Customer Reviews

Pushcart Prize XXXIII: Best of the Small Presses (2009 Edition) (The Pushcart Prize)

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Just as Jonathan, a previous reviewer, I question most of Bill Henderson's choices for the 2009 Pushcart edition. I gave the book a chance, I buy it every year along with the Best American Short Stories, and the O.Henry Prize Stories,purchases to which I have now have added the Best New American Voices,2009 and 2010.

I gave Bill Henderson's huge compendium a chance to entertain me on a recent writing trip to Prague,by deciding to start every story and read it for at least 2 or 3 pages. Only three of them were interesting or memorable to me. As an avid reader and a student writer I was not "hooked" by most of these selections.

While it is true that taste is personal and unique, and I am probably not expressing a majority opinion, most of these stories will not survive to be read again and again, as many of our favourites have.

I started with the 2010 and 2011 Pushcart collections and was so impressed and inspired by the quality of writing I ordered the 2008 and 2009 collections. These are equally high-quality.

This is a nice collection, but it definitely reveals the decline of taste prevalent in our society. It also reveals the common prejudices among publishers etc. There were a handful of pieces I genuinely loved, but I was surprised by how many I actually loathed. I consider myself fairly eclectic, but the amount of sensationalist smut present in this collection is somewhat appalling despite my defensive cynicism.