The Unreal and the Real is a collection of some of Ursula K. Le Guin's best short stories. She has won multiple prizes and accolades from the Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters to the Newbery Honor, the Nebula, Hugo, World Fantasy, and PEN/Malamud Awards. She has had her work collected over the years, but this is the first short story volume combining a full range of her work.

Stories include:
-Brothers and Sisters
-A Week in the Country
-Unlocking the Air
-Imaginary Countries
-The Diary of the Rose
-Direction of the Road
-The White Donkey
-Gwilan's Harp
-May's Lion
-Buffalo Gals, Won't You Come Out Tonight
-Horse Camp
-The Water Is Wide
-The Lost Children
-Texts
-Sleepwalkers
-Hand, Cup, Shell
-Ether, Or
-Half Past Four
-The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
-Semely's Necklace
-Nine Lives
-Mazes
-The First Contact with the Gorgonids
-The Shobies' Story
-Betrayals
-The Matter of Seggri
-Solitude
-The Wild Girls
-The Flyers of Gy
-The Silence of the Asonu
-The Ascent of the North Face
-The Author of the Acacia Seeds
-The Wife's Story
-The Rule of Names
-Small Change
-The Poacher
-Sur
-She Unnames Them
-The Jar of Water