I plowed through the rest of Best American Short Stories 2005 on my infinite plane ride yesterday, and like Best American Essays 2004 I was pretty satisfied with the selection this year. It's definitely an improvement over some previous years (2001, I remember, being an especially bad one for whatever reason). And lucky you, you can read some of the stories I liked online:

"What You Pawn I Will Redeem" by Sherman Alexie

"Tooth and Claw" by T. Coraghessan Boyle

"Accomplice" by Sarah Shun-Lien Bynuum

"Screenwriter" by Charles D'Ambrosio

"Intervention" by Jill McCorkle

"What We Cannot Speak About We Must Pass Over in Silence" by John Edgar Wideman.

I even liked the Updike story in this one well enough, though I wonder whether or not the limited space in an well-known anthology like this is best served by yet another nod to yet another Updike story, much less an *eighth* story from The New Yorker. Wasn't there anybody else?