Flannery O’Connor Reading Order

21 books (1952–2015)

This anthology series spans 21 volumes published between 1952 and 2015, featuring curated collections of short stories and literary works that include selections by Flannery O'Connor alongside other authors. The series is complete and should be read in publication order, beginning with 50 Great Short Stories. Each volume offers different thematic focuses, from genre-specific collections like Witches' Brew and Mistresses of the Dark to broader literary surveys such as The Oxford Book of American Short Stories and The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English Since 1950.

Start with 50 Great Short Stories, the first of 21 books in the Anthologies series.

#	Title
1	50 Great Short Stories 1952Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
2	The Best American Short Stories 1957 1957Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
3	Women and Fiction 1975Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
4	Stories of the Modern South 1977Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
5	Witches' Brew 1984Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
6	Volume II: The Medusa In The Shield 1990Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
7	Growing Up in the South 1991Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
8	The Oxford Book of American Short Stories 1992Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
9	The Short Story: 30 Masterpieces 1992Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
10	First Fiction: An Anthology of the First Published Stories by Famous Writers 1994Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
11	Listening for God Reader, Vol. 1 1994Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
12	Downhome 1995Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
13	Mistresses of the Dark 1998Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
14	The Modern Library: The 200 Best Novels in English Since 1950 1999Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
15	40 Short Stories: A Portable Anthology 2000Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
16	The Best American Short Stories of the Century 2000Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
17	Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules 2005Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
18	The New Granta Book of the American Short Story 2007Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
19	The Civil Rights Reader 2009Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
20	Literary Savannah 2011Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
21	Plough Quarterly No. 4: Earth 2015Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible

4 books (1994–2002)

The Contemporary Literature and the Life of Faith series is a four-volume anthology collection that explores the intersection of modern literature and spiritual themes, published between 1994 and 2002. Each volume features essays and literary selections from acclaimed contemporary authors including Raymond Carver, Alice Walker, Anne Tyler, John Updike, Tillie Olsen, Wendell Berry, James Baldwin, and many others, with commentary from editors Paula J. Carlson and Peter S. Hawkins. The series is complete and should be read in publication order, beginning with the Reader volume and continuing through volumes two, three, and four.

Start with Listening for God Reader, Vol. 1(With: Raymond Carver,Alice Walker,Garrison Keillor,Annie Dillard,Richard Rodríguez,Patricia Hampl,Peter Hawkins,Frederick Buechner,Paula J. Carlson,Peter S. Hawkins), the first of 4 books in the Contemporary Literature and the Life of Faith series.

#	Title
1	Listening for God Reader, Vol. 1(With: Raymond Carver,Alice Walker,Garrison Keillor,Annie Dillard,Richard Rodríguez,Patricia Hampl,Peter Hawkins,Frederick Buechner,Paula J. Carlson,Peter S. Hawkins) 1994Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
2	Listening for God, Vol. 2(By: Anne Tyler,John Updike,Tobias Wolff,Gail Godwin,Henry Louis Gates Jr.,Kathleen Norris,Paula J. Carlson,Peter S. Hawkins,Carol Bly,Andrew Dubus) 1996Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
3	Listening for God, Vol. 3(By: Tillie Olsen,Wendell Berry,John Cheever,Louise Erdrich,Mary Gordon,Tess Gallagher,Reynolds Price,Oscar Hijuelos,Paula J. Carlson,Peter S. Hawkins) 2000Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
4	Listening For God, Vol. 4(By: Robert Olen Butler,Allegra Goodman,James Baldwin,Kent Haruf,SueMiller,Doris Betts,Paula J. Carlson,Peter S. Hawkins,MichaelMalone,Alice Elliot Dark) 2002Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible

28 books (1955–2019)

Faber Stories is a complete collection of 28 short works published between 1955 and 2019, featuring contributions from numerous acclaimed authors across literary fiction and related genres. The series spans diverse voices and styles, with each entry functioning as a standalone story or novella rather than a connected narrative. Begin with A Good Man Is Hard to Find and proceed in publication order to experience how the series evolved across more than six decades. This anthology series showcases the range of contemporary and established literary talents brought together under the Faber imprint.

Start with A Good Man Is Hard To Find, the first of 28 books in the Faber Stories series.

#	Title
1	A Good Man Is Hard To Find 1955Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
2	The Inner Room(By: Robert Aickman) 1968Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
3	Daughters of Passion(By: Julia O'Faolain) 1982Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
4	Giacomo Joyce(By: Richard Ellmann) 1983Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
5	Homeland(By: Barbara Kingsolver) 1989Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
6	Shanti(By: Vikram Chandra) 1997Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
7	Sonny Liston Was a Friend of Mine(By: Thom Jones) 1998Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
8	An Elegy for Easterly(By: Petina Gappah) 2009Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
9	The Shielding of Mrs Forbes(By: Alan Bennett) 2011Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
10	The Cheater's Guide to Love(By: Junot Díaz) 2012Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
11	Mostly Hero(By: Anna Burns) 2014Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
12	Mrs Fox(By: Sarah Hall) 2014Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
13	Mr Salary(By: Sally Rooney) 2016Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
14	A River in Egypt(By: David Means) 2019Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
15	Come Rain or Come Shine(By: Kazuo Ishiguro) 2019Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
16	Cosmopolitan(By: Akhil Sharma) 2019Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
17	Dante and the Lobster(By: Samuel Beckett) 2019Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
18	Fairy Tales(By: Marianne Moore) 2019Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
19	Ghostly Stories(By: Celia Fremlin) 2019Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
20	Intruders(By: Adrian Tomine) 2019Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
21	Mary Ventura and The Ninth Kingdom(By: Sylvia Plath) 2019Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
22	Paradise(By: Edna O'Brien) 2019Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
23	Terrific Mother(By: Lorrie Moore) 2019Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
24	The Country Funeral(By: John McGahern) 2019Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
25	The Forester's Daughter(By: Claire Keegan) 2019Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
26	The Lydia Steptoe Stories(By: Djuna Barnes) 2019Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
27	The Victim(By: P.D. James) 2019Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
28	Three Types of Solitude(By: Brian W. Aldiss) 2019Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible

3 books (1978–2027)

Flannery O'Connor's two-book nonfiction collection spans from 1978 to 1983 and should be read in publication order, beginning with The Habit of Being. This complete series offers insights into the acclaimed horror writer's thoughts and critical perspectives through her correspondence and literary reviews. The Presence of Grace and Other Book Reviews follows as the second volume, rounding out O'Connor's nonfiction legacy.

Start with The Habit of Being and read in order.

#	Title
1	The Habit of Being 1978Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
2	Presence of Grace and Other Book Reviews 1983Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
3	Flannery O'Connor on Writing 2027Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible

6 books (1955–2003)

Flannery O'Connor's Short Story Collections series spans six books published between 1955 and 2003, presenting a complete collection of her work. These volumes should be read in publication order, beginning with A Good Man Is Hard to Find. The series includes essay collections and comprehensive story compilations that showcase O'Connor's distinctive literary voice across several decades.

Start with A Good Man Is Hard To Find, the first of 6 books in the Short Story Collections series.

#	Title
1	A Good Man Is Hard To Find 1955Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
2	The Artificial N***er 1955Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
3	Everything That Rises Must Converge 1965Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
4	Mystery and Manners 1969Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
5	The Complete Stories 1971Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
6	Flannery O'Connor 2003Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible

2 books (1952–1960)

Flannery O'Connor wrote two complete standalone novels published between 1952 and 1960. Wise Blood appeared first in 1952, followed by The Violent Bear It Away in 1960. These works should be read in publication order, beginning with Wise Blood. O'Connor's fiction explores dark themes of faith, morality, and violence in the American South through psychologically complex characters and disturbing circumstances.

Start with Wise Blood and read in order.

#	Title
1	Wise Blood 1952Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
2	The Violent Bear It Away 1960Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible

3 books (1987–1991)

The Dark Descent is a complete three-volume horror and non-fiction series by Flannery O'Connor, published between 1987 and 1991. The volumes should be read in publication order, beginning with Volume I: The Color of Evil, followed by The Medusa In The Shield and concluding with A Fabulous, Formless Darkness. This series combines horror elements with non-fiction perspectives across its three installments.

Start with Volume I: The Color of Evil and read in order.

#	Title
1	Volume I: The Color of Evil 1987Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
2	Volume II: The Medusa In The Shield 1990Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible
3	Volume III:A Fabulous, Formless Darkness 1991Buy 🇺🇸🎧 Audible