Diamond as Big as the Ritz is a strange one. There is so much description, but for some reason you can't wait to read more of it to feed your craving of picturing this absolute luxury.
Printable View
Diamond as Big as the Ritz is a strange one. There is so much description, but for some reason you can't wait to read more of it to feed your craving of picturing this absolute luxury.
Absolutely genious, yes. Jackson is the master of gloomy atmospheres.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tabac
I remember reading that story in like middle school I think it was.
I really like The Last Leaf by O Henry
"Babylon Revisited" by F. Scott Fitzgerald
"The Man Who Corrupted Hadleyburg" by Mark Twain
"The Devil and Daniel Webster" by Washington Irving
"An Occurance at Owl Creek Bridge" by Ambrose Bierce
Hm...
satre's 'the wall' and 'erostratus' are real good
Some short stories I like... as you can see most of them fantastic...
Poe's The Tell-Tale Heart
James' The Jolly Corner
Le Fanu's Green Tea and Mr. Justice Harbottle
Sartre's The Wall
Stevenson's Olalla
Bierce's An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge
I love short stories!
"The Cask of Amontillado" by Poe- The line at the end about the jingling of the bells literally made me sick to my stomach. Who could ask for more in a short story?
"The Yellow Wallpaper" by Gilman- What a great surreal work of insanity.
"All Summer in a Day" by Bradbury and "Rain, Rain, Go Away" by Asimov- these are two that struck me as a child and which are both coincidentally about rain.
The Case of Charles Dexter Ward by H.P. Lovecraft.
Timothy Findley's "Stones"
I went from enjoying reading to actually appreciating and thinking about literature.
"The Cask of Amontillado" - Poe
"A Country Doctor" - Kafka
"Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius" - Borges
Juest a few personal favourites...
N. Gogol - "The Nose"
Flannery O'Connor - "A Good Man is Hard to Find", "Good Country People", "The Lame Shall Enter First"
Joseph Conrad - "The Secret Sharer"
Henry James - "The Jolly Corner"
Katherine Mansfield - "Bliss"
James Joyce - "Araby", "Eveline"
Somerset Maugham's favourite short story wrtiter was Chekhov and having read both, I prefer Mauhgam. Of his many brilliantly constructed short stories a few from the top of my head are:
Rain
The Letter
Footprints in the Jungle
The Book Bag
The Taipan
Red
The Alien Corn
The Four Dutchmen
P.& O.
Lord Mountdrago
The Lotus Eater
Flotsam & Jetsam
"The Snows of Kilimanjaro" by Earnest Hemingway
Now that's a great story.
Also
"Bernice Bobs Her Hair" by F. Scott Fitgerald
i cant say "best" but two that certainly stick out in my memory are the gift of the magi, and, the lady or the tiger.Quote:
Originally Posted by Edmond
I love and adore short stories:) These are some of my favorites. It would be very hard for me to pick just one.
"A Rose for Emily" by William Faulkner
"Araby" by James Joyce
"The Scarlet Ibis" by James Hurst.
"The Happy Prince" by Oscar Wilde
The Dead by James Joyce
"Metamorphosis" by Franz Kafka
"A Vine on a House" by Ambrose Bierce
"The Stranger" by Ambrose Bierce
"Those Who Wait" by Ethel M. Dell
"The Child's Story" by Charles Dickens
"The Christmas Tree and the Wedding" by Fyodor Dostoevsky
"His Last Bow" (An Epilogue of Sherlock Holmes) by Arthur Conan Doyle
"The Canterville Ghost" by Oscar Wilde
"The Nightingale and the Rose" by Oscar Wilde
"The Fisherman and his Soul" byOscar Wilde
"The Magic Shop" by H.G. Wells
"The Star" by H.G. Wells
"My Red Cap" by Louisa May Alcott
"The Tell-Tale Heart" by Edgar Allan Poe
Those are some of my personal favorites:)
Thanks everybody for listing so many great short stories. I intend to copy all these suggested and make a list. That way I can refer back to it and try new ones I have not yet read. Thanks for all the great recommendatons. I have read many you have listed, but anxious to read more of these in the near future and get a taste of other authors, as well.
Just joined so this is second post. Love the topic. Just getting back into reading literature after a long hiatus.Quote:
Originally Posted by book_jones
I know I am in the right forum...these are a couple of my all timers. Also, at least 4 mentions of "Eyes of a Blue Dog" a story that I thought I was one of maybe 3 admirers lol
Now I have to try that Woolf story-she is my ALL TIME favorite fiction writer..
Short stories that really stayed with me and I have gone back to (outside the classic masters of the form already mentioned here who most of their stories were amazing... Larwence, Hemingway, Chekov, Mansfield, O'connor :
"So Much Water so Close to Home" and "Cathedral" --Raymond Carver
and just recently read a story that Blew Me Away:
"Half Skinned Steer"--Annie Proulx
Jorge Luis Borges,Donald Barthelme and Bruno Schulz are all worth mining imho and written some gems...
I just bought "Things they caried" by Tim O'Brien and am excited to read it having heard part of it on an audio book and read "Going After Caciato"
Raymond Carver's "A Small Good Thing" will rip your heart out.
Robert Louis Stephenson, 'Markheim'
Edgar Allan Poe 'The Tell-tale heart'
Saki 'Shredni Vashtar' - I can read this one again and again-delightful!
Man there's so many, I really love short stories.
Poe's the Cask of Amontillado, as mentioned several times probably.
Kafka's Metamorphosis
Tom Wolfe's "Only the Dead Knows Brooklyn"
Shirley Jacksons "The Lottery"
James Joyce’s "Dubliners" are only complete in full in my opinion, but Araby is great.
Flannery O’Connor’s "A Good man is hard to find"
I like Garcia Márquez "An old man with very large wings" (dunno if that's the proper title in English? Just translated from the top of my head)
I liked these short stories.
The Olive Grove
Boule De Suif
A Vendetta
By Guy De Maupassant
The Wolves of Cernograntz
By Saki
The Last Leaf
By O Henry
Overcoat
By Ghlam Abbas
Katherine Mansfield's simple and elegant; The Picton Boat.
The best short story : A Good Man is ahrd to find by Flannery O'Connor ; Hawthorne's "The BirthMark"
Joyce Carol Oates' "Manhattan Romance".
these are soem of the short stories that come to my mind.
For me the best short story i have read so far is Notes from the Underground.
the wall
a hunger artist
the cask of amontillado
the diary of a madman
the most dangerous game
a few i can remember as of now
I responded to the thread about truly great short story writers, but I wondered what stories everyone considers truly great. The one's I think are truly great include:
A Rose for Emily - Faulkner
The Fall of the House of Usher - Poe
The Kiss - Chekhov
The Lady With the Dog - Chekhov
The Horse Dealer's Daughter - D.H. Lawrence
The Blind Man - D.H. Lawrence
Miss Brill - Katherine Mansfield
There are others, but I just can't think right now.
Vendetta was good.
The Schoolteacher's Guest was wonderful. Can't remember who it's by.
I bolded up the ones I read and loved, too. Excellent stories - all!:thumbs_upQuote:
Originally Posted by MissScarlett
Evelyn Waugh: Mr Loveday's Little Outing
Roald Dahl: Henry Sugar
P G Wodehouse wrote some good short stories too
The Mud Below - Annie Proulx
Communist - Richard Ford
Career move - Martin Amis
After the denim - Raymond Carver
I hate to see that evening sun go down - William Gay
What is the best short story of ALL TIME?
Who knows? I think a "Top 10" (or at least a "Top 5") list would be much easier
to answer.
Funny how there's now two threads asking almost the same thing :rolleyes:
Nice question. The best story is "Tower of Babel" . This story stands for a universal theme for people who are wondering why there are multiple languages all over the world.
The Story of Bibi Haldar--- by Jhumpa Lahiri...It has a different sensibility
Coloured Lights was also a good collection but don't remember the writer
A Clean Well-Lighted Place - Hemingway
A Good Man Is Hard To Find - O'Connor
A bit obvious, but that'd be my pick too.Quote:
Originally Posted by Tabac
I also liked this one (really) short story by Neil Gaiman. Here it is:
http://jeniong.multiply.com/journal/...eplies=reverse
To me this seems almost excessively long to be considered a "short story." Stuff like Of Mice and Men and Metamorphosis are already long, but isn't this at least 150 pages? It might be closer to 200.Quote:
Originally Posted by beto1glez
"There Will Come Soft Rains" by Ray Bradbury
"By the Waters of Babylon" by Stephen Vincent Benet
I love these two stories. I find them really beautiful and moving.
I just thought of two others.
"Dark They Were, and Golden-Eyed" by Ray Bradbury
"A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings" by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
T.C. Boyle's short stories are fabulous!
Most recently I read WALKING OUT by David Quammen. Superlative!