Short Stories

[Rosalba]

What short stories do you admire - or not?

[Rosalba]

There are lots that I admire, but one that I could name is To Build A Fire by Jack London.

I just learned today (from Wiki) that there are two versions, but it seems that I'm talking about the 1908 story.

The details of the intense cold build up unrelentingly - we share the man's desperation to survive and then ...

[Spotted Horses]

By some coincidence I because familiar with this story just recently because the New Yorker Fiction podcast featured a story, Where I'm Calling From, by Raymond Carver, which references To Build a Fire by Jack London. I've never read a word by Jack London.

[Daverz]

I highly recommend Ted Chiang's short story collections.

[Jo498]

By some coincidence I because familiar with this story just recently because the New Yorker Fiction podcast featured a story, Where I'm Calling From, by Raymond Carver, which references To Build a Fire by Jack London. I've never read a word by Jack London.

I don't think I read any of the mentioned ones but I had a collection of Jack London stories as a kid (although these were translations and maybe sometimes redacted). I remember only one of them that was quite brutal and cannot say much without spoiling the twist (It was called something like "The lost face"). The only longer book by London I am sure I have read, is "The sea-wolf" (this was made, with some liberties and using more material from London, into a TV series very popular in Germany)
For me, some genres work best as short stories (or sometimes shortish novelllas), e.g. ghost/horror, SciFi, maybe even crime/mystery; even humour (Wodehouse's short stories often seem even better than his novels). So I guess I have read far more "genre" short stories than serious ones.

[vandermolen]

Sherlock Holmes

[Rosalba]

Sherlock Holmes

One of my favourites too - I remember as a child running upstairs to lock myself in the bathroom with my fingers in my ears so that my brother couldn't reveal the denouement to me.

[LKB]

There are lots that I admire, but one that I could name is To Build A Fire by Jack London.

I just learned today (from Wiki) that there are two versions, but it seems that I'm talking about the 1908 story.

The details of the intense cold build up unrelentingly - we share the man's desperation to survive and then ...

I remember To Build a Fire. I read it as a boy, and it was one of my first literary experiences which didn't involve a happy ending. A bit of a surprise, that was.

For my own part, Inconstant Moon, by Larry Niven is probably the most memorable short story I've ever read.

[Karl Henning]

What short stories do you admire - or not?

Funny you should ask. I had dinner with old friends on Easter and I was asked what my favorite Poe stories were. My current faves being "William Wilson" and "The Man of the Crowd."

For you, I'll add Hawthorne's "The Artist of the Beautiful."

[Florestan]

Tchekhov and Maupassant are the unsurpassable masters of the genre.

[Rosalba]

Funny you should ask. I had dinner with old friends on Easter and I was asked what my favorite Poe stories were. My current faves being "William Wilson" and "The Man of the Crowd."

For you, I'll add Hawthorne's "The Artist of the Beautiful."

I remember my brother had a copy of Tales of Mystery & The Imagination at a farmhouse we were staying at on a family holiday in Wales. It was lit only by calor gas & he didn't like reading it in the evening. I read it when I was a little older - I particularly remember The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Fall of the House of Usher. I'll have to reread the last one some time - as a child, I don't think I really got it.

[Karl Henning]

I remember my brother had a copy of Tales of Mystery & The Imagination at a farmhouse we were staying at on a family holiday in Wales. It was lit only by calor gas & he didn't like reading it in the evening. I read it when I was a little older - I particularly remember The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Fall of the House of Usher. I'll have to reread the last one some time - as a child, I don't think I really got it.

The House of Usher is up there among my faves.

[Florestan]

Funny you should ask. I had dinner with old friends on Easter and I was asked what my favorite Poe stories were. My current faves being "William Wilson" and "The Man of the Crowd."

I remember my brother had a copy of Tales of Mystery & The Imagination at a farmhouse we were staying at on a family holiday in Wales. It was lit only by calor gas & he didn't like reading it in the evening. I read it when I was a little older - I particularly remember The Murders in the Rue Morgue and The Fall of the House of Usher. I'll have to reread the last one some time - as a child, I don't think I really got it.

I discovered Poe rather early, in an excellent two-volume Romanian translation that I found in my parents's library, featuring both prose and poetry. I must confess that at the time (I must have been in the 6th grade, methinks) I was quite scared by his short stories and if I read them home alone I always had a feeling of fear and avoided leaving my room before one of my parents came home. 

Later when in high school he was my favorite writer along with Baudelaire.

That being said, I cherish The Raven above everything else he wrote. An impeccable masterpiece.

[Karl Henning]

I discovered Poe rather early, in an excellent two-volume Romanian translation that I found in my parents's library, featuring both prose and poetry. I must confess that at the time (I must have been in the 6th grade, methinks) I was quite scared by his short stories and if I read them home alone I always had a feeling of fear and avoided leaving my room before one of my parents came home. 

Later when in high school he was my favorite writer along with Baudelaire.

That being said, I cherish The Raven above everything else he wrote. An impeccable masterpiece.

When I was in Fifth Grade I committed "The Raven" to memory.

And, separately:
https://www.youtube.com/v/l5_NXPYvmi0

[Florestan]

When I was in Fifth Grade I committed "The Raven" to memory.

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

[Artem]

Raymond Carver is the first author that comes to mind when I think about short stories, followed by Robert Walser, probably.

[Karl Henning]

Also, I've liked Jn Updike better in short stories than in his novels.

[Rosalba]

One short story that I regard as brilliantly crafted is Samphire by Patrick O'Brian. The author is a man, but he has perfectly captured the way a young woman would feel who finds herself tied to the most irritating, condescending and inescapable man that ever lived. The story is witty and funny and yet also horrifying, at least for female readers (in my opinion).

[LKB]

Ah, distinctly I remember it was in the bleak December
And each separate dying ember wrought its ghost upon the floor.

Sound's like one of my better dates...

[Jo498]

Sound's like one of my better dates...

There is also a pallid bust of Pallas...