Which Short Stories Are In Tenth Of December?

I keep coming back to that table of contents whenever I want to recommend a compact, brilliant book. The stories in 'Tenth of December' are eleven? actually ten tightly written pieces, and in the edition I own the list reads: 'Victory Lap', 'Sticks', 'Puppy', 'Escape from Spiderhead', 'Al Roosten', 'My Chivalric Fiasco', 'Sea Oak', 'The Semplica Girl Diaries', 'Tenth of December', and 'Home'.

What I love about that lineup is the variety of forms. Saunders will hand you a diary in 'The Semplica Girl Diaries', a kind of ranting interior monologue in 'Puppy', a near-fable in 'Victory Lap', and then a formally daring, intimate reckoning in the title story 'Tenth of December'. 'Escape from Spiderhead' reads almost like a noir-sci-fi ethics case, while 'Sticks' is the kind of micro-memoir that cuts deep because of how much is left unsaid. 'Sea Oak' leans harder into the grotesque and the funny, and 'Al Roosten' and 'My Chivalric Fiasco' show Saunders’ flair for skewering small-town vanity and male bravado. 'Home' has stayed with me for its ending—the kind that doesn’t tie things up but chills you in a useful way.

Listing the titles doesn’t quite capture how Saunders works: he’s playing with voice and perspective so aggressively that each story feels like a different instrument. If you read them straight through, you’ll walk away shaken and strangely uplifted.

This collection has such a weird, warm gravity to it, and the stories living inside it stick with me for days. In 'Tenth of December' George Saunders gathers ten pieces that move between slapstick surrealism and aching tenderness. The book’s lineup (as printed in my copy) is: 'Victory Lap', 'Sticks', 'Puppy', 'Escape from Spiderhead', 'Al Roosten', 'My Chivalric Fiasco', 'Sea Oak', 'The Semplica Girl Diaries', 'Tenth of December', and 'Home'.

Each piece feels deliberately different: 'Victory Lap' plays like a tense suburban parable about choices and heroism; 'Sticks' is a tiny, painful vignette about ritual and family; 'Puppy' pits two mothers’ worlds against each other and lets us squirm with sympathy; and 'Escape from Spiderhead' is an unnerving speculative tale about the ethics of chemical control. 'Sea Oak' leans into Saunders’s comic rage, while 'The Semplica Girl Diaries' uses diary form to show small cruelties and status anxieties. The title story, 'Tenth of December', is quietly devastating, a tender portrait of courage and compassion. 'Al Roosten' and 'My Chivalric Fiasco' bring more of his signature voice—sly, circuitous, full of caricature turned human. 'Home' closes things out on a note I always find both bleak and oddly consoling.

If you’re new to Saunders, this collection is the place I’d point you to first because it shows the full range, from absurd comedy to real heartbreak. Every story lingers; you’ll be thinking about one character while you’re reading the next, and that’s a good kind of ache to have.

On a slower evening I laid out the story list from 'Tenth of December' and thought about how Saunders arranges tone like someone arranging colored stones. The twelve pieces are: 'Victory Lap', 'Sticks', 'Puppy', 'Escape from Spiderhead', 'Exhortation', 'Al Roosten', 'Home', 'The Semplica Girl Diaries', 'My Chivalric Fiasco', 'Tenth of December', 'Bounty', and 'The Barber's Unhappiness'.

What fascinates me is the balance between the absurd and the intimate. 'Escape from Spiderhead' is often cited because it ventures into near-science-fiction territory and has been adapted for screen, but the quieter pieces — 'Home' or 'The Barber's Unhappiness' — reveal the moral imagination Saunders brings to ordinary lives. 'Exhortation' is brilliant at showing how language can be weaponized even in the most petty places. Reading the collection in order gives you a strange arc: moments of levity and grotesque satire punctuate deep, empathetic dives into characters who are trying, failing, or stubbornly surviving. I still find the title story lingers with me the longest, a small miracle of tenderness.

Here’s a quick rundown you can carry with you: 'Tenth of December' contains twelve stories — 'Victory Lap', 'Sticks', 'Puppy', 'Escape from Spiderhead', 'Exhortation', 'Al Roosten', 'Home', 'The Semplica Girl Diaries', 'My Chivalric Fiasco', 'Tenth of December', 'Bounty', and 'The Barber's Unhappiness'. I like to think of the collection as a playlist where Saunders shifts tempo and style but keeps the same emotional key.

If you enjoy satirical, humane short fiction that sometimes skews into speculative territory, this book is a treasure. Each story has its own weirdness: some are darkly funny, some quietly devastating, and a few feel like small moral puzzles. For me, reading it feels like eavesdropping on people trying to be good in imperfect ways — and that sense of messy, earnest humanity is exactly why I keep recommending 'Tenth of December' to friends.