Recommend me a book of short stories

[Infra-Man]

YABSesers, I need to read s'more short fiction, and given the quirks and idiosyncrasies of everyone here, it seems like getting some recs from this board would be keen beans.

Please recommend a book of short stories you really liked, one that has had a substantial impact on your writing or left some sort of lasting imprint on your imagination or world view.

Any genre as long as it's good.

[Michael P]

Stephen KIng, Everything's Eventual. Or any of his other short story collections, really.

[Dazzler]

I would suggest "Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules" edited by David Sedaris.
It's got the whole range of stories from different authors from comedy to tragedy mixed in. The underlying theme, though, is simple humanity.

It's worth it! :)

--Dazz

[ShaunN]

Dear Inframan,

I don't think these suggestions meet your criterion, in that these stories have not necessarily changed my life or anything like that. However, I enjoyed Neil Gaiman's "Fragile Things". I 've also been collecting the "fairy tale" anthologies, edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. These are a few years old and are modern authors' takes on fairy tales. Often extremely well-done.

A former acquaintance of mine is an excellent author and she wrote a short story collection that, as I recall, is excellent. Her name is Madeline Thien and the book is "Simple Recipes". More recently, she's written a novel called "Certainty".

Hope this helps.

Sincerely,

Shaun

[TCJohnson]

Ivory and Horn by Charles deLint. (http://www.amazon.com/Ivory-Horn-Newford-Charles-Lint/dp/076531679X/ref=sr_1_29?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210727244&sr=1-29)

[section 8]

"Songs of the Doomed" by Hunter S. Thompson

[Mr.EZ]

"Haunted" by Chuck Palahniuk. Not short stories per se, but multiple short narratives intertwined with a single overall story.

"Fragile Things" by Neil Gaiman.

[quillero]

Strange Pilgrims from Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

[Agent Helix]

Men and Cartoons by Jonathan Lethem.

[Bob Violence]

Before I realized that my house is not a library, I used to buy the 'Best American Short Stories' , they publish a new one each year. It makes a good introduction to a wide variety of authors.
John Cheever is a great writer, and 'The Stories of John Cheever' is amazing, but kinda depressing.

[hellokittykat]

Any book collecting Lovecraft's short stories. :smile:

[Pink Bat Maxine]

YABSesers, I need to read s'more short fiction, and given the quirks and idiosyncrasies of everyone here, it seems like getting some recs from this board would be keen beans.

Please recommend a book of short stories you really liked, one that has had a substantial impact on your writing or left some sort of lasting imprint on your imagination or world view.

Any genre as long as it's good.

Welcome To The Monkey House-- Kurt Vonnegut.

The titular story is realllllllly disturbing and not in a good way, but it's a good collection, overall.

[Infra-Man]

Thanks for all the recs so far, guys. Will be trying to pick up and check out all the books in this thread. I'm particularly interested in checking out the writers I haven't heard about until now (e.g., de Lint, Thien).

Been meaning to read more King. Loved what few books I've read by him and his picks for last year's Best American Short Stories were pretty keen. Ditto with Marquez. I've only just scratched the surface of magic realism and have enjoyed the Borges and Marquez I've dipped into.

I like David Sedaris' writing a lot so I'll definitely be on the look out for Children Playing Before a Statue of Hercules. He'll be in NYC doing a reading/signing in June, which should be awesome.

Been meaning to check out Fragile Things for awhile now. Big fan of Smoke and Mirrors and Gaiman's other work, so I'll be getting to that eventually.

I liked Men and Cartoons quite a bit, actually. Jonathan Lethem is one of my favorite contemporary writers.

Sitting on my shelf is my well-worn and well-loved copy of The Stories of John Cheever. Jeez, was he a hell of a writer or what? I'm still convinced that "Reunion" is one of the most perfect short stories ever written. Says more in just 1,200 or so words than some people can say in 10,000. I've also got a pair of those 400-page Lovecraft collections that Del Ray put out, the ones with those nicely rendered images of eldritch, redoubtable, [insert another Lovecraftian adjective here] terror.

And I need to read more Vonnegut, especially since I seem to be the only one among my friends who hasn't plowed through a lot of his work.

[The Beast Of Yucca Flats]

Slippage, by Harlan Ellison.

[buttler]

Sherman Alexie, The Toughest Indian in the World, and/or Aimee Bender, The Girl in the Flammable Skirt.

[CutterMike]

If you can find a copy -- it's long out of print -- "The Best of All Possible Worlds", an SF anthology edited by Spider Robinson is a MUST.

Basic concept: Spider chooses a short story that hasn't been anthologized to death (at the time that the book was created, that is -- some may have changed). He then goes to that author and asks, "Is there some short story from one of YOUR favorite authors that hasn't been in print lately?" and goes out and gets that one. So Spider picks a story; author picks a story. Spider picks a story; author picks a story. Continue until book is filled.

Examples: Spider picks Larry Niven's "Inconstant Moon", Niven picks "Spud and Cochise" by Raoul LaFarge, a humorous western featuring a magical duel between a cowboy and an indian. Spider picks Robert Heinlein's "The Man Who Travelled in Elephants", Heinlein picks "Our Lady's Juggler", Anatole France's sweet, gentle, religious fantasy.

(...and now I want to dig my copy out and read it all again!)

Edited to add:

...and if you haven't read Don Marquis's collected "Archy and Mehitabel" or Stanislav Lem's "Cyberiad" pick them up. The stories in both books are quite short (Marquis's were newspaper columns) and are all perfect gems of polished craft and gentle wit.

[stamen]

Not exactly short stories, but each chapter does stand alone:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Einstein's_Dreams

Then there's Camus:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exile_and_the_Kingdom

[beetlebum]

I can't recommend you a book of short stories (unless you're a Buffy nut, than I suggest Tales of the Vampires, or Slayers)

But ...

TACKLE HUGS!

http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/hug003.gif (http://www.freesmileys.org)

It's so good to see my buddy Infra back! :biggrin:

[Shisho]

Most of my favorites have been mentioned already. I'll add these:

Red as Blood, or Tales from the Sisters Grimmer by Tanith Lee
Angry Candy by Harlan Ellison
Any of the Sherlock Holmes collections.

I also like the Legends and Legends II anthologies, but I'm not sure if they count because most of those are novellas.

I've also been recommending Weird Tales magazine and Steampunk Magazine to everyone on YABS lately, especially since Steampunk Magazine is free to download. I'll also add the Endicott Studios website (http://www.endicott-studio.com/), because they also have tons of fantasy/fairy tale related short stories by everyone from Neil Gaiman to Charles de Lint. They also have articles, poetry, and art.

Jim Butcher will sometimes post short stories on his website, and Warren Ellis will post flash fiction on his LiveJournal.

And if you're just looking for a plain ol' amazingly well-written story, "Bullet in the Brain" by Tobias Wolff is probably among my all time favorites.

[the4thpip]

Let the Dead Bury Their Dead by Randall Kenan.

http://www.amazon.com/Dead-Their-Harvest-American-Writing/dp/0156505150/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1210772088&sr=1-3

[Corrina]

Greasy Lake & Other Stories by T. Corheggason Boyle. It's one of his earlier collections and one of the best. Hey, the title was inspired by a Springsteen song. Boyle is known as a literary writer but he's also one of the most accessible. And he's very darkly humorous.

[Tobias March]

I saw this thread while I was lurking at work and forgot to post.

Magic: A Beginners Guide by Kelly Link. It is quirky, creepy and all kinds of brilliant. Reminded me of Etgar Keret's The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God and other stories.

I guess the best description I could give of Link, if we dare to wander into a Hollywood agent's office, would be Arthur Machen meets Poppy Z. Brite.

Michael Marshall Smith's What You Make It is also great.

[Buzz Dixon]

DANGEROUS VISIONS and AGAIN, DANGEROUS VISIONS, edited by Harlan Ellison

Any H. Allen Smith collection

Early Bradbury collections such as THE OCTOBER COUNTRY, R IS FOR ROCKET, S IS FOR SPACE, THE GOLDEN APPLES OF THE SUN, etc.

[bert]

I'll second "Angry Candy" by Harlan Ellison, but really, any of Harlan's short story books are a great read and a great investment.

I have to admit tho, I'm shocked, no one has mentioned my favorite books of short stories of all time:

"Books of Blood" by Clive Barker.

these are collections of short stories that Barker published prior to completing his first novel ("the Damnation Game"), and THESE are the stories that Stephen King commented on "I have seen the new face of Horror, and his name is Clive Barker"

yes, the stories are THAT good. oh, not all of them are winners, but there is a huge ratio of homeruns to strikes in these books. Some stories are fantasy, some are flat out horror, some are atmospheric pieces, and some are outright gore.

there are three "official" "Books of Blood" volumes, but there are actually three others (originally volumes 4-6 in England): "Cabal" (featuring the story that became the film, "Nightbreed"), "In the Flesh", and "The Inhuman Condition".

track em down. . they are well worth it!

[NathanBethell]

Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino, which contains my favorite thing in the whole world, "All at One Point", a funny & touching look at life before the big bang. "The Light Years" is also in my personal top 20.

Antipodes by Ignacio Padilla has a wide variety of awesome stories set during the "Great Game" between the British and Russian empires.

[Infra-Man]

I can't recommend you a book of short stories (unless you're a Buffy nut, than I suggest Tales of the Vampires, or Slayers)

But ...

TACKLE HUGS!

http://www.freesmileys.org/smileys/hug003.gif (http://www.freesmileys.org)

It's so good to see my buddy Infra back! :biggrin:

Danke schoen and hugs back. Keep getting busy as a mofo these days. Had to go to a wedding and then play catch up with lots of work, which is good since there's another estimated tax payment lurking around the corner. Looks like another couple of weeks of spaghetti and toast. At least there are a lot of free concerts in NYC this summer, that'll help.


Don Marquis is one of those writers I've been meaning to read more of. I ran into some of his articles through an anthology on bartleby.com a few months ago and thought they were witty and sharp. Need to check out H. Allen Smith, too, it seems. His bio on Wikipedia is friggin awesome.

An old friend of mine is all about T. C. Boyle and I haven't ever read anything by him. Maybe I'll try to borrow her copy of Greasy Lake & Other Stories, which would also give me an excuse to see if she got married already. Incidentally, why is almost every good author who went to the Iowa Writers' Workshop so darn keen (e.g., John Irving, Flannery O'Connor, Raymond Carver, etc.)?

Einstein's Dreams was one of my favorite books back in high school. Definitely worth revisiting since I've forgotten so much of it. Loved the alternating chapters and the various notions of time. Have a copy of Exile and the Kingdom on my shelf right now and dug it.

And on the note of high school, I dated someone in high school who was all about Tanith Lee. Need to finally give her work a shot. Have my big, one-volume complete Sherlock Holmes on the shelf right now. Former library book, got it cheap off half.com, but the font is almost microscopic.

Ahh, Bradbury. Only short story collection of his I've read is October Country. Time to pick up more.

Aimee Bender looks promising just based off the "Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought" bit on amazon.com (e.g., Carver, Miranda July, Haruki Murakami, Denis Johnson [just finishing Jesus' Son]). Boo yah. Ditto Randall Kenan (e.g., Richard Wright, Junot Diaz, whose novel everyone loves I still have to read).

I digs me some Harlan Ellison. I've got the Dreams with Sharp Teeth omnibus and a ratty old copy of Angry Candy back at my parents' place. I'll seek out the other Ellison works listed.

My roommate was actually talking about Kelly Link earlier. I'll try to bum a copy of Magic: A Beginners Guide if she has it.

Keep the recs coming. This should be a pretty full-up year or so for the reading list.


EDIT:
Wow, two posts while I was trying to touch on the others, and both include some of my favorite authors.

Italo Calvino is one of my favorite writers, if not the top of the pops. Cosmicomics was the first Calvino book I ever read, an assigned reading in a postmodern fiction class I took as an undergrad. By the time I was out of college, I'd gobbled up several other Calvino books, including t zero, The Baron in the Trees, Invisible Cities, Hermit in Paris, and, of course, If on a winter's night a traveler. I don't think I've ever found a writer so imaginative and charming as Calvino.

And Clive Barker is the reason I wanted to do the dopey thing and try to be a writer. He was my favorite writer through much of middle school and high school, and the first author I actually made an effort to meet at a book signing. He needs to finish the third Book of the Art, darn it.

[NathanBethell]

Italo Calvino is one of my favorite writers, if not the top of the pops. Cosmicomics was the first Calvino book I ever read, an assigned reading in a postmodern fiction class I took as an undergrad. By the time I was out of college, I'd gobbled up several other Calvino books, including t zero, The Baron in the Trees, Invisible Cities, Hermit in Paris, and, of course, If on a winter's night a traveler. I don't think I've ever found a writer so imaginative and charming as Calvino.

He's probably my favorite writer. Since you've read and enjoyed Cosmicomics, I double my recommendation of Antipodes. Padilla is frequently compared to Calvino, although, for my part, I don't think the comparison is entirely apt. Parts of Antipodes do read a lot like Invisible Cities, though. Padilla's written several novels, too, although, to my knowledge, only one has been translated into English (and, thus, I can read only one because Spanish isn't really a forte); Many people seem to prefer that novel, Shadow without a Name, which operates around the basic conceit that there is a set of chess players who are willing to bet their life on games of chess -- the winner gets the identity of the loser, who shoots himself. Antipodes gets my vote, though, largely on the strength of the title story (I think) in which a Scottish engineer builds an exact replica of Edinburgh in the Gobi desert.

[Lester C.]

The book that got me a week's worth of detention in Junior High which would also mark the only time I've ever been held in detention. They didn't get the fact that it wasn't pornography but an anthology of stories written by the best science fiction authors of all time.

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c269/trigunfan1/t1451.jpg

[CutterMike]

Here are some more of my favorite SF/fantasy short story writers. Unfortunately, they are probably all out of print, as well, and shouldn't be.

Manly Wade Wellman's "Silver John" stories... Appalachian folk-tales come to life.

Any of Cordwainer Smith (Paul Myron Linebarger)'s collected "tales of the Instrumentality" A "future history" with emphasis on what it means to be human. haunting, brilliant stories; the sort where you KNOW that you're getting, maybe, half of the references and sly in-jokes that he's putting in, and you love it.

For sheer fun, and tales of heroes whose weapons are intelligence, wit, and humor, any Eric Frank Russell collection.

[Paul McEnery]

Men and Cartoons by Jonathan Lethem.
Jonathan totally does his best work in short form. I've got this one in the pile.

(I did a show with him once, too! Whee-ha!)

Slippage, by Harlan Ellison.
Sideways reference to me in the acknowledgements! Whoo-hoo.

Though I'd get Essential Ellison to get the real bang for the buck.

Greasy Lake & Other Stories by T. Corheggason Boyle. It's one of his earlier collections and one of the best. Hey, the title was inspired by a Springsteen song. Boyle is known as a literary writer but he's also one of the most accessible. And he's very darkly humorous.

Oh hell, get the complete short stories. Which now isn't. Um. Wait five years for the even more complete short stories!

DANGEROUS VISIONS and AGAIN, DANGEROUS VISIONS, edited by Harlan Ellison


You are rubbish if you haven't read these. Really. Only half a human being.

Cosmicomics by Italo Calvino

Beyond terrific.

The book that got me a week's worth of detention in Junior High which would also mark the only time I've ever been held in detention. They didn't get the fact that it wasn't pornography but an anthology of stories written by the best science fiction authors of all time.

http://i29.photobucket.com/albums/c269/trigunfan1/t1451.jpg

Buy Ellen's book now. Buy one for all your friends, too. They will think you are sophisticated. Or a horrible human being. Or both!

[Paul McEnery]

First: Get the big book of Borges. Or you won't be the other half of a human being.

Also, I have a huge pile of short story collections I haven't gotten to yet. Some I've started on and recommend are:

Paraspheres
Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet

Weird stories, a bit fantasy, a bit avant-garde, some writers you've heard of, a lot you won't have. LCRW is some odd xerox magazine labour of love, and these are the bits they liked best. Think McSweeney's if Eggars had any taste.

Zoran Zivkovic! He does mosaic novels -- related short stories that add up to more than the sum of the... sorry, getting tired... must stop being hackneyed. If you like Calvino and Borges, this is your guy.

Gardner Dozois's Years Best SF. All 23 volumes are great. And they're not just huge, they're really quite good, too.

And there's a shit ton of individual anthologies that have just come out that I'm cracking into. Paolo bacigalupi, he's got a new one. James Morrow -- and he's got an anthology of European SF, but I'm not into that yet.

And a great new paperback anthology called Solaris -- two volumes so far, absolute cracker. Basically, it's what the magazines ought to have in them if the editors either had a clue or had more trust in the market.

Oh, and Rudy Rucker (see below) is editing a magazine called Flurb. Haven't gotten to it yet (for shame!) but Warren says go read it now. So make me feel better for having three thousand books in my room I haven't read yet.

[JamesRitcheyIII]

I'm nuts about many collections mentioned already--Welcome To The Monkey House, all the Ellison and Bradbury you can get your hands on, Lovecraft, as well. ALL the Sherlock Holmes stories are grossly underrated. I'll add:

The Golden Man and any of the dozen collections of Philip K. Dick
The Jaguar Hunter by Lucius Shepard (would be at the top if this were in particular order)
Mirrorshades, edited by Bruce Sterling, starring the whole, freaking Cyberpunk Movement
William S. Burroughs had six collections--Interzone being my favorite.
.Snapshots (Instantanes) by Alain Robbe-Grillet

[Buzz Dixon]

Let's not forget Ian Fleming's two books of Bond short stories: FROM A VIEW TO A KILL and OCTOPUSSY. When Fleming was firing on all eight cylinders he was quite good as a short story writer. The best Bond short stories, ironically, are the ones in which he appears mostly as a peripheral character (viz. "The Hildebrand Rarity").

[Tad Sivana]

I can't believe that nobody's mentioned 'Burning Chrome' by William Gibson.
This is a collection of great shorts by one of our best (I think, THE best) speculative fiction writer out there.
Highly recommended.

[Infra-Man]

Will definitely peep Padilla when I get a chance. If he's like Calvino, I'm all about it. Ditto Zivkovic.

I have my big blue book of Borges fiction, which I've read 3/4 of. Will get the big red book of Borges non-fiction one of these days. I remember running into a fun Borges interview via Harper's a few months ago where he noted (if I remember right) that philosophy is more daring than poetry. It made me feel like I didn't waste time as an undergrad :tongue:

With a name like Alien Sex, I can't not read it. And at the risk of sounding totally uncool, I've never read any Philip K. Dick or William Gibson, so I need to. :frown:

I tried reading Alain Robbe-Grillet's Jealousy a few years back, but I just could not get into it. Then again, I also didn't like that enigmatic arthouse flick Last Year at Marienbad (for which Robbe-Grillet did the screenplay) the first time I saw it, but when I saw it again recently, I actually kinda dug it. Will give .Snapshots a look and may even try to dig up that old copy of Jealousy, wherever it is.

I'm glad they've been reprinting the Fleming Bond books, but I have not had a chance to read them (they did wind up being a keen present for an uncle of mine, though). They sell them at Midtown, so maybe I can pick up one or two (between comics and those reprints of The Shadow and Doc Savage) and put 'em toward my discount.

Anyways, long night... full of beer and the undeniably keen goodness of a Los Campesinos show.

[saintsaucey]

http://www.google.com/products?hl=en&safe=off&q=books+on+elves&um=1&ie=UTF-8

[Joshua Pantalleresco]

Anything by Ray Bradbury. Probably one of the best short story writers ever.

Suggested reads:

Driving Blind
Long After Midnight
The Martian Chronicles
A Medicine for Melancholy
One More For The Road
R is for Rocket
S is for Space

Pick one. My favorite short story collection is Martian Chronicles, but my favorite story of his is in One More For The Road which is called "Quid Pro Quo".

Another suggestion is Charles De Lint. Great short fiction writer.

Suggested stuff:

The Ivory And The Horn
Moonlight and Vines
Triskell Tales (If you can find it)

Finally, Stephen King has a few good short collections as well.

Nightmares and Dreamscapes
Everything's Eventual

Good luck.

JP

[ponset]

Short Stories starring NERO WOLFE and ARCHIE GOODWIN by Rex Stout.

Title of books. All have 3 or 4 stories:
"Trio for Blunt Instruments"
"Three for the Chair"
"And Four to Go".

[Tobias March]

Second Borges.

Lovecraft cites a number of his contemporaries in the wonderful Supernatural Horror in Literature (http://gaslight.mtroyal.ca/superhor.htm), including Algernon Blackwood and Arthur Machen.