Robert Olen Butler Reading Order

21 books (1991–2016)

Start with The Best American Short Stories 1991, the first of 21 books in the Anthologies series.

#	Title
1	The Best American Short Stories 1991 1991Buy 🇺🇸
2	The Best American Short Stories 1994 1994Buy 🇺🇸
3	The Best American Erotica 1996 1996Buy 🇺🇸
4	Year's Best Fantasy & Horror: Tenth Annual Collection 1996Buy 🇺🇸
5	The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction 1999Buy 🇺🇸
6	Full Frontal Fiction: The Best of Nerve.com 2000Buy 🇺🇸
7	The Good Parts 2000Buy 🇺🇸
8	Listening For God, Vol. 4 2002Buy 🇺🇸
9	A Very Southern Christmas: Holiday Stories from the South's Best Writers 2003Buy 🇺🇸
10	The Eloquent Short Story: An Anthology of Narrative Styles 2004Buy 🇺🇸
11	The Future Dictionary of America 2004Buy 🇺🇸
12	The 2004 Robert Olen Butler Prize Stories 2005Buy 🇺🇸
13	Verb, An Audioquarterly, Volume 1, No. 1 2005Buy 🇺🇸
14	The 2005 Robert Olen Butler Prize Stories 2006Buy 🇺🇸
15	Selected Shorts: Wartime Lives 2007Buy 🇺🇸
16	The 2007 Robert Olen Butler Prize Stories 2007Buy 🇺🇸
17	The New Granta Book of the American Short Story 2007Buy 🇺🇸
18	The 2008 Robert Olen Butler Prize Stories 2008Buy 🇺🇸
19	The 2009 Robert Olen Butler Prize Stories 2011Buy 🇺🇸
20	Astoria to Zion 2013Buy 🇺🇸
21	In Sunlight or In Shadow 2016Buy 🇺🇸

1 book (2015–2015)

#	Title
1	The Best Small Fictions 2015 2015Buy 🇺🇸

40 books (2012–2022)

Start with An Acceptable Sacrifice(By: Jeffery Deaver), the first of 40 books in the Bibliomysteries series.

#	Title
1	An Acceptable Sacrifice(By: Jeffery Deaver) 2012Buy 🇺🇸
2	Death Leaves a Bookmark(By: William Link) 2012Buy 🇺🇸
3	Pronghorns of the Third Reich(By: C.J. Box) 2012Buy 🇺🇸
4	The Book Case(By: Nelson DeMille) 2012Buy 🇺🇸
5	The Book Thing(By: Laura Lippman) 2012Buy 🇺🇸
6	The Book of Virtue(By: Ken Bruen) 2012Buy 🇺🇸
7	Rides a Stranger(By: David Bell) 2013Buy 🇺🇸
8	The Book of Ghosts(By: Reed Farrel Coleman) 2013Buy 🇺🇸
9	The Final Testament(By: Peter Blauner) 2013Buy 🇺🇸
10	The Long Sonata of the Dead(By: Andrew Taylor) 2013Buy 🇺🇸
11	Book Club(By: Loren D. Estleman) 2014Buy 🇺🇸
12	It's in the Book(By: Max Allan Collins,Mickey Spillane) 2014Buy 🇺🇸
13	Remaindered(By: Peter Lovesey) 2014Buy 🇺🇸
14	The Compendium of Srem(By: F. Paul Wilson) 2014Buy 🇺🇸
15	The Gospel of Sheba(By: Lyndsay Faye) 2014Buy 🇺🇸
16	The Nature of My Inheritance(By: Bradford Morrow) 2014Buy 🇺🇸
17	The Scroll(By: Anne Perry) 2014Buy 🇺🇸
18	The Sequel(By: R.L. Stine) 2014Buy 🇺🇸
19	What's in a Name?(By: Thomas H. Cook) 2014Buy 🇺🇸
20	Condor in the Stacks(By: James Grady) 2015Buy 🇺🇸
21	Every Seven Years(By: Denise Mina) 2015Buy 🇺🇸
22	From the Queen(By: Carolyn Hart) 2015Buy 🇺🇸
23	Mystery, Inc.(By: Joyce Carol Oates) 2015Buy 🇺🇸
24	The Book of the Lion(By: Thomas Perry) 2015Buy 🇺🇸
25	The Little Men(By: Megan Abbott) 2015Buy 🇺🇸
26	Citadel(By: Stephen Hunter) 2016Buy 🇺🇸
27	Dead Dames Don't Sing(By: John Harvey) 2016Buy 🇺🇸
28	Reconciliation Day(By: Christopher Fowler) 2016Buy 🇺🇸
29	The Haze(By: James W. Hall) 2016Buy 🇺🇸
30	The Travelling Companion(By: Ian Rankin) 2016Buy 🇺🇸
31	Hoodoo Harry(By: Joe R. Lansdale) 2017Buy 🇺🇸
32	Seven Years(By: Peter Robinson) 2018Buy 🇺🇸
33	The Caxton Private Lending Library & Book Depository(By: John Connolly) 2018Buy 🇺🇸
34	The Hemingway Valise 2018Buy 🇺🇸
35	The Last Honest Horse Thief(By: Michael Koryta) 2018Buy 🇺🇸
36	The Pretty Little Box(By: Charles Todd) 2018Buy 🇺🇸
37	The Girl Who Did Say No(By: David Handler) 2020Buy 🇺🇸
38	The Dark Door(By: Lisa Unger) 2022Buy 🇺🇸
39	The Honeymoon Trap(By: Peter Swanson) 2022Buy 🇺🇸
40	The Traitor(By: Martin Edwards) 2022Buy 🇺🇸

4 books (2012–2018)

Start with The Hot Country, the first of 4 books in the Christopher Marlowe Cobb series.

#	Title
1	The Hot Country 2012Buy 🇺🇸
2	The Star of Istanbul 2013Buy 🇺🇸
3	The Empire of Night 2014Buy 🇺🇸
4	Paris in the Dark 2018Buy 🇺🇸

4 books (1994–2002)

Start with Listening for God Reader, Vol. 1(By: Flannery O'Connor,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(By: Flannery O'Connor,Raymond Carver,Alice Walker,Garrison Keillor,Annie Dillard,Richard Rodríguez,Patricia Hampl,Peter Hawkins,Frederick Buechner,Paula J. Carlson,Peter S. Hawkins) 1994Buy 🇺🇸
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 🇺🇸
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 🇺🇸
4	Listening For God, Vol. 4(With: Allegra Goodman,James Baldwin,Kent Haruf,SueMiller,Doris Betts,Paula J. Carlson,Peter S. Hawkins,MichaelMalone,Alice Elliot Dark) 2002Buy 🇺🇸

20 books (1988–2010)

Start with New Stories from the South(By: Shannon Ravenel), the first of 20 books in the New Stories From The South series.

#	Title
1	New Stories from the South(By: Shannon Ravenel) 1988Buy 🇺🇸
2	New Stories from the South 1992(By: Shannon Ravenel) 1992Buy 🇺🇸
3	New Stories from the South 1993(By: Shannon Ravenel) 1993Buy 🇺🇸
4	New Stories from the South 1994(By: Shannon Ravenel) 1994Buy 🇺🇸
5	New Stories from the South 1995(By: Shannon Ravenel) 1995Buy 🇺🇸
6	New Stories from the South 1996(By: Shannon Ravenel) 1996Buy 🇺🇸
7	New Stories from the South 1997 1997Buy 🇺🇸
8	New Stories from the South 1998(By: Padgett Powell) 1998Buy 🇺🇸
9	New Stories from the South 1999(By: Tony Earley) 1999Buy 🇺🇸
10	New Stories from the South 2000(By: Ellen Douglas) 2000Buy 🇺🇸
11	New Stories from the South 2001(By: Lee Smith) 2001Buy 🇺🇸
12	New Stories from the South 2003(By: Shannon Ravenel) 2003Buy 🇺🇸
13	New Stories from the South 2004(By: Allan Gurganus) 2004Buy 🇺🇸
14	Best of the South: From the Second Decade of New Stories from the South(By: Shannon Ravenel) 2005Buy 🇺🇸
15	New Stories from the South, 2005(By: Jill McCorkle) 2005Buy 🇺🇸
16	New Stories from the South 2006(By: Allan Gurganus,Kathy Pories) 2006Buy 🇺🇸
17	New Stories from the South 2007(By: Allan Gurganus) 2007Buy 🇺🇸
18	New Stories from the South 2008(By: Z.Z. Packer) 2008Buy 🇺🇸
19	New Stories from the South 2009(By: Madison Smartt Bell) 2009Buy 🇺🇸
20	New Stories from the South 2010(By: Amy Hempel) 2010Buy 🇺🇸

1 book (2005–2005)

#	Title
1	From Where You Dream: The Process of Writing Fiction 2005Buy 🇺🇸

2 books (1996–2018)

Start with Jealous Husband Returns in the Form of a Parrot and read in order.

5 books (1992–2008)

Start with A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain, the first of 5 books in the Short Story Collections series.

#	Title
1	A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain 1992Buy 🇺🇸
2	Tabloid Dreams 1996Buy 🇺🇸
3	Had a Good Time 2004Buy 🇺🇸
4	Severance 2006Buy 🇺🇸
5	Intercourse 2008Buy 🇺🇸

14 books (1981–2021)

Start with The Alleys of Eden, the first of 14 books in the Standalone Novels series.

#	Title
1	The Alleys of Eden 1981Buy 🇺🇸
2	Sun Dogs 1982Buy 🇺🇸
3	Countrymen of Bones 1983Buy 🇺🇸
4	On Distant Ground 1985Buy 🇺🇸
5	Wabash 1987Buy 🇺🇸
6	The Deuce 1989Buy 🇺🇸
7	They Whisper 1994Buy 🇺🇸
8	The Deep Green Sea 1998Buy 🇺🇸
9	Mr. Spaceman 2000Buy 🇺🇸
10	Fair Warning 2002Buy 🇺🇸
11	Hell 2009Buy 🇺🇸
12	A Small Hotel 2011Buy 🇺🇸
13	Perfume River 2016Buy 🇺🇸
14	Late City 2021Buy 🇺🇸