Borges is probably the biggest short writer in the second half of the 20th century. For Americans, O Henry is probably the biggest for the first half.
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Borges is probably the biggest short writer in the second half of the 20th century. For Americans, O Henry is probably the biggest for the first half.
I jsut googled something about SHort story writers and found this page. I flipped throught the first three pages of this forum looking for Mansifield, and nada. Then I clicked on the last apge or something and Waa-laa! My two favorites, Gogol and Mansfield. However I just discovered K.M. Three days ago and Im absolutely Smitten.Quote:
Originally Posted by Zybahn
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce. Absolutely amazing. It's been years since I've read it but it definitely left an impression.
recently i found O. Henry's short stories are very impressive and meaningful. but i think Anton chehov's short stories are the best ♡
I must try KM's short stories. I had read a poem by her not long ago online and loved it. She was good friends with D.H. Lawrence, who I adore, so I am sure I will like her writing very much.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mercury Gone
Ambroise Pierce, humm.... I was just looking at my library audiobook website and saw a collection of short stories that was compiled by AP. I must try his stories, also. They sound so meaningful. I like Maupassant and also Chekhov and D.H. Lawrence, for short stories.
Dennis Lehane just came out with some of his short stories and I loved all of those.
Either Chekov's "Sorrow" or Wilde's "The Happy Prince"
We have a thread about "ten favourite novels", but I couldn't find any about favourite short stories... and I'm sure many of us read them quite a lot. So I thought it could be interesting to find out what other people think is "the best of the best of the best" :)
Try to write down:
- the name of the stories / collections
- the name of the author - please don't think that if it's your favourite book, others will surely know who wrote it as well.
- very briefly why you liked it or what's it about
Nathaniel Hawthorne "A Wonder Book"
his other short stories
James Joyce "The Dubliners"
A.S.Pushkin
G.K.Chesterton father Brown stories
Serbian short stories by Matavulj, Kocic, Domanovic, Kis.
1.The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
He's my favorite author and this is his best story. If I had to say why it's the best, I'd have to start with his amazing sense of style, and the actual rhythm of the language he uses. Then I would mention concrete all of his details are, how true to life his narrative is. Then there is the personality of the characters, and finally the subject matter itself: how a man faces death.
2.The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe
This is dark. It is funny. It is revenge at it's finest. It is four and a half pages without a word out of place. It is almost a poem.
3.To Build a Fire by Jack London
Another bleak, man versus nature, man versus self story. Hemingway and London are both masters of making nature into a character in their work. I love this story because it shows not the stoic facing of death as in Hemingway's story but the frantic struggle of it's protagonist to stay alive.
4.The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell
The Ultimate man versus man scenario. A man uses his wits to overcome exceptional odds. A feature of this story is another element of numbers one and three on my list, and that is the understated tone of the narrators. Stories are often better when things are implied or left unsaid. Such is the case in this story's climactic ending.
5.The Lottery by Shirley Jackson
Another example of things left unsaid. I love the build up and the misdirection at the beginning, and then the twist at the end which drives the whole thing home.
6.The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien
What a beautiful example of repetition for effect and the rhythm of language.
7.All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury
Such a sad story of childhood innocence. I read this as a kid and never forgot it.
8.Everything that Rises Must Converge by Flannery O'Connor
An insightful account of modern family relationships.
9.The Gift of the Magi by O. Henry
The master of irony.
10.Shooting an Elephant by George Orwell
Moral, thoughtful, and frequently violent: Orwell.
The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber, in Hemingway's collection Hemingway on Hunting. Come to think of it, everything in that collection is pretty top-notch.
If anyone says Annie Proulx's "The Half Skinned Steer," I'm going to leave this website and never come back. My god, what a terrible writer.
Thank you for mentioning Macomber. That would have made the list, but I figured one story by each author was enough and I wanted to limit my list to ten. I'd also recommend 12) The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, 13) Was by William Faulkner from his Go Down, Moses, and 14) A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. Technically it's a prose poem, but I also enjoy 15) The Bad Glazier by Charles Baudelaire from The Parisian Prowler.
My favourite short stories,in no particular order:
How Much Land Does a Man Need? - Tolstoy
The Wall - Sartre
In the Penal Colony,A Hunger Artist - Kafka
And,pretty much all of the short stories by Andrić.
great short works of fyodor dostoevsky i love dostoevsky and notes from the underground is amazing, as the rest of the stories in this collection
the dubliners joyce
any set of chekhov's longer stories with the black monk, ward 6,etc...
labyrinths by borges so many good stories
collected short stories marquez again full of amazing stories
a collection of kafka's short works...
and there are probably others that I cannot think of at the moment..
cheers
the Last Leaf by O. Henry
short stories by I. Bunin
You can't beat Poe, Kafka or HG Wells
Although I also love Roald Dahl's collected short stories and Chuck Palahniuk's Haunted is pretty good, if only for 'Guts'!
Bukowski's The Most Beautiful Woman in Town is one of my favourite books ever, and his other bits (Tales of Ordinary Madness and Notes of a Dirty Old Man) are ok (I'm planning on reading South of no North at some point).
Vonnegut's Bagombo Snuff Box and Raymond Carver's What We Talk About When We Talk About Love are also some of my favourite short stories... For ghost stories the best by a spooky mile is M.R.James's Count Magnus and other stories...
There are plenty of great short story writers and great short stories. I think it would be very difficult to hone it down to 10 favorite short stories... rather like 10 favorite poems. Among my favorite short stories I would include:
J.L. Borges- Collected Fictions (especially Ficciones, Labyrinths, El Hacedor...)
Kafka- Collected Short Stories
Maupassant- Tales
Thomas Mann- Death in Venice and other Stories
E.T.A. Hoffmann- Tales
Monterroso- Complete Works and other Stories
Robert Louis Stevenson- Short Stories
William Wilkie Collins- Short Stories
Henry James- Short Stories
Checkov- Collected Tales
Ambrose Bierce- Short Stories
E.A. Poe- Tales
Hawthorne- Tales
L.S. LeFanu- Tales
Sherwood Anderson- Winesburg Ohio
Hemingway- Collected Short Stories
H.G. Wells- Short Stories
Lord Dunsany- Tales
C.K. Chesterton- Collected Short Stories
Gottfried Keller- Short Stories
Rudyard Kipling- Collected tales
Mark Twain- Collected Tales
Flannery O'Conner- Collected Short Stories
Donald Barthleme- 40 Stories, 60 Stories
Harold Brodkey- Stories in an almost Classical Mode
Tolstoy- Collected Shorter Fiction
Dostoevski- Collected Short Stories
I love Kipling's Just So Stories.
And collected stories of : Thomas Wolfe, Tenessee Williams, Fitzgerald, Hemingway, Ring Lardner. Jack London, John O'Hara, DH Lawrence, Poe, Arthur Conan Doyle, O. Henry.....
It's too hard to pick individual stories!!!
I can't remeber who wrote it- but "The Most Dangerous Game" is a great story.
Nobody seems to have have mentioned M R James - his ghost stories give me the shivers so much, I can't read them if I'm alone in the house!
look again :)Quote:
Originally Posted by kasie
D'oh! :blush:Quote:
Originally Posted by Hank Stamper
Sorry - couldn't see for looking!
There are all kinds of faveorite books lists floating around so I thought I would make one for the short story sense I do not think I have seen one yet.
What are your top 15 short stories?
In A Grove by Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, is the best short story to emerge from the 19th into the 20th century. It allowed Hollywood to merge the attractiveness of Asian concepts of *face* and *honor* into American Western mythology, which is alive and well to this day. It is the basis for the urber-classic Japanese film Rashomon.
The rest is legacy.
I don't have another 14 for you at the moment, but most of those would be contemporary and I'd have to dig.
That does sound interesting, I might have to look into it.
Hehe, that is alright, it is not a strict rule to follow.
I discussed it with a Yahoo Group which wanted me to leave. I did eventually, but not because of flaming. It was spoiler rules and I raised my voice over that, and posted about my personal problems with one of the owners, which was a mistake.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dark Muse
But one can get small gifts even if online communities aren't always suitable, and In a Grove was one.
Maybe I should put a plug on it for the rest of the evening Dark:) . I am sure I will think of a few more....
I liked Bernice Bobs Her Hair by F Scott Fitzgerald.
Oh, and The Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka.
D H Lawrence: The Prussian Officer
Roald Dahl: The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar
Aldous Huxley: The Gioconda Smile
Wasn't there a thread on tis already?
Anyway for now:
The Horse Dealer's Daughter - DH Lawrence
The Battler - Ernest Hemingway
If there was I was not aware of it.
Here is my list as it currently stands, as it is subject to change while my reading progresses, but from what I have thus far read:
1. Youth, Beautiful Youth ~ Hesse
2. The Metamorphosis ~ Kafka
3. Liegeia ~ Poe
4. A Decent into the Maelstrom ~ Poe
5. The Aspern Papers ~ Henry James
6. The Open Boat ~ Stephen Crane
7. Bride Comes To Yellow Sky ~ Stephen Crane
8. The Apt Pupil ~ Stephen King
9. Bartleby ~ Melville
And that is all I have for now
I thought of another:
Maupassant, Boule de Suif
And an American,
Shirley Jackson, The Lottery
But to me, the short story blossomed in the mid-20th century, and surpasses anything which might be in the classic canon.
I have to put a plug in for "A Haunted House" by Virginia Woolf.
You can find it right here:
http://www.online-literature.com/virginia_woolf/856/
At just 700 words it reads more like poetry, and it's positively beautiful.
No one has listed 15 short stories yet...:lol:
My favorites:
"The Vanishing American" by Charles Beaumont
"Solo on the Drums" by Ann Petry
"An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce
"Pigs is Pigs" Ellis Parker Butler
"The Confession" by Anton Chekhov
"A Nincompoop" by A. Chekhov
"A Cure for Drinking" by A. Chekhov
"The Cask of Amontillado" by Edgar Allan Poe
"The Tell-Tale Heart" by E. A. Poe
"White Nights" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
"A Dream of a Ridiculous Man" by F. Dostoevsky
Heck, I only can name 11 off the top of my head. :D
A Rose For Emily - William Fualkner
Bartleby, the Scrivener - Herman Melville
The Blue Hotel - Stephan Crane
The Lady With the Dog - Aton Chekov
I am not a big fan of short story, so my choices are from a small pool.
I give my Booker to Edgar Allen Poe and Julio Cortazar, not choosing any story, with their complete works.
I once read and like Erskina Caldwell, with his "Martha Jean", "Looking at you Agnes". Surely a lot Heinrich Böll, I cant recall story names. Also I can find a few stories from known names as Borges, Chekhov, Hemingway.
Anyway to make you search and find, I 'll give one story name,
-apologizing Poe- my Booker of Booker goes to "End of the Game"
from Julio Cortazar.
Dubliners by joyce has some pretty good short stories (the Encounter, Two Gallants, A Little Cloud, Counterparts, Clay, A Painful Case,), but then theres some boring ones to that i just couldnt get into (mostly the longer one towards the end).
the best short story ive read is 70,000 Assyrians by William Saroyan. Its In The flying Trapizist and other short stories by William Saroyan writting always flows very well, althought sometimes he gets too descriptive in a few of the short stories and i lose intrest in what he was saying
I love The Hunger Artist too. Hmm, short stories...I liked the Diamond as big as the Ritz by F Scott Fitzgerald. Although maybe you'd call that a novella?Quote:
Originally Posted by ;5089
Ooh, and I like The Metamorphosis :)
Here's a few of my favorites.
The Wide Net - Eudora Welty (My favorite short story. I think Welty is one of the greatest writers of all time and it makes me sad that she doesn't get more attention)
See The Moon - Donald Barthelme (My favorite short story writer. His stories are always very strange and fun. I picked this one because I love the underlying sweetness behind it.)
A Haunted House - Virginia Woolf (Tiny and beautiful. It may be my favorite thing that Woolf ever wrote)
An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge - Ambrose Bierce
Harrison Bergeron - Kurt Vonnegut
The Diary of Adam and Eve - Mark Twain
Now these both were amazing stories! I especially remember getting very emotionally hit by the narration in A Dream of a Ridiculous Man.Quote:
Originally Posted by Dori
Its funny you should mention A Dream of a Ridiculous Man as I have it out to read tonight, its the last short story in a little compilation of Dostoevsky's short stories that I have. I'm glad its good :) I'm looking forward to it now.
Back to OP topic, I'm not sure that I have a favourite short story, I've only read a few, of those I've read I guess I liked Dostoevsky's White nights and Sartre's The Wall the most, though I've only read these in the last 2-3 months.