Cruel Shoes is a collection of offbeat, mostly humorous essays and short stories by Steve Martin, and his first published book, and is also the title of one of the pieces therein, a satirical short-short story about a woman in a shoe store.

The works included in the book are:

• My Uncle's Metaphysics
• Demolition of Cathedral at Chartres
• The Confessions of Raymond to His Goldfish
• The Boring Leading the Bored
• Cruel Shoes
• The Bohemians
• Serious Dogs
• The Diarrhea Gardens of El Camino Real
• Turds
• The Undertakers
• The Day the Dopes Came Over
• The Smokers
• She Had The Jugs
• Sex Crazed Love Goddesses
• Women Without Bones
• The Children Called Him Big Nose
• Wrong Number
• Morse and the Naughty Magnets
• Dynamite King
• The Gift of the Magi Indian Giver
• Poodles... Great Eating
• Shuckin' the Jive
• How To Fold Soup
• The Vengeful Curtain Rod
• Cows In Trouble
• The Complete Works of Alfredo Francesi
• Society In Aspen
• The Day the Buffalo Danced.
• Things Not To Be
• No Man's Land
• Oh Mercy, The Prose-Poem Tryptch!
• Comedy Events You Can Do
• Dr. Fitzkee's Lucky Astrology Diet
• The Morning I Got Out of Bed
• What to Say When the Ducks Show Up
• The Year Winter Lasted Nine Minutes
• The Almaden Summer
• The Nervous Father
• Dogs In My Nose
• Awards
• Rivers of the Dead
• When Men Shop
• The Last Thing On My Mind