26Shorts2026: ShortsRead --- TonjaE

Excited to give this challenge a go! I have hardly ever read short stories, I'm not sure why because they really are so appealing in a number of different ways. Now is the time! Thank you @AnishaInkspill for going to so much trouble to create this wonderful challenge, I shall try to do you proud :)

This first post will be a personal checklist for each prompt and I will hopefully have something to say about each story I make it through below.

THEMES:
✔ adventure - The Unexpected by Jack London Read 01/01/2026
✔ discovery - In The Abyss by H. G. Wells Read 01/03/2026
✔ quest - A Little Journey by Ray Bradbury Read 01/04/2026
✔ crime - The Traveller's Story Of The Very Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins Read 01/10/2026
detective - The Adventure Of The Copper Beeches (Sherlock Holmes) by Arthur Conan Doyle
friendship - The Devoted Friend by Oscar Wilde
love - The Lady With The Dog by Anton Chekhov
betrayal - Made for Error by Katie Lovegood
suspense / mystery / horror - The Call Of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft
supernatural event or occurrence - The Answer Man by Stephen King (Hard copy from my library)
coming-of-age - The Body by Stephen King (Hard copy from my library)
✔ freedom or hope - Clair De Lune by Guy de Maupassant Read 01/28/2026

SET IN:
set in a festive season - Christmas - The Gift Of The Magi by O. Henry
set in Africa - South Africa - Dream Life and Real Life by Olive Schreiner
✔ set in Asia - Japan - Sansho The Steward by Mori Ogai Read 01/11/2026
set in Europe - Italy -The House By The Sea by Natalia Ginzburg
set in North America - USA - The Body by Stephen King
set in Oceania & Polynesia - Australia - Reunion from The Turning by Tim Winton (Hard copy from my library)
set in South America - Chile? - Two Words by Isabel Allende
✔ set in space - A Little Journey by Ray Bradbury
set in the future - Let's Get Together by Isaac Asimov

TITLES BEGINNING WITH:
title beginning with A – E: (The) Adventure Of The Copper Beeches by Arthur Conan Doyle / (The) Body by Stephen King / (The) Call Of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft / (The) Devoted Friend by Oscar Wilde / (The) Exhumation by Catherine Lim ✔

title beginning with F – J: Fog by Tim Winton / (The) Gift Of The Magi by O. Henry / (The) House By The Sea by Natalia Ginzburg / In The Abyss by H.G.Wells ✔ / (The) Jaunt by Stephen King

title beginning with K – O: K.C. by Catherine Lim / (A) Little Journey by Ray Bradbury ✔ / (The) Machine Stops by E. M. Forster / On Her Knees by Tim Winton /

title beginning with P – T: Prologue: Images by Catherine Lim from the Catherine Lim Collection ✔ / (The) Quiet Car by Joyce Carol Oates from Beautiful Days ✔ / Reunion by Tim Winton from The Turning / Sansho the Steward by Mori Ogai ✔ / (The) Traveller's Story Of The Very Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins ✔

title beginning with U – Z: (The) Unexpected by Jack London ✔ /

BONUS PROMPTS:
written before 1700s
written between 1800 – 1850: The Fall of the house of Usher by Edgar Allen Poe (1839)
✔ written between 1851 – 1900: In The Abyss by H.G. Wells (1896)
✔ written between 1901 – 1970: The Unexpected by Jack London (1906)
a retell or an adaption: Pegasus, The Winged Horse by Nathaniel Hawthorne
a fantastical or fairytale: Farmer Giles Of Ham by J. R. R. Tolkien (Hard copy from my library)

you're welcome, and welcome to the group, you already have, this is amazing - enjoy the journey and I'm looking forward to seeing what you find and read.

>1 TonjaE: I love seeing your tentative list. I certainly will be checking in regularly...stealing ideas. ha

>2 AnishaInkspill: Yay! I'm having a lot of fun searching for them.

>3 DebiCates: Yay! It's fun searching for them, Steal away! x

Hi Tonja, I'm looking forward to following along and seeing what you read!

>6 MissBrangwen: Hello! Thank you, I'll be following along with your reading too. Looking forward to it.

>4 TonjaE: >3 DebiCates: me too, it's been wonderful this gives me the excuse now to give myself the time to look through more of my books

I'm impressed with how organised you are! Happy reading in 2026!

🌟 The Unexpected, a short story by Jack London

Written around 1905/06, I'm sure in its time would have been rather shocking; unexpected even. Now, with all our desensitisation to violence it seemed a very basic tale to tell. I did enjoy London's description of how life has been molded by civilisation:

"The effect of civilization is to impose human law upon environment until it becomes machine-like in its regularity. The objectionable is eliminated, the inevitable is foreseen. One is not even made wet by the rain nor cold by the frost; while death, instead of stalking about grewsome and accidental, becomes a prearranged pageant, moving along a well-oiled groove to the family vault, where the hinges are kept from rusting and the dust from the air is swept continually away."

I wholeheartedly agree, and feel his disdain for it. It's no wonder that his best writing is about the natural world and the wildness of it.

The story certainly fulfils the prompt of 'adventure', it just wasn't one that grabbed my attention; although I will be taking away the above quote. 🌟🌟

>9 Cecilturtle: Happy new reading year to you too!

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, Tonje

>12 PaulCranswick: That is one striking structure! Happy New Year Paul, best wishes and happy reading. :)

>10 TonjaE: I enjoyed your thoughts on this story (I've not read this one) and the brilliant quote from Jack London. Have you ever read The Call of the Wild? I think you would like it. It's pegged as a kids' book, but that's just weirdly minimizing. It's quite a violent and is a serious look at a dog called Buck. I loved the ending, not sweet, powerful.

>1 TonjaE: When you read The Call Of Cthulhu by H. P. Lovecraft, could we maybe read it at the same time? I'm afraid to read it by myself! :p But I want to read a Lovecraft, even it is only one thing.

>15 DebiCates: Of course! but I'm not sure how helpful I'll be if the terrifying monster jumps out of the book in Texas :P

>14 DebiCates: I have read Call of the Wild and White Fang but it was a very long time ago. Can't beat a dog story! Definitely due a re-read at some point :)

>16 TonjaE: LOL. I should give you my emergency numbers to call, just in case you don't hear back from me. Tell my daughters. You will have the only clue as to what happened to me.

>17 TonjaE: I should re-read sometime myself, too. I read it about 10 years ago and loved it.

BTW, I love the link you have for it. I think you shared that site once before, but now I really took a look around and have put it on my speed dial. What makes it special is that it classifies stories by type. Very handy for the challenge prompts.

>18 DebiCates: LOL xx

>10 TonjaE: This Jack London looks an interesting read, and that quote is chilling especially "... becomes machine-like in its regularity."

Yes a good quote, @TonjaE, and >21 AnishaInkspill: that does carry the feeling of our Age, doesn't it? Machine-like not only in its regularity, but in its lack of human (or any organic system) feeling.

Chilling is right.

🌟 In The Abyss by H. G. Wells

First published 1896, In The Abyss is a brilliant little story about what we might find in the depths of the ocean. A mystery and adventure that still has dreamers doing the craziest things so they might find out! Worth a read, I enjoyed it very much. 🌟🌟🌟🌟

🌟 A Little Journey by Ray Bradbury

Hmm. I don't believe a short story is long enough to say much about a quest. I guess I imagine a quest to be a big, long, epic-ly treacherous thing like The Lord of the Rings
Perhaps Bradbury meant this little journey to be as unsatisfying as I found it, and that wouldn't surprise me. Well done! 🌟🌟🌟

Interesting, both authors I'm hoping to read at least one of their shorts this year.

🌟 The Quiet Car by Joyce Carol Oates from Beautiful Days

This is a story which does not require very many adjectives to describe. It's just a very real description of a moment in a real person's day, doing real things, and remembering typical, unsurprising memories when he is confronted by what his aloofness? (I'm not sure that's the right word) has earnt him.

And I absolutely loved it.

Joyce Carol Oates writes with a perfection I can only dream about.
I imagine it takes a great deal of effort to write so simply. I don't want to use any of the words like eloquent, stunning, striking or brilliant because they aren't enough and at the same time they are too loud.

This was my first time reading any of her work, I'm hooked. 🌟🌟🌟🌟

🌟 The Traveller's Story Of The Very Strange Bed by Wilkie Collins

A short story which could have been shorter.

A man is almost murdered by a bed while staying at a gambling house where he won big. He escapes to inform the police, the people running the house of ill repute are apprehended, man quits gambling, the end.

I'm not a big reader of crime fiction and this one didn't make me like the genre any more than I did before. Any way, reading it was not a waste of time. I am enjoying discovering short story writing, and learning what I don't enjoy is just as useful as finding what I do.

Next! 🌟

>25 AnishaInkspill: Cool! In the Abyss was a great little read, I recommend it. A Little Journey was okay but Bradbury has a lot better stories, I do not recommend the Wilkie Collins short story below above, it was kinda boring. Happy reading and thank you again for setting up this challenge; I love it! xx

🌟 Sansho The Steward by Mori Ogai

I don't know why this story is called Sansho The Steward. The guy was an asshat slave owner and had a minor part in the story.

Having said that; I enjoyed the story very much. There is something about Japanese stories that I find soothing. They are always rich with moral, heartfelt and emotional. I wish I could read Japanese. I'm sure the English translations are perfectly accurate but I sometimes wonder how much more the original language brings to a story. 🌟🌟🌟

You can find The Oxford Book of Japanese Short Stories online here:
https://archive.org/details/the-oxford-book-of-japanese-short-stories-2002-editi...

>26 TonjaE: I read some of her stories years ago and some actually still haunt me. She's so good at creating mood.

>28 TonjaE: It's fantastic you are enjoying this, thanks for the recommendation, I'll look up the one by Bradbury and the Japanese shorts sounds interesting, I've got Voices of the Fallen Hero by Yukio Mishima, I've read one of his novellas and a short, the novella Life for Sale was quirky and disturbing, the short story (Patriotism), heartbreakingly beautiful but unsettling.

🌟 Prologue: Images by Catherine Lim from the Catherine Lim Collection

A shocking, in your face read about what women endure.
Catherine Lim is a Singaporean writer with a powerful voice that you must listen to.
She has a quiet, but iron strong presence which is hard to ignore. I look forward to reading more of her work.
Recommended read! 🌟🌟🌟🌟

🌟 (The) Exhumation by Catherine Lim from the Catherine Lim Collection

O' Singapore! You beautiful mishmash of culture where all seem to have taken on the superstitions of each other. I have spent quite a bit of time there and these stories bring me right back. Very much enjoying reading them.

What could possibly be more frightening than having to exhume Grandmother; the severe family matriarch you have one or two memories of from your childhood. There are not enough joss sticks for this! 🌟 🌟 🌟 🌟

🌟 Clair De Lune by Guy de Maupassant

Everything looks different in the light of the moon. How wonderful the moonlight has the power to change the mind of a grumpy old priest in this little story. God is good :) 🌟🌟🌟

>32 TonjaE:, >33 TonjaE:, this looks interesting, thanks.

@TonjaE I hope you're enjoying the challenge as much I have been, I was thinking the group could be more where the challlenge continues to run alongside other short works. Thinking out loud right now, anyway, if you have any thoughts, let me know.