Best Short Stories you've just read

[astrangerhere]

I read Katherine Mansfield's "The Garden Party" for the first time when I was 17. It has stuck with me all these years. Second to that, I'd have to pick a Lee Smith story, "Georgia Rose." It is a nice homage to George Eliot's The Lifted Veil, but is resplendent with Smith's Southern lilt.

[kennyc]

Yep, Mansfield is good I need to read more of her, but I truly enjoyed The Daughters of the Late Colonel which I've read a few times. I love this line from it (just read it at wiki):
"The last time the sisters saw their father, Nurse Andrews was stationed by the bedside; the Colonel opened only one eye, glaring at his daughters before dying."

http://digital.library.upenn.edu/wom...daughters.html



The Garden Party is there too: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/wom...den.html#party

[elemenoP]

Where the full text of a short story is online, either as txt or html, what is a good/easy way to get that on my Kindle?

Thanks,
eP

[kennyc]

If I want to do that save it locally and import and convert it using Calibre or read it in a different program (on my Fire).

Import into Calibre as txt - send to Kindle....

[BenG]

Haruki Murakami has a new short story in The New Yorker.

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/fea...urrentPage=all

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by BenG

Haruki Murakami has a new short story in The New Yorker.

http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/fea...urrentPage=all

Samsa in Love -- excellent!

Just read it!

[Joshua Grasso]

If you enjoy Mansfield's stories as well as Chekhov's, I would recommend my favorite short story writer, and one of my favorite writers in general, the Indian novelist (South Asian, that is), R.K. Narayan. He has a wonderful collection of stories in the Penguin Classics series entitled "Malgudi Days," which complies stories from throughout his career. They are all pithy, insightful, and often comic depictions of the fictional small town of Malgudi in Southern India. They often deal with tricksters, con men, artists, musicians, the downtrodden, and in general, the struggle between East and West in the middle of the 20th century.

His most famous story, perhaps, is "Lawley Road," about an old statue of a British functionary named Frederic Lawley that stands in the town square. No one remembers what he did or why they built a statue to him. After independence, they decided to remove all trace of Britain and pull it down, and the main character, known as the "Talkative Man," hauls it off to his house to sell it. Then they realize that Lawley was a local hero, who helped the lot of the common man and died trying to save people from a flood. So they want the statue back...but the Talkative Man refuses--it's HIS statue. And so comedy ensues. He has a great style and is profoundly 'human' writer, in that he rarely takes sides and watches with detached compassion and amusement. I highly recommend this volume.

[Ninjalawyer]

Originally Posted by meeera

The best stories I've read in the past couple of years have been the Ted Chiang and Kij Johnson collections, and the Twelve Planets books. Diving Belles wasn't bad, too.

I just finished Ted Chiang's collection the other day, The Stories of Your Life, and it was incredible. Easily some of the best sciencie fiction I've read it awhile.

Chiang's latest short story is available here: http://subterraneanpress.com/magazin..._by_ted_chiang

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Ninjalawyer

I just finished Ted Chiang's collection the other day, The Stories of Your Life, and it was incredible. Easily some of the best sciencie fiction I've read it awhile.

Chiang's latest short story is available here: http://subterraneanpress.com/magazin..._by_ted_chiang

Yep!

And thank you for that link! Looking forward to reading it!

[alicepattinson]

I havent read any short stories and i'm really thanking to see this thread. I get a lot of ideas what short story to start with

[Nancy Fulda]

"Help Fund My Robot Army" by Keffy Kehrli. An epistolary tale in LightSpeed Magazine, formatted as a Kickstarter campaign.

Delightfully entertaining.

[kennyc]

Miss Lora by Junot Diaz. I don't know about 'best' but I did just read it (as I walked at lunch - in the new Best Am. Short Stories) and it did make an impression on me. I seem to have a love/hate relationship with Diaz's work. One interesting aspect of this one is that it is written in second person.

In the New Yorker here:
http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/fea...urrentPage=all

and an interview/Q&A about the story here: http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...unot-diaz.html

[straygator]

Téa Obreht's "The Laugh." I read it several years ago, but it really stuck with me for some reason:
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/...-laugh/307531/

[Ninjalawyer]

I feel like a lot of people in this thread are ignoring the word "just" in the topic title. :P

[kennyc]

Well, yeah, truth, but I did just read "Abridge too Far" by Carl Frederick in the latest Analog....funny quirky story about future e-readers, AI and abridging books/stories.

BTW I just recently discovered Zinio downloads/checkouts from my local Library and am loving reading the stories (and articles) in magazines again ... on my Xoom tablet using the zinio reader. (see the separate thread on this if interested)