George Saunders, a creative writing professor at Syracuse University for more than two decades, has written an accessible version of his course on the Russian short-story masters of the 19th century: ...

It all sounds a bit folksy, reductive, technocratic. Engineers, though, may design small but think big. The best stories, such as the seven gems Saunders dismantles and rebuilds here, deliver “scale ...

One of his typically hands-on, rolled-sleeves analogies in this book about the art of the short story – and the Russian giants who can help us understand it – involves the Hot Wheels table-top ...