Short Stories

Lately, books have been on my mind as I edited my Top Ten Books list on Marshmallow Fight. A few days after I posted it, I realized that on the fiction side I had included only novels on my list. That was an oversight because I do enjoy reading short stories as well. A lot of people I talk to about this don't really like short stories. They like the idea of being immersed in a fully formed universe, with lots of characters fleshed out and a good ending that ties everything together. I enjoy that, too, as you can see by the number of 3- or 4-book series that are on my list. But I do enjoy an author that can make me look at things differently in 3000 or 4000 words instead of 75,000 or 100,000.    

Chris Power in the Guardian writes,    

The short story, by contrast, acknowledges the vastness and diversity of life by the very act of focusing on one small moment or aspect of it. The story is small precisely because life is so big. Novelists are expected to tie up loose ends, whereas the short story writer can make a virtue of ambiguity.    

I especially enjoy reading the modern short story collections in the Best American series by Houghton Mifflin. I routinely buy the Best American Short Stories, Best American Science and Nature Writing, and Best American Nonrequired Reading collections. In the past the editors of the short story collections have been a Who's Who of modern literature: Geraldine Brooks, Michael Chabon, Salman Rushdie, John Updike, and Alice Sebold.      

Flavorwire has a page on its website devoted to ten wonderful short stories that you can read online for free. Starting off the collection is the short story many consider the best ever written, "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor.   


The collection also includes stories by:     
       three Russians: Vladimir Nabokov, Nikolai Gogol, and Anton Chekov    
       two "science fiction" authors: Ursula LeGuin and Ray Bradbury, and  
       one story (by George Saunders) that involves a zombie.  
  
You can get to the listing and read all ten stories here. Enjoy yourself.