The Ten Greatest Short-Stories I Have Ever Read!

[Wolffman]

In no order...


A Day - Charles Bukowski


Nail - Laura Hird


Emergency - Denis Johnson


Old Francis - James Kelman


Are These Actual Miles? - Raymond Carver


Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? - Joyce Carol Oates


The Swimmer - John Cheever


Dying And Being Alive - Duncan McLean


Leviathan - Tobias Wolff


Our Story Begins - Tobias Wolff



I have allowed myself two pieces from Wolff, as I believe he is the greatest short-story writer of this age.

All comments/criticisms welcome :seeya:

[dfloyd]

Check back after you have read the short stories of -
Ernest Hemingway
F. Scott Fitzgerald
W. Somerset Maugham
Anton Checkov
Guy de Maupassant
Nathaniel Hawthorne

[Aspirational]

Read some O.Henry, Tagore and Chekhov and you might find your opinion has changed.

[PoeticPassions]

some of my favorite short stories:
'The Dead' by James Joyce
'Gurbet' by Miljenko Jergovic (and most of his other short stories)
'The Hunger Artist' by Kafka
'Harrison Bergeron' by Kurt Vonnegut
'Teddy' by J.D. Salinger
'A Good Man Is Hard to Find' by Flannery O’Connor

I still haven't read any of Fitzgerald's short stories, though he is one of my favorite novelists. I will get on that asap... :)

[PoeticPassions]

oh and of course, the classic, 'The Man of the Crowd' by Edgar Allan Poe.

[Wolffman]

Check back after you have read the short stories of -
Ernest Hemingway
F. Scott Fitzgerald
W. Somerset Maugham
Anton Checkov
Guy de Maupassant
Nathaniel Hawthorne

Yawn.

Is it just the classics or nothing for you guys here?

I like Hemingway and Chekhov of the ones you've mentioned (find the others rather dull), but there are stories from this era which are much more relevant and interesting to me.



Also, in a thread stating specific stories rather than just writers, I'd expect specific stories back as an alternative, anyone can list authors who are known for writing short stories, that is not very useful/helpful at all.

[Wolffman]

'A Good Man Is Hard to Find' by Flannery O’Connor

This is also one of my favourite pieces, narrowly missed out on the top 10. Great call, cheers for posting.

[Wolffman]

Read some O.Henry, Tagore and Chekhov and you might find your opinion has changed.

My reply to the other dullard is to you as well:


Yawn.

Is it just the classics or nothing for you guys here?

I like Hemingway and Chekhov of the ones you've mentioned (find the others rather dull), but there are stories from this era which are much more relevant and interesting to me.



Also, in a thread stating specific stories rather than just writers, I'd expect specific stories back as an alternative, anyone can list authors who are known for writing short stories, that is not very useful/helpful at all.

[keilj]

I like Hemingway and Chekhov of the ones you've mentioned (find the others rather dull), but there are stories from this era which are much more relevant and interesting to me.





The human condition is always relevant.

My tops picks, by authors not yet mentioned here, are To Build a Fire by Jack London, Moths in the Arc Light by Sinclair Lewis, and The Californian's Tale by Twain

I might try some of the ones you mentioned

[Climacus]

Mann's Tonio Kröger stands out for me. But the short-story medium isn't my favourite. (Haven't read any you listed, I'm afraid.)

[Wolffman]

The human condition is always relevant.

Of course it is. But some are much more relevant than others. I'm sure it's only natural that a young South African fella is going to feel closer and more enthralled by the writing of JM Coetzee than he is to the writing of Sir Walter Scott, no?


My tops picks, by authors not yet mentioned here, are To Build a Fire by Jack London, Moths in the Arc Light by Sinclair Lewis, and The Californian's Tale by Twain

I might try some of the ones you mentioned

Thanks for your tips too :wink5:

[Drkshadow03]

"God is a Big Happy Chicken" by Shalom Auslander is a great short story. Not sure if I would put it in a top 10 though. I'd really have to spend a lot of time thinking about my top 10.

[stlukesguild]

The human condition is always relevant.

Of course it is. But some are much more relevant than others. I'm sure it's only natural that a young South African fella is going to feel closer and more enthralled by the writing of JM Coetzee than he is to the writing of Sir Walter Scott, no?

So is the goal of literature simply to reinforce our own experiences, understanding, beliefs, values, biases, and prejudices? Are we to assume that Shakespeare is less than relevant to half of the world population simply on account of his gender?

Some people who read do not do so simply to reinforce their own experiences, etc... When they read... or turn to the arts in general... they often discover the voice of others who do not necessarily reaffirm our own beliefs, values, standards, ideals, experiences, etc... Indeed, one might argue that the strongest artists don't pander to us. Rather, they offer up an honest expression of their own experiences, values, etc... and as a result they force us to broaden our thinking to other possibilities. This can sometimes be challenging and involve an effort on our part.

Anna Quindlen writes:

Books are the means to immortality: Plato lives forever, as do Dickens, and Dr. Seuss, Soames Forsyte, Jo March, Scrooge, Anna Karenina, and Vronsky. Over and over again Heathcliffe wanders the moor searching for his Cathy. Over and over again Ahab fights the whale.Through them we experience other times, other places, other lives. We manage to become much more than our own selves. The only dead (some might call then "dullards":eek:) are those who grow sere and shriveled within, unable to step outside their own lives and into those of others. Ignorance is death. A closed mind is a catafalque.

Personally I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a list of simply 10 favorite short stories. There are far too many great short stories to limit myself to one of two by a given author. I couldn't come up with such a list of favorite poems either. Among the short-story writers I most admire I would include:

J.L. Borges
Franz Kafka
Theophile Gautier
E.T.A. Hoffmann
Italo Calvino
Tomasso Landolfi
Flannery O'Connor
Anton Checkov
Tolstoy
Poe
Hawthorne
Hemingway
Henry James
Thomas Mann
Julio Cortazar
R.L. Stevenson
Maupassant
H.G. Wells
Donald Barthleme
W.S. Merwin

[mortalterror]

1. "The Snows of Kilimanjaro" Ernest Hemingway
2. "The Short Happy Life of Francis Maccomber" Ernest Hemingway
3. "To Build a Fire" Jack London
4. "The Cask of Amontillado" Edgar Allan Poe
5. "The Most Dangerous Game" Richard Connell
6. "Everything that Rises Must Converge" Flannery O'Connor
7. "Ball of Fat" Guy de Maupassant
8. "A Hanging" George Orwell
9. "The Lottery" Shirley Jackson
10. "A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings" Gabriel Garcia Marquez
11. "The Hellscreen" Ryunosuke Akutagawa
12. "The Things They Carried" Tim O'Brien
13. "The Gift of the Magi" O. Henry
14. "The Bad Glazier" Charles Baudelaire
15. "All Summer in a Day" Ray Bradbury
16. "The Yellow Wallpaper" Charlotte Perkins Gilman
17. "Was" William Faulkner
18. "Shooting an Elephant" George Orwell
19. "The Call of Cthulhu" H.P. Lovecraft
20. "The Secret Sharer" Joseph Conrad

[Aspirational]

Personally I'd be hard-pressed to come up with a list of simply 10 favorite short stories. There are far too many great short stories to limit myself to one of two by a given author. I couldn't come up with such a list of favorite poems either. Among the short-story writers I most admire I would include:

This is the answer you're looking for (or at least the one I'm most in accord with).

I would be stretched just to give you a couple of names of my very favourite short story writers from all of them; to ask for precisely their 10 best short stories is a comfortably impossible task for me. So all I can suggest is particular authors.

I would suggest you look up Kafka (if you have not done so) - in particular "The Hungry Man", to choose one. O. Henry and Tagore are also musts.

[ChicagoReader]

I'll only list a few of my favorites:
In the Penal Colony - Kafka
The Hunger Artist - Kafka
The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
The Bet - Chekhov
Funes the Memorious - Borges

[Seasider]

Let's lighten up a bit...the human condition is not always full of pain and anguish.
Sox I'd recommend

Thurber....the Secret Life of Walter Mitty andThe Night the Bed Fell

[Jack of Hearts]

some of my favorite short stories:
'The Dead' by James Joyce

Ain't it a novella? Whatever. It's about time somebody mentioned something from Dubliners in this thread.

Can only name two off the top o'the head:

1. Araby

2. Cathedral







J

[PoeticPassions]

Ain't it a novella? Whatever. It's about time somebody mentioned something from Dubliners in this thread.

J

Yeah I suppose it could be considered a novella... but I still think of it as a longer short story, since it also is part of the compilation of stories in Dubliners. Either way, it is a terrific piece of work... The perfect ending to the collection.

[KCurtis]

I still haven't read any of Fitzgerald's short stories, though he is one of my favorite novelists. I will get on that asap... :)

My favorite is The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

[Henry Please]

Yawn.

Is it just the classics or nothing for you guys here?



Ten contenders. All living writers:

Richard Ford "Rock Springs"
Lorrie Moore "People Like That Are the Only People Here"
Jhumpa Lahiri "A Temporary Matter"
Ethan Canin, "The Year of Getting to Know Us"
Benjamin Percy, "Refresh, Refresh"
Jim Shepard, "The Zero-Meter Diving Team"
Julie Orringer, "The Isabel Fish"
James Allan McPhereson, "The Story of a Dead Man"
Mona Simpson, "Lawns"
Annie Proulx, "Tits-Up in a Ditch"

[DeadHeadNate]

Washington Irving's Rip Van Winkle - This is one of my all time favorites.

I'm not well read by any means, but I'm starting to read a lot more.

Does anyone know of any other authors that are similar to Washington Irving and his writing styles? I like the folklore/tall tale aspects that he used with Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

[Henry Please]

Does anyone know of any other authors that are similar to Washington Irving and his writing styles? I like the folklore/tall tale aspects that he used with Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.

Hawthorne comes to mind. The two collections are "Twice Told Tales" and "Mosses From an Old Manse."

[Jack of Hearts]

Wow. Someone threw down 'Rock Springs.' Legit.







J

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

Isn't Nabakov a considered a good short story writer? I just bought on of his collections, but haven't seen his name mentioned,.

I haven't read as many short stories as I should and can't remember many specific authors, but some of my favorites have been by Hawthorne, Poe, Lovecraft, Kafka, and Stephen King. I still need to read more by Maupassant, O. Henry, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, among others.

[Henry Please]

With Nabokov you really have to appreciate the language. He was a better novelist than story writer. I say start with Lolita. You can't go wrong there. If the collection you picked up is his Collected Stories you might get bogged down. The Vintage Nabokov is a good place to start. His best story in my opinion is "The Return of Chorb" but serious Nabokov fans would most likely disagree. Other famous stories of his: "The Vane Sisters" and "Mademoiselle O"

[Pierre Menard]

Isn't Nabakov a considered a good short story writer? I just bought on of his collections, but haven't seen his name mentioned,.



I think he's a wonderful short story writer whose short stories are sadly overlooked by many. Heck, I think some people don't even know he wrote short stories.

But I also own one of his collections and some of his most lyrical, beautiful writing is contained within.

[DeadHeadNate]

Hawthorne comes to mind. The two collections are "Twice Told Tales" and "Mosses From an Old Manse."

Yeah I was thinking about Hawthorne as well.

I'll check those two collections out.

Thanks.

Other short stories that I read for my college English class that I enjoyed were:

The Lady With The Dog - Anton Chekhov
How Much Land Does A Man Need? - Leo Tolstoy
The Lame Shall Enter First - Flannery O'Connor
Odour of Chrysanthemums + The Rocking-Horse Winner - D.H. Lawrence

Haven't read enough for a top ten though.

[Henry Please]

Can't go wrong with any of the four authors you mentioned. Chekhov, however, you want to get the right collection -- only because his collected stories comes in something like seven volumes. The Norton Critical Edition is good. Vintage has a good one as well. With O'Connor you just have to read everything.

[Mutatis-Mutandis]

With Nabokov you really have to appreciate the language. He was a better novelist than story writer. I say start with Lolita. You can't go wrong there. If the collection you picked up is his Collected Stories you might get bogged down. The Vintage Nabokov is a good place to start. His best story in my opinion is "The Return of Chorb" but serious Nabokov fans would most likely disagree. Other famous stories of his: "The Vane Sisters" and "Mademoiselle O"

I already read Lolita and loved it. I got Nabokov's complete short stories, but I'll probably read it in chunks--it's pretty big.

[DeadHeadNate]

Can't go wrong with any of the four authors you mentioned. Chekhov, however, you want to get the right collection -- only because his collected stories comes in something like seven volumes. The Norton Critical Edition is good. Vintage has a good one as well. With O'Connor you just have to read everything.

Alrighty I'll check that one out too, thanks. Lady With A Dog really pulled me in. The Russian setting and continuous love conflict with the man and his mistress made it quite interesting. I've only read two O'Connor stories, the other being "Everything That Rises Must Converge" but they were both definitely depressing in regards to dealing with one's own self conflict.

Although hard at times, Joseph Conrad's "Heart Of Darkness" was pretty good.

I'd like to read more Mark Twain.

[Pierre Menard]

What's a good Chekhov translation to read?
I've heard pretty good things about Ronald Wilks' translations, which Penguin publish.
And I know Pevear and Volkhonsky do his novellas, but I don't think his short stories. Also, I always hear mixed things about Constance Garnett's translations, so I'm not too sure what to think about her versions.

Is there anyone else that is quite good?

[Artorius]

In no order...


A Day - Charles Bukowski


Nail - Laura Hird


Emergency - Denis Johnson


Old Francis - James Kelman


Are These Actual Miles? - Raymond Carver


Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been? - Joyce Carol Oates


The Swimmer - John Cheever


Dying And Being Alive - Duncan McLean


Leviathan - Tobias Wolff


Our Story Begins - Tobias Wolff



I have allowed myself two pieces from Wolff, as I believe he is the greatest short-story writer of this age.

All comments/criticisms welcome :seeya:

Interesting list but all the authors are Scottish or American. Maybe you should broaden your horizon? :)

[tonywalt]

1 A perfect day for bananafish - jd salinger
2 uncle wiggly in connecticut jd salinger
3 just before the war with the eskimos jd salinger
4 the laughing man jd salinger
5 down at the dinghy jd salinger
6 for esme - with love and squalor jd salinger
7 pretty mouth and green my eyes jd salinger
8 de daumier-smith's blue period jd salinger
9 teddy by jd salinger

10 zooey by jd salinger

[Jack of Hearts]

Hey tonywalt, if you like all of those you should try some J.D. Salinger.






J

[tonywalt]

There are others?

[OrphanPip]

There are a number I like from Alice Munro, Joyce Carol Oates, Rohinton Mistry, Bronwen Wallace, Flannery O'Connor, Guy De Maupassant, Faulkner, Hemingway, Poe, and others.

Like usual, any best of list would be half crap that is just personally interesting to me and stuff that's uncontroversial, and thus uninteresting to list.

[Drkshadow03]

Like usual, any best of list would be half crap that is just personally interesting to me and stuff that's uncontroversial, and thus uninteresting to list.

Oh, I don't know. Rohinton Mistry and Bronwen Wallace are both new names to me.

[Jack of Hearts]

Jesus' Son

Rock Springs

Dubliners

Catherdral

The Stories of John Cheever

All of these are collections.






J

[PoeticPassions]

1 A perfect day for bananafish - jd salinger
2 uncle wiggly in connecticut jd salinger
3 just before the war with the eskimos jd salinger
4 the laughing man jd salinger
5 down at the dinghy jd salinger
6 for esme - with love and squalor jd salinger
7 pretty mouth and green my eyes jd salinger
8 de daumier-smith's blue period jd salinger
9 teddy by jd salinger

10 zooey by jd salinger


Hey Tony, do you know where I could get some of the stories from NIne Stories free on-line? I still haven't read 'Uncle wiggly,' 'down at he dinghy' or 'pretty mouth and green my eyes'... and googling them has not produced results...

[tonywalt]

Yes, I do. I have them on pdf if you would like.

[AuntShecky]

I agree with the titles listed by PoeticPassions above.

If you're concentrating on more modern and contemporary writers, as your original list suggests, I'd add any of the stories by John Updike, Bernard Malamud, especially "The Jewbird," John Cheever, and Angela Carter. Not to mention "The Shawl" by Cynthia Ozick.

Please take a look at one of my favorites, "Emporer of the Air" written by Ethan Canin when he was only 27 years old. (I just found out there is a movie version of that last one, made in 1997. Will be looking for it on the cable listings)---


--and two "older" ones, which are somewhat lengthier than conventional short stories-- "Holiday" by Katherine Anne Porter and "Junius Maltby" by John Steinbeck.
(PS If you read that last story, please don't be cowed by the mention of a "swaztika," as it refers to the original symbol and not to the deadly connotations brought to it just before and during the Second World War. Steinbeck wrote the story before the Nazis came to power. Just goes to show you that at some point you really can't control what happens to your writing after
you've written it!)



It's about time somebody mentioned something from Dubliners in this thread.

Can only name two off the top o'the head:

1. Araby

2. Cathedral



J


3. Clay (The subject of an extremely informative essay by Robert Scholes.)

[tonywalt]

I have just been reading Somerset Maugham and the following short stories were all very good. (I love Razors Edge also, great novel). There is alot of Philosophy in his writing, and all over it practical and applicable.

A Man with a Conscience
German Harry
Jane
Mr. Know All
Rain
Red
The Lotus Eater
The Outstation