regarding their favourite and I guess that's the thing one is supposed to do in collections like this. I'll pick the fairy tale monstrousness of Elizabeth McCracken's "Birdsong from the Radio". That one didn't need to be an American story, in the way some of the other stories needed to be set in the States or inhabited by US-ians. It chose to be an American story. That made me like it best.

The O. Henry Prize Stories 2015 edited by Laura Furman went on sale September 15, 2015.

I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review. ( )

This is a varied and excellent anthology collecting twenty short stories, the best stories published in an American or Canadian periodical in 2014 according to the O’Henry Prize series editor. And I don’t know if they’re really the best, but in my opinion, over half of them are very good, a couple of them are amazing, and none of them is bad. Quite an achievement. Most of the writers included in this book were new to me (although I had read one of these stories before), but in most of the cases they have turned out to be a pleasant surprise, although my two absolute favorites stories are by two established authors: “The Seals”, by Lydia Davis, a story about grief and how we mourn and remember our loved ones, and “A Permanent Member of the Family”, by Russell Banks, an autobiographical story based on the author’s own divorce, a nuanced and heartbreaking story that lingers in your mind.
I’m sure this anthology will be easily enjoyed by any lover of good fiction, and especially by those, like me, who are fans of short fiction. ( )