For the first time in nearly 10 years, the acclaimed writer George Saunders delivers another short-story collection—and it’s both stunningly imaginative and darkly funny. Liberation Day features nine stories that probe themes such as poverty, power, revenge, love, and exploitation. The title story, which is the collection’s longest, stars characters in a dystopian world whose memories have mysteriously been removed; another transports readers to the Hell-themed section of an underground amusement park. With his latest offering, Saunders, who received a MacArthur fellowship and won the 2017 Booker Prize for Lincoln in the Bardo, maintains his status as one of the best working short-story writers in the English language. —Angela Haupt