O. Henry, “The Lost Blend”
Charles Jackson, from The Lost Weekend
Dorothy Parker, “You Were Perfectly Fine”
Mark Twain, “The Story of the Old Ram”
Kingsley Amis, from Lucky Jim
Roald Dahl, “Taste”
Edgar Allan Poe, “The Cask of Amontillado”
Damon Runyon, “Lillian”
Jack London, from John Barleycorn
Frank O’Connor, “The Drunkard”
Alice Munro, “An Ounce of Cure”
Sherwood Anderson, “Drink”
Doris Lessing, “Wine”
Guy de Maupassant, “Indiscretion”
Colette, “Clouk’s Fling”
Penelope Lively, “Party”
Charles Dickens, “A Bachelor’s Party”
Dawn Powell, “Dinner on the Rocks”
P. G. Wodehouse, “Jeeves and the Unbidden Guest”
Jean Rhys, “In the Rue de l’Arrivée”
Samuel Beckett, “Ding-Dong”
Joy Williams, “Craving”
Vladimir Nabokov, “Details of a Sunset”
F. Scott Fitzgerald, “The Cut-Glass Bowl”
Clarice Lispector, “Daydreams and Drunkenness of a Young Lady”
John Cheever, “The Swimmer”
Robert Coover, “Going for a Beer”
