Quote:
Originally Posted by NajdorfDefense
Decided to put together my alltime fave short story list, started with 10-12, ended up with a few more, in no order:
The Overcoat - Gogol
The Semplica Girl Diaries - G. Saunders
Repent, Harlequin, Said the TickTockMan - H. Ellison
The Lemon Drop Kid- D. Runyon
The Diamond as Big as the Ritz - Fitzgerald
Where are you going, Where have you been? J. C. Oates
The Ransom of Red Chief - O. Henry
Girl With Curious Hair - David Foster Wallace
The Snows of Kilimanjaro - Hemingway
The Lottery - Shirley Jackson
On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning - Murakami
The Swimmer - John Cheever
A Perfect Day for Bananafish - J.D. Salinger
The Dead - Joyce
The School - D. Barthelme
Secretary - Mary Gaitskill
The Nine Billion Names of God - Arthur C. Clarke
The Things They Carried - Tim O'Brien
Are These Actual Miles? - Carver
The Razor - Nabokov
Obviously only one per author. Several are ones pretty much everyone has read before in english class. I couldn't pick just one from Munro nor O'Hara but those would be my two needed additions if this were a published collection.
DFW and Carver [and Runyon] were the hardest for me to narrow down. Could easily have gone with Cathedral or The Depressed Person from those 2. Anything by Saunders.
If you're stuck on where to start, both The School and The Razor are very, very short. Most of these are available free online.
"The School" is funny as hell. I love teaching it. For Carver, I prefer the emotion of "A Small, Good Thing."
I'm also a huge fan of Gaitskill's short stories. She's a subtle and superb stylist, but never showy.
I also love Tobias Woolf.
And in LeGuin's "The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas" I find hope for humanity.
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