Author Guide · Short Stories & Literary Fiction
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Before he published a word of fiction, George Saunders took a degree in geophysical engineering, worked with an oil exploration crew in Sumatra, and spent seven years as a technical writer at an environmental engineering firm in Rochester, New York. His first book, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline, came out in 1996, when he was 37. Since then he has written five story collections, a novella, essays, a craft book and two novels, and in 2017 won the Booker Prize for the first of them, Lincoln in the Bardo. His speech to Syracuse graduates in 2013, about “failures of kindness”, went viral and became a small book. This guide covers his 12 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 12 key books · 1996–2026 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
George Saunders has published five story collections, from CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (1996) to Liberation Day (2022), and two novels: Lincoln in the Bardo (2017), which won the Booker Prize, and Vigil (2026). Start with Tenth of December (2013), the collection that won the Folio Prize and the Story Prize; then read on for the novels, the essays and his craft book.
Where to Start with George Saunders
If you want his stories at their best
→ Tenth of December (2013) — satire and tenderness in ten stories.
If you want a novel
→ Lincoln in the Bardo (2017) — the Booker winner, told by a graveyard of ghosts.
If you want to learn how fiction works
→ A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (2021) — seven Russian stories read line by line.
If you want something short first
→ Congratulations, by the Way (2014) — the kindness speech as a short book.
12 George Saunders Books, in Order
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
His debut: stories and a novella set largely in failing theme parks and grim near-future workplaces. In the title story the narrator works at a Civil War re-enactment park that is losing visitors to gangs and budget cuts. The book was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award, and Ben Stiller bought the film rights in the late 1990s.
Pastoralia
Stories and a title novella about people performing roles inside absurd systems. In “Pastoralia” a man spends his working days as a caveman in a prehistoric diorama at a theme park, grunting for visitors while his performance reviews pile up. The collection also contains “Sea Oak”, in which a dead aunt comes back to demand a better life for her family.
The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil
A fable about two nations: Inner Horner, so small that only one citizen fits inside at a time, and the larger Outer Horner around it. Phil, a resentful Outer Hornerite whose brain keeps sliding off its rack, turns a border grievance into a dictatorship. It is his most direct study of how ordinary people talk themselves into cruelty.
In Persuasion Nation
Stories aimed at advertising, consumerism and the language of the media, including “Brad Carrigan, American”, set inside a sitcom, and the title story, whose characters are trapped inside television commercials. The collection was shortlisted for the Story Prize.
The Braindead Megaphone
His first essay collection. The title essay argues that a loud, dumbed-down mass media sets the terms of public thought; other pieces are reportage, from a boy in Nepal said to meditate without food to the luxury hotels of Dubai, alongside humour pieces and essays on writers he loves.
Tenth of December
Ten stories, including the title story, in which a lonely boy and a man with terminal cancer meet on a frozen pond, “The Semplica Girl Diaries” and “Escape from Spiderhead”, filmed by Netflix as Spiderhead (2022). It won the first Folio Prize and the Story Prize, was a National Book Award finalist, and The New York Times Magazine called it “the best book you’ll read this year”.
Congratulations, by the Way
The convocation speech he gave at Syracuse University on 11 May 2013, published as a small hardback after the text spread online. Its argument is simple: what he regrets most are “failures of kindness”, and the graduates should “err in the direction of kindness”.
Lincoln in the Bardo
His first novel takes place over one night in 1862 in Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown, where the body of Abraham Lincoln’s eleven-year-old son Willie has just been laid. The ghosts stuck in the bardo, the Tibetan in-between state, tell the story in a chorus of voices, cut together with quotations from real and invented historical sources. It won the 2017 Booker Prize; the Metropolitan Opera premieres an opera of it in October 2026, and a film with Tom Hanks as Lincoln is in development.
Fox 8
A fox who has learned to speak “Yuman” by listening outside houses writes a letter, in phonetic misspellings, about what happened when people built a shopping mall on his pack’s forest. First published as an e-book in 2013, it appeared as an illustrated book in 2018.
A Swim in a Pond in the Rain
Built from the class on the Russian short story he has taught for years in the Syracuse MFA programme: seven stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy and Gogol, printed in full and read closely, page by page, to show how a story holds a reader. It led to his Substack writing class, Story Club.
Liberation Day
Nine stories that return to the corporate and technological dystopias of his early work. In the title story, people whose memories have been wiped are pinned to a wall to perform recitations for a rich family; “Ghoul” takes place in an underground amusement park. The following year he received the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.
Vigil
His second novel, published in January 2026. Its narrator, Jill “Doll” Blaine, killed at 22, is a spirit who visits the dying to comfort them; her latest case is K. J. Boone, an 87-year-old oil executive in a Dallas mansion who refuses to regret the environmental damage his career caused.
In What Order to Read George Saunders
None of his books continue from one another, so you can read in any order. Publication order shows a clear line, though: the early collections are mainly satire of theme parks, offices and advertising, while from Tenth of December onwards the same strange worlds make room for more open feeling, and the two novels move the question of kindness to the edge of death.
If you are new to him, read a collection before the novels: Lincoln in the Bardo is told in a chorus of voices that is easier to enjoy once you know his tone. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain works best after you have read some of his stories, because you can see him using the techniques he describes.
A reading path
1. Tenth of December (2013)
2. Pastoralia (2000)
3. Lincoln in the Bardo (2017)
4. A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (2021)
5. Vigil (2026)
Everything Else George Saunders Published
Beyond the 12 key books: 1 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Children’s book
1
1 book · 2000
- 2000The Very Persistent Gappers of Fripa picture book for older children, illustrated by Lane Smith
The years · 1958–2026
Quick facts about George Saunders
- Known for
- He is known as one of the leading American short-story writers of his generation, whose satire of corporate and consumer life keeps returning to the question of how to be kind.
- 1958
- Born in Amarillo, Texas
- 1988
- MFA at Syracuse University
- 1996
- First book, CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
- 2026
- Second novel, Vigil
- Born
- 2 December 1958, Amarillo, Texas; grew up in Oak Forest, Illinois, near Chicago
- Education
- BS in geophysical engineering, Colorado School of Mines (1981); MFA, Syracuse University (1988)
- Before writing
- Oil exploration crew in Sumatra, roofer, doorman, then technical writer in Rochester, New York (1989–1996)
- Teaches
- Syracuse University MFA programme, since 1997
- Fellowships
- Guggenheim and MacArthur fellowships, both 2006
- Prizes
- Folio Prize and Story Prize (2014), Booker Prize (2017), Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction (2023)
- Married
- The writer Paula Redick
The red mark is 2017: Lincoln in the Bardo, his first novel, which won the Booker Prize.
How George Saunders Writes: Revision and Voice
Saunders writes by revising. He has described the process many times, including in A Swim in a Pond in the Rain: he reads a draft, notes where his attention drops, changes that line, and does it again, hundreds of times, rather than working from a plan. The stories often end up somewhere he did not expect when he started.
His people speak in borrowed language: the jargon of management, advertising and self-help, which they use to explain their own lives. The satire comes from that gap, but he rarely mocks the speakers. In stories such as “Tenth of December” and in Lincoln in the Bardo, the strange worlds of his early books become the setting for moments of real tenderness.
He likes forms that let many voices speak. Lincoln in the Bardo is built from 166 characters and invented and real historical sources; Fox 8 is written in a fox’s spelling; Vigil is narrated by a ghost. For writers with the same mix of satire and moral seriousness, see Authors like George Saunders.
Watch
George Saunders at the National Book Festival
At the 2023 National Book Festival in Washington, Saunders talks about his work after receiving the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction.
Frequently asked questions about George Saunders’s books
How many books has George Saunders written?
Thirteen under his own name: the 12 key books on this page, from CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (1996) to Vigil (2026), plus the children’s book The Very Persistent Gappers of Frip (2000). That includes five story collections, two novels, a novella, an illustrated fable and three works of nonfiction.
What are George Saunders’s books in order?
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline (1996), Pastoralia (2000), The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil (2005), In Persuasion Nation (2006), The Braindead Megaphone (2007), Tenth of December (2013), Congratulations, by the Way (2014), Lincoln in the Bardo (2017), Fox 8 (2018), A Swim in a Pond in the Rain (2021), Liberation Day (2022) and Vigil (2026).
Where should I start with George Saunders?
With Tenth of December (2013). It is his most acclaimed collection and shows his whole range, from satire to tenderness, in ten stories. If you would rather start with a novel, read Lincoln in the Bardo.
What is George Saunders’s most famous book?
Lincoln in the Bardo (2017), his first novel, which won the Booker Prize. Among his story collections, Tenth of December is the best known.
Is Lincoln in the Bardo a true story?
Partly. Willie Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln’s son, died in 1862 and was placed in a crypt in Oak Hill Cemetery in Georgetown, and accounts of the time say the grieving president visited it. The ghosts, the bardo and much of the “historical” material are Saunders’s invention, mixed with real quotations.
What is Vigil about?
Vigil (2026), his second novel, is narrated by Jill “Doll” Blaine, a spirit who comforts the dying. At the deathbed of an 87-year-old oil executive in Dallas, she tries to make him face the environmental damage he caused.
Has George Saunders’s work been adapted?
Yes. “Escape from Spiderhead”, from Tenth of December, became the Netflix film Spiderhead (2022). The Metropolitan Opera premieres Lincoln in the Bardo, composed by Missy Mazzoli with a libretto by Royce Vavrek, on 19 October 2026, and a film of the novel directed by Duke Johnson, with Tom Hanks as Lincoln, is in development.
What did George Saunders do before becoming a writer?
He studied geophysical engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, worked with an oil exploration crew in Sumatra in the early 1980s, and had jobs as a roofer in Chicago, a doorman in Beverly Hills and a slaughterhouse worker. From 1989 to 1996 he was a technical writer and geophysical engineer in Rochester, New York.
What prizes has George Saunders won?
The Booker Prize (2017) for Lincoln in the Bardo; the Folio Prize and the Story Prize for Tenth of December; the PEN/Malamud Award (2013); the Library of Congress Prize for American Fiction (2023); and Guggenheim and MacArthur fellowships in 2006.
Is A Swim in a Pond in the Rain good for aspiring writers?
Yes. It comes directly from the Russian short-story class he teaches in the Syracuse MFA programme and reads seven stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy and Gogol closely, explaining how each one keeps a reader going, rather than giving abstract rules.
Where does George Saunders teach?
At Syracuse University in New York, where he took his own MFA in 1988 and has taught in the creative writing programme since 1997.
Is George Saunders still alive?
Yes. He was born on 2 December 1958 in Amarillo, Texas, and published his second novel, Vigil, in January 2026.
Footnotes
- George Saunders — Wikipedia
- Lincoln in the Bardo — Wikipedia
- Vigil review — Bookreporter, 2026
- George Saunders’s convocation address — Syracuse University, 2013
- ‘Lincoln in the Bardo’ leaps from book to stage — AP, 2026
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“What I regret most in my life are failures of kindness.”
— George Saunders, convocation speech at Syracuse University (2013), published as Congratulations, by the Way (2014)
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