Your favorite short story

[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....ancisco%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

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.