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/lit/ - Literature

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10686961 No.10686961 [Reply] [Original]

What are the best short stories and short story collections to read?

>> No.10686980

Besides the usual suspects (Borges, Dubliners, Nine Stories by Salinger etc.) that are about to be mentioned, I can recommend Knockemstiff by Donald Ray Pollock. Extremely disturbing and utterly fucked up stories set in what is now a ghost town in Ohio.

>> No.10686986

>>10686980
What I'm looking for specifically is a big book filled with many different short stories. Doesn't have to be by one author, but it can. I'm welcome to all literary themes, but I prefer things that cover existential questions like death or the meaning of life. But I'm not picky.

>> No.10686994

MOGGED

>> No.10687000
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10687000

>>10686961
I can recommend Borges, Jansson and Saunders

>> No.10687002

>>10686986
Then Knockemstiff is nothing for you, my bad. Read Nine Stories by Salinger instead.

>> No.10687004

>>10687000
Looks horrendously middlebrow

>> No.10687037

>>10686986

In theory this is a good idea (get a book called, say, 50 great short stories, read them, then follow up on any author who wrote one you liked).

The problem, in my experience, is that these collections always seem to have a lot of filling - second-tier authors, or second-tier works by premier authors.

Maybe I've just been unlucky with the collections.

>> No.10687052

God tier:
Borges, Henry James, Kafka, Chekhov, D.H. Lawrence

Good tier:
Hemmmingway, Munro, O'Brien, O'Connor, Saki

Meme tier:
Poe, Cheever, Carver, Barthelme, DFW

>> No.10687054

>>10686961
death in venice and other stories by thomas mann

>> No.10687056

>>10687037
I'm also happy to read collections of short stories by one author.

>> No.10687088

>>10686961
Dubliners desu

>> No.10687097

who's that hot bitch

>> No.10687098

I just read Where Is Here by Joyce Carrol Oates and Reunion by John Cheever and I would highly recommend you read those individual stories. And The Swimmer by Cheever as well.

Beyond that my two favourite short story compilations are Object Lessons (Paris Review) and Granta Best American Fiction (New & Revised). Try to keep this thread alive, tomorrow morning I'll post a list of countries or area such as Russia or Scandinavia, and four authors from that particular area and one short story collection by each that I am trying to read this year. I think I've found some great lesser known writers. I have yet to read the majority of them as it is only February.

Platanov The Return comes to mind too.

>> No.10687125

A couple of Murakami’s are good.

>> No.10687135

>>10687097
We call him "The Minotaur"

>> No.10687225

This question is a bit of an old familiar friend, but for what it's worth, here are some short stories I have enjoyed:

ROALD DAHL
>Tales of the Unexpected
("twist in the tail", not hugely profound but very readable)
>Switch Bitch
(similar but much more adult)
>Over To You
(From Dahl's experiences serving in the RAF in Greece in WW2. Weird, surreal, macabre, but his best work in my opinion.)
>The Wonderful Story Of Henry Sugar And Six More
Half-way between children's and adult's stories. The title piece is fun. "The Swan" is superb.

CONAN DOYLE
>Sherlock Holmes
You have probably read these already, but here for the sake of completeness.

RAYMOND CARVER
>Everything he wrote
Ignore the people who say he's a meme. He's talked about a lot because he's good.

HELLE HELLE
> Cars and Animals
(in Danish but the are translations)
Here's a sample:
http://www.hellehelle.net/site/files/18441728-03-20114121301-03-2011His%20own%20system-2.pdf

John Cheever
> Everything
The Swimmer is the most famous and is pretty good. Try that and if you don't like it, you probably won't like the others either.

Salinger
>Nine Stories
OK, everyone is going to mention this one. But as with Carver there's a reason for that. Title piece & A Perfect Day For Bananafish are the best. If you like him a lot, try Franny & Zooey & Raise High The Roofbeams Carpenters & Seymore: An Introduction

Hemingway
Not all his short stuf is good, but a lot is. Try:
> The Battler
> The Snows of Kilamanjaro
> The Short Happy Life of Francis Macromber
> Hills Like White Elephants
> A Clean Well-Lighted Place
> The Killers

Damon Runyan
> Everything he wrote
Maybe he's gone out of fashion. These are comic stories about mobsters in Prohibition times. Written in a unique style with all verbs in present tense. Hilarious.

>> No.10687242

>>10686961
Everything That Rises Must Converge
Nine Stories (obviously)
The Pastures of Heaven
First Love and Other Stories
Stories of Five Decades (Hesse)

>> No.10688492

>>10686986
Get an anthology of short fiction. I have one called “The Scribner Anthology of Contemporary Short Fiction” and I’ve really learned a lot from it.

>> No.10688679

>>10687052
Carver is genuinely good, though. Well, he's hit and miss. Kudos on Munro, but I'd put her in god-tier, personally.

Also, Faulkner short fiction is unfortunately eclipsed his two great novels, but they're great. Highly recommend them