Short Stories - Favorite Collections

[paul secor]

I'm curious if others here have favorite collections or compilations of short stories. I'll start with a few of my own and I hope that others will join in.

W.P. Kinsella: The Mocassin Telegraph and Other Indian Tales

John Dufresne: The Way That Water Enters Stone

Percival Everett: Damned If I Do

Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Strange Pilgrims

[Guy Berger]

Jorge Luis Borges - everything (but especially Ficciones)

[Matthew]

J.F. Powers: The Stories of J.F. Powers. Forgotten master of prose whose Mort D'Urban is the best and funniest novel about the priesthood/religious life ever written. The standout story here is "The Prince of Darkness", which is the nickname of the priest the story is about.

Raymond Chandler: LOA Volume 1. Very good detective stories, all gathered in one place.

J.G. Ballard: The Complete Stories of J.G. Ballard. Very interesting stuff.

[jazzbo]

Any and all collections of stories by Cordwainer Smith.

[BillF]

Raymond Carver and Alice Munro are the first authors who come to mind.

[jazzbo]

Hammett's "The Continental OP."

Chandler's "Killer in the Rain"

Philip K. Dick's "The Preserving Machine"

[medjuck]

Any collection by Alice Munro.

[jeffcrom]

Flannery O' Connor - A Good Man is Hard to Find

Bernard Malamud - The Magic Barrel

P.G. Wodehouse - The World of Jeeves

[jlhoots]

Any collection by Alice Munro.

You beat me to it.

[John Litweiler]

Short stories by Chandler, Hammett, Conan Doyle, Ballard, William Tenn, Eric Frank Russell

[Michael Weiss]

Jonathan Lethem: The Wall of the Sky, The Wall of the Eye

Sam Shepard: Cruising Paradise

[Simon8]

A few favorites:

Lorrie Moore: Birds of America

Denis Johnson: Jesus' Son

Tim O'Brien: The Things They Carried

Marcel Aymé: Le Passe-Muraille

Donald Barthelme: 60 Stories

Raymond Carver: What We Talk About When We Talk About Love

Barry Hannah: High Lonesome

David Means: Assorted Fire Events

[Joe]

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

I've just been reading, for the first time since the 60s, 'The Thurber carnival'. Funny the things you hang on to. I don't know what I saw in it then, but I'm not seeing much in it now.

My favourite collections may be off most people's beam

'West African trickster tales' ed Martin Bennett. Most of these seem to come from Nigeria. Very much like the Brer Rabbit etc stories. Every culture has 'em.

'Moral tales' by Jules Laforgue (with some nice illustrations by him).

'Cruel tales' by Villiers de l'Isle-Adam.

'Pharos and Pharillon' by E M Forster (stories and history about Alexandria).

MG

[Simon8]

"Contes cruels" is good one, indeed. Makes me think of his contemporary, Barbey D'Aurevilly, and his excellent short stories book, Les Diaboliques.

I'm intrigued by Laforgue (read some of his poetry).

[The Magnificent Goldberg]

Haven't read B d'A.

I can't make headway with French writers in French.

MG

[jlhoots]

Lily Tuck: The House At Belle Fontaine

[Tim McG]

Complete Short Stories, Guy de Maupassant

Complete Tales, Edgar Allen Poe

Best Short Stories, O. Henry

The Illustrated Man, Ray Bradbury

Ray Bradbury Collection, Ray Bradbury

Complete Short Stories, DH Lawrence

The Thurber Carnival, James Thurber

Highway 99, Stan Yogi, Editor

There are many others...

Edited May 8, 2013 by GoodSpeak

[BeBop]

Setting aside my beloved Russians (Anton Chekov, Leo Tolstoy) - not everyone's samovar of tea, I would acknowledge Voltaire and Vonnegut.

Vonnegut =

• Canary in a Cathouse (1961)
• Welcome to the Monkey House (1968)
• Bagombo Snuff Box (1999)
• God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)
• Armageddon in Retrospect (2008)
• Look at the Birdie (2009)
• While Mortals Sleep (2011)
• Sucker's Portfolio (2013)

Edited May 8, 2013 by BeBop

[Head Man]

Raymond Carver and Alice Munro are the first authors who come to mind.

[crisp]

I've been collecting a series that Everyman is putting out: Stories for Every Occasion in the website. It started with Christmas Stories and has gone on to include Detective Stories, Golf Stories, etc. They are all hardbacks and have varying striped spines. Look lovely on the shelf.

Some of the titles sound rather twee and feminine (eg, Cat Stories), but if they are compiled by Diana Secker Tesdell they are terrific. Love Stories is actually quite a brutal collection, while Bedtime Stories is dark and supernatural, not what you might expect. Other favourites of mine are New York Stories and Stories of the Sea.

Lots of classic tales (Irving, Hawthorne) are mixed with more recent works and I've discovered a lot of great new writers.