Stuart Dybek's 6 favorite books

Stuart Dybek is the author of five books of fiction, including the newly released story collections Ecstatic Cahoots and Paper Lantern, as well as two collections of poetry. He is the recipient of many prizes and awards—including the PEN/Malamud Award, an Arts and Letters Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Whiting Writers’ Award, and four O. Henry Awards.

One of Dybek's six favorite books, as shared at The Week magazine:

Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson

I don't know if it is defensible to say that Sherwood Anderson invented the American plain style that Hemingway and so many other writers would run with. I do know that his book of stories that makes an imagined Ohio town into a central character ranks as one of the seminal books of American literature.

Read about another entry on the list.

Winesburg, Ohio is among Stefan Kiesbye's five top books on the dark side of small towns and Anna Clark's 13 essential works of fiction to come out of the Midwest.

--Marshal Zeringue