Favorite short stories

jute gyte · Post by **jute gyte** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 8:56 am

What it says on the tin. Here's a few of mine:

'The Hospice' by Robert Aickman
'I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream' by Harlan Ellison
'The Call of Chthulu' by H. P. Lovecraft

If you can find the story online, toss up a link so we can all read it. It saddens me that 'The Hospice' is not available online because it is possibly the best of the three stories I have listed.

Eric Y. · Post by **Eric Y.** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 9:00 am

i tried to read a collection of lovecraft short stories once. by the time i got to the fourth one, it occurred to me how predictable and formulaic each of them was, and i gave up on the book. (i don't remember at the moment what it was called, or which stories i'd read).

for the record, probably my favorite short story is
bartleby the scrivener by melville.

obscurity · Post by **obscurity** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 9:06 am

Learning To Be Me and Reasons To Be Cheerful by Greg Egan.

jute gyte · Post by **jute gyte** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 9:34 am

tviyh wrote:i tried to read a collection of lovecraft short stories once. by the time i got to the fourth one, it occurred to me how predictable and formulaic each of them was, and i gave up on the book. (i don't remember at the moment what it was called, or which stories i'd read).

Yeah, they're mostly 'sensitive academic Lovecraft stand-in uncovers secret truths of unimaginable horror', and I used to have the same problem with his work. Lovecraft's mastery is not in the individual plots but the atmosphere and the overarching cosmology his works exist within, and if/when you get into that, it's terrific.

jimtyrrell · Post by **jimtyrrell** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 9:44 am

I'm sure this one's pretty well-known:

Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut.

There are actually a good number of Vonnmegut stories that come to mind, but this one's as good an example as any. The book Welcome To The Monkey House is an excellent collection.

fodroy · Post by **fodroy** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 11:50 am

"After I Was Thrown Into the River and Before I Drowned" by Dave Eggers
"The Hunter's Wife" by Anthony Doerr

I don't remember any specific story names, but some of the stuff from Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man is really cool.

[quote=tviyh]
for the record, probably my favorite short story is
bartleby the scrivener by melville.[/quote]
I haven't read this. I've been meaning to, but, also for the record, Moby-Dick is probably my favorite book of all time.

WeaselSlayer · Post by **WeaselSlayer** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 11:53 am

"The Swimmer" by John Cheever is probably my favorite. Some others are "The Casque of Amontillado" by Poe, all of the Martian Chronicles by Bradbury, and there's this great collection of short stories about Tucson and such that's actually by my 6th grade English teacher's brother, Mark Poirier, called Naked Pueblo. Some of the funniest, raunchiest stories I've read, all told with a lot of honesty and a sort of playfulness.

deshead · Post by **deshead** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 12:36 pm

The Drunkard by Frank O'Connor.

roymond · Post by **roymond** » Mon Jun 05, 2006 1:27 pm

I never tire from Twain.

jute gyte · Post by **jute gyte** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 1:39 pm

I just remembered:

"Oblivion" by David Foster Wallace
"A Small Good Thing" by Raymond Carver

Middlemarch · Post by **Middlemarch** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 7:34 pm

anything by Raymond Carver
8)

jute gyte · Post by **jute gyte** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 8:50 pm

Yeah, that works.

king_arthur · Post by **king_arthur** » Thu Jun 08, 2006 9:03 pm

"Nackles" by Curt Clark (who I read somewhere, is Harlan Ellison writing under another name). Best Christmas story ever.

Charles (KA)