With social media fragmenting, I’m bringing back my old “You Tell Me” Wednesday discussions to try to get good old fashioned blog conversations going. If you’re reading in a feed reader or via email, please click through to the post to leave a public comment and join the discussion!
For as long as I’ve been connected to the publishing industry, short story collections have a reputation for not selling. And yet everyone likes short stories! I wonder if this conundrum will be solved in my lifetime.
At any rate, with the passing of Alice Munro, it got me thinking: what’s your favorite short story?
I swear I have varied tastes, but I really am a walking cliché on this particular question, as I’m going with “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” by Ernest Hemingway.
What about you?
Need help with your book? I’m available for manuscript edits, query critiques, and coaching!
For my best advice, check out my online classes, my guide to writing a novel and my guide to publishing a book.
And if you like this post: subscribe to my newsletter!
Art: Kilima-Ndjaro by Akseli Gallen-Kallela
I am fascinated by this. I love Saki’s short stories and I return to them again and again. I also find Fr Brown a comfort read and the PG Wodehouse short stories. But yet, I rarely want to pick up a newly published book of short stories. I really don’t know why.
“Cathedral” by Raymond Carver. I’ve read it at least once a year ever since it was assigned in one of my college lit classes. It gives me all the feels. The ending is so subtle and simple and yet so profound. Unlikely friendships are my favorite trope.
I don’t know if it’s my favorite (I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of short stories I’ve read and would perhaps pick something else if I were presented with the list), but one that I think about often and do love is Tobias Wolff’s Bullet in the Brain.
A Perfect Day for Bananafish
Yes, a good vote for Hemingway’s short stories like “The Snows of Kilimanjaro,” but I found some of Fitzgerald’s stories interesting and well written like one titled “Babylon Revisited,” I believe it was titled.
The October Tale by Neil Gaiman
A Good Man is Hard to Find by O’Connor and The Ones Who Walk Away from the Omegas by Le Guin.
Those are both good ones.
The short stories by O’ Henry have always been favorites of mine. especially “Gift of the Magi.” I’m sure I’ve read more recent ones but for some reason don’t remember them. (Is it because they’re not all that good?)
It’s puzzling that short story collections don’t sell well. I’ve know that for a long time yet in 2011 I self-published a collection of four anyway. Go figure.
More recent short stories that blew my mind were
— BLACK BOX by Jennifer Eagan (first published in the New Yorker, later a chapter of CANDY HOUSE), https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2012/06/04/black-box;
— MISS ADELE AMIDST THE CORSETS by Zadie Smith https://www.theparisreview.org/fiction/6290/miss-adele-amidst-the-corsets-zadie-smith?mc_cid=e81ede4f15&mc_eid=4d88d1aeb7 ; and
–SEA OAK by George Saunders https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/1998/12/28/sea-oak
And of course everything by Alice Munro.
My favorite collection of short stories is Michael Ende’s “The Mirror in the Mirror – A Labyrinth” (https://amzn.eu/d/1d8G1Ax). I don’t know how to choose my favorite story in the collection because they’re all incredible, inspirational, and mind-blowing. The stories must be read to understand; they’re the weirdest yet unique works I have ever read. The one I remember the clearest is the story that titles the book, which left me wondering what would reflect a mirror that reflects another mirror. Also, the story of a staging actor who waits for the curtain to open. Yes, that’s all that happens in the story. The man is still and waiting, but it’s highly entertaining and very disturbing at the same time. It makes you anxious. Another one is the story of Hor. Gosh, they’re all fantastic.
I agree about The Snows of Kilimanjaro. I’ve always loved Hemingway’s Now I Lay Me.
Other favourites are Dostoyevsky’s White Nights, various stories by Bukowski and Edith Nesbit, and also Hans Christian Andersen’s The Girl Who Trod on a Loaf. I also love Leaf by Niggle by Tolkien!
I’m sure I’ve forgotten a few. Off to check my own blog to remember! :p
I’m also here with a Neil Gaiman, but my favorite of his is “The Price.”
I’ve not read read many short stories, I’m sure I read some in high school 40 years ago, but none come to mind. However, I do want to say thank you to all the wonderful suggestions. I’ve made a list and will work my way through it.
All Summer in a Day by Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury’s story was chosen in a selection for Junior Great Books. It was made into a short film. Memorable. Also recommend “After You, My Dear Alphonse” by Shirley Jackson.
Without a doubt, James Joyce’s The Dubliners. A real piece of subtle heart wrenching art (and a lesson on setting and character).
A Rose for Emily, by Faulkner.
I read it almost 50 years ago and never could get it out of my mind. I still get shivers when I think of the ending.
Favorites:
1) “A Piece of String” by Guy de Maupassant
2) “Philomel Cottage”by Agatha Christie
3) A short story by Ruth Rendell that I remember distinctly – everything except the title.
Plus the book NIGHT SHIFT by Stephen King amd many short stories from books and paperbacks I collected 50 years ago – Twilight Zone and Alfred Hitchcock short story collections. And pretty much every short story written by Ray Bradbury, particularly “The Veldt.”
My favorite is also by O Henry, but it’s THE RANSOM OF RED CHIEF. No matter how many times I read it, it always makes me laugh.
Oh my gosh, how could I have left out O. Henry? “The Ransom of Red Chief” has to be my favorite of his, but there are so many others: “The Last Leaf,” “The Gift of the Magi” and “The Cop and the Anthem,” just for a start.