Both my friend Jesper and I recently read a very interesting list....The Top Ten Short Stories of All Time. Click on Mr. Salinger to go to the link where this list was found. We both felt the list was.... well, INCOMPLETE. There were authors that we agreed should be on the list, but were not necessarily in agreement with the story's writers about the particular short stories they chose from these authors. And then we both had to admit that there were authors/stories we had NEVER heard of. So being the good literary nerds we are, we are both in the progress of looking up these unknown literary works of art to find out if we can support their placement on the list.
However there are several authors and several stories that we both feel MUST be on the list.
In fact we agreed when we get together IN THREE WEEKS (at my kitchen table here in Herning... this is a big deal because Jesper lives in Florida!) that we will work on the "Jesper & Kelli Recommendations of the World's Best Short Stories" list. However before we meet and create OUR VERY COMPLETE and I am sure VERY PERFECT list, I wanted to hear from you....
So what is your favorite short story (in English literature)? Time period does not matter... but if you were going to buy a new "Collection of BEST Short Stories" book at Barnes and Noble, what is THE story that you feel MUST be in there??? You can click on Ernest to see one of my all-time favorites... and one that you can be SURE will be on my half of the "Jesper/Kelli List"! 
6 comments:
I saw the same list you did-I read a lot of short stories and I found it kind of an idiosyncratic list-my list of English short stories would include
"The Dead" by James Joyce
"The Prelude" by Katherine Mansfield
The WWII era stories of Elizabeth Bowen
"The Scriviner" by Herman Melville
The Stories in Winesburg Ohio by Sherwood Anderson-all of them
"Good Country People" by Flannery O'Connor
"The Haunted House" by Virginia Woolf
The stories of R. K. Narayan
most important short story any language-"The Overcoat" by Nickolai Gogol
just a start-I will look forward to your list
Oh that's difficult. I love reading big fat novels...
I wonder if The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga would count? It's a short novel. His latest book is called Between the Assassinations and it's a collection of short stories about life in India. Great reading!
O. Henry
The Gift of the Magi
I love Gilman's "The Yellow Wallpaper" and Jackson's "The Lottery".
"The Lottery" by Shirley Jackson. I love, love, LOVE watching students' reactions when they get to the last paragraph!!! (Okay, a little self-serving, but a fantastic, accessible story nonetheless.)
Hard to pick a short list. Miss Brill by Katherine Mansfield, anything from Dubliners, The Lottery....there are just so many good ones.
Post a Comment