I pick up this annual offering every year, and although uneven, it's always interesting. It sometimes seems like the guest editors I like the least offer the stories I like the best and vice versa. But it's always instructive to see what writers themselves choose for best stories.
I have to say, Junot Diaz raised the bar. In this batch of 20 stories, there was only one I didn't finish, and only one other that left me meh. That means there were 18 stories that I fell hard for. That's a pretty impressive accomplishment.
But that's not the only impressive thing about this year's collection. This has to be by far the most diverse edition ever published under the BASS title. More than half of the stories are by women. There are authors from Nigeria, Ghana, Bangladesh, Dominican Republic, Ethiopia, Hong Kong, and Tokyo. The writers include people of Asian, Guatemalan, Native American, and African American descent. And their stories represent that wide diversity, whether they're set in places far from America or show people from those places struggling to live and adapt in America.
So, not surprisingly, these stories range widely from funny to sad to horrific, from realistic to magical realism to experimental. If you want diversity in your reading, of every type, this is a good place to start.