Active discussions

Meet the Other Phone. A phone that grows with your child.

Meet the Other Phone.
A phone that grows with your child.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Talk
What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Original poster

Who's the best short story writer of all time?

69 replies

franch · 30/01/2006 09:01

I only seem to have time to read in the bathroom these days so have decided it's time to overcome my prejudice against short stories. Recommendations please!

OP posts:
Blackduck · 30/01/2006 09:03

Really not a short story reader either, but...
Susan Hill
T.C.Boyle

suzywong · 30/01/2006 09:07

Jean Rhys

Blackduck · 30/01/2006 09:09

SW - was trying to think of her name!!

Blackduck · 30/01/2006 09:09

SW - was trying to think of her name!!

Blackduck · 30/01/2006 09:09

SW - was trying to think of her name!!

Blackduck · 30/01/2006 09:09

whoops....

Fauve · 30/01/2006 09:23

Alice Munro - I prefer her earlier collections.

Caligula · 30/01/2006 09:25

I second Jean Rhys, but also William Trevor and Thomas Mann and Franz Kafka.

Fauve · 30/01/2006 09:26

Although (having realised what the thread title is ) she's not the greatest of all time. I'd say Saki and Somerset Maugham are contenders?

TinyGang · 30/01/2006 09:26

F Scott Fitzgerald wrote some good short stories.

Fauve · 30/01/2006 09:26

Raymond Carver?

Enid · 30/01/2006 09:29

Alice Munro - best recent
Katherine Mansfield - best all time

Annie Proulx is very good too

I did my dissertation on the short story

mummytosteven · 30/01/2006 09:30

Alice Munro is very very good.
Conan Doyle isn't too bad if you want something light.
Chekhov also very very good.

roosmum · 30/01/2006 09:32

Rhys for me too.

Also James Kelman, Katherine Mansfield, Woolf (if youl ike that sort of thing).

good thread

suzywong · 30/01/2006 09:32

were you trying to think of her name Blackduck?

I love these threads
I may have to forgo the latest Adrian Mole I got from the Library and get into some of this stuff.

anorak · 30/01/2006 09:36

Annie Proulx
Helen Dunmore

Enid · 30/01/2006 09:37

ooh yes if we are talking blokes

Conan Doyle (lovely comfort reading)
Saki
Guy de Maupassant (the best, very gruesome though)

hoxtonchick · 30/01/2006 09:38

helen simpson

mummytosteven · 30/01/2006 09:40

Edgar Allan Poe if you don't mind a touch of horror/gruesome.

Marina · 30/01/2006 09:43

MR James, Chekhov, Somerset Maugham, Katherine Mansfield, Saki, Helen Simpson - all already named.

Dh says VS Pritchett very good too.

Enid · 30/01/2006 09:44

ooh ooh

Elizabeth Bowen

Enid · 30/01/2006 09:44

I can't read MR James anymore Marina too spooky

(did you see that pph has named her baby after you )

mummytosteven · 30/01/2006 09:45

MR James - thanks Marina, that was just on the tip of my keyboard - I was thinking O'Henry (no) Henry James (no) and couldn't quite remember his name

TinyGang · 30/01/2006 09:45

John Fowles wrote some good short stories too IIRC.

harpsichordcarrier · 30/01/2006 09:46

really Enid? I must say I really don't get the short story. It always feels curiously unsatisfactory to me.
like I am not getting the point
I like the Fay Weldon ones and Ray Bradbury, though they are not exactly Chekov