Short stories

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Just came across this link:
www.quora.com/What-are-the-most-powerful-and-insightful-short-stories-that-you-have-read

and have been reading www.amazon.co.uk/Collected-Stories-Lydia-Davis/dp/0241950031

What are your favourite short stories?

I used to get impatient that short stories finish so quickly but now as I grow older I enjoy them more and more.

I read a book of short stories last year 'The Last Dance and other Stories' by Victoria Hislop. Most of the stories were set in Greece. It was very good although the stories were short even by short story standards! I also see that Kate Atkinson has written a book of short stories so I am going to try that. Any one else have any recommendations?

Alice Munro is wonderful.

Raymond Chandler

Poe's, "The Tell-Tale Heart"

King's, "Survivor Type" (this is the best short story ever!)

Sherlock Holmes stories, obvs - especially, "A Scandal in Bohemia"

I liked Life after life by Kate Atkinson and hope her short stories will be good too!

If you want scary but meaningful, try Robert Shearman.

I've always thought that the literary world dismisses short stories as failed novels. But crafting short stories requires a lot of precision with words - no waffling.

www.theguardian.com/books/2014/sep/17/zadie-smith-national-short-story-award-shortlist-lionel-shriver-rose-tremain

I love to read short stories. Some of my favourite authors, Alice Munro, Carol Shields, Elizabeth Taylor, Sylvia Townsend Warner, Helen Simpson, Mollie Panter Downes, William Trevor.

I write short stories, some fairly short but others extremely short (100 words, called "Drabbles") here they are
I find short stories focus the mind, every word needs to count.

Katherine Mansfield, modernist snapshots of everyday life, deceptively simple yet powerful.

Doris Lessing's short stories are very good, To Room Nineteen I think was the name of a collection.

Fay Weldon - prefer her short stories to her novels.

M.R James for classic horror.

Ronald Dahl for twisty tales.

H.P Lovecraft for horror/weird

Raymond Carver - American, mundane, bleak but brilliantly and economically written.

An acquired taste, but worth a dip into, is Flannery O'Connor. She usually deals with the uglier side of the human condition, but her stories are extremely compelling, and have a strong religious undercurrent, not in an obvious moralistic way, but it gives them an interesting depth.

I also think you can't beat a classic sci fi collection, I think the form suits the genre particularly well, but it has to be your cup of tea I guess.

Sootgremlin I'm not usually a sci-fi reader, but I came across a collection of sci-fi short stories a few years ago and they were amazing. One or two really resonated and stayed in my mind ever since.

If you like podcasts the New Yorker short story podcast is wonderful. Authors who have been published in the NYer read their favourite NYer short story, and afterwards they discuss it. It's just fabulous.

I also love Somerset Maugham short stories set in the Pacific, and Guy de Maupassant, who covers everything from the pastoral to the psychological.

Yes filthiestperson the themes in sic fi are often quite transcendent.

Thanks for mentioning the New Yorker podcasts, will look those up.

I love Stephen King's short stories. I also love the way he describes the difference between novels and short stories:

“a good long novel is in many ways like having a long and satisfying affair” whereas the short story “is like a quick kiss in the dark from a stranger.”

Ooh yes to Raymond Carver - not read his stuff for twenty years or more. Must revisit.

Just seen that I wrote Ronald and not Roald Dahl. I'm sure you all knew who I meant, but I can't let it stand without correction

There's some really good suggestions here. I just love short stories. It's a shame they're not more popular but somebody told me they don't sell well so a lot of good authors don't bother with them. But thankfully some do!

I second the Katherine Mansfield suggestion. Her stories are so beautifully written and evocative.

I love Katherine Mansfield too.

"I seen the little lamp!"

Yes, The Dolls House, heartbreaking

I think everyone's seen or had happen to them a version of that in the playground, she absolutely nails it.

I like Karen Russell, Daniel Woodrell and Tim Gatreaux for American short stories.

The Garden Party by Katharine Mansfield is a favourite of mine too.

The Moth, a NYC live storytelling night (podcasts avail) is wonderful too.

There were reviews of new story collections by both Hilary Mantel and Margaret Atwood in the Sunday Times this week. Might be worth a look.

Paul Auster's "True stories of American life". Some may be a paragraph or two. I think the longest is about 7 pages. It's my go to book when I'm poorly and it's been leant out countless times.

amazon blurb

Chosen by Paul Auster out of the four thousand stories submitted to his radio programme on National Public Radio, these 180 stories provide a wonderful portrait of America in the 20th century. The requirement for selection was that each of the stories should be true, and each of the writers should not have been previously published. The collection that has emerged provides a richly varied and authentic voice for the American people, whose lives, loves, griefs, regrets, joys and sense of humour are vividly and honestly recounted throughout, and adeptly organised by Auster into themed sections. The section composed of war stories stretches as far back as the Civil War, still the defining moment in American history; while the sequence of 'Meditations' conclude the volume with a true and abiding sense of transcendence.

Currently reading Lorrie Moore's collected short stories, which is a huge volume. They're very good, but better in small doses I find.