Edited by critically acclaimed, best-selling author Alice Sebold, the stories in this year's collection serve as a provacative literary "antenna for what is going on in the world" (Chicago Tribune). The collection boasts great variety from "famous to first-timers, sifted from major magazines and little reviews, grand and little worlds" (St. Louis Post-Dispatch), ensuring yet another rewarding, eduring edition of the oldest and best-selling Best American.

The idiot President / Daniel Alarcón --
Yurt / Sarah Shun-Lien Bynum --
Rubiaux rising / Steve de Jarnatt --
Beyond the pale / Joseph Epstein --
A shadow table / Alice Fulton --
NowTrends / Karl Taro Greenfeld --
The farms / Eleanor Henderson --
Sagittarius / Greg Hrbek --
Hurricanes anonymous / Adam Johnson --
The anniversary trip / Victoria Lancelotta --
A man like him / Yiyun Li --
The briefcase / Rebecca Makkai --
Magic words / Jill McCorkle --
One dog year / Kevin Moffett --
Modulation / Richard Powers --
Them old cowboy songs / Annie Proulx --
Into the gorge / Ron Rash --
Ostracon / Alex Rose --
The peripatetic coffin / Ethan Rutherford --
Muzungu / Namwali Serpell --
Contributors' notes --
100 other distinguished stories of 2008 --
Editorial addresses of American and Canadian magazines publishing short stories