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/lit/ - Literature

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6245407 No.6245407 [Reply] [Original]

What is the best short story collection you have read? And why? And is it Donald Barthelme? And why not?

>> No.6245409
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>> No.6245411

>>6245407
A short story collection inappropriately titled "Collected Works of Frances Hodgson Burnett". Not being ironic. Some of her lesser known works are really dark.

>> No.6245418
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>>6245407
Barthelme kisses the feet of Borges.

>> No.6245423

>>6245407
George Saunders Civil Warland

>> No.6245469
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pic related

>> No.6245474

Billions of references a preset day reader will never get. Thanks Donald

>> No.6245529
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>>6245418
Borges sweats Kafka's nuts.

>> No.6245579
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>>6245407
i have difficulty determining which is my favourite short story collection, but pic related seemed to give me the strongest sense of catharsis

>> No.6245583
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>> No.6246097

Charles Stross' Toast is my all time favorite.
Which isn't a hard title to hold, considering I haven't read many short story corrections.

>> No.6246114

The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor

>> No.6246122

>>6245579
>>6245529
both of these, as well as the Uncollected Stories of Faulkner and Bradbury's Dark Carnival, China Achebe's Girls At War, and one of the shorter Lovecraft collections.

>> No.6246194

Saunders' Tenth Of December was recently very, very good

>> No.6246206

>>6245407
Cathedral by Carver
Beginners by Carver
Brief Interviews with hideous men by Wallace
Oblivion by Wallace
Nine Stories by Salinger.

Making my way through sixty stories now and so far I have only enjoyed 'The Balloon' everything else is 2postmodern4you garbage with no soul.

>> No.6246214

>>6245407

Ficciones by Borges.

>> No.6246236

Kafka or Borges probably takes the cake.

Dubliners was good but some of them were a little too dry.

>> No.6246244

>>6246236
OH SHIT I FORGOT DUBLINERS
that shit was tight

>> No.6246245

anything from the 80's/90's realists
Grandpa Hemingway
Salinger

>> No.6246292
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Read it in Dutch though

>> No.6246687
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>> No.6246697
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Cozy as fuck

>> No.6247472

>>6246206
check your white straight american male privilege, boy!

Nah, but seriously, you should try reading some foreign lit. There's a whole world out there, and it's pretty good sometimes.

>> No.6247562

>>6245418
mah nigga
Just picked up Borges complete collected fictions.

>> No.6247573

>>6247562
Shaniqua!

Fucking great choice.

You will love it, I'm sure.

>> No.6247589

>>6247562
Have you read Borges before? If not, then his complete fiction is not the best choice. Borges wrote a lot, and a lot of it is pretty meh. Then there's three or four books where he shines, but if you lump those together with all his stuff (specially his early stuff, which is awful) then you won't get the best experience out of it.

>> No.6247601

>>6247589
I feel like most of his fiction has high merit. I don't know if it's all very easy and accessible, but if you spend enough time with the collection I am sure that you can find pleasure in all of the parts/books.

>> No.6247605

Surprised nobody's said Poe. I would probably put him right behind Kafka, but I thought he'd be favorite to someone here.

Another that's nowhere near BEST but i enjoyed and never see mentioned is Augusten Burroughs' Possible Side Effects. Never going to be a part of muh western canon, but certainly worthwhile.

>> No.6247688

>>6247605
Seconding Poe here.

Also, no love for Maupassant and Kawabatta ? /lit I am disappoint (and surprise). Cortazar too. If you like Borges, you should take a hit at Cortazar, because he's different but in a way similar.

>> No.6247713

Sherlock Holmes is essential.

Ambrose Bierce's Civil War Stories is god tier.

>> No.6247720

>>6247589
I'd only read "The Immortal" actually.
But the book was a gift so I'm not complaining.
And it's organized based on the books he published, not just a random lump of stories. I plan on reading through Ficciones before anything else.

>> No.6247756

>>6246206
you had me with carver but lost me with wallace.

>> No.6247846

>>6247720
alright, nothing wrong with that approach.

>> No.6247955

>>6247688
Oh damn, I'd completely forgotten about Cortazar! Read some of his stories for a fiction writing elective I took a few years ago. I remember "House Taken Over" being especially good.
Which of his collections would you recommend?

>> No.6249414

>>6245407
>>6245423
>>6246194
You three are perfect.Barthelme's The School and Saunder's In Persuasion Nation are two favorites of mine.

Other favorite collection: At the Gates of the Animal Kingdom by Amy Hempel