Your favorite short story

[Three Sparrows]

This question probably has been asked before, so I guess it's being asked again, for I am feeling a little curious. So, what is your favorite short story? For myself, I like Hawthorne very much, especially Rappaccini's Daughter. Anyone else enjoy reading short stories?

[Nemo Neem]

There are many that I enjoy, but I would have to say Edgar Allan Poe's "Loss of Breath" is my true favorite.

[tbarnes]

On seeing the 100% perfect girl one beautiful April morning


One beautiful April morning, on a narrow side street in Tokyo's fashionable Harujuku neighborhood, I walked past the 100% perfect girl.

Tell you the truth, she's not that good-looking. She doesn't stand out in any way. Her clothes are nothing special. The back of her hair is still bent out of shape from sleep. She isn't young, either - must be near thirty, not even close to a "girl," properly speaking. But still, I know from fifty yards away: She's the 100% perfect girl for me. The moment I see her, there's a rumbling in my chest, and my mouth is as dry as a desert.

Maybe you have your own particular favorite type of girl - one with slim ankles, say, or big eyes, or graceful fingers, or you're drawn for no good reason to girls who take their time with every meal. I have my own preferences, of course. Sometimes in a restaurant I'll catch myself staring at the girl at the next table to mine because I like the shape of her nose.

But no one can insist that his 100% perfect girl correspond to some preconceived type. Much as I like noses, I can't recall the shape of hers - or even if she had one. All I can remember for sure is that she was no great beauty. It's weird.

"Yesterday on the street I passed the 100% girl," I tell someone.

"Yeah?" he says. "Good-looking?"

"Not really."

"Your favorite type, then?"

"I don't know. I can't seem to remember anything about her - the shape of her eyes or the size of her breasts."

"Strange."

"Yeah. Strange."

"So anyhow," he says, already bored, "what did you do? Talk to her? Follow her?"

"Nah. Just passed her on the street."

She's walking east to west, and I west to east. It's a really nice April morning.

Wish I could talk to her. Half an hour would be plenty: just ask her about herself, tell her about myself, and - what I'd really like to do - explain to her the complexities of fate that have led to our passing each other on a side street in Harajuku on a beautiful April morning in 1981. This was something sure to be crammed full of warm secrets, like an antique clock build when peace filled the world.

After talking, we'd have lunch somewhere, maybe see a Woody Allen movie, stop by a hotel bar for cocktails. With any kind of luck, we might end up in bed.

Potentiality knocks on the door of my heart.

Now the distance between us has narrowed to fifteen yards.

How can I approach her? What should I say?

"Good morning, miss. Do you think you could spare half an hour for a little conversation?"

Ridiculous. I'd sound like an insurance salesman.

"Pardon me, but would you happen to know if there is an all-night cleaners in the neighborhood?"

No, this is just as ridiculous. I'm not carrying any laundry, for one thing. Who's going to buy a line like that?

Maybe the simple truth would do. "Good morning. You are the 100% perfect girl for me."

No, she wouldn't believe it. Or even if she did, she might not want to talk to me. Sorry, she could say, I might be the 100% perfect girl for you, but you're not the 100% boy for me. It could happen. And if I found myself in that situation, I'd probably go to pieces. I'd never recover from the shock. I'm thirty-two, and that's what growing older is all about.

We pass in front of a flower shop. A small, warm air mass touches my skin. The asphalt is damp, and I catch the scent of roses. I can't bring myself to speak to her. She wears a white sweater, and in her right hand she holds a crisp white envelope lacking only a stamp. So: She's written somebody a letter, maybe spent the whole night writing, to judge from the sleepy look in her eyes. The envelope could contain every secret she's ever had.

I take a few more strides and turn: She's lost in the crowd.

Now, of course, I know exactly what I should have said to her. It would have been a long speech, though, far too long for me to have delivered it properly. The ideas I come up with are never very practical.

Oh, well. It would have started "Once upon a time" and ended "A sad story, don't you think?"

Once upon a time, there lived a boy and a girl. The boy was eighteen and the girl sixteen. He was not unusually handsome, and she was not especially beautiful. They were just an ordinary lonely boy and an ordinary lonely girl, like all the others. But they believed with their whole hearts that somewhere in the world there lived the 100% perfect boy and the 100% perfect girl for them. Yes, they believed in a miracle. And that miracle actually happened.

One day the two came upon each other on the corner of a street.

"This is amazing," he said. "I've been looking for you all my life. You may not believe this, but you're the 100% perfect girl for me."

"And you," she said to him, "are the 100% perfect boy for me, exactly as I'd pictured you in every detail. It's like a dream."

They sat on a park bench, held hands, and told each other their stories hour after hour. They were not lonely anymore. They had found and been found by their 100% perfect other. What a wonderful thing it is to find and be found by your 100% perfect other. It's a miracle, a cosmic miracle.

As they sat and talked, however, a tiny, tiny sliver of doubt took root in their hearts: Was it really all right for one's dreams to come true so easily?

And so, when there came a momentary lull in their conversation, the boy said to the girl, "Let's test ourselves - just once. If we really are each other's 100% perfect lovers, then sometime, somewhere, we will meet again without fail. And when that happens, and we know that we are the 100% perfect ones, we'll marry then and there. What do you think?"

"Yes," she said, "that is exactly what we should do."

And so they parted, she to the east, and he to the west.

The test they had agreed upon, however, was utterly unnecessary. They should never have undertaken it, because they really and truly were each other's 100% perfect lovers, and it was a miracle that they had ever met. But it was impossible for them to know this, young as they were. The cold, indifferent waves of fate proceeded to toss them unmercifully.

One winter, both the boy and the girl came down with the season's terrible inluenza, and after drifting for weeks between life and death they lost all memory of their earlier years. When they awoke, their heads were as empty as the young D. H. Lawrence's piggy bank.

They were two bright, determined young people, however, and through their unremitting efforts they were able to acquire once again the knowledge and feeling that qualified them to return as full-fledged members of society. Heaven be praised, they became truly upstanding citizens who knew how to transfer from one subway line to another, who were fully capable of sending a special-delivery letter at the post office. Indeed, they even experienced love again, sometimes as much as 75% or even 85% love.

Time passed with shocking swiftness, and soon the boy was thirty-two, the girl thirty.

One beautiful April morning, in search of a cup of coffee to start the day, the boy was walking from west to east, while the girl, intending to send a special-delivery letter, was walking from east to west, but along the same narrow street in the Harajuku neighborhood of Tokyo. They passed each other in the very center of the street. The faintest gleam of their lost memories glimmered for the briefest moment in their hearts. Each felt a rumbling in their chest. And they knew:

She is the 100% perfect girl for me.

He is the 100% perfect boy for me.

But the glow of their memories was far too weak, and their thoughts no longer had the clarity of fouteen years earlier. Without a word, they passed each other, disappearing into the crowd. Forever.

A sad story, don't you think?

Yes, that's it, that is what I should have said to her.

-- Haruki Murakami

read this in a class years ago, and it has always stuck with me.

[Emil Miller]

The Outstation by Somerset Maugham but you would have to be English to truly understand it.

[Scheherazade]

but you would have to be English to truly understand it.Priceless! :D

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48444

[Emil Miller]

Priceless! :D

http://www.online-literature.com/forums/showthread.php?t=48444

Read it, it's one of the really great short stories, despite its imperial mise en scene, and is a brilliant example of the innate English conservatism that baffles most foreigners; particularly the Americans.

[shortstoryfan]

Ooo...I'm never asked this question, so I'll have to consult some books and get back to you on this. Also, Haruki Murakami! This thread makes me happy! Be back to give my view (after time to collects thoughts).

[Night_Lamp]

The Willows by Algernon Blackwood; A really creepy modern gothic story.

[Veva]

Without a doubt it is The Happy Prince by Wilde...:bawling:

[DanielBenoit]

The Dead by James Joyce, pure music.

Runners up are:
An Encounter by James Joyce
The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka
A Message from the Emperor by Franz Kafka
Anything by Hemingway

[Three Sparrows]

Another one of my favorites is the Gold Bug, by Poe. I think its so funny.
Interesting choices, especially the 100% girl- I never heard of it.

[dfloyd]

The Fall of the House of Usher by Poe. My overall favorite short story writer is W.Somerset Maugham.

[estelwen]

Miss Brill--Katherine Mansfield
A Jury of Her Peers-Susan Glaspell

So many to choose from! These are just a couple I've read lately and liked a lot. Thanks for the recommendations everyone.

[DanielBenoit]

Here's some more, maybe not my favorites of all time, but certainly some good ones:

A Clean, Well-Lit Place by Ernest Hemingway
Hills like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway
Scenes from the Life of a Double-Monster by Vladimar Nabokov
Between Yes and No by Albert Camus

And the one which stands above them all:
Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fydor Dostoyevsky

[stlukesguild]

A single favorite short story...? Isn't that almost as impossible as a single favorite poem? I agree that Rapaccini's Daughter is a great tale. And Kafka...? Where to begin? Or Checkov? Landolfi's Gogol's Wife? O'Connor's Good Country People, Hawthorne's Young Goodman Brown or The Artist of the Beautiful, Gautier's Omphale or Clarimonde... and then Borges... but what? The Library of Babel? The Book of Sand? The Memorious Funes?

[DanielBenoit]

A single favorite short story...? Isn't that almost as impossible as a single favorite poem?

Yeah, all attempts at naming 'favorite ____ ever' are kind of futile. Usually with just about anything I can only name what I've been liking at the moment.

I'm on a short story rampage right now.

[OrphanPip]

Here's some more, maybe not my favorites of all time, but certainly some good ones:

A Clean, Well-Lit Place by Ernest Hemingway
Hills like White Elephants by Ernest Hemingway
Scenes from the Life of a Double-Monster by Vladimar Nabokov
Between Yes and No by Albert Camus

And the one which stands above them all:
Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fydor Dostoyevsky

I love "Hills like White Elephants" too, Virginia Woolf remarked about the vagueness of the dialogue that the characters were probably talking about getting a tooth pulled.

"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner
"Everyday Use" by Alice Walker
"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor

There are so many great short stories out there, it is so hard to choose a favorite.

[blazeofglory]

My all time favorite story is Dostoevsky’s the Dream of a ridiculous ma. This book is full of imagination, fantasy, realism, magic realism, existentialism and all the rest and I never get tired of rereading this story. Besides this I like all the stories of Kafka, Checkav, James Joyce, Tolstoy. They are times less story tellers.

[hellsapoppin]

I commend the readers for their excellent choices.

My favorite (now and forever!) is Poe's The Cask of Amontillado. In fact, I feel like reading it again - perhaps tomorrow night ...

[DanielBenoit]

I love "Hills like White Elephants" too, Virginia Woolf remarked about the vagueness of the dialogue that the characters were probably talking about getting a tooth pulled.

I know! That's what's so brilliant about Hemingway! He's so minimal as to description, that there is so much left to the audiences imagination.




"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner


Funny, I just read that today. Was good, but a bit tedious for me. I don't know why, because I usually like Faulkner.

[OrphanPip]

Funny, I just read that today. Was good, but a bit tedious for me. I don't know why, because I usually like Faulkner.

I love it, the achronological presentation of the plot goes so well with the theme of stagnation and clinging to an idealized past. Neither Emily nor the narrators are capable of progress.

[DanielBenoit]

I love it, the achronological presentation of the plot goes so well with the theme of stagnation and clinging to an idealized past. Neither Emily nor the narrators are capable of progress.

Yeah I know. I was just rather weary-eyed at the time I read it, I should probably re-visit it again sometime.

[sixsmith]

Yes, impossible to choose one.

The Mud Below - E.A Proulx
Communist - Richard Ford
After the Denim - Raymond Carver
Career Change - Martin Amis
Some of us had been threatening our friend Colby - Donald Barthelme

[tbarnes]

A Clean, Well-Lit Place by Ernest Hemingway


such a great story, i completely forgot about this.

[shortstoryfan]

I almost forgot about A Jury of Her Peers. Everyone should read that one if they have not.

[selsabil]

I have read last year Raymond Carver's "Little Things" and really I love it.

[Red-Headed]

It's so difficult to just choose one short story. I have always thought that Chekov wrote some of the finest short stories. Especially The Steppe which is technically a novella. Tolstoy wrote some fine short stories as well. But, if I had to plump for one, I would go for Surface Tension by James Blish. I have always loved it since I first read it in an anthology when I was about thirteen. It seems to touch something mythological & yet be very good speculative fiction as well.

[Three Sparrows]

Wow, some pretty nice choices! But hey, don't feel constrained to name only a few, the more suggestions the better.
I seems like Maugham is the favorite short story writer so far, so I shall ask: what makes Maugham better than others, in your opinion? And if you have a different favorite writer, why is he so favored?
Please discuss.:)

[OrphanPip]

"The Other Side of the Hedge" by E.M. Forster is another favorite of mine.

http://www.101bananas.com/library2/otherside.html

[Dinkleberry2010]

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson is my favorite short story

[DanielBenoit]

Some more:

The House of Asterion by Jorge Luis Borges
Great New from the Mainland by Ernest Hemingway
Ivy Day in the Commitee Room by James Joyce
A Little Cloud by James Joyce
Archangel by John Updike
Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature by David Foster Wallace

[Eryk]

Brokeback Mountain by Annie Proulx

Also:

The Open Window by Saki
La mère Sauvage by Guy de Maupassant
The Author of the Acacia Seeds by Ursula K. Le Guin TEXT (http://interconnected.org/home/more/2007/03/acacia-seeds.html)

[shortstoryfan]

I'm writing all these down. I will hunt them. And read them mercilessly.

[DanielBenoit]

I'm writing all these down. I will hunt them. And read them mercilessly.

:lol: It's great to know that somebody appretiates the magic of brevity.

[sadparadise]

I will go with 1 Big two hearted river prts 1 and 2 Ernest Hemingway
2 A good man is hard to find Flannery O' Connor
3 Indian Camp Ernest Hemingway
4 Wakefield Nathaniel Hawthorne
5 The Man Who Shot Snapping Turtles Edmund Wilson

[stlukesguild]

Oh... and Ambrose Bierce:

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

http://fiction.eserver.org/short/occurrence_at_owl_creek.html

Chickamauga

http://www.classicreader.com/book/1167/1/

Maupassant- The Horla

http://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/Horl.shtml

Donald Barthleme- Me and Miss Mandible:

http://www.coldbacon.com/writing/barthelme-mandible.html

Nathaniel Hawthorne

Young Goodman Brown:

http://www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/158/

The Artist of the Beautiful:

http://www.online-literature.com/hawthorne/124/

Theophile Gautier-

Clarimonde

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/22661/22661-8.txt

J.L. Borges-

The Library of Babel

http://www.analitica.com/BITBLIO/jjborges/library_babel.asp

The Aleph

http://www.phinnweb.org/links/literature/borges/aleph.html

[virginiawang]

So, what is your favorite short story? For myself, I like Hawthorne very much, especially Rappaccini's Daughter. Anyone else enjoy reading short stories?

Rappaccini's daughter has always been one of my favorate short stories. I wondered each time I read the story why Beatrice could not have enjoyed felicity with her lover the way most people would do on earth. How I wish she could!

[prendrelemick]

I love Katherine Mansfield's "The Voyage." I have no idea why, I suppose it just engages me.

For a less famous writer, Sara Maitland is well worth a look, "A book of spells" has some amazing stories in it.

[Three Sparrows]

Rappaccini's daughter has always been one of my favorate short stories. I wondered each time I read the story why Beatrice could not have enjoyed felicity with her lover the way most people would do on earth. How I wish she could!

She can't? I thought that Rappaccini wanted to turn the guy(I can't remember his name!) into something like her, so that they would reproduce little poisonous people. I was so sad when she died though, as revenge against her father. It wasn't fair.:bawling:
Hawthorne is so incredibly imaginative.

[bohn]

Of Mice and Men - Steinbeck.

The Old Man and the Sea - Hemingway.

[Anjali Purohit]

Undoubtedly Oscar Wilde's Short stories stay with you all your life.

tbarnes, this Murakami story was indeed very poignant.

[Silas Thorne]

Apart from 'Shredni Vashtar', by Saki, I would also say one of Oscar Wilde's short stories: 'The Selfish Giant'. This story touches me, deeply, though I am not religious, particularly when I read it aloud.

[Mrig]

of ocurse I love the famous 'Innocent Erendira and her heartless Grandmother' by Gabriel Garcia Marquez ummm 'Eyes of a blue dog'


ummm ..... 'Toba Tek Singh' by Saddat Hasan Manto and many more


I love reading Short Stories and thanks to this thread!..... finding loads of new things to read!

[Veva]

Undoubtedly Oscar Wilde's Short stories stay with you all your life.


so true

[Kidijs]

I liked 100% girl - the story is so damn cute :D. But, I also enjoyed some of Lovecraft's short stories.

[neilgee]

To Room Nineteen by Doris Lessing.

It's such an immaculately depressing story of human frailty and despair that it made me feel much better about my life at the time.

[TheFifthElement]

tbarnes, that Murakami story is excellent. I love Murakami's stories.

Richard Brautigan is pretty cool too, I love most of the stories from Revenge of the Lawn, but particularly:

Homage to the San Francisco YMCA: http://brautigan.cybernetic-meadows.net/tiki-index.php?page=Homage%20to%20the%20San%20Francisco %20YMCA
and another one which I think is called The Weather in San Francisco and is about a women who visits the butchers to buy a pound of liver for her bees. There's also the infamous shortest story ever (for it's time) The Scarletti Tilt, and Ernest Hemingway's Typist. Oh, and 'I was Trying to Describe You to Someone' http://www.bendypig.com/describe.html and Lint. Oh they're all good :D

Gabriel Garcia Marquez has some pretty good short stories too. I love The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World from Leaf Storm. It's just lovely.

[chrismythoi]

i love 'champagne' by chekov. 'the overcoat' by gogol is excellent too. i also think that the stories of angela carter, although are they short stories or too long for that, are very poetic.

[Red-Headed]

I'm also a great fan of Yasunari Kawabata's short stories known as Palm-of-the-Hand stories (Tenohira no Shōsetsu). I don't think that I could just pick one though.

[Red-Headed]

i also think that the stories of angela carter, although are they short stories or too long for that, are very poetic.

There is some contention on just how long a short story is. The old adages of 'how long is a piece of string?' & 'how big is a small dog?' spring to mind. However, I tend to agree with Isaac Asimov who states that in his opinion ~

1. Short-short story...1000-2000 (words)

2. Short story...........5000-7000

3. Novelette.............10,000-20,000

4. Novella.................30,000-50,000

5. Novel...................70,000 words & up.

[Janine]

I used to not like short stories that much and now I compleletly love them!

Here are some of my favorites:

The Trouseau, In The Ravine (and many more) ~ Anton Chekov
Witch a la Mode and Things (and many more, including the novellas) ~ D.H.Lawrence
The Gift of the Magi ~ O'Henry
First Love ~ Turgenev
All the fairytale short stories by Oscar Wilde
The Dead and Araby ~ James Joyce
The Yellow Wallpaper ~ Charlotte Perkins Gilman

These are just a few; I will think of others and post later....

[DanielBenoit]

1. Short-short story...1000-2000 (words)


This could also be considered 'flash fiction'.

[Red-Headed]

This could also be considered 'flash fiction'.

I suppose so. The term 'flash fiction' is not that well known in my country though.

[Return Journey]

I really enjoy the short stories of Dylan Thomas. Some of his best stories can be found in,
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Dog and
Quite Early One Morning.
I never tire of reading them and go back to them often.

[stlukesguild]

1. Short-short story...1000-2000 (words)

So how do we define something shorter than that? A nano-story?

[stlukesguild]

1. Short-short story...1000-2000 (words)

2. Short story...........5000-7000

3. Novelette.............10,000-20,000

4. Novella.................30,000-50,000

5. Novel...................70,000 words & up.

By the way... what's up with all those gaps: 7001-9,999 and 20,001-29,999 for example?

[Red-Headed]

1. Short-short story...1000-2000 (words)

2. Short story...........5000-7000

3. Novelette.............10,000-20,000

4. Novella.................30,000-50,000

5. Novel...................70,000 words & up.

By the way... what's up with all those gaps: 7001-9,999 and 20,001-29,999 for example?

I have no idea. Ask Isaac Asimov.

[gbrekken]

"By the Waters of Babylon" Stephen Vincent Benet
"Open Window" Saki
"To Build a Fire" Jack London 9questionable

[DanielBenoit]

..............

[stlukesguild]

I have no idea. Ask Isaac Asimov.

Somehow, I don't think he'd be up to responding right now.:eek:

[Red-Headed]

I have no idea. Ask Isaac Asimov.

Somehow, I don't think he'd be up to responding right now.:eek:

Unless someone can invent the time machine...

[Gadget Girl]

I recently read Veronika Decides to Die by Paolo Coelho and I liked it. I saw the movie trailer a few days ago and I got rather curious to read the book, because people said it's more detailed and has a great story. I heard the movie has received rave reviews too and so, I went out and searched for the book.

I'll probably hunt more short stories to read soon. :D

[meinabox]

My favourite short stories are probably The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Behind a Mask by Louisa May Alcott, and Cranford by Elizabeth Gaskell.

[G4C Chiodos]

My favorite short story would have to be a story I read in the tenth grade. It was called The Most Dangerous Game. It was very interesting and kept me hooked. I wanted to read it over and over again.

[MarkC]

i like The Four Million by O Henry.


MarkC

[alexlex143]

I LOVE Kate Chopin's short stories. "The Story of an Hour" is my favorite by her. I also enjoyed Shirley Jackson's "The Tooth" very much as well as John Steinbeck's "The Chrysanthemums."

[Mrig]

Erendira and her heartless grandmother --- Marquez

[MarkC]

Closing my eyes, I can utter only the name of "Araby" by James Joyce...It's a brilliant example of Joyce's craftsmanship.

[Dirtbag]

I love this thread.

[blazeofglory]

I like Kafka's stories above anything else and his Metamorphosis is a somewhat lengthened story that appeals to my palate. I have read it, reread it and never got satisfied, not that I did not like the book but that each reading gave me something really new and appealing in point of fact. I like the style he used at times lengthening sentences illimitably. He was really a great writer, a trend-setter and I wish I could write like him, the beauty of his writing is unsurpassed and no one could beat him and as a matter of fact he was capable of putting in words the predicaments or circumstances circumscribing the modern man. In fact all of us in this world of commerce wherein real values are gauged in terms of money and careers and people lost sensibility today and man is a heap of dry bones or a Skelton.

Indeed he was a matchless writer. He disdained popularity and wanted his books to be burned and he got more popularity posthumously. He is a writer we have none to compare with, for he is an originator of new style in writing.

[Dinkleberry2010]

I agree. Kafka stands alone. He is one of the greatest writers, and perhaps the most underrated; and the Metamorphosis is the most unique thing that's ever been written. His shorter works, such as The Hunger Artist and The Penal Colony, are also unique.

[Rogers_68]

Probably Mark Twain's short story about Adam and Eve.

[levine]

If you haven't read alice munroe yet, give her a try. She's terrific.

[naser56]

big bad wolf

[Dorian Gray]

Truman Capote - My Side of the Matter
Henry James - A Bundle of Letters

[XSerenityX]

Thank you for sharing! I enjoyed reading, and it probably is impossible not to recognize Haruki Murakami's stories.

[morgana]

I love Julio Cortazar's short stories. I wouldn't know which one to choose, though! I'd recommend two books with short stories: "Bestiario" and "Historia de cronopios y de famas" ("Cronopios and famas").

[calebjross]

Without a doubt, my favorite short story is Octavio Paz's "The Blue Bouquet." Anytime I am stuck with my own writing, I go back to this story, and think seem to open up for me.

I thought at one time there was a full text version online, but I just tried looking and couldn't find it. It is definitely worth checking out for fans of magical realism (Gabriel Garcia Marquez) and even modern disturbing surrealism (Brian Evenson).

[Kassiopeia]

"Die Verwandlung" ("The Metamorphosis") by Kafka.

I also enjoyed Annie Proulx' 'Brokeback Mountain' a lot as it's so different to the film.

Oh, and I like Charles Bukowski. ;)

[Three Sparrows]

Charles Bukowski...did he write Fight Club? I have never read it, but I saw the movie. It was a little weird.
I recently read a small bit to Twain's Letters from Earth, I thought it was so funny, but I have no idea where to find it. Maybe I'll search Google.

[Dinkleberry2010]

Twain's Letters From The Earth is here on this site

[Hank Stamper]

Charles Bukowski...did he write Fight Club? I have never read it, but I saw the movie. It was a little weird.
I recently read a small bit to Twain's Letters from Earth, I thought it was so funny, but I have no idea where to find it. Maybe I'll search Google.

nope that was chuck palahniuk.. author of the best short story ever - GUTS ;)