The Best Short Stories

[epepke]

I've often wondered what it would be like to make an anthology of the best short stories. Of course, I'm not a publisher, but it's fun to think about. I'd like to ask people to suggest candidates.

"Best" is of course subjective. What I am looking for is a story as a story. It should be important, in the sense that it's about something that is important to human beings, but it need not be serious. There must be a common human resonation with it.

So is "short story," of course. I'm looking for stories that couldn't be edited or shortened much more without detracting from the point.

Just words, though. Graphic short stories may count if they can stand on their words alone.

Some essays, if fictionalized enough, may count as short stories.

English is not required. It could be any language.

So, I'd like to open this up for suggestions.

I provide the following examples as seeds, not necessarily to limit the submissions. Also, you can say more about your submissions than I have; I'm just trying to provide a variety, which means less individual description. Submissions need not be in the form I have chosen.

Title: The Electric Ant
Author: Philip K. Dick
About: The nature of reality

Title: A Day's Wait
Author: Ernest Hemingway
About: Love, fear, courage, misunderstanding, childhood

Title: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Author: James Thurber
About: Timorousness, escape into fantasy

Title: Das Grablied
Author: Friedrich Nietzsche
About: Personal damage and pain, old grudges, and overcoming them

Title: I can't remember, but it is the one where the family "gives" a child all the stars as a birthday present
Auuthor: Ray Bradbury
About: Love, making do, awe, a feeling of the numinous

Title: Just a Little One
Author: Dorothy Parker
About: Superficially about alcohol, really about repressed impulses and dreams.

Title: A Clean, Well Lighted Place
Author: Ernest Hemmingway
About: Rootlessness

Title: Las Ruinas Circulares
Author: Jorje Luis Borges
About: The nature of reality and dreams

[Cleopatra]

That's an interesting topic.From all the stories you mention I am familiar only with the one of Borges who is in expert in writing short romantic ( but not in the mushy way) stories.I like Borges very much.

Maybe I am wrong but I think that short stories were in "fashion" during the 19th ce. Maybe because printing a book wasn't such an easy task.

Of course the masters in short stories were the Greeks, I don't know if you are aware of the most famous authors who wrote short stories.

[LuxFerum]

Does short films count?

[epepke]

Originally posted by Cleopatra
That's an interesting topic.From all the stories you mention I am familiar only with the one of Borges who is in expert in writing short romantic ( but not in the mushy way) stories.I like Borges very much.

Borges rocks. But he rocks in the same wat that Philip K. Dick rocks. You should check him out.

Maybe I am wrong but I think that short stories were in "fashion" during the 19th ce. Maybe because printing a book wasn't such an easy task.

Short stories were popular in the US up until about the 1960's, mostly due to magazines. There are some magazines that still publish short stories. Playboy publishes some good ones, but people think it's a titty magazine, which of course it also is. Esquire manages to get a few. The New Yorker publishes some, but they're only from Established New Yorker Authors™ The Atlantic publishes some, but it's not widely read. Basically, the only mass-market outlets for short stories are the Science Fiction and Mystery magazines, and even these are not very good. Of course, I'm only talking about American magazines here, as they're the only ones I know of.

Basically, I'm looking for anything that involves reading that could hold the interest of the average post-MTV generation long enough but could really pack a punch.

Of course the masters in short stories were the Greeks, I don't know if you are aware of the most famous authors who wrote short stories.

I'm probably not. I think I'm pretty knowledgeable about the old Greek playwrights. And I know about some old Greek stories, but that's mainly from Bullfinch's Mythology. And once, in elementary school, I corrected the school principal's pronunciation of Aesop in front of a school assembly (he was gracious about it) which should count for something. But, no, I don't know anything about Greek short-story writers.

[epepke]

Originally posted by LuxFerum
Does short films count?

I'm afraid not. Although that, too, could be an interesting thread. I'd put "The Resurrection of Bronco Billy" as an example.

[Kullervo]

Originally posted by Cleopatra
Of course the masters in short stories were the Greeks, I don't know if you are aware of the most famous authors who wrote short stories. Ah, but the short story is truly an American invention.

Five favorites follow

Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find.
Poe's The Masque of the Red Death
Paul Theroux's The Lawyer's Story
Mark Twain The Man who Corrupted Hadleyburg
Herman Melville Bartleby the Scrivener

[epepke]

Originally posted by Kullervo
Ah, but the short story is truly an American invention.

Five favorites follow

Flannery O'Connor's A Good Man is Hard to Find.
Poe's The Masque of the Red Death
Paul Theroux's The Lawyer's Story
Mark Twain The Man who Corrupted Hadleyburg
Herman Melville Bartleby the Scrivener

Damn. I've only read three of those, but I'll be sure to read he rest.

[Kullervo]

It's a stretch to call the Twain and Melville pieces short stories - they're more like novelettes, but they can be read in one sitting.

Borges is one of my very favorite writers. I've worn out two copies of Labyrinths. Genius.

[Brown]

Agatha Christie's The Witness for the Prosecution
Almost anything by Poe; he's dead and he still kicks Stephen King's butt
Most of the short stories in Stephen King's Skeleton Crew are pretty good, though.

[Jon_in_london]

Anything by Herman Charles Bosman.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Jon_in_london
Anything by Herman Charles Bosman.

You're not getting off this easily!

Pick one or two or three.

[Cleopatra]

Brown Of course Edgar Allan Poe!!! When I was writing about Borges I wanted to refer to his dark love stories and Poe came to my mind but the phone must have rung.

Of course! His stories are really good.


Originally posted by epepke
But he rocks in the same wat that Philip K. Dick rocks. You should check him out.

I will.Thanks for the tip.

Short stories were popular in the US up until about the 1960's, mostly due to magazines. There are some magazines that still publish short stories. Playboy publishes some good ones, but people think it's a titty magazine, which of course it also is. Esquire manages to get a few. The New Yorker publishes some, but they're only from Established New Yorker Authors™ The Atlantic publishes some, but it's not widely read. Basically, the only mass-market outlets for short stories are the Science Fiction and Mystery magazines, and even these are not very good. Of course, I'm only talking about American magazines here, as they're the only ones I know of.

I agree on everything. Playboy leads in the field of short stories.

Now. Atlantic Monthly and New Yorker are the only american magazines I read anymore and I have to confess that I read their short stories the way I take a pill for the headache. I read them because I try ( although I follow them systematically for 5 years now and just sporadically earlier) to catch their drift but I can't. I don't know why. Do the have a professed sense of traditionalism that puts me off? Do they try to be old fashioned but they fail? Are they too American for me to understand? Are their authors snooty just because they write in those magazines [ "Admit that you say this out of jealousy Cleopatra"--"Shut up Charmion!"]

I don't know. I don't know and I get frustrated.

Basically, I'm looking for anything that involves reading that could hold the interest of the average post-MTV generation long enough but could really pack a punch.

Ha! When you are young you "get high" by reading in excruciating details about how an Old Man spends his days by the Sea or how decadent Americans get drunk and watch bull-fights.

Brevity is a virtue that comes with maturity.

But, no, I don't know anything about Greek short-story writers.

Stovaios. Some stories of Plutarch, Lucian are the first who come to my mind. Of course the purpose of those stories was to preach to the youth but they are very funny and pleasant.

Question. When we say short stories, I presume that we mean 2 pages long the maximum.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Cleopatra
I will.Thanks for the tip.

If you are really into Borges, I would recommend Ubik to start with, which is about the nature of illusion, reality, and death. Or you could try Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? which is largely about empathy and what it means to be human. It was also the source for the movie Blade Runner, of which Dick said, "It is terrific. It has nothing to do with the book." Or else Flow my Tears, the Policeman Said which is kind of hard to describe.

Many people say that his best work is Valis, but it's a bit rarefied. Plus it doesn't make much sense without The Divine Invasion and The Transmigration of Timothy Archer. All three are about Gnostic Christianity.

Now. Atlantic Monthly and New Yorker are the only american magazines I read anymore and I have to confess that I read their short stories the way I take a pill for the headache. I read them because I try ( although I follow them systematically for 5 years now and just sporadically earlier) to catch their drift but I can't. I don't know why. Do the have a professed sense of traditionalism that puts me off? Do they try to be old fashioned but they fail? Are they too American for me to understand? Are their authors snooty just because they write in those magazines.

Unfortunately, there is a present trend of emphasizing wordplay at the expense of storytelling.

They are also snooty.

Stovaios. Some stories of Plutarch, Lucian are the first who come to my mind. Of course the purpose of those stories was to preach to the youth but they are very funny and pleasant.

I'm somewhat familiar with Plutarch, less so with Lucian, and not at all with Stovaios, but thanks for the tip. I'll check them out when I can.

Question. When we say short stories, I presume that we mean 2 pages long the maximum.

Sorry for the confusion. Those are, I think, called driblets. Or something. I've read some that are quite good. There is a Ray Bradbury story about a luggage shop on Mars that is about 1.5 pages long that I just can't read, because I can't see through the tears before I get to the end. And Philip K. Dick managed to write the ultimate Harlan Elisson short story in one paragraph of about five lines. I like that form very much, but that that isn't what I was referring to.

What I am referring to when I say short stories are on the order of 1 to 30 pages. I don't want to get too precise on it. Basically anything that is usually read in a single sitting.

[Phil]

Originally posted by Cleopatra
Now. Atlantic Monthly and New Yorker are the only american magazines I read anymore and I have to confess that I read their short stories the way I take a pill for the headache. I read them because I try ( although I follow them systematically for 5 years now and just sporadically earlier) to catch their drift but I can't. I don't know why. Do the have a professed sense of traditionalism that puts me off? Do they try to be old fashioned but they fail? Are they too American for me to understand? Are their authors snooty just because they write in those magazines [ "Admit that you say this out of jealousy Cleopatra"--"Shut up Charmion!"]

I don't know. I don't know and I get frustrated. . .
You are not alone in this sentiment, Cleopatra. In my view, these magazines are often full of themselves. They print garbage under the delusion that they know art. Every once in a while I'll read a decent story in the New Yorker, but most times I find I have the same frustrations as you.

And I'm not just saying that because I've been rejected by Atlantic and the New Yorker a few times before.

[Iconoclast]

Originally posted by Brown
Agatha Christie's The Witness for the Prosecution
Almost anything by Poe
Edgar Allan Poe was the first author I thought of when short stories was mentioned, and his classic "The Cask Of Amontillado" would rate as my all time favourite short story.

For anyone who's not read it yet, it's available for download from the Project Gutenberg site:

http://www.gutenberg.net/browse/BIBREC/BR1065.HTM

[LFTKBS]

Anything by Gary Lutz. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/097094280X/qid=1079109449/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-7177818-3651032?v=glance&s=books)

Holy Jesus on a stick, he is good.

[Phil]

Originally posted by LFTKBS
Anything by Gary Lutz. (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/097094280X/qid=1079109449/sr=1-2/ref=sr_1_2/103-7177818-3651032?v=glance&s=books)

Holy Jesus on a stick, he is good.
Seconded.

[No Answers]

Inconstant Moon by Larry Niven.

Very good.

[Thinking in CT]

"The Star" by Arthur C. Clark

Interstellar exploration and the relationship between God, nature and Man. With a surprise ending in the last word of the story.

[phildonnia]

For deep thought I really like "The Children's Story" by James Clavell.

A good short story by Poe is "Thou art the man".

[Lemastre]

Charles Bukowski's short stories are about people I understand and deal with every day. They are more truth than fiction.

[sorgoth]

Guy de Maupassant wrote a couple of good ones...


I find short stories are the hardest type of literature to find. Books I can find at the library, poems I can find on the internet.

Short stories are at an awkward place in between.

There's always amazon, but... That requires money and a credit card, neither of which I have.

[JAR]

My list includes:

"Beyond the Pale" from "Plain Tales From the Hills" by Rudyard Kipling

The short stories from both of Rudyard Kipling's Jungle Books

"Lispeth" from "Plain Tales From the Hills" by Rudyard Kipling(the woman Lispeth also appears in his novel called "Kim")

"The Man Who Would Be King" from "The Phantom 'Rickshaw and Other Ghost Stories" by Rudyard Kipling

"The Sage and the Atheist" by Voltaire

Pretty much any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyles' short stories about Sherlock Holmes

[QuarkChild]

Originally posted by epepke


Title: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Author: James Thurber
That's my favorite! You can read it for free online...I forget where but I managed it by a google search once.

My second favorite:
"Beware of the Dog" by Roald Dahl. It's about a soldier captured in WWII...sounds boring but I read it in high school and it's still lodged in my memory, even though I go through books like sand through a sieve.

[JesFine]

Two really good collections of short stories:
"Sixty Stories" by Donald Barthelme
"Brief Interviews with Hideous Men" by David Foster Wallace

I especially liked "The Dolt" by Barthelme, but of course it is impossible to pick a favorite from this book. Looking over the table of contents again I see a bunch that are great ("Me and Miss Mandible", "The Balloon", "The School", etc).

Wallace also makes it hard to pick out a favorite, although you could make a strong case for the four separate stories all named "Brief Interviews with Hideous Men". Maybe especially "Brief Interview #20". And I also like "Octet" which you will probably like if you like "Adaptation" as he takes the whole idea of meta-fiction to an extreme and sometimes uncomfortable level.

I recently read "Fatherhood" by Thomas H. Cook which I like for possibly no other reason than I didn't see the ending coming, which I usually do. So that was a nice surprise.

[fishbob]

The Ugly Chickens - an account of the last dodo.

and

Mary Margaret Road-Grader - post apocolypse tractor pulls.

both by Howard Waldrop.

[Floyt]

"Dagon", by Avram Davidson.

About ambition, and a mingling of life and dream so gradual that I still can't tell were exactly the transition is, after a dozen readings...

(Who also wrote the only other dodo SF story I know, "Full Chicken Richness". You read it, fishbob?)

[ASRomatifoso]

Strays by Mark Richard
The Ice at the Bottom of the World by Mark Richard
The Tennis Handsome by Barry Hannah (short novel)
Dragged Fighting From His Tomb by Barry Hannah (from Airships, one of the best short story collections ever)
To Build a Fire by Jack London (an old one that everyone has read a million times but very good)
The Distant Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury (That's close if not the exact title, read it when I was younger and loved it. It's about the guy who goes back in time to shoot a dinosaur and messes up the future by stepping on a butterfly)
A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O'Connor
The Nick Adams stories by Ernest Hemingway (on the whole his slightest works, I think but still enjoyable)

[Checkmite]

The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson.

[specious_reasons]

Kafka's short stories are more like vignettes. My personal favorite is "Resolutions"

[Brian]

Satre:
The Wall
The whole book, but mostly the first 3 out of 5 stories.

[Cleopatra]

The Butcher, by Alina Reyes.

[epepke]

Originally posted by ASRomatifoso
To Build a Fire by Jack London (an old one that everyone has read a million times but very good)

A good one. I would have included that if I had remembered it. Also, I think, The Lottery by Shirley Jackson.

The Distant Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury (That's close if not the exact title, read it when I was younger and loved it. It's about the guy who goes back in time to shoot a dinosaur and messes up the future by stepping on a butterfly)

"A Sound of Thunder." Perhaps the most essential time-travel story. Again, I should have thought of that one. I think it's the second short-story I ever read, after his "The Fog Horn." I was about four, and I remember getting sick from reading in the back of the Impala.

[Hutch]

The Nine Billion Names of God by AC Clarke--read it 40 years ago, still the only story I ever read aloud to my family.

50 Grand by Ernest Hemingway--The one boxing story even people who hate boxing need to read.

To many other good ones already mentioned.

[QuarkDad]

The Long Walk
by Steven King using that fake name.

About risking all for a chance at everything.

I swore when I was done I would/could never read it again. Rips your guts out with painful imagery.

[Skeptic]

Best description of intelligent alien life: A Martian Odyssey, by Stanley Weinbaum

Best time-travel story: By his Bootstraps by Robert Heinlein.

[zer0vector]

A Rose for Emily--Faulkner

[S. D. Youngren]

Originally posted by JesFine
I especially liked "The Dolt" by Barthelme, but of course it is impossible to pick a favorite from this book. Looking over the table of contents again I see a bunch that are great ("Me and Miss Mandible", "The Balloon", "The School", etc).


Somewhere I have a scrungy old photocopy of "Miss Mandible" that I got in some class some eons ago, with the author's name missing. I never knew who wrote it. Thanks for telling me!

Trying not to mention stories nominated already, but by some authors mentioned:

Flannery O'Connor's "Good Country People"
Faulkner's "That Evening Sun"
Shirley Jackson's "After You, My Dear Alphonse"

Also: Katherine Mansfield's "Bliss"
Barry Targin's "Harry Belten and the Mendelssohn Violin Concerto" (prose isn't always the smoothest, but...well, humor me; I'm middle-aged and this resonates)
James Joyce's "Clay"
Something by Checkhov and something by Nathan Englander; give me time...

[Jaan]

The Last Dog Mike Resnick

[PhxHorn]

Gotta admit, Poe and Twain are hard to beat. Any good anthology of them is bound to be great.

For modern writers, Lawrence Block published a collection called Enough Rope last year, which is a huge, but fabulous, anthology of short suspense stories spanning his entire career. I highly recommend it.

He also wrote a series of stories for Playboy and other magazines that have been compiled into his books Hit Man and Hit List, which are both very good. The hit man character also appears in Enough Rope.

Most libraries will have these in stock.

[epepke]

Originally posted by Jaan
The Last Dog Mike Resnick

I haven't read that one, but the title reminded me of another one: The Last of the Winnebagos by Connie Willis.

[Luciana]

I didn't post in this thread before because I spent almost 2 weeks trying to remember the name and author of an excellent short story I read many years ago. Then the author's name just sprang in my mind, and I knew the word "snow" and "mountain" had to be there. All hail google! I found it. It's "The Outcasts of Poker Flat", by Bret Harte. I remember taking issue with the ending, which included a cliche unworthy of it, so I'm anxious to reread it just to see if I'll change my assessment of the short story.

To Build a Fire, absolutely. I'll never forget the moment when the dog gives up waiting for the guy to do sth useful. That was the very definition of abandonment. Spine-chilling. I took the Complete Works of Jack London to a week at a bungalow by the beach. The "cold" coming from the book was an excellent counterpoint to the tropical paradise I was in.

Dostoevsky's Crocodile is more of a novella, I don't know if it qualifies. It's Dostoevsky's for beginners, for those who think he's too stern and cower from trying his more serious works. Screamingly funny.

And what's best than see our favorite authors writing mystery short stories? Then my favorites areThe Master of Mystery by London and an Error in Chemistry by Faulkner.

Poe is a complicated case as I'm yet to find a story I don't like, but one that hasn't been mentioned yet would be Thou art the Man.

Quite a few by Brazilian and Portuguese writers.

And now it will take me another week to remember the Tolstoi's short story in which, in the first paragraph's, he makes a detailed description of the life of suffering of a horse. Off to google in a minute.

I love Asimov's short stories, although I can't remember any specifically. All of them are mostly good, and he was the one who gave me a taste for science fiction, though I have to admit I haven't followed it and stopped with his stories only. :)

I'll remember more, geez, this thread will haunt me for weeks...

[Jaan]

Originally posted by Luciana Nery
Quite a few by Brazilian and Portuguese writers. Like what? You're not the only one here who speaks Portuguese (c:

[epepke]

Originally posted by Jaan
Like what? You're not the only one here who speaks Portuguese (c:

Indeed. I specified that English not be required. However, I think it needs to be narrowed down a but further than "Brazilian and Portugese authors." That's quite a large number.

My goal is to find a number of short stories that could conceivably be assembled into a (possibly large, and possibly multi-volumed) book. A plane ticket to Rio de Janiero and a post-it not that says "read everything in all the libraries" is not an option.

[Luciana]

Sorry. I fully admit to having underestimated folks here. :) I will look up the titles when I get home. I know only a handful of Portuguese writers (a mistake, I admit), but I can provide a good list of "the best of the best" from Brazilian authors.

Missa do Galo, by Machado de Assis. I will never forget this one because it marked my passage as a reader of child stories, where things are to be understood literally, to a critical reader. I was barely ready to grasp the underlying sensuality of the text. As I reread it nowadays, the more sensual it gets.

God is Brazilian by João Ubaldo Ribeiro. It's a lighthearted short story about the day God decides to go on vacation and gets a job as a fisherman in a paradise beach in Brazil. It's the rolling on the floor kind of humor, so you should take care not to miss its layers of meaning.

In O Vampiro de Curitiba, by Dalton Trevisan, a collection of short stories, there is one about a rape that got me an A in an essay at the university. I was dead drunk when I took the test! Now, what was its title?? To my pain, I have quite another collection of half-remembered short stories which I'll have to strain my memory to find the books. Eça de Queirós, Verissimo, Rubem Fonseca, Clarice Lispector, to mention just a few. Well, at least I get to reread them. :)

[renata]

Pretty much anything by O. Henry, Mark Twain, Chekhov and Guy de Maupassant for classic short stories. Many people think O. Henry wrote trite, shallow stories, but I find that I love the writing, and come to them over and over for relaxation and peace. For reasons I don't understand it is his Gift of the Magi that get put in various anthologies- one of his least interesting stories, in my opinion.

[HTmonkey]

My favorites (in order)

1.Nikolai Gogol: How Ivan Ivanovich quarrelled with Ivan Nikiforovich
(So simple story, friendship of two men ruined forever by one word...)

1. Brown mentioned S.King's Skeleton Crew, from that I pick
Survivor Type (I'd like to see this made to a short film, I like the
growing insanity and the extreme lengths this man goes to save his life)

3. Poe's Tell-tale Heart (does he really hear the heart or is it just
in his mind...)

As for what others recommended, I have not even heard of those.
Off course the Letters from Earth from Mark Twain, but for example what Luciana Nery listed, are totally unknown to me. It's really a shame because there are such a great stories and poems written all around the earth and you just hear of the popular ones. And then there's a pesky thing called language (barrier).
I think everything should be read in language they're written.

(sorry for OT, but has any of you heard of Eino Leino, the great finnish poet? the greatest poems I've ever read, but again, they lose their charm(?) in translation.)

It's really sad, that life's too short for all the great stuff humankind has done to entertain itself. (and you're positive there's no afterlife/rebirth etc...?)
:D

pps. and for pillory, post more of your (drunken) poems... :D

[JesFine]

Originally posted by S. D. Youngren


Somewhere I have a scrungy old photocopy of "Miss Mandible" that I got in some class some eons ago, with the author's name missing. I never knew who wrote it. Thanks for telling me!Nice! I hope you read the rest of his stories, they're good.

Shirley Jackson's "After You, My Dear Alphonse"I just picked up a collection of Jackson's short stories and this one was pretty good. I am trying to read them keeping in mind they were written in the 1940's or something but most of these are not exactly my cup of tea. I also liked "The Renegade" but at the end of most of these stories I find myself saying "wait... that's the end? Did I miss something?" I probably did.

[Dragonrock]

Originally posted by Joshua Korosi
The Lottery, by Shirley Jackson.

Good One!! Gave me the creeps. I haven't read any reviews or discussions, but I always thought it was a metaphor for the hypocrasy found in some religions.

In my opinion, the greatest short story of all time it The Last Question by Issac Asimov. The first time I read it I was floored, I immediately went back and read it twice more. I still read it occasionally in an attempt to get that rush again. It's never the same, but it's still great.

[FIfteen Iguana]

Ignoring stories others have mentioned:


Borges: The Cult of the Phoenix (If you think about it -especially from the viewpoint of an early twentieth century Catholic society - you can figure out what the cult's ritual really is...), The Library of Babel, The Garden of Forking Paths

Isaac Bashevis Singer: A Crown of Feathers

Thurber: The Catbird Seat, The man Who Knew Too Little

W.P. Kinsella: Pius Blindman is Coming Home, Dance Me Outside

Heinlein: All You Zombies


And since I mostly read (and write) mysteries, here are some favorites:

Isaac Asimov: The Chuckle

Bradbury: The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl

Avram Davidson: The Lord of Central Park

Donald Westlake: Come Back, Come Back

Stanley Ellin: The Payoff, You Can't Be A Little Girl All Your Life

Jack Ritchie: The Absence of Emily, The Day the Sherriff Walked

James Powell: The Plot to Kill Santa Claus, The Tamerlane Crutch

Harry Kemelman: The Nine Mile Walk

Dashiel Hammett: The House on Turk Street, The Gutting of Coughinal

FIfteen Iguana

[epepke]

Originally posted by FIfteen Iguana
Bradbury: The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl

Oh, yeah! I had forgotten that one. Incredible.

[epepke]

Originally posted by renata
For reasons I don't understand it is his Gift of the Magi that get put in various anthologies- one of his least interesting stories, in my opinion.

Steve Martin did a good parody of this one in Cruel Shoes. It's something totally ridiculous, like the woman wants to buy him kneecap-warmers, but he sells his kneecaps. At the end is the line, "'Well, I'll be hog-tied.' 'You will? Oh boy!' So it turned out to be a pretty good Christmas after all."

[Electron #1]

Ken Kesey's book of short stories Demon Box is a excellent read cover to cover my favorites are the title story and "The Day Superman Died "

I have to add my enthusiastic YES! to the apraisals of Jack Londons "To Build a Fire" and all things Phillip K Dick.

My favorite short story of all time is a adaption of a opera that Anthony Burgess
translates in his book of short stories Devils Mode the story being "Cavalier of the Rose "

Also if you like gritty realistic crime stories that will proliferate your thoughts with Tom Waits style euphenisms you really can't go wrong with Jim Thompson.

[TwoShanks]

Will Self's short story collection "The Quantity Theory of Insanity" is an excellent read, very surreal and packed with dry wit.

I'd also suggest "Nightfall" by Asimov as one of the best.

[RebeccaBradley]

The Liberation of Earth, by William Tenn. Classic s-f from the 1950's, but especially chilling in view of what's happening in Iraq...

ALL of Dorothy Parker's stories, though my favourites are Big Blonde, The Standard of Living, and Cousin Larry. Nice and bitchy.

Penelope Lively's collection, Pack of Cards - especially the stories A World of Her Own and A Long Night at Abu Simbel.

Roald Dahl's Tales of the Unexpected.

Ruth Rendell's collections: Copper Peacock, Tree of Hands (?), Lovelines.

Ring Lardner's classic, Some Like Them Cold.

The Monkey's Paw, by W.W.Jacobs.

All of Saki's stories.

There's lots of good stuff out there, old and new. And yet publishers claim they can't afford to publish volumes of short stories, because nobody wants to read them! I think that says more about publishers than about readers....

[aerosolben]

Originally posted by QuarkDad
The Long Walk
by Steven King using that fake name.

About risking all for a chance at everything.

I swore when I was done I would/could never read it again. Rips your guts out with painful imagery.

Seconded.

I am a big fan of all the Bachman novelettes. The Running Man and the one in the school especially, the other one not so much.

Stephen King's other short stories are decent (I liked the Mist, but not so much for the storytelling as for the imagery and the setting), but the Bachman books are excellent.

[FIfteen Iguana]

I just realized my first list was all male. Shame on me for forgetting:

Flannery O'Connor: Everything that rises must converge (hell, the title alone is worth the price of the book, plus it's a great story)

Kate Chopin: The Story of an Hour

Sue Grafton: A Poison that Leaves no Trace

And, going back to men, I forgot:

Saki: The Open Window

[demon]

The antiquarian ghost stories of M.R.James.
Most definitely a rival of Poe in the genre.

[LostAngeles]

My boyfriend had "The Minority Report and Other Stories" book that was likely put out fairly recently.

Through this I've become a Dick fan. He's utterly blackly funny at times. I think my favorites in that book are "Waterspider", "War Games", "Oh to be a Blobel", "Explorers We", and... oh hell the whole damn thing.

Lovecraft was pulpy and prone to racism, xenophobia and big words. But in general, I find him to be pretty imaginative. Most especially the ones that sort of spiral out from "The Dream-Quest of Unknown Kadath" as it's almost like a whole other mythos. I recommend reading "Pickman's Model" while standing in Boston's Boylston station. It's quite the scare.

I've always like the sentimentality of "The Gift of the Magi" myself and as far as Poe goes, I really enjoy "Hopfrog", I believe it's called. It's the one about the jester and the dwarfgirl in the king's court and how the jester avenges her mistreatment.

It's really more of a short novel, but The Crying of Lot 49 left me with a vague feeling of paranoia and being in love. It was rather disconcerting and yet fun. It's a very... odd book.

There's a lot more, but those are the ones in my head right now.

[Hydrogen Cyanide]

Ah, so many of my favorites have been listed... from Mark Twain, Poe and several others...

I would like to add "The Imp in the Bottle" by Robert Louis Stevenson ... and I did enjoy reading all 60 Sherlock Holmes tales by Conan Doyle as a kid.

I would also like to note that one of my favorite collections being reprinted in a 35th year anniversary edition, "Dangerous Visions":

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743452615/

(I know I'm warped... love him or hate him as a person, I do like hte short stories of Harlan Ellison -- this causes my hubby to roll his eyes and shake his head at me)

[tim]

"The Monkey's Paw" by W W Jacobs.

For the entire story, go here...................

http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/mnkyspaw.htm

[RSLancastr]

I've seen lots of my favorites listed here. Another is "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" by Ursula K. Le Guin

I've often thought it would translate into an excellent one-act opera.