Something Short and Sweet

[applepie]

I could use some help in choosing some new things to read. There are tons of books I want to read, but not many that I have the time for. I swear I've read the same page in Love in the time of Cholera twenty times Life is way too hectic to allow for reading even any of the moderatly long books I would love to enjoy. Sooooooooooooo, this is where I could use all of your help I need suggestions of stories that are short, well written, and enjoyable. Short story anthologies are great, and short novels running around the length of The Time Machine and other H.G. Wells stories or even Lord of the Flies would be fine too. I've read some of the short stories by Charles De Lint, and I love him. I blame a book of his read in the book club maybe two years ago. Anything by him you can suggest would be great. All in all, I read anything. I'm not picky on books, and I truly just love to read. Whatever you suggest will be most welcome, and, just think, you will be helping me to fit literature back into my crazy schedule.

Thanks,
Meg

[Virgil]

Try Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It's a great read. Plus it will be coming out as a movie in the fall.

[Joreads]

Try Cormac McCarthy's The Road. It's a great read. Plus it will be coming out as a movie in the fall.

I have to agree it is a first class read and I think the movie will be great

[Dark Muse]

The Stranger by Camus I really enjoyed, and it is a short novel.

[stlukesguild]

Short stories/fiction?

Tolstoy- Short Stories (The Death of Ivan Ilych, etc...)
Dostoevsky- Short Stories
Checkov- Short Stories
Turgenev- First Love, Fathers and Sons, Spring Torrents
Goethe- The Sorrows of Young Werther
Kafka- Collected Short Stories
Voltaire- Candide
Diderot- Rameau's Nephew
Balzac- The Girl with the Golden Eyes
Theophile Gautier- Short Stories
Guy de Maupassant- Short Stories
E.T.A. Hoffmann- Tales of Hoffmann
Cees Nooteboom- The Following Story
Danilo Kis- Garden, Ashes
Marguerite Yourcenar- Oriental Tales
J.L. Borges- Ficciones, Labyrinths, Collected Fictions
Italo Calvino- Cosmicomics, Difficult Loves, Invisible Cities***
Tomaso Landolfi- Words in Commotion
Goffredo Parese- Solitudes
Julio Cortazar- Blow-Up and Other Stories
Alejo Carpentier- Baroque Concerto
Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis- The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas
Augusto Monterroso- Complete Works and Other Stories
Nathaniel Hawthorne- Short Stories
E.A. Poe- Short Stories
Henry James- The Turn of the Screw, The Beast in the Jungle
C.K. Chesterton- Short Stories/Father Brown Stories
Oscar Wilde- The Portrait of Dorian Gray
Sherwood Anderson- Winesburg, Ohio
Ambrose Bierce- Short Stories
R.L. Stevenson- Dr. Jeckyl and Mr, Hyde/Short Stories
Steinbeck- Of Mice and Men, The Pearl
Hemingway- Short Stories
Flanery O'Conner- Short Stories
Nathaniel West- Miss Lonelyhearts
Donald Barthleme- 40 Stories, 60 Stories
Saul Bellow- Dangling Man
Sholem Aleichem- Tevye's Daughters/Stories
S.Y. Abramovitsh- Tales of Mendele the Book Peddler
S.Y. Agnon- Stories
Isaac Babel- Short Stories
Yoel Hoffmann- Katschen/The Book of Joseph, Bernhard
I.B. Singer- Stories
Amos Oz- Soumchi
Yasunari Kawabata- Thousand Cranes, Sound of the Mountain
W.S. Merwin- The Book of Fables
Robert Coover- Spanking the Maid
Kenzaburo Oe- A Personal Matter

These should keep you busy... and well read... without excessive length.

[Dark Muse]

Cannot beleive I did not think of this when I first posted, but I just have to add that Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse is a marvolous story that is not very long.

[EricP]

Try "Absurdistan" by Gary Shteyngart. It's short, easy to read, and very funny!

[johann cruyff]

Also, Gogol's short stories. And, if you can find it, Heinrich von Kleist's.

I'm not sure if you've read anything by Ivo Andrić, try finding The Damned Yard, a brilliant work.

[Shalot]

Right now I am reading through Bagombo snuff box: Uncollected Short Fiction by Kurt Vonnegut. So far, I'm giving it a

[Scheherazade]

Short and sweet books:

Five People You Meet in Heaven (there is a review thread in Reviews section)

Politically Correct Bedtime Stories (ditto)

[applepie]

Thank you all for the suggestions Luke, thanks for the very extensive list. I think I can put together a good reading list now with everything that you have all provided that will keep me busy for some time.

Thanks,
Meg