Thursday, August 2, 2007
Your Turn Thursday
I love short works of art. Hits of espresso to the bloodstream. And, being short, they have a greater chance of being good. Fewer places for the writer to go astray. Get in. Get out. Leave me with a pang of longing. A visual sting. A truth I had never spelled out to myself, but recognize. What are some of your very favorite short stories?
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17 comments:
I love Poe's short stories, and I once read about half of a collection of Henry James' works. My favorite of those was The Turn of the Screw, and, though I enjoyed most of what I read, a lot of the other stories were a little dull. They were enlivened by the completely inexplicable comments put at the beginning of each by somebody who clearly was reading different stories than I was reading. DRD
You can't go wrong with The Lottery. Or The Yellow Wallpaper.
The Lottery is one that really has stuck with me. not sure if its my favorite, but its one of them that kind of haunts me. and the ones that haunt me tend to be the ones that stick with me.
Ohhh. The Lottery. Shirley Jackson. Similarly, The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Le Guin. And another school favorite, The Most Dangerous Game by Richard Connell. Ben, you might like all three of these.
Are there any Bradbury fans out there?
I'd like to cast my vote for Mr. Salinger. As always.
And I like the shorter works of Ernest Hemingway.
Stacey! You found us. Welcome.
Christine--The LeGuin one, I forgot that one existed till now! Thanks for reminding me, that one is fantastic! :)
And let's not forget, as short stories go, for Mr. David Sedaris...
To all I recommend "Sudden Fiction". A collection of ULTRA short (some less than a page) stories. Surprisingly good!
Cool, Don. Thanks. That is exactly why I do this blog thing. I know some interesting people who read some interesting things, and this is a way I get to find out about books and authors that I might never have heard about otherwise. My libary has Sudden Fiction. I'm in luck.
"library"
Hee.
Ooh ooh ooh! One of the best short stories I've read in recent memory is in Neil Gaiman's _Fragile Things_ (Jodi gave me the publisher copy--what do we call those? I'm having a brain fart). Anyway, the story is called "Other People." Highly recommended! I like a lot of the stories in _Fragile Things_, but that one's a real standout. Neil Gaiman once commented that it came to him as a surprisingly complete idea, all at once, and I'm not surprised. Also, it's extremely short so you could practically read it on a 15-minute break.
~Lisa
ARC--Advanced Reader Copy.
P.S. You can do NOTHING on a 15 minute break ;P
P.P.S. You can also do little to nothing on a 30 minute break, either. (Or at least I can't.)
Here is a short story I loved years ago, by Cather.
http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/toc/
modeng/public/CatTrea.html
It's visual, romantic -
"The Treasure of Far Island"
"Martha said...
ARC--Advanced Reader Copy."
That's it, thank you!
You can do nothing on a 15-minute break EXCEPT read "Other People" while sipping a cafe drink.
~Lisa
But then your 15 is over and you have to go to the bathroom.
Sorry no new post for a few days. Need to get readin' and writin'!
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