let's name some great short stories - I'll kick off...

[harpomarx]

with The Diamond as Big as The Ritz by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Had read all his novels but this really stuck in my mind.

Also just about anything by Borges, J G Ballard, Julio Cortázar. I could go on, but I'll let you lot have a go too!

Dubliners

And White Nights, Dostoyevsky. Agree about the Ian McEwan short stories. Seedy in extreme but much better than his later novels.

Agree with Shoshe, the book of Annie Proulx short stories which contains Brokeback Mountain is my favourite.

And my fave story from it, favourite short story ever, is The Blood Bay.

Chekhov's Short Stories are the best.

Andre Gide - Marvellous.

Solid Geometry by Ian McEwan blew me away...they made a film of it, and they mucked it up....

I second Daphne du Maurier who wrote some wonderful short stories. The Hitchcock film The Birds was actually one of her short stories.

Also I love WB Yeats' short stories, they are wild and whimsical and steeped in Irish legends

Saki yes very funny.

Katherine Mansfield is fab.

The Lighthouse by Agnes Owens.

Raymond Carver's short stories are brilliant. He does hopeless desperation like nobody else. I would urge any would-be writer to read his work as he is so brilliantly concise and unpretentious.

I quite agree, Swedes and jennifersofia.

Ray Bradbury

Chekov and Raymond Carver get my vote. Chekov -I like all of the "about love" collection and carver- can't choose.

Lorrie Moore

Alice Munro deffo

Carol Shields

+1 vote for Raymond Carver

Dubliners also amazing.

Surprisingly hard to do well.

I like Colette.

Raymond Carver. Need never read anything else

recently read Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri - not as good as her collection The Interpreter of Maladies, but v thought-provoking re: displaced peoples and how they adapt to their surroundings, being neither fish nor fowl.

My perennial favourites are:

Saki (HH Munro)esp Sredni Vashtar
Chekhov
MR James, Ghost Stories of an Antiquary
Helen Simpson - Four bare legs in a bed and Hey Yeah Right Get a Life
EM Forster The End of the Machine
and
Tell It to a Stranger

Oh, how could I forget Helen Simpson?? DEFINITELY.

George Saunder's two collections - Pastoralia and Civil War Land In Bad Decline are two I dip back in and reread now and then - they are brilliant. His setting is the US in the slightly near future, a world where almost everything has been turned into a theme park, and his characters are generally trailor-trashy. The stories are hilarious and disturbing at the same time. Would recommend, although not for the faint-hearted!

Also agree about Daphne du Maurier, she was ace. The Birds is great - much more unnerving than the film.

Another vote for Saki and Dorothy Parker is just so so funny - a must read! I'm also a fan of Stephen King's short stories - he's a much much better writer than some exponents of his genre. Similarly Jeffrey Deaver's short stories are excellent if you're a fan of crime fiction.

The Stories of Eva Luna...Isabel Allende

I agree with wotsits that Alice Munro writes excellent short stories.
I would also recommend Helen Simpson who has a really good collection called "Hey yeah right get a life" on the joys/pain of family life.
Although written a few years ago I could relate to it and found it relevant to modern motherhood as I experience it. smile

Okay just realised other posts have recommended Helen Simpson (first ever post - new to this) but hey all the more reason to find yourself a copy and enjoy!

Angela Carter - The Bloody Chamber, a whole selection of goodies in there.

Stephen King - Rita Hayworth and The Shawshank Redemption: The Mist

Joanne Harris - Jigs & Reels, again another good selection.

But I can't choose just one.