Literary Short Stories Vote June 2012 • The MR Literary Club

[sun surfer]

Help us choose the June 2012 selection to read for the MR Literary Club! The poll will be open for three days.

In the event of a tie, there will be a one-day run-off poll. In the event that the run-off poll also ends in a tie, the tie will be resolved in favour of the selection that received all of its initial nominations first.

Note - Our timeline is changing slightly and next month's nominations will begin on JULY 1ST.


Select from the following works:


The Metamorphosis, In the Penal Colony, and Other Stories by Franz Kafka

Spoiler:

A collection of almost all short to medium length works

My Old Man by Ernest Hemingway

Spoiler:

.

Fifty-One Tales by Lord Dunsany

Spoiler:

This collection shows Dunsany (Edward John Moreton Drax Plunkett, 18th Baron of Dunsany) to be a master of the short story from pure fantasy to commentary on the human spirit and society.

The Complete Stories by Flannery O'Connor

Spoiler:

From wikipedia:

Mary Flannery O'Connor (March 25, 1925 – August 3, 1964) was an American novelist, short-story writer and essayist. An important voice in American literature, O'Connor wrote two novels and 32 short stories, as well as a number of reviews and commentaries. She was a Southern writer who often wrote in a Southern Gothic style and relied heavily on regional settings and grotesque characters. O'Connor's writing also reflected her own Roman Catholic faith, and frequently examined questions of morality and ethics.

Her Complete Stories won the 1972 U.S. National Book Award for Fiction and was named the "Best of the National Book Awards" by internet visitors in 2009.

Selected Stories of O. Henry

Spoiler:

Barnes & Noble Classics Series Volume

O. Henry originated the humorous, energetic tale that ends with an ironic, even shocking twist. In "After Twenty Years," for example, two boys agree to meet at a particular spot exactly twenty years later. Both are faithful, but in the intervening years one boy has turned into a criminal, the other into a policeman. Behind the rendezvous lurks a powerful dramatic situation with a fascinating moral dilemma--all in a few brief pages.

This is just one of the many literary gems in Selected Stories of O. Henry, a collection of forty-five of O. Henry's most renowned and entertaining short stories. Each one offers insights into human nature and the ways it is affected by love, jealousy, poverty, gentility, and the all-pervading reality of people conning people--themes that ran through the author's own life. Born William Sidney Porter, O. Henry started writing while in prison for embezzlement. Later he moved to New York, and his tales romanticizing the commonplace, particularly the life of ordinary New Yorkers, became highly popular. The most widely read author of his time, O. Henry died penniless but left behind a wealth of short stories that endure as hallmarks of the genre.

[fantasyfan]

We have a fine choice of interesting authors and one couldn't go wrong on any one of them but I'm a big fan of Dunsany and I've not read the entirety of this collection. So I guess my vote is predictable!

[issybird]

I have never read Dunsany (indeed, I had never heard of him until fantasyfan nominated The King of Elfland's Daughter), so that was my deciding factor.

[sun surfer]

I had a hard time deciding between Hemingway and Kafka. I went with Hemingway, and if it should happen to win, I was thinking of getting "The First Forty-Nine Short Stories" which I think was the first book it was a part of since it has a preface by Hemingway himself.

I find myself in the mood to reread those wonderful stories by Lord Dunsany, so that is how I voted. Still I will be happy to read and discuss any of the possible choices here.

[paola]

I wanted to go for one of the three authors I first heard about here, and in the end picked O. Henri, but any of the choices is going to be fine with me.

[sun surfer]

Well, judging by these last few months, no one can accuse us of all just voting for the one in the lead!

[Synamon]

Bah, I don't want to be a tiebreaker and I don't have a strong preference. *sits on hands*

[jgaiser]

Haven't been involved in any of the bookclubs for months, but I need something different to read and the Lord Dunsany books look like fun.

[sun surfer]

And then there were three.

The one-day run-off will be up soon.

ETA - For what it's worth, Flannery O'Connor is an excellent writer and her short story "A Good Man Is Hard To Find" is one of my favourite short stories. I highly recommend it, and it's only a short story so a quick read. The only reason I didn't vote for O'Connor is because I've already read many/most of her short stories.

[Bookworm_Girl]

I had a hard-time deciding between Hemingway and O. Henry. I knew either way my vote was going to create a tie, but I wasn't expecting three choices! Once again, this month had some great nominations. I downloaded Heart of the West by O. Henry and Fifty-One Tales by Lord Dunsany and look forward to reading them in the future.

[caleb72]

The last time we discussed short stories, I read them too early and couldn't remember half of them by the time we were discussing them. I won't make that mistake this time.