Short Stories You Should Read

4:08 pm - Thu, Jun 14, 2012: 1,814 notes

Short Stories You Should Read

Listed in no particular order. I forced myself to choose only one story per writer (very difficult in some cases). There is a lot of amazing short fiction out there, but these are stories—of various styles—that have stuck with me over the years and have taught me what a story can be. I’m sure I’m forgetting a lot of gems.

“Wakefield” by Nathaniel Hawthorne

“The Lady with the Lap Dog” by Chekhov

“The Overcoat” by Gogol

“A Hunger Artist” by Franz Kafka

“The Dead” by James Joyce

“The Secret Life of Walter Middy” by James Thurber

“Barn Burning” by William Faulkner

“The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson

”Friend of My Youth” by Alice Munro

“When We Were Nearly Young” by Mavis Gallant

“Work” by Denis Johnson

“Wants” by Grace Paley

”The Swimmer” by John Cheever

”A Good Man is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor

”The Laughing Man” by J.D. Salinger

”Cathedral” by Raymond Carver

“In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried” by Amy Hempel

“In the Heart of the Heart of the Country” by William Gass

“White Angel” by Michael Cunningham

“Girl” by Jamaica Kinkaid

“A Rich Man” by Edward P. Jones

“Do Not Disturb” by A.M. Homes

“Fields of Dusk” by James Salter

“Screenwriter” by Charles D’Ambrosio

“Memory Wall” by Anthony Doerr

“L. Debard and Aliette” by Lauren Groff

“Bullet in the Brain” by Tobias Wolff

“Boys Town” by Jim Shepard

“The Fat Girl” by Andre Dubus

“Pastoralia” by George Saunders

“Everything Ravaged, Everything Burned” by Wells Tower

“Men Under Water” by Ralph Lombreglia

“All the Way in Flagstaff, Arizona” by Richard Bausch

”Brownies” by Z.Z. Packer

“Hell-Heaven” by Jhumpa Lahiri

“Sindbad” by Donald Barthelme

“I Used to Live Here Once” by Jean Rhys

“The Girl Detective” by Kelly Link

“Sororally” by Gary Lutz

“Train” by Joy Williams

“St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” by Karen Russell

“The Magic Poker” by Robert Coover

“Lady” by Diane Williams

“Love and Honour and Pity and Pride and Compassion and Sacrifice” by Nam Le

“Natasha” by David Bezmozgis

“Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” by Joyce Carol Oates

“Mothers” by Lydia Davis

“A Spoiled Man” by Daniyal Mueenduddin

“Rock Springs” by Richard Ford

“In the Gloaming” by Alice Elliott Dark

“You’re Ugly, Too” by Lorrie Moore

“A Romantic Weekend” by Mary Gaitskill

“Drown” by Junot Diaz

“None of the Above” by Suzanne Rivecca

“Virgins” by Danielle Evans

“Safari” by Jennifer Egan