I just finished reading a couple of really long books, so I'm looking for some short-form stuff.
I mostly read horror, scifi, and fantasy. I've read a fair amount of classics and history too. But I'm open to any genre, really just looking for anything good that I haven't read before.
by monopolyman900
30 Comments
Grim Tales by Philip Pullman
satans affair and wheres molly are two quite small books, theyre a spin off to the cat and mouse duology so expect them to be dark.
Roald Dahl’s adult short stories are great. They’re a bit creepy, some bordering on horror. Kiss Kiss and Switch Bitch are good collections.
*Welcome to the Monkey House* by Kurt Vonnegut
*Stories of Your Life and Others* by Ted Chiang
i think you might like ‘japanese tales of mystery and imagination’ by edogawa rampo, especially ‘the human chair’ story
Anything George Saunders, I recommend Liberation Day. It’s not exactly Sci-Fi, but much of it is decidedly weird.
I really, really liked How High We Go in the Dark. It’s a series on interconnected short stories. Both conceptually super interesting & kinda like a puzzle as you think through how they fit together. Highly recommended.
Any anthology by Ray Bradbury. The Martian Chronicles are a good place to start.
The Secret Lives of Church Ladies — this is very much set in reality, both historical and contemporary if I’m remembering correctly
All the Names They Used for God — these have some sci-fi and fantasy elements
Piers Anthony, _Anthonology_
Not sure whether people actually read him much anymore
Ficciones by Borges
To Be Taught, If Fortunate by Becky Chambers is a sci-fi novella. Excellent.
Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories
The History of Sound by Ben Shattuck
Late Breaking by KD Miller (wonderful collection of linked short stories inspired by the paintings of Canadian artist Alex Colville)
The Collected Short Stories of Katherine Mansfield
A good man is hard to find by Flannery O Connor
A manual for cleaning woman by Lucia Berlin
Dangerous Visions (1967). An anthology of “new wave” science fiction stories edited by Harlan Ellison. It was a symbolic changing of the guard from the strait laced 1950s sf of Asimov and Clarke.
O. Henry
Empathy Exams by Leslie Jamison is amazing nonfiction.
The Dragon and the Stars for short stories! I also quite like Young Warriors too!
Great Essays: Oscar Wilde and Ralph Waldo Emerson
In all of his books, David Sedaris writes basically vignettes. Great, witty, funny stories about his family and experiences. He likes to say he has about an 11 page attention span, so that is the approximate length of each one.
Any collection of short stories by Harlan Ellison…
*The Secret Lives of Church Ladies* by Deesha Philyaw
A supposedly fun thing i will never do again – David Foster Wallace
Zweig amok is sublime. BOLanos the last day of the world or something is amazing. Nabokov lance
The Complete Short Stories of John Cheever
The Complete Short Stories of Raymond Carver
Dealing in Futures. Joe Haldeman.
Burning Chrome. William Gibson.
Night Shift by Stephen King
**I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream** is short and scary as fuck!!
**The Yellow Wallpaper** is as well, but scary for different reasons.
Any short story by Nikolai Gogol.
They’re classics, realist to some degree but also tend to feature fantastical and horror elements.