I'd like some recommendations for short story collections if anyone has any, and specifically, the stories within those books that you'd recommend.
I've been thumbing through
The Book of Other People edited by Zadie Smith, and recommend:
Theo by Dave Eggers.
Rov Spivey by Miranda July.
I recently read
Thirty Stories by Kay Boyle. All of the stories are good, all of the stories in the second half of the book are excellent. Standout story: "The Loneliest Man in the U.S. Army".
I would heartily recommend
The Boat by Nam Le, and
Fragile Things by Neil Gaiman. I loved both and read every single story in them. Sometimes with short story collections you get that one or two stories that you just can't stomach (I encounter that in some of Stephen King's SS's). Another I liked was
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson. He was one of King's inspirations, and I found several of the stories in
Legend to be compelling and definitely 5 star.
Of these I've mentioned, my favorite was probably Gaiman. I love-
love-
LOVE his writing style! He's more than a writer and poet, he is a artist who uses language as his medium. :-D
I recently picked up
Love Stories, the Everyman's Pocket Classic Anthology (touchstone is wrong). There are some really unusual stories that are not your traditional love stories. Most memorable so far is F. Scott Fitzgerald's "Winter Dreams." I also have the
Christmas Stories which is very nice.
Jhumpa Lahiri's collections:
Interpreter of Maladies - a Pulitzer winner a few years ago, every story is a winner - and
Unaccustomed Earth.
The Deportees by
Roddy Doyle. I haven't finished this yet, but the first one was excellent, "Guess Who's Coming for the Dinner." I've heard all good things about this collection.
Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout is a collection of connected short stories that are all very good - the setting is contemporary Maine.
A Small Good Thing by
Raymond Carver. There are a couple of versions of this story floating about, but this is the standout from a canon of universally high quality. Get
Where I'm Calling From if you're looking for a masterclass in short story writing.
Worthy of wider recognition than he gets is the Israeli writer
Etgar Keret, who writes very short stories of around 3-5 pages in length typically. Try
The Nimrod Flip Out to get a flavour of his unique and bizarre world. However, my favourite story of his "For Only $9.99 plus tax" is in another collection called Gaza Blues.
I second Grammath's recommendation of Etgar Keret, who I was lucky enough to see (and hear) give a reading a few years back. He had the audience in the palm of his hand!
My favourite book of short stories though is For Esme with love and squalor by J.D. Salinger, which is also know as
Nine Stories in some parts of the world. I'm a big fan of the title story, but the story that I have read the most times would be 'De Daumier-Smith's Blue Period'. I never get tired of it.
I'll second SqeakyChu's rec. of "Brownie" by ZZ Packer. It's found in her book
Drinking Coffee Elsewhere and most of the stories in it are wonderful. I would also recommend
Among the Missing by Dan Chaon, and especially the story "Big Me," and
Through the Safety Net by Charles Baxter, especially, "Gryphon."
Don't miss
Dubliners by James Joyce, especially "The Boardinghouse" and, of course, "The Dead."
And you can't go wrong with classic short story collections from Anton Chekov, Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Conner, William Faulkner, Ernest Hemmingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.
Don't overlook Fitgerald's
The Pat Hobby Stories, some of his last writing and, outside of The Great Gatsby, my favorite of his work.
Also, take a look at the annually published Best Short Stories of (year) series,
The Pushcart Prize and my favorite,
The O. Henry Awards.
I'm a big fan of short stories. Can you tell?
Edited to add--any collection by Alice Munro. Gee, how could I forget her?
Message edited by its author, Feb 16, 2009, 12:11pm.
#10> Nine Stories also includes "A Good Day for Bananafish," yes? That's one of my favorites.
Also, the early Philip Roth stories that are contained with Goodbye, Columbus are amazing, although I'm always extremely jealous when I realize how young Roth was when he wrote them. I'm speaking of "The Conversion of the Jews," "Eli the Fanatic" and "Defender of the Faith." The latter, in particular, is frequently anthologized in great short story collections.
Chekhov was a great call, as was Flannery O'Conner. "A Good Man is Hard to Find" might be the most chilling short story I ever read.
I have a great Wallace Stegner short story collection called
Women on the Wall. The title story is quite good.
One of the most charming short stories I can think of is "The Camel's Back" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. It's a humorous tale about how a cab driver is pressed into duty at a costume party to take up the back end of a camel suit .
Message edited by its author, Feb 16, 2009, 3:35pm.
Mark Twain wrote some good short stories. My favorite is "The Mysterious Stranger".
Message edited by its author, Feb 17, 2009, 9:08am.
#9 Grammath I'm halfway through Carver's Where I'm Calling from. I got it partly on his reputation (I'd never read him before) and partly on your rec.
I'm enjoying it, he's an excellent writer, but man, this book is a downer. I'll finish it, but man.
Can anyone recommend short stories that are at least a bit lighter, or better yet, funny? I'm going to need an antidote, I can tell right now.
"Can anyone recommend short stories that are at least a bit lighter, or better yet, funny? I'm going to need an antidote, I can tell right now."
nfnaaron, I would recommend
Gimpel the Fool by Isaac Bashevis Singer. I think many, if not all, of the stories are relatively light hearted, although not downright comedic.
Here is my current LT listing of short story collections, 264 strong. Happy hunting:
http://www.librarything.com/catalog/rock...I get a kick out of recommending Ben Fountain's 2007 collection
Brief Encounters with Che Guevara, short stories for people who think they don't like short stories. They're exciting, funny, and perfectly modulated: not a single story resembles another, and they 'read' like little tiny novels. Amazing stuff.
# 16 - sorry to bring you down. Perhaps I should have warned you.
If you can track down any
Keret then do, some of his stuff has a kind of shaggy dog story quality to it. You might also take a look at the black comedy of
Pastoralia by
George Saunders or the wit and silliness of
P. G. Wodehouse. Hope that cheers you up.
No-one's mentioned Borges yet?! The man was a genius. I read
Ficciones last year and loved it, and am just about to start on
Labyrinths (which has quite a lot of overlap, but hey, who cares?!) I think favourite was maybe
Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius. Just brilliant.
Yes! -- ZZ Packer, Jhumpa Lahiri, Raymond Carver (especially the story, "Cathedral").
And these:
The Best of the Bellevue Literary Review -- mostly deep, but "The Levitron" (a technology satire) is hilarious.
Kate Chopin's roller-coaster short-short, "The Story of an Hour" -- in Barnes & Noble's edition of
The Awakening and Selected Short Fiction and
online here.
Robert Olen Butler's premises are imaginative, although your enjoyment of the stories themselves may vary. The stories in
Had a Good Time were inspired by postcards he found;
Tabloid Dreams by supermarket tabloid headlines;
Severance imagines the final thoughts of historical persons just beheaded; and
Intercourse imagines the thoughts of historical persons during sex.
And I enjoyed the collection of coincidence-based stories in Paul Auster's
The Red Notebook.
Joyce Carol Oats has a great book of shorts out there. I was blown away by it. I am sorry I cannot remember the title.
Also a very favorite of mine is
Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman. The stories in it are all connected in that each one is about someone living the the same house each in a very different time period. I loved this book and when I was done I immediately went back to the beginning and started again. The only thing I have ever done that with before is the movie: "The Hunt for Red October".
This is a great thread for those of us who love the short story. I kind of like to mix them up as I suppose all of us do but can remember when I actually scoffed at the short.
Well, happy reading.
N/B
I'm with those who recommended
J.D. Salinger's Nine Stories. I read it in November of 2007 and have been obsessed with short fiction ever since.
Here are a few other collections I've enjoyed
Blackbird House by Alice Hoffman - interconnected stories focusing on a particular location.
The Bone Key by
Sarah Monette - interconnected stories that draw heavily on classic horror.
Collected Ghost Stories by M.R. James - actual classic horror.
Dreams Underfoot by Charles de Lint - interconnected stories about Newford, de Lint's trademark setting.
Girl Goddess #9 by
Francesca Lia Block - a YA collection with a hefty focus on emotional stories.
The Ladies of Grace Adieu by Susanna Clarke - short fiction in an antiquated style, with magic.
New Amsterdam by
Elizabeth Bear - interconnected stories about a vampire detective and a forensic sorceress in an alternate version of the early 20th century.
Oddest of All by Bruce Coville - another YA collection. Has a hefty focus on horror.
Orisinian Tales by Ursula K. Le Guin - short fiction set in the (fictional) middle European country of Orsinia. Lots of focus on communist themes.
any of Agatha Christie's short story collections - mysteries, with the occasional supernatural tale.
any of
Neil Gaiman's short story collections - fantasy and horror, for the most part.
any of the twenty-one
Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthologies
Obviously I'm big on interconnected collections and speculative fiction.
I just finished FIVE GREAT SHORT STORIES BY JACK LONDON. I enjoy short stories and love Jack London. I enjoyed all the stories but my favorite was AN ODYSSEY OF THE NORTH.
Among my favorite short story collections are
The Stories of John Cheever,
The Stories of Ray Bradbury and anything by Somerset Maughm. As for particular stories, there is one by Cheever about a middle-aged man who tends to get drunk at parties and use his host's dining room chairs to demonstrate his high school prowess in track and field. It's got a great ending. Bradbury's The October Game is one of the creepiest horror stories ever. Finally, any reader will identify with Maughm's story The Book Bag.
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