Propose some short stories one must read?

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Originally Posted by ShoutGrace

Some people have mentioned J.D. Salinger but I can't believe that no-one has mentioned "For Esme with Love and Squalor". This is my all time favorite short story! It is so stinking real and beautiful that the first time I read it I couldn't move afterwards, I just laid there.

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Yes!

Now that Salinger and Kafka has been mentioned I have to mention Capote. I have only read it translated but I adore Music for chameleonts. There is so much warmth in this collection of stories, and some gossip on Hollywood stars of course. The short stories are like portraits of people, done with care and sympathy.

Science fiction writers are usually great at short stories. Ursula K le Guin "The compass rose" is one of my favorites, and The Illustrated man, by Ray Bradbury.

There is a short story by Strindberg, I am not really sure if it is translated. It should be called something like " Half a sheet of paper" In sweden it is a classic and a must read in schools.

Someone has already mentioned The Destructors, which is always worth the short time it takes to read it. “All this hate and love ... it's soft, it's hooey. There's only things.”

Some others that come to mind are:

Frank O’Connor’s My Oedipus Complex;
Leslie Norris’s Snowdrops;
Doris Lessing’s Through The Tunnel;
Ernest Hemingway’s The End of Something.
The Lumber-Room by Saki
Odour of Chrysanthemums by DH Lawrence
The Machine Stops by EM Forster

I also liked The Fruit At The Bottom Of The Bowl by Ray Bradbury.

I've got awesome short stories for you:
"Where are You Going, Where Have You Been" -Joyce Carol Oates
"The School" -Donald Barthelme
"Gryphon" -Charles Baxter
"Two Gentle People" -Graham Greene
"Cold Fall" -Ivan Bunin

Each and every one of the stories of the May 06 Elimination contest.

Hi I'm new. I saw 2 people mentioned Flannery O,Connor. She is my favorite short story author. I have her complete stories and I read at least one before bed every night. Some of my favorites are - Good Country People, Greenleaf, Revelation, Everything That Rises Must Converge, and The Geranium.

|The House of the Famous Poet by Muriel Spark

The Double by Dostoyevsky

Blumfeld, an Elderly Batchelor by Kafka

The End by Samuel Beckett - along with the rest of First Love and other Novellas, but this is the one I like best.

"For Esme with Love and Squalor," "The Laughing Man," and "A Perfect Day for Bananafish" from Salinger. (That was one of the strangest collections of short stories I've ever read; those three are among the best short stories I've ever read, but the remaining six are just pathetic.)
"The Last Answer" by Asimov. (This one is funny, because Asimov wrote a different short story called "The Last Question," which seemingly everyone BUT me loves.)
"Master and Man" by Tolstoy.
"The Lottery" by Jackson
"Harrison Bergeron" by Vonnegut
For longer works, I'd have:
"The Turn of the Screw" by James
"The Old Man and the Sea" by Hemingway
The two halves of "Franny and Zooey" by Salinger
"The Long Walk" by Stephen King (more like a novella)

Lois the Witch, by Elizabeth Gaskell
Rappacinni's Daughter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne

All the stories of Chehov-be sure to read them all...There is no better example of literature engaged in the spiritual development of man ...Maksim Gorky too...The Russian naturalistic school displays some of the best in the style of short stories...I can offer you some Bulgarian authors but no way to read them

"The Waters of Babylon" -- Stephen Vincent Benet

A quote: "The truth is a hard deer to hunt." Indeed.

I would have to kindly agree with many people who already posted. Rather than suggesting stories (the list would extend beyond my attention span :p), I will suggest authors instead, in no special order, of course: O. Henry, Mark Twain, D.H. Lawrence, Oscar Wilde, Guy de Maupassant, Henry James, Flannery O'Connor, J.D. Salinger (especially his Nine Stories), Ernest Hemingway, Amy Tan, Franz Kafa, Edgar Allan Poe, Ambrose Bierce, Henry David Thoreau, Leo Tolstoy, and Zora Neale Hurston.
Additionally, I would like to add Fyodor Dostoevksy, but have yet to read any of his short stories, focusing more on his novels. Nonetheless, finding his novels enthralling, to say the least, as he lists among some of my favorite authors, I have no doubt in the superiority of his short stories, too. ;)
Happy reading!

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Originally Posted by mono

Additionally, I would like to add Fyodor Dostoevksy, but have yet to read any of his short stories, focusing more on his novels. Nonetheless, finding his novels enthralling, to say the least, as he lists among some of my favorite authors, I have no doubt in the superiority of his short stories, too. ;)
Happy reading!

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He does have some amazing short stories, my favorites being The Gambler, The Eternal Husband, The Meek One and Poor Folk. House of the Dead is also a fascinating story influenced by Dostoevsky's time in a Siberian prison but I don't know if it's considered a short story or a novel. I would highly recommend any or all of those stories.

Chekhov was already mentioned, but again his short stories are amazing. I would also recommend Bulgakov's "Heart of a dog"- it's something in between a short story and a novel. Andre Maurois's short stories are very interesting. Zweig's stories about the famous people are definitely worth reading.

"The Chamber"- C. R. Brown

If youre looking for a really, really short read:
"The Nightingale and the Rose" by Oscar Wilde,
"The Train from Rhodesia" by Nadine Gordimer,
"The Gold-Legged Frog" by Khamsing Srinawk,
"The Red Ball" by Ismith Khan and
"The Winter Oak" by Yuri Nagibin.

All of these stories really are short, I mean a few pages. But although theyre really short they are all enjoyable.