26Shorts2026: ShortsRead --- Anisha's 2026 log

                    Anisha’s Short Story Log
                  📗📖📘📘📖2026📖 📘📘📖 📗

Wanting to read short stories next year (so not putting it off for another year) I created and setup this challenge. If this does not work, I have run out of ideas of how to do this.

I have loads of books with short stories and am really excited to go through them to see what I can find. I also like going through Gutenberg Press's site, I am always amazed what I find there.

Some of the short stories I have lined up to read next year are by: Franz Kafka, Raymond Carver, Doris Lessing, Anita Desai, Leo Tolstoy, Richard Wright, Maria Edgeworth, Edith Wharton, Angela Carter, James Joyce, Aesop, Alice Walker and Philip K Dick.

But I am always looking out for stories that are completely new to me, and I am also looking forward to seeing what everyone else finds and reads.

                  📗📖📘📘📖📖 📘📘📖 📗

This page tracks my challenge and progress.

I also have a short story journal and a short story workbook

>1 AnishaInkspill: This is a good idea. I look forward to seeing the "26" participants' reading logs. I'll go set up a topic for my log now, too.

To make it easier, I have amended this to be a content for this page.

Here’s a roundup of how I’m doing so far:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Total read so far: --- individual shorts: 141 --- books: 5 ---
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- | -no. of prompts - | -🎉prompt-| - LEFT TO DO -
-------------------------------------| ------------------| -----------| --------------
-- -- -- -- total number -- -- -- -- | ------ 32 ------- | --- 16 ----| -- 16 -- 

And here's a breakdown, in the table below 'go to' takes you to the message that lists the stories / collections I've read and has a link to the message of my review.

 -- -- PROMPT GROUPINGS -- | - go to - | -no. of prompts- | -🎉prompt-| - TO DO -
 -- adventure to detective | message 4 | ------ 5 ------- | --- 03 ---| -- 2 -- 
friendship to freedom/hope | message 5 | ------ 7 ------- | --- 05 ---| -- 2 -- 
-- -- -- -- --- set in ... | message 6 | ------ 9 ------- | --- 05 ---| -- 4 -- 
-- title beginning with... | message 7 | ------ 5 ------- | --- 01 ---| -- 4 -- 
-- written before / between| message 8 | ------ 6 ------- | --- 02 ---| -- 4 -- 

These messages list the short Stories / collections that I have read or have been lined up:

• strong possibilities, see message 12
  
• other possibilities (earlier part of the 20th century), see message 13
  
• other possibilities (20th century, not so early), see message 14
  
• authors: Sylvia Plath & Andrew Lang, see message 22
  
• authors: Ernest Hemingway & Ray Bradbury, see message 23
  
  

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompts to be completed, group 1:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Total read so far: --- individual shorts: 45 --- books: 1 ---
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. adventure -- 🎉prompt completed
   
   • 26 Monkeys, Also The Abyss by Kij Johnson 📗✔️read 23rd Jan, message 33
     
   • reading 15 stories from Collected Prose of Sylvia Plath, 📗✔️read 5th Feb, message message 37
   
   
   
2. discovery -- 🎉prompt completed
   
   • Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino 📗✔️read 6th April, message 49
     
   • The Garbage Collector by Ray Bradbury, read in Ray Bradbury Stories volume 2 📗✔️read 18th April, message 54
     
   • A Country Doctor by Franz Kafka 📗✔️read 22nd April, message 57
     
   • The Mildenhall Treasure by Roald Dahl The Complete Short Stories Volume one 1944 - 1953 📗✔️read 24th April, message 59
     
     
3. quest
   
   Creature by Edna O'Brien 📗✔️read 7th June, message 80
   
   • Also for this prompt I'll be reading
     
     • 3:10 to Yuma by Elmore Leonard (short story, 18 pages) 📗✔️read 4th April, message message 47
       
     • A Little Journey by Ray Bradbury (short story, 5 pages) 📗✔️read 6th April, message message 48
       
     • The Wrong Man by Nella Larsen, read from https://shortstoryproject.com (short story, 4 pages) 📗✔️read 19th April, message message 55
       
       
     • five stories (46 pages) from The Big Book of Cyberpunk vol 1, compiled by Jared Shurin 📗✔️read 11th April
       
       1. The Gernsback Continuum by William Gibson 📗✔️read 8th April
          
       2. Red Sonja and Lessingham in Dreamland by Gwyneth Jones 📗✔️read 9th April
          
       3. Surfing the Khumbu by Richard Kadrey 📗✔️read 9th April
          
       4. The Girl Hero’s Mirror Says He’s Not the One by Justina Robson 📗✔️read 11th April
          
       5. Better Than by Jean Rabe📗✔️read 11th April
       
       
     • seven stories (64 pages) from The Big Book of Cyberpunk vol 1, compiled by Jared Shurin
       
       1. File: The Death of Designer D. by Christian Kirtchev 📗✔️read 18th May
          
       2. Four Tons Too Late by K C Alexander
          
       3. wysiomg by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro
          
       4. The Real You™ by Molly Tanzer
          
       5. Lena by QNTM
          
       6. A Life of Its Own by Aleš Kot
          
       7. Helicopter Story by Isabel Fall
     
     
     
   • crime
     • Why Don't We Just Kill The Kid in the Omelas Hole by Isabel J. Kim 📗✔️read 22nd Jan, message 30
     
     
     • Also for this prompt I'll be reading
       
       • three stories (49 pages) from The Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories, compiled by Ian Watson and Ian Whates 📗✔️read 20th March , message 41
         
         1. The Imitation Game by Rudy Rucker 📗✔️read 19th March
            
         2. The Einstein Gun by Pierre Gévart 📗✔️read 20th March
            
         3. Darwin Anathema by Stephen Baxter 📗✔️read 19th March
       
       
       
       • four stories (72 pages) from Vengeance, compiled by Mike Ashley
         
         1. Consumers by Dennis Lehane
            
         2. Lost and Found by Zoë Sharp
            
         3. Unremarkable Heart by Karin Slaughter
            
         4. Hollywood I Remember by Lee Child
       
       
       
   • detective -- 🎉prompt completed
     
     • reading six stories (95 pages) from The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes & Impossible Mysteries, compiled by Mike Ashley 📗✔️read 31stMarch, message 43
       
       1. On the Rocks by J A Konrath 📗✔️read 30thMarch
          
       2. Wingless Pegasus by Gillian Linscott 📗✔️read 24thMarch
          
       3. Shower of daggers by Edward D. Hoch 📗✔️read 30thMarch
          
       4. X Street murders by Joseph Commings 📗✔️read 23rd March
          
       5. Impossible murder of Dr. Satanus by William Krohn 📗✔️read 21stMarch
          
       6. Slaughterhouse by Barry Longyear 📗✔️read 31stMarch
     
     
     rough plan (to add / amend):
     Chess Story by Stefan Zweig
   
   Voices of the Fallen Hero, a collection of stories by Yokio Mishima.
   
   

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompts to be completed, group 2:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Total read so far: --- individual shorts: 36 --- books: 1 ---
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. friendship -- 🎉prompt completed
   
   • The Chocolate Box by Agatha Christie 📗✔️read 1st Jan, message 18
     
   • 17 stories read from Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway by Ernest Hemingway 📗✔️read 29th Jan, message 35
     
     
2. love -- 🎉prompt completed
   
   • The Whistle by Eudora Welty The New Penguin Book of American Short Stories 📗✔️read 23rd April, message 58
     
   • The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostoyevsky 📗✔️read 27th April, message 60
     
   • I Am Heathcliff - a collection of short stories inspired by Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights 📗✔️read 23rd May, message 78
     
     
3. betrayal -- 🎉prompt completed
   
   • reading three stories (126 pages) from Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood 📗✔️read 3rd April, message 46
     
     1. Alphinland 📗✔️read 1st April
        
     2. Revenant 📗✔️read 2nd April
        
     3. Dark Lady 📗✔️read 3rd April
   
   
   
4. suspense / mystery / horror
   
   • The Executor by Muriel Spark 📗✔️read 14th May, message 75
     
   • The Harlequin Tea Set by Agatha Christie ✔️read 06th Jun, message 82
     
   • The Man Who Lived Underground by Richard Wright
     
   • The White Road and Other Stories by Tania Hershman
   
   
   
5. supernatural event or occurrence -- 🎉prompt completed
   
   • A Visit by Anna Kavan 📗✔️ read 1st Feb, message 36
     
   • Obsessional by Anna Kavan 📗✔️ read 1st Feb, review message 36
     
   • The Piazza by Herman Melville read from The Piazza Tales 📗✔️read 4th May, message 66
     
   • The Apple-Tree Table by Herman Melville read from The Apple-Tree Table, and Other Sketches📗✔️read 13th May, message 74
     
     
6. coming-of-age -- 🎉prompt completed
   
   • Brownies by ZZ Packer 📗✔️read 23rd May, message 79
     
   • Irish Revel by Edna O'Brien 📗✔️read 7th Jun, message 81
     
   • The Ring by Anna Jansson read from A Darker Shade 📗✔️read 6th Jun, message 83
     
   • Foster by Claire Keegan 📗✔️read 8th Jun, message 84
     
     
   • freedom or hope
     
     • Kew Gardens by Virginia Woolf 📗✔️read 2nd Jan, message 19
       
     • The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin 📗✔️read 15th Jan, review message 24
       
     • Making Space (The Time Traveler's Passport) by R. F. Kuang 📗✔️read 21st Jan, review message 29
       
     • Voices of the Fallen Hero, a collection of stories by Yokio Mishima.
       
       
     • two stories (48 pages) from Give Me Your Heart by Joyce Carol Oates
       
       • Split/Brain 📗✔️read 14th April, review message 52
         
       • The Spill 📗✔️read 16th April, review message 53

rough plan (to add / amend):

Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad

Polaris and Other Stories by Fay Weldon

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompts to be completed, group 3:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Total read so far: --- individual shorts: 16 --- books: 3 ---
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. set in a festive season


2. set in Africa
   
   • The Visit by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie 📗✔️read 6th Jan, review message 20
     
   • African Myths of Origin
   
   
3. set in Asia -- 🎉prompt completed
   
   • Games at Twilight and Other Stories by Anita Desai ✔️read 28th Jan, review message 34
   
   
4. set in Europe -- 🎉prompt completed
   
   • Antarctica by Claire Keegan 📗✔️read 15th Jan, message 25
   
   
5. set in North America -- 🎉prompt completed
   
   • 5 stories by Flannery O'Connor
     
     • The Life You Save Maybe Your Own by Flannery O’Connor 📗✔️read 15th Jan, message 27
       
     • Good Country People by Flannery O’Connor 📗✔️read 2nd Feb, message 40
       
     • Revelation to Find by Flannery O’Connor 📗✔️read 7th Feb, message 40
       
     • A Good Man is Hard to Find by Flannery O’Connor 📗✔️read 5th Mar, message 40
       
     • A Late Encounter with the Enemy by Flannery O’Connor 📗✔️read 5th Mar, message 40
   
   
6. set in Oceania & Polynesia
   
   • Bush Studies by Barbara Baynton
   
   
7. set in South America -- 🎉prompt completed
   
   • Big Mama’s Funeral 📗✔️read 15th Jan, message 39
   
   
   
8. set in space -- 🎉prompt completed
   
   • Night Call, Collect by Ray Bradbury 📗✔️read 12th April, message 50
   
   
   • eight stories (119 pages) from Science Fiction Collection published by Golden Quill Classics
     
     1. Death Traps of FX-31 by Sewell Wright 📗✔️read 21st April, message 56
        
     2. Death Wish by Ned Lang 📗✔️read 28th April, message 61
        
     3. What is POSAT? by Phyllis Sterling-Smith 📗✔️read 02nd May, message 64
        
     4. The Celestial Hammerlock by Donald Colvin 📗✔️read 8th May, message 68
        
     5. Blind Spot by Bascom Jones 📗✔️read 9th May, message 70
        
     6. One Martian Afternoon by Tom Leahy 📗✔️read 8th May, message 69
        
     7. Show Business by Boyd Ellanby 📗✔️read 11th May, message 71
        
     8. Vital Ingredient by Charles De Vet 📗✔️read 11th May, message 72
   
   
   
9. set in the future
   
   • Pillar of Fire 📗✔️read 21st Mar, message 42
     
   • Philip K. Dick's Electric Dreams
     
     

rough plan (to add / amend):

-- set in the future --- possibly: Threads of Time by C J Cherryh a short story from Time Traveller's Almanac

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompts to be completed, group 4:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Total read so far: --- individual shorts: 26 --- books: 0 ---
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. title beginning with A – E -- 🎉prompt completed
   
   • Bartleby the Scrivener by Herman Melville 📗✔️read 10th May, review message 73
     
   • The Choirmaster by Elspeth Davie (9 pages) 📗✔️read 6th Feb
     
   • Change of Face by Elspeth Davie (7 pages) 📗✔️read 12th Feb
     
   • After A Life by Yiyun Li📗✔️ read 11th Feb
     
   • Blush by Elizabeth Taylor 📗✔️read 13th Feb
     
   • Downwind from Gettysburg by Ray Bradbury 📗✔️ 13th Mar 2026
   
   
   
2. title beginning with F – J
   
   • The Fly by Katherine Mansfield 📗✔️ read 17th May, review message 76
     
   • The Intruder by Jorge Luis Borges
     
   • Heavy-Set by Ray Bradbury 📗✔️ read 1st May, review message 63
     
   • The Fog Horn by Ray Bradbury 📗✔️ read 1st May, review message 65
   
   
   
3. title beginning with K – O
   
   • Lottery by Shirley Jackson
     
   • Love in the Marketplace by Yiyun Li 📗✔️ read 10th Feb
     
   • The Kilimanjaro Device by Ray Bradbury 📗✔️ 08th Mar 2026
     
   • The Inspired Chicken Motel by Ray Bradbury 📗✔️ 12th Mar 2026
     
   • The Market Basing Mystery by Agatha Christie read here online 📗✔️ 29th Apr 2026, message 62
     
   • The Old Manse by Nathaliel Hawthorne 📗✔️ 18th May 2026 , message 77
     
   • The Old Apple Dealer by Nathaliel Hawthorne 📗✔️ 18th May 2026 77
   
   
   
4. title beginning with P – T
   
   • A Telephone Call by Dorothy Parker 📗✔️read 16th Jan, message 28
     
   • Sentiment by Dorothy Parker 📗✔️read 6th Feb
     
   • Rue de Lille by Mavis Gallant 📗✔️read 12th Feb
     
   • The Terrible Conflagration Up at the Place by Ray Bradbury 📗✔️ 09th Mar
     
   • Tomorrow's Child by Ray Bradbury 📗✔️ 11th Mar 2026
   
   
   
5. title beginning with U – Z
   
   • The Waltz by Dorothy Parker 📗✔️read 6th Feb
     
   • A Weight Problem by Elspeth Davie (6 pages) 📗✔️read 12th Feb
     
   • A Walk in the Woods by Elizabeth Bowen 📗✔️read 13th Feb
     
   • The Women by Ray Bradbury 📗✔️ 12th Mar 2026
     
   • Yes, We'll Gather at the River by Ray Bradbury 📗✔️ 16th Mar
     
   • The Use of Force by William Carlos Williams read from Classicshorts.com 📗✔️ 5th May, message 67
   
   
   

rough plan (to add / amend):

-- title beginning with A – E ---
-- title beginning with F – J ---

-- title beginning with K – O ---

-- title beginning with P – T ---

-- title beginning with U – Z ---

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompts to be completed, group 5:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Total read so far: --- individual shorts: 20 --- books: 0 ---
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

1. written before 1700s (bonus read)
   
   
2. written between 1800 – 1850 (bonus read)
   
   
   • by Nathaniel Hawthorne 📗✔️read May 2026
     
     • Mosses from an Old Manse.
       
     • Buds and Bird Voices
       
     • Fire Worship
       
     • Intelligence Office
       
     • The Old Apple Dealer
       
     • A Select Party
   
   
   
3. written between 1851 – 1900 (bonus read)
   
   
4. written between 1901 – 1970 (bonus read) -- 🎉prompt completed
   
   
   • by Franz Kafka 📗✔️read May & 15th June 2026, message 85
     
     • Before the Law
       
     • A Message from the Emperor
       
     • The judgement
       
     • The stoker
       
     • In the Penal Colony
   
   
   
5. retell or an adaption (bonus read)
   
   >li>Judgement of Paris by Leonard Merrick 📗✔️read 17th Jun, see message 86



6. fantastical or fairytale (bonus read) -- 🎉prompt completed
   
   • reading 8 stories from Andrew Lang's The Rainbow Fairy Book📗✔️read 19th Feb, see message 38
   
   
   rough plan (to add / amend):
   
   -- written before 1700s (bonus read) --- The Complete Fables Aesop
   -- 1800 – 1850 (bonus read) ---
   
   • The Death of Iván Ilých by Leo Tolstoy
     
   • Amy Foster by Joseph Conrad
   
   -- 1851 – 1900 (bonus read) ---
   
   • The Death of Iván Ilých by Leo Tolstoy (1886)
     
   
   
   

I like how you've done your log. I think the idea of thinking of authors (and their usual genre) is a great way to increase the odds of matching a prompt.

Fay Weldon! I used love FW! Letters to Alice on First Reading Jane Austen and The Rules of Life Thank you for the reminder.

>9 DebiCates: hopefully, this will work, I work better when I'm brainstorming otherwise I just go blank.

I had heard of Fay Weldon but this year I read Moon Over Minneapolis - a collection of her shorts - and I was completely blown away, and want to read more of her work.

>10 AnishaInkspill: OOoooo. I'm off to find a copy! Thanks Anisha.

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

Strong possibilities:

The following list are stories from different books I have. I’ve chosen these knowing nothing to little about them.

From: The Story: The Love, Loss and Lives of Women

• The Life You Save Maybe Your Own by Flannery O’Connor 📗✔️read 15th Jan, message 27
  
• The Waltz by Dorothy Parker
  
• A Telephone Call by Dorothy Parker 📗✔️read 16th Jan, message 28
  
• Sentiment by Dorothy Parker
  
• Love in the Marketplace by Yiyun Li
  
• After A Life by Yiyun Li
  
• A Visit by Anna Kavan 📗✔️read 1st Feb, message 36
  
• Obsession by Anna Kavan 📗✔️read 1st Feb, message 36
  

single story: The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula K Le Guin 📗✔️read 15th Jan, review message 24

From: The Big Book of Cyberpunk Volume 1 total pages: 90, read so far: 0%

• The Girl Who Was Plugged In by James Tiptree Jnr
  
• 0wnz0red by Cory Doctorow
  
• The Completely Rechargeable Man by Karen Heuler
  
• With the Original Cast by Nancy Kress
  
• Wysiomg by Alvaro Zinos-Amaro

From: Mammoth Book of Perfect Crime and Impossible Mysteries total pages: 47, read so far: 0%

• Wingless Pegasus by Gillian Linscott
  
• Shower of daggers by Edward D. Hoch
  
• On the rocks by J.A. Konrath
  
  From: Mammoth Book of Alternative Histories total pages: 52, read so far: 0%
  
• The Raft of the Titanic by James Murrow
  
• The Einstein Gun by Pierre Gévart
  
• Hush My Mouth by Suzette Hayden Elgin

From The Glimpse of Truth: 100 Finest Stories total pages: 147, read so far: 0%

• Consequences by Willa Carther
  
• The Ring by Isak Dinesen
  
• Pierre Menard, Author of Don Quixote by Jorge Louis Borge
  
• The Pagan Rabbi by Cynthia Ozick
  
• The Last Mohican by Bernard Malamud
  
• The Blush by Elizabeth Taylor
  
• Cun by Nguyen Huy Thiep
  
• The Toymaker and His Wife by Joanne Harris
  
• The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  
• Forgotten Dreams by Stefan Zweig
  
• The Lady with the Dog by Anton Chekhov

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

Other Possibles – earlier 20th century

From The Country of the Blind and Other Stories by H G Wells

• The Flowering of Strange Orchid
  
• The Sea Raiders
  
• The Red Room

From Ray Bradbury: Stories volume 1 by Ray Bradbury

• The Great Wide World Over There
  
• The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit
  
• Frost and Fire

From The Collected Stories of Katherine Mansfield by Katherine Mansfield

• The Garden Party
  
• The Wind Blows
  
• The Fly

From A Haunted House: the Complete Shorter Fiction by Virginia Woolf

• Kew Gardens
  
• A Haunted House
  
• The Shooting Party

The Giant Wistaria by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
Old Water by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

The Incredible Theft by Agatha Christie
Market Basing Mystery by Agatha Christie
Veiled Lady by Agatha Christie
The Double Clue by Agatha Christie

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

Other Possibles – 20th century - not so early

From Vengeance total pages: 147, read so far: 0%

• The Consumers by Denis Lehane
  
• A Fine Mist of Blood by Michael Conelly
  
• The Unremarkable Heart by Karin Slaughter
  
• The Fourteenth Juror by Twist Phelan

From Welcome to the Monkey House by Kurt Vonnegut

• Welcome to the Monkey House
  
• EPICAC by Kurt Vonnegut

From Bagombo Snuff Box by Kurt Vonnegut

• 2BRO2B by Kurt Vonnegut

From Where I’m Calling From: The Selected Stories by Raymond Carver

• What We Talk About When We Talk About Love
  
• Fever
  
• Elephant by Raymond Carver

From Ray Bradbury: Stories volume 1 by Ray Bradbury

• The Great Wide World Over There
  
• The Wonderful Ice Cream Suit
  
• Frost and Fire

As the year wraps up, I am enjoying reading The Collected prose of Sylvia Plath, the first story, written by Sylvia Plath when she was 8 is a very short polished tale with a fairytale feel with its winter setting.

And I'm going to start the year with Agatha Christie's The Chocolate Box, I have no idea what the story is about but the title fits in with a post-holiday mood.

New Year greetings from Kuala Lumpur. My project is at least physically completed and an addition to the city scape.

Look forward to keeping up with you in 2026, Anisha

>16 PaulCranswick: this photo is amazing, Happy New Year to you Paul, and I think the one who will be trying to keep up will be me.

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompt: friendship

This could also fit:
- detective
- written before 1970
- set in Europe
- title beginning with A – E
- title beginning with P – T

prompt: freedom or hope

This could also fit:
- detective- written before 1970
- set in Europe
- title beginning with A – E
- title beginning with K – O

prompt: set in Africa

This could also fit:
- friendship
- set in Africa
- title beginning with P – T
- title beginning with U – Z

This has gotten me to look through many books that have short stories, and I was amazed I read 4, finally getting to authors that I have been meaning to in ages.

So, I'm rethinking how I'm going to do this challenge for myself, I didn't think I'd read as much as I have, so for myself, if the short story is less than 40 pages I will read at least one if not more before saying the prompt is complete.

The info above I will update tomorrow.

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

Reading the following from Collected Prose of Sylvia Plath

Total – 40 pages 📗✔️read 5th Feb 2026
read so far: 100%

1. A May Morning 📗✔️
   
2. A Morning in the Agora 📗✔️
   
3. Aunt Rennie and the Elves 📗✔️
   
4. From the Memoirs of a Babysitter 📗✔️
   
5. Mary Jane's Passport 📗✔️
   
6. On the Penthouse Roof 📗✔️
   
7. Spring Song 📗✔️
   
8. The Bookland Carpet 📗✔️
   
9. The Miraculous End of Miss Minton 📗✔️
   
10. The Mummy's Tomb 📗✔️
    
11. The Pond in Spring 📗✔️
    
12. The Thrilling Journeys of a Penny 📗✔️
    
13. Trixie and the Balloon 📗✔️
    
14. Victory 📗✔️
    
15. Winter and Magic 📗✔️

Reading 8 stories from Andrew Lang's The Rainbow Fairy Book 📗✔️read 19th Feb 2026
Total – 70 pages
read so far: 100%

1. Fairy Gifts 📗✔️read 6th Feb, message -- will be posted soon
   
2. The Story of Prince Ahmed and the Fairy Paribanou
   
3. Fairer-than-a-Fairy
   
4. A Fairy's Blunder 📗✔️read 7th Feb, message -- will be posted soon
   
5. The Fairy of the Dawn
   
6. The Frog and the Lion Fairy
   
7. The Punishment of the Fairy Gangana
   
8. The Fairy Nurse 📗✔️read 6th Feb, message -- will be posted soon

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

Reading the following from Complete Short Stories by Ernest Hemingway 📗✔️read 29th Jan 2026,

17 stories, total: 124 pages

read so far: 100%

1. Up in Michigan ✔️read 12th Jan 2026
   
2. On the Quai at Smyrna ✔️read 12th Jan 2026
   
3. Indian Camp ✔️read 13th Jan 2026
   
4. The Doctor and the Doctor’s Wife ✔️read 13th Jan 2026
   
5. The End of Something ✔️read 13th Jan 2026
   
6. The Three-Day Blow ✔️read 14th Jan 2026
   
7. The Battler ✔️read 25th Jan 2026
   
8. A Very Short Story ✔️read 25th Jan 2026
   
9. Soldier’s Home ✔️read 25th Jan 2026
   
10. The Revolutionist ✔️read 26th Jan 2026
    
11. Mr. and Mrs. Elliot ✔️read 27th Jan 2026
    
12. Cat in the Rain ✔️read 28th Jan 2026
    
13. Out of Season ✔️read 28th Jan 2026
    
14. Cross-Country Snow✔️read 29th Jan 2026
    
15. My Old Man ✔️read 29th Jan 2026
    
16. Big Two-Hearted River: Part I ✔️read 29th Jan 2026
    
17. Big Two-Hearted River: Part II ✔️read 29th Jan 2026

Read the following from Ray Bradbury Stories Volume 1 / Ray Bradbury Stories Volume 2

1. The Kilimanjaro Device by Ray Bradbury ✔️ 08th Mar 2026
   
2. The Terrible Conflagration Up at the Place by Ray Bradbury ✔️ 09th Mar 2026
   
3. Tomorrow's Child by Ray Bradbury ✔️ 11th Mar 2026
   
4. The Women by Ray Bradbury ✔️ 12th Mar 2026
   
5. The Inspired Chicken Motel by Ray Bradbury ✔️ 12th Mar 2026
   
6. Downwind from Gettysburg by Ray Bradbury ✔️ 13th Mar 2026
   
7. Yes, We'll Gather at the River by Ray Bradbury ✔️ 16th Mar 2026

prompt: freedom or hope

This could also fit:
- set in a festive season
- discovery
- title beginning with K – O
- title beginning with P – T

prompt: set in Europe

This could also fit:
- discovery
- crime
- freedom or hope
- title beginning with A – E

Update so far:

🎉prompt completed

• set in Europe

📗✔️Prompts not completed*, books read:

• set in Africa
  
• freedom or hope
  
• friendship

*rough target to read 40 pages + for each prompt.

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompt: set in North America

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- love (as in love for oneself)
- freedom or hope
- friendship
- title beginning with K – O
- title beginning with P – T

                                                            ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 The Life You Save Maybe Your Own by Flannery O’Connor✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

                                                                     ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 15th Jan 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

I’ve been meaning to read anything by Flannery O’Connor, she’s an author whose name is recommended to read, looking through my books I discovered I have a couple of her stories including this one, which I read in The Story: The Love, Loss and Lives of Women edited by Victoria Hislop.

The story is gentle and ambles along, here people are getting by and doing their best to exist, one of these is Mr Shiftlet who finds a home with a mother and daughter by improving their dilapidated house. The mother, described as an ‘old woman’, is a shrewd woman and understands Mr Shiftlet better than he realizes. I won’t give the rest of the story away, I enjoyed reading this there was a mellowness that was full of confidence in its goodness. I saw the ending coming but I didn’t mind as it amused me.

                                                                             ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

prompt: title beginning with P – T

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- freedom or hope
- written between 1901 – 1970
- title beginning with A – E
- love

                                                            ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 A Telephone Call by Dorothy Parker ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

                                                                     ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 16th Jan 2026, 3* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
This is another story I read in The Story: The Love, Loss and Lives of Women edited by Victoria Hislop. It’s also available online here https://www.classicshorts.com/stories/teleycal.html

A woman waiting for a call from the man she loves. I can imagine watching this performed and it would be funny and poignant as she expresses her agony of waiting. As a read it works, is it a short story, there’s a rhythm to the first person’s narration, kind of reminds of Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s The Yellow Wallpaper, but there aren’t the layers here and this one is less chilling of what is implied. What is sad about this is there is no ending, the story ends but leave her waiting for that call.

prompt: freedom or hope

This could also fit:
- set in North America
- friendship
- title beginning with K – O

thanks to @DebiCates for pointing this one out and also 26 Monkeys, Also the Abyss, which I'll post soon.

prompt: crime

This could also fit:
-freedom or hope
- title beginning with U – Z

>30 AnishaInkspill: Like you, I enjoyed the Le Guin original more. But, I respected what author Kim did, bringing this into current day insanity.

>31 DebiCates: Yeah, I get this, but what was in the story didn't give me enough to make sense of it, and maybe if it was a seperate story where I read it as a detached work from the original then I wouldn't have needed this, but by being a response to the original I think it creates layers in its own story even when this is not what it intended.

So, yeah, a v interesting read. I'd definitely read more works by Isabel J Kim.

thanks to @DebiCates, such a wonderful fun and hopeful read

prompt: adventure

This could also fit:
- discovery
- love, here it would be love of life
- fantasy or fairytale

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompt: set in Asia

This could also fit:
- discovery
- love
- adventure
- freedom or hope
- title beginning with F – J

prompt: friendship

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- freedom or hope
- written between 1901 – 1970
- love
- set in Europe
- set in North America
- coming-of-age

                                              ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 17 stories read from Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway, see message 23 for list of stories read✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

                                                                     ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 29th Jan 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

Friendship is a theme that runs through most of these 17 stories. It’s good to finally pick up this book it has been on my shelf for years. I was expecting it to be a difficult or complicated, but my views of reading (I’m beginning to realize) are outdated, this is how I used to think about a lot of books when reading was an idea and something I wanted to do.

Trading these reminds me of the tone and style of watching old black and white Hollywood movies, reading them feels like they're from another time but I can still relate to them and found them to be sad, funny, unsettling and poignant.

Now that I’ve opened this book, if I get a chance this year I would read more without hesitation now.

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompt (Amended): title beginning with K – O & title beginning with U – Z

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- freedom or hope
- written between 1901 – 1970
- love
- betrayal
- fantastical or fairytale (bonus read)

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 2 stories: A Visit & Obsessional, both by Anna Kavan✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

                                                                     ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 1st Feb 2026, 4* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

I read these in The Story: The Love, Loss and Lives of Women edited by Victoria Hislop.

Both are fantastical, A Visit is of a woman who is frequently visited by a friendly leopard, the leopard I was never quite sure if it was real or in her imagination. Either way, it matters less than her journey of what she came to realize about herself. Obsessional is a more haunting tale, again I wasn’t sure if the ghost was real or not but like A Visit it spoke volumes for a short tale.

prompt: adventure

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- written between 1901 – 1970
- love
- betrayal
- fantastical or fairytale (bonus read)

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 15 stories read from Collected Prose of Sylvia Plath✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

                                                                     ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 5th Feb 2026, 4* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

The Collected Prose of Sylvia Plath gathers Sylvia Plath’s short works of fiction and nonfiction, including her juvenilia. The 15 stories I read are of her earlier works (listed listed on my ShortsRead log, message 22).

In the ones I read friends are important and make things better, along with being understanding and kindness, and adventure is a running theme through most of these. Their style is gentle and sweet and builds towards a happy ending.

This book has over a 100 works of fiction, and at a guess the same in nonfiction, and I'd say roughly 10% of this book has been published before in Johnny Panic and the Bible of Dreams and other prose writing, a much shorter book of Sylvia Plath's collection of prose.

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompt: fantastical or fairytale (bonus read)

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- written between 1851 – 1900
- written between 1901 – 1970
- love
- betrayal
- adventure
- discovery
- quest
- friendship
- love
- suspense / mystery / horror
- supernatural event or occurrence
- coming-of-age
- freedom or hope

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 8 stories read from Andrew Lang's The Rainbow Fairy Book ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 19th Feb 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

I frequently see this beautiful set of books enticing me to read them, this challenge gave me the excuse to read some, I selected these 8 fairy tales written for a younger audience, and at a time where stories emphasises the moral point.

I've only read fairy tales as an adult and not a young mind that would enjoy the magic and the tension and the fright that these stories suggest, but by the fourth one I was enchanted by these tales, and I enjoyed reading these a lot more than I thought I would.

prompt: set in South America

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- written between 1901 – 1970
- freedom or hope
- love

prompt: set in North America

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- coming-of-age
- freedom or hope
- written between 1901 – 1970
- crime

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 4+1 stories by Flannery O'Connor, listed ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 5th Mar 2026, 4* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

I say +1 because after reading the first story The Life You Save Maybe Your Own I wanted to read more of her work moving that story with another 4 to complete this prompt.

Nothing is quite as it seems in these stories, these stories are dark, the characters are not very likable, what stands out is how the story unfolds. In Good Country People an educated smart daughter despises her mother only to learn a harsh lesson herself, same happens in Everything that Rises Must Converge but this time the conflict is between mother and son. The conflict in all of them is a clash of ideals driven by a longing for the old Antebellum South that is vanishing from the new world.

Other stories read:
Revelation
A Good Man is Hard to Find
A Late Encounter with the Enemy by Flannery O’Connor

prompt: crime

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- quest
- freedom or hope
- written between 1901 – 1970
- set in Europe

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 3 stories from Mammoth Book of Alternate Histories ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 20th Mar 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

What if World War II never happened, or what if Darwin was prosecuted for his ideas of natural selection, or what if Alan Turin never committed suicide?

3 short stories that explore this question in Ian Watson and Ian Whates Mammoth Book series.

Darwin Anathema by Stephen Baxter was more elaborate in its invention than The Einstein Gun by Pierre Gévart and The Imitation Game by Rudy Rucker. This was also my favourite of the 3, not just in how the story is told and unfolds but also the outcome of the courtroom drama.

The other 2 were good, they both dealt with hate crimes, or run up to it, The Imitation Game by Rudy Rucker was lacking tension and wasn’t a satisfactory read for the injustice Alan Turin faced for his homosexuality. The Einstein Gun by Pierre Gévart, I read a translation was intriguing, and highlighted all the horrors and persecution of the Second World War, but it’s ending, it was nice but more fairy tale than reality for me.

prompt: set in the future

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- crime
- suspense / mystery / horror
- quest

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompt: Detective

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- crime
                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 6 stories from Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes & Impossible Mysteries ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 31st Mar 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

I finally opened this book of short stories selected and compiled by Mike Ashley, this is another book that has been on my shelves that I’ve been meaning to read. The first thing that struck me was the thoughtfulness that had gone into this book, each start starts with a brief overview of the author, and at the back it lists all the stories with information of when they were first published. I selected six at random, 2 from the 1960s, 2 from the 1990s and 2 from 2000s, not having read many detective stories I thought this would give a broader view of this genre. What surprised me was how much I enjoyed them. The stories aren’t, edge of the seat, but made these reads enchanting for me were how the stories unfolded to solve the crime. In the future, when I want something light to read this is a book I would easily turn to.

@anishaInkspill I saw that you are considering expanding the group a bit. I'd be into it! I'll be reading Different Seasons by Stephen King which are more 4 novellas than short stories (I was going to count them anyway). My Thésée by André Gide, also, was more a novella.
Anyway - I'm logging them :D
There's always a fine line, I find, between short story and novella!

>44 Cecilturtle: oh brilliant, that's great, and yes there is a fine line, a few weeks back I came across a new one, novelette, I'm guessing this is between the two.

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompt: Betrayal

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- love
- quest
- suspense / mystery / horror
- friendship

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 3 stories from Stone Mattress by Margaret Atwood ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 3rd April 2026, 4* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

These three stories are interconnected but can also be read separately. The stories revolve around three women whose love for a man has a huge impact on their lives that they are blind to the betrayal, this unravels slowly with sharp wit and dry humour (that made these stories enjoyable reads), where I could not decide if the ending was a happy one or a tragic one.

prompt: quest

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- crime
- title beginning with P – T
- written between 1901 – 1970
- set in North America

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 Three-Ten to Yuma by Elmore Leonard ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 4th April 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

An easy going light read, with some action and witty dialogue exchange. This short is set in the wild west where the Marshall has to take an outlaw to his destination, not an easy feat when the outlaw has many happy-trigger friends that would rather see him go free.

prompt: quest

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- crime
- betrayal
- written between 1901 – 1970
- set in North America

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 A Little Journey by Ray Bradbury ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                            ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 4th April 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

I have to admire Mrs Bellowes tenacity for not giving up on her dream, she could have given up at every disappointment that let her down by not keeping to their promise, but she was undeterred to fulfil her spiritual quest. And it was amusing how she things into her own hands to make it happen, bet Mr Thirkell was not expecting that.

prompt: discovery

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- written between 1901 – 1970
- set in space

also includes story about: adventure / friendship/ love / betrayal / coming-of-age / freedom or hope

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompt: set in space

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- quest
- suspense / mystery / horror
- written between 1901 – 1970

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 Night Call, Collect by Ray Bradbury ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 12th April 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

This is an eerie tale of isolation and loneliness compounded by youthful naivety and holding on to hope. Barton, stuck on Mars has been wanting to go back homer for decades.

prompt: quest

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- crime
- suspense / mystery / horror
- discover
- love
- freedom or hope

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 5 stories from The Big Book of Cyberpunk vol 1 ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 12th April 2026, TBC* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

These are quirky, unsettling, fun grim tales of people all trying to make sense of who they are and how they fit in. I want to come back to this and have lined up another 7 from this book, all 12 stories are listed above on this page, message 4.

prompt: freedom or hope
The other prompts this story could fit are:
- crime
- discover

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 Split/Brain by Joyce Carol Oates, read from Give Me Your Heart✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 14th April 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

Joyce Carol Oates is an author is one I’ve been wanting to read and starting with this short story. I enjoyed the writing and could feel the world on Trudy Gould’s shoulder but she was not going to be beaten. The ending is open and I hoped she came out okay.

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompt: freedom or hope

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- crime
- discover
- love
- suspense / mystery / horror

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 The Spill by Joyce Carol Oates, read from Give Me Your Heart✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 16th April 2026, 4* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

This is truly tragic, when Lizabeta Torvich marries the widower Walter Braam her life changes; it’s not the happiness she had hoped for. Instead, she runs the house with little help and is an instant mother of 2 step-sons of similar age to her, has 3 children of her own and also has to care for her husband’s adult nephew whose own mother has given up on him because of his learning disabilities. The story is set in the 1950s, where gender roles were less fluid, and where wives had to be sensitive of offending husbands and be quieter and taken for granted. The story builds-up slowly showing the consequence of this.

prompt: discovery

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- set in North America
- written between 1901 – 1970

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 Garbage Collector by Ray Bradbury, read from Ray Bradbury Stories volume 2✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 18th April 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

A short story that looks at the value of our essence and what makes us, asking us if it came to the crunch is there a line where we would sell ourselves short. The garbage collector in this story is in this predicament when in a day he discovers the job he loves changes on him.

prompt: quest

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- love
- written between 1901 – 1970

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 The Wrong Man by Nella Larsen, read from https://shortstoryproject.com✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 19th April 2026, 3* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

Alice Walker in her In Search of Our Mother’s Garden says Nella Larsen, along with Zora Neale Hurston, partly supported themselves with writing short stories, so it was nice to come across this one, a light comedy with Julie undertaking a quest thinking her marriage is in danger.

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompt: set in space

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- set in the future
- quest
- discover
- freedom or hope
                                                                                           
                                                     
                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 Death Traps of FX-31 by Sewell Wright read from The Science Fiction Collection ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 21st April 2026, 3* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

This is first of the 8 stories I’m reading before reading to the shorts in The Big Book of Cyberpunk vol 1.

John Hanson, recalls when he was a commander of a space ship is basically told he will take 3 scientists to a planet where they are to protect them as they investigate unknown life-form in the shape of big spiders. There’s a couple of twists, and some action against those big spiders. I won’t give away how it ends but it was a fun read.

I was looking into this story to discover that John Hansion is a series, other stories by Sewell Wright of John Hansion adventures are:

• Vampires of Space (1932)
• Priestess of the Flame (1932)
• The Terror from the Depths (1931)

prompt: discovery

The other prompts this story could fit are:

- betrayal
- quest
- written between 1901 – 1970
                                                                                           
                                                     
                                                       ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 A Country Doctor by Franz Kafka read from Best Works of Franz Kafka (Kindle Book B0G3Q7T8NH) ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 22nd April 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

A kind of a surreal story of a doctor in doing his duty to see a patient, questions his own worth and value when he’s expected to perform miracles but at the same time is taken for granted; feeling betrayed, he discovers much is expected of him from his patients but when he needs their help then they are not there for him.

prompt: Love

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- freedom or hope
- written between 1901 – 1970

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 The Whistle by Eudora Welty The New Penguin Book of American Short Stories ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 23rd April 2026, 3* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

A married couple just worn down by poverty, life and not being free, just exist and yet through all this is a flicker of hope. A sad tale but beautiful.

prompt: Discovery

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- freedom or hope
- written between 1901 – 1970

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 The Mildenhall Treasure by Roald Dahl The Complete Short Stories Volume one 1944 - 1953 ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                               ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 24th April 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

This is a funny moral tale of greed and obsession. This was fun to read, I haven’t read much by Roald Dahl, I really liked how this story unfolded.

prompt: Love

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- freedom or hope
- discovery
- suspense / mystery / horror
- written between 1851 – 1900

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗The Dream of a Ridiculous Man by Fyodor Dostoyevsky✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 27th April 2026, 3* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

An abrupt start, as the narrator goes on an inner journey that starts with his despair and ends with love for his life and hope after he dreams of utopian. I’m not sure if this is a short story or philosophical thinking, and I get why the narrator would denounce science and knowledge for an inner peace, but to me his life sounds too ideal to work, but it gave him hope so that was nice.

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️
prompt: set in space

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- set in the future
- quest
- discovery
- freedom or hope
- written between 1901 – 1970
                                                                                           
                                                     
                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 Death Wish by Ned Lang read from The Science Fiction Collection ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 28th April 2026, 4.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

This is second of the 8 stories I’m reading before reading to the shorts in The Big Book of Cyberpunk vol 1.

This is hilarious, a fun entertaining read, a touch dark and ahead of its time with proto-AI. The 3-space crew find themselves in a difficult situation unsolvable by humans, when the computer on board has the answer, it’s not the one they are looking for.

prompt: title beginning with K – O

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- quest
- suspense / mystery / horror
- written between 1901 – 1970
- set in Europe
- title beginning with P – T

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 The Market Basing Mystery by Agatha Christie read here online ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 29th April 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

This was an untaxing, gentle read that’s perfect for a taking a little time out in the day. Here Poirot solves another mystery, but there’s a twist.

prompt: title beginning with F – J

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- quest
- written between 1901 – 1970
- set in North America

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 Heavy-Set by Ray Bradbury ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                            ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 1st May 2026, 3* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

This read more like a character-study than a story, and more an interesting read than a feel-good one. Leonard, nick-named ‘Heavy-Set’ for his physique, is a 30-year-old who still lives with his mum. The friends he has are always passing as he is more of a curiosity to them, and wants who wants to know him better he keeps at arms-length.

prompt: set in space

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- set in the future
- suspense / mystery / horror
- discovery
- quest
- written between 1901 – 1970

                                                                                              
                                                     
                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 What is POSAT? by Phyllis Sterling-Smith read from The Science Fiction Collection ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 2nd May 2026, 3* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

An intriguing read with its mystery with a quest driven my curiosity and paranoia to learn the truth about an ancient cult, but what transpires left me with a mixture of surprise and a bit of a letdown, having said that it was good to come across a science fiction by a woman author from the 1950s.

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompt: title beginning with F – J

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- quest
- suspense / mystery / horror
- written between 1901 – 1970
                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 Fog Horn by Ray Bradbury ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                            ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 1st May 2026, 3* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

Another Ray Bradbury read that is different from the ones I’ve read so far. Here, a monster lurks in the waters, but is the fog-horn from the lighthouse keeping the nearby ships and the land itself safe?

prompt: supernatural event or occurrence

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- discovery
- a fantastical or fairytale
- written between 1851 – 1900
                                                                                          
                                                     
                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 The Piazza by Herman Melville read from Tales Piazza Tales✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 4th May 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

Imagine stepping out into your porch or balcony to experience a place of magic and wonder from the nature that surrounds you.

prompt: title beginning with U – Z

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- quest
- discovery
- written between 1901 – 1970
                                                                                           
                                                     
                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 The Use of Force by William Carlos Williams read from Classicshorts.com✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 5th May 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

A fascinating story of how a doctor has to stay professional regardless of how challenging the patient(s) makes his task.

prompt: set in space

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- set in the future
- written between 1901 – 1970
                                                                                                                                                   
                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 The Celestial Hammerlock by Donald Colvin read from The Science Fiction Collection ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 8th May 2026, 3* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

Light in tone, and a battle of upmanship between employee and employer, what it was suggesting was a touch troubling for me but I think like What is POSAT?, it another story in this collection that was making a petition for peace, both were written in 1951.

My favourite part was the opening, just what I needed after a few heavyish reads, the lightness of this made me laugh:

SPACEGRAM

From: Jed Michaels,
Ryttuk, Eros

To: H. E. Horrocks,
Interplanetary Amusement Corp.,
Cosmopolis, Earth

I QUIT, YOU BALLOON BRAIN.

JED

prompt: set in space

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- set in the future
- suspense / mystery / horror
- crime
- written between 1901 – 1970
                                                                                                                                                   
                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 The One Martian Afternoon by Tom Leahy read from The Science Fiction Collection ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 8th May 2026, 3* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

The writing is a touch dated but creepy, the sweet old lady is not all that she seems, reminding me of Hansel and Gretel and the danger they could have been in.

prompt: set in space

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- love
- betrayal
- discovery
- set in the future
- written between 1901 – 1970
                                                                                                                                                   
                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 Blind Spot by Bascom Jones read from The Science Fiction Collection ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 9th May 2026, 4* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

Compared to some of the others in this collection this story had a more contemporary feel. A poignant read of how things can change quickly from good to really bad, here the trigger is being in love in a dystopian world where Martians are the underlings with little rights after being colonised by Earth.

prompt: set in space

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- set in the future
- written between 1901 – 1970
                                                                                                                                                   
                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 Show Business by Boyd Ellanby read from The Science Fiction Collection ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 11th May 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

The story didn’t build-up enough for me to find the yarn being spun about Martians credible but I enjoyed the writing of this one.

prompt: set in space

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- set in the future
- written between 1901 – 1970
                                                                                                                                                   
                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 Vital Ingredient by Charles De Vet read from The Science Fiction Collection✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 11th May 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

This is another story I’ve read from this collection that philosophised on problems arising when assumptions of another culture are made from guess-work than knowledge, here it’s a race of Martians. And what a disaster, this is the kind of story that reminds me to have competent doctors when going in for surgery.

prompt: written between 1851 – 1900

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- quest
- suspense / mystery / horror
- written between 1851 – 1900

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 Bartleby by Herman Melville read from Tales Piazza Tales✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 10th May 2026, 4* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

I enjoyed reading Bartleby but I am not sure what to make of it with its intriguing last line before epilogue that refers to Bartleby as being an equal to a king and counsellor. This left me with a sense that there is more to Bartleby's story than what I was reading (this was confirmed by the very last line of the story ‘Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity’). I am left with wondering what I have missed, this has got me looking through the rest of my books to see if I can work this story out.

What I am sure about is the narrator is the kind of employer I would want, he’s not just patient with Bartleby but also Turkey, Nippers and Ginger Nut.

prompt: supernatural event or occurrence

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- discovery
- quest
- coming-of-age
- set in North America
- written between 1851 – 1900

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 The Apple-Tree Table by Herman Melville read from The Apple-Tree Table, and Other Sketches✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 13th May 2026, 4* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

Charming, warm, light-hearted family story about a haunted table. The wife is wonderful in how she is not spooked like the others, and her practical mind as the others fret provides the light comedy.

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prompt: suspense / mystery / horror

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- betrayal
- quest
- supernatural event or occurrence
- freedom or hope
                                                                                           
                                                     
                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 The Executor by Muriel Spark ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 14th May 2026, 3* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

This was okay, a light read, slightly amusing but not having read anything by Muriel Spark my expectations were built up and, I don’t know there would be more to this; the story didn’t come alive with how Susan Kyle reconciles her conscience when she is haunted by her dead uncle, I just thought it needed something more.

prompt: title beginning with F – J

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- set in Europe
- freedom or hope
- written between 1901 – 1970
                                                                                           
                                                     
                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 The Fly by Katherine Mansfield ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                          ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 17th May 2026, 4* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

A short read with a punch. The opening is innocuous, I thought at first this story is about a man who has retired visits his old work-place to getaway from the house, and it’s wonderful how accommodating and kind his boss is, but then the story changed on me as this old man is the inciting incident to highlight how the boss, who was once a father, copes with the loss of his son. The symbolism of the fly speaks volumes.

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prompt: title beginning with K – O

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- freedom or hope
- written between 1800 – 1850
- set in North America
                                                                                           

                                                     
                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 2 stories by Nathaliel Hawthorne: The Old Manse & The Old Apple Dealer ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 18th May 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

2 sketches, first one of a house (built by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s grandfather) and how it inspires the speaker with its history and nature. The second is an observation of how an apple seller exists in calmness, today it would be described as mindfulness, taking things as they are, the observer describes the seller as philosopher in his approach to life. Not much happens but both give a sense of hope.

prompt: love

Other prompts this story could fit are:
- adventure
- quest
- crime
- coming-of-age

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompt: coming-of-age

Other prompts this story could fit are:
- friendship
- set in North America
- discovery

Brownies by ZZ Packer, read from Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

prompt: quest

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- friendship
- set in Europe

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 Creature by Edna O’Brien ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 07th Jun 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

The narrator here befriends a local who is not respected by the locals and gets involved in her life, she wants to help her but it's a help that was not asked for.

prompt: coming-of-age

Other prompts this story could fit are:
- love
- set in Europe
- discovery

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 Irish Revel by Edna O’Brien ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 07th Jun 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

A sharp awakening for Mary, a young 17-year-old, who goes to a party hoping to see the man she has a crush on, instead it's a realisation that makes her look at things differently. This is the second story I've read by Edna O'Brien, an author new to me, and enjoyed both in how vivid her story unfolds.

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prompt: suspense / mystery / horror

Other prompts this story could fit are:
- detective
- set in Europe
- crime
- friendship
- written between 1901 – 1970

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 The Harlequin Tea Set by Agatha Christie ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 06th Jun 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

Oh what a fun read, no Miss Marple or Poirot, instead it's Mr Satterthwaite, who has been invited for tea and feels lost but with some aspiring words from his old pal Quin he unpuzzles a mystery that's been bugging him.

prompt: coming of age

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- detective
- love
- set in Europe

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 The Ring by Anna Jansson read from A Darker Shade✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 6th June 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

I’d like the play on JRR Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, in this short story Frederik Bengtsson sees himself as the ring-bearer, but here the ring is symbolic to protect him from the bullies, meanwhile a woman has been murdered which Frederik gets caught up in but through this experience, which is an awful one for him, he finds his courage.

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompt: coming of age

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- discovery
- love
- set in Europe

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 Foster by Claire Keegan✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 8th June 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

An understated story of how the world can shift for one so young with new experiences. I won’t say what happens but Claire Keegan gives a refreshing take on a child’s experience when fostered.

prompt: written between 1901 – 1970 (bonus read)

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- discovery
- crime
- set in Europe
- set in North America

                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 by Franz Kafka✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 May & 15th June 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

Stories read:

• Before the Law
  
• A Message from the Emperor
  
• The judgement
  
• The stoker
  
• In the Penal Colony

It was when I read A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka that got my attention, it was how plainly he showed the human dilemma, it was tragic and hopeless and at the same time its nuances counteracted this. Of these 5, I'd say In the Penal Colony comes to the closest in textures, where at the beginning of the story it was hard to see the officer in a sympathetic light but by the end it was impossible not to.

✳️✳️ The contents for this page can be found at message 3 above.✳️✳️

prompt: a retell or an adaption

The other prompts this story could fit are:
- quest
- betrayal
- love
- friendship
- set in Europe

                                                      ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 Judgement of Paris by Leonard Merrick ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗
                                                                   ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗 17th Jun 2026, 3.5* ✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗✔️📗

The plot of Judgement of Paris is retold as a dark comedy in an innovative way, the backdrop is the French Revolution as two friends compete with each other to win the love of Suzanne Brouette, Robichon thinking he has beaten Quinquart doesn’t see what is coming.