Could anyone recommend short stories please?

[morelippy]

Various life stresses, mainly a significant bereavement seems to have robbed me of my ability to concentrate enough to read. I've been an avid reader for 50 years and miss it!

I wonder if short stories would help get me back in to it..

Any genre other than fantasy really

Willing to give anything gripping a go.

Thanks

Another vote for the epic Shirley Jackson. This is one collection, there are several others.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Lottery-Stories-Penguin-Modern-Classics/dp/0141191430/ref=pd_lpo_sccl_1/257-0808349-9929726?pd_rd_w=E1hl6&content-id=amzn1.sym.efc89c20-c5a9-4620-b6cd-2f4e51bac956&pf_rd_p=efc89c20-c5a9-4620-b6cd-2f4e51bac956&pf_rd_r=YBBASFNRXQQSFNBKM4MT&pd_rd_wg=uoFeg&pd_rd_r=5ad5ebb5-28a2-4ee1-ad41-56bb8b522aa4&pd_rd_i=0141191430&psc=1

I love Saki and I think I’m going to go and dig out some PG Wodehouse now, it’s been a while.
A short story has been on the tip of my tongue since watching the coronation and I finally remembered the title and author today, and it’s available online: https://www.eastoftheweb.com/short-stories/UBooks/YouKin.shtml

Annie Proulx is my favourite author, but I can only take one or two of her short stories at a time. They're not exactly upbeat!

Muriel Spark & Alice Munro are absolute masters of the craft.

I've recently discovered Claire Keegan. I don't typically like short stories but was given a book of hers as a gift (Walk the blue fields) and absolutely loved it.

It was the type of thing that's made me look up and read everything she's ever written!

Joan Didion and Z Z Packer ( Drinking coffee elsewhere). There’s also a good collection called something like “ the reason I won’t be coming” but can’t remember who by.

Placemarking for when I can get to the library ❤

My personal favourites:

Saki
M. R. James
Roald Dahl
Oscar Wilde
P. G. Wodehouse

My favourite short story of all time is Roald Dahl’s Real Life of Henry Sugar. It makes cry (I mean the story as Roald Dahl actually wrote it, not as edited by the woke secret police).

I don't normally like short stories, but I love Curtis Sittenfeld and her collection 'You Think It I'll Say It' was brilliant.