Short Story Favorites, what do you like?
Dot Williams
authors who can do both well.
Here are some of my favorite stories (two non-mystery) not in any
particular order. I like them for entirely different reasons.
"How Would You Like It" Lawrence Block in The Collected Mystery
Stories
"The Weapon" by Fredric Brown in From These Ashes
"The Beast Within" Margaret Maron in Shoveling Smoke
"The Way They Were" (not sure of title) by Isaac Asimov
One by Stephen King that starts off sounding like a love story with a
man buying flowers, then ends up being something else (can't remember
title)
I'd be interested in hearing other's favorite short stories, mystery
the preference.
And any particular mystery short story book collections you feel are
especially good.
Thanks
DW
Mrebookman
Picked up a copy of the forthcoming Tart Noir anthology at London's CrimeScene
Fest at the weekend. Not officially out 'till August so I was thrilled. The
Karin Slaughter story is both beautiful and shocking.
Ian Rankin has two collections of Rebus short stories.If you haven't read Ian,
OBE.., it's a good place to start. The first :A Good Hanging has been
available for ages and the second: Beggar's Banquet (he loves his Stones thing)
is hugely anticipated and out soon.
Lawrence Block's Collected Short Stories is wonderful as it contains all his
novel characters and more. New updated edition due in the Autumn called Enough
Rope.
Finally I'd recommend Oscar Wilde's children stories. The Happy Prince etc. Not
crime but it would be criminal to die having not read them.
MrE
Donna
Hi All,
Mr E wrote:
> Finally I'd recommend Oscar Wilde's children stories. The Happy Prince etc. Not
> crime but it would be criminal to die having not read them.
Definitely - The Happy Prince always makes me cry.
My favourite anthology of short stories is the Murder Squad collection,
which is excellent.
Take care,
Donna
--
Visit Donna's Page at:
http://freespace.virgin.net/donna.moore
Randy Money
>
> I read short stories as well as novels. I have a lot of respect for
> authors who can do both well.
>
> Here are some of my favorite stories (two non-mystery) not in any
> particular order. I like them for entirely different reasons.
>
> "How Would You Like It" Lawrence Block in The Collected Mystery
> Stories
I also liked "Batman's Helpers".
> "The Weapon" by Fredric Brown in From These Ashes
A favorite of mine, too.
> "The Beast Within" Margaret Maron in Shoveling Smoke
> "The Way They Were" (not sure of title) by Isaac Asimov
> One by Stephen King that starts off sounding like a love story with a
> man buying flowers, then ends up being something else (can't remember
> title)
>
> I'd be interested in hearing other's favorite short stories, mystery
> the preference.
> And any particular mystery short story book collections you feel are
> especially good.
>
> Thanks
> DW
There are two yearly antholgies of the best short mysteries, one edited
by Ed Gorman, the other by a different guest celebrity mystery author
each year. A year or so ago Tony Hillerman and Otto Penzler put out an
anthology, _The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century_. I've only
read a few, but the contents page looks pretty solid: especially look
for Susan Glaspell's "A Jury of Her Peers".
If you can find a copy - probably through a library - read 101 Years'
Entertainment edited by Ellery Queen. It's a fat, wide-ranging
collection from the '40s covering, roughly, 1841 to 1941. It includes
stories about the obvious characters, including Sherlock Holmes, Father
Brown, Hercule Poirot, Nero Wolfe (I think; it's been years), Sam Spade,
the Saint and stories about detectives and crooks who aren't as well
remembered like Max Carados, Prof. S. F. X. Van Dusen (the Thinking
Machine), Raffles, Arsene Lupin, Uncle Abner, the Old Man in the Corner,
etc. Also contains one of my favorites without a series characters, "The
Hands of Mr. Ottermole" by Thomas Burke.
Recently been dipping into _Hard-boiled: An Anthology of American Crime
Stories_, which I've enjoyed so far, especially the stories by Dashiell
Hammett and W. R. Burnet
_The Big Knockover_ and _The Continental Op_ by Dashiell Hammett (great
collections of hard-boiled stories)
_The Simple Art of Murder_ and _Trouble is My Business_ by Raymond
Chandler (recently reissued; I'd go with the Hammetts first, though)
_Rear Window_ by Cornell Woolrich (reissued in an expanded edition
within the last two years; Woolrich may be an acquired taste, though)
Not sure of titles, but I'm pretty sure there have been collections by
Sara Paretsky and Sharon McCrumb published within the last 5 or 6 years.
These are collections I'd be interested in.
Individual Stories (divisions by genre are often debatable):
Mystery/Crime;
"Haircut" - Ring Lardner
"The Gutting of Coifugnal" & "The Scorched Face" - Dashiell Hammett
"Red Wind" - Raymond Chandler
"The Fall of the House of Usher" & "The Tell-Tale Heart" & "The Black
Cat" & "The Murders in the Rue Morgue" & "The Gold Bug" - Edgar Allan
Poe
"The Hands of Mr. Ottermole" -- Thomas Burke
"The Fall River Axe Murders" -- Angela Carter
"A Jury of Her Peers" -- Susan Glaspell (think that's the right name)
"A Rose for Emily" & "That Evening Sun" & "Barn Burning" -- William
Faulkner
"The Three Strangers" -- Thomas Hardy
"Two Bottles of Relish" -- Lord Dunsany
"Mr. Loveday's Little Outing" - Evelyn Waugh
Fantasy/sf/horror (pretty much non-gory stories)
"The Big Dream" -- James Kessel (interesting take on Chandler and his
work)
"The Willows" & "The Wendigo" & "The Empty House" -- Algernon Blackwood
"The Yellow Wallpaper" -- Charlotte Perkins-Gilman
"Enoch" & "Talent" & "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper" & "The Man Who
Collected Poe" - Robert Bloch
"The Homecoming" & "Small Assassin" & "The Fog Horn" - Ray Bradbury
"The Panic Hand" & "The Sadness of Detail" - Jonathan Carroll
"The Repairer of Reputations" & "The Yellow Sign" - Robert Chambers
"The Gorgon" & "The Devil's Rose" - Tanith Lee
"The Girl with the Hungry Eyes" & "Smoke Ghost" & "Belson Express" &
"The Hound" - Fritz Leiber
"The Death of a Mannikin" & "The Frolic" (very disturbing) & "Les
Fleurs" - Thomas Ligotti
"The Dreams in the Witch-House" & "The Nameless City" & "At the
Mountains of Madness" & "The Music of Erich Zann" - H. P. Lovecraft
"Born of Man and Woman" & "The Distributor" - Richard Matheson
"The Kind Men Like" (disturbing story) & "River of Night's Dreaming" &
"Sticks" - Karl Edward Wagner
"They Bite" - Anthony Boucher
"It's a GOOD Life" -- Jerome Bixby
"Carmilla" & "Green Tea" & "Shalken the Painter" -- J. S. Le Fanu
"Bloodchild" -- Octavia Butler
"The Horla" -- Guy de Maupassant
"The Roaches" -- Thomas Disch
"Oh, Whistle, and I'll Come for You, My Lad" -- M. R. James
"Black Man with a Horn" -- T.E.D. Klein
"The Beckoning Fair One" -- Oliver Onions
"Passengers" -- Robert Silverberg
"The Body Snatchers" -- R. L. Stevenson
"The Judge's House" -- Bram Stoker
"Soft Voices at Passenham" -- T. H. White
"All My Darling Daughters" -- Connie Willis (especially disturbing)
"Papa Benjamin" -- Cornell Woolrich
Mainstream
"Silent Snow, Secret Snow" - Conrad Aiken
"Mysterious Kor" & "The Happy Autumn Fields" & "The Cat Jumps" -
Elizabeth Bowen
"Linneus Forgets" & "The Adder" & "Weird Tales" - Fred Chappell
"The Music Teacher" & "Torch Song" & "The Swimmer" & "The Enormous
Radio" - John Cheever
"Seaton's Aunt" & "Mr. Kempe" -- Walter de la Mare
"The Summer People" & "The Lottery" - Shirley Jackson
"The Rocking-Horse Winner" -- D. H. Lawrence
"Sea Lovers" -- Valerie Martin
"Hills Like White Elephants" & "The Killers" & "Big Two-hearted River"
& "The Snows of Killimanjaro" & "The Short Happy Life of Francis
Macomber", etc. - Ernest Hemingway
"The Supper at Elsinore" -- Isak Dineson
"The Viy" -- Nikolai Gogol
"A Little Place off the Edgeware Road" -- Graham Greene
"Billy Budd" & "Bartleby, the Scrivener" - Herman Melville
I'd especially recommend, from a variety of genres, the following
collections,
_More Shapes than One_ -- Fred Chappell
_The Panic Hand_ -- Jonathan Carroll
_The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories_ -- Angela Carter
_The Consolation of Nature_ -- Valerie Martin
_The Wind's Twelve Quarters_ -- Ursula K. Le Guin
_Bloodchild and Other Stories_ -- Octavia Butler
_Extremities_ -- Kathe Koja (disturbing stories)
_Labyrinths_ -- Jorge Luis Borges
_The Long Valley_ -- John Steinbeck
And these collections in which the stories are interconnected via theme
or recurring setting or recurring characters or all of the above:
_The Things They Carried_ -- Tim O'Brien
_Cane_ -- Jean Toomer
_Winesberg, Ohio_ -- Sherwood Anderson
_3 Women_ -- Gertrude Stein
_The Martian Chronicles_ -- Ray Bradbury
_The House on Mango Street_ -- Susan Cisneros
And that's more than enough out of me.
Randy M.
David Matthews
reputed to be one of the best short stories ever written, "The Most
Dangerous Game" by Richard Connell. It's been the inspiration for countless
movies and is used extentively in school programs. If anyone hasn't read it,
or wants to refresh their memory, it's easy to find online, just enter the
title in any search engine.
Dave
ell...@webtv.net
I think you forgot "A Good Man is Hard to Find," (Flannery O'Connor. )
And I'd add Bradbury's "October Country" collection which has one of the
most gruesome stories I ever read in it.
It seems to me that you're just the person to ask this of: Who wrote
"The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl?" IT was in EQ years ago. And
another one I can never remember the title or author of--also very
gruesome: The end has a guy playing with the hair on someone's head,
(like an instrument, maybe?) with the moonlight shining on him.
Thanks in advance--and next time I'll ask you the first question I ever
asked on RAM--about a mad botanist and a cherimoya or carambola fruit.
Very old book--very weird.
Ellen
Randy Money
Thanks, Ellen.
> I think you forgot "A Good Man is Hard to Find," (Flannery O'Connor. )
> And I'd add Bradbury's "October Country" collection which has one of the
> most gruesome stories I ever read in it.
I'm not fond of O'Connor, but that is probably my favorite of the
stories I've read by her. I should have added it. I should most
definitely have added the Bradbury -- "The Fog Horn," "Small Assassin,"
"Uncle Einar," "Homecoming" (a story, the premise of which is ludicrous,
but the effect of which is amazingly touching); it's probably my
favorite of his books, though _The Martian Chronicles_ gives it a close
run.
> It seems to me that you're just the person to ask this of: Who wrote
> "The Fruit at the Bottom of the Bowl?" IT was in EQ years ago.
I wish -- I really, really wish -- I had kept all of the EQMMs I bought
in the '70s. I imagine some of the stories I enjoyed then wouldn't hold
up for me, but there's a nostalgia factor involved that makes me wish I
could just thumb through them now.
Unfortunately this one doesn't ring a bell. I tried to check the Locus
webpages with its index of short stories on the off chance "The
Fruit..." had fantastic or s.f. content and might thus be included --
unfortunately, I'm not getting through for some reason.
> And
> another one I can never remember the title or author of--also very
> gruesome: The end has a guy playing with the hair on someone's head,
> (like an instrument, maybe?) with the moonlight shining on him.
Sounds a little like a variation on Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily."
> Thanks in advance--and next time I'll ask you the first question I ever
> asked on RAM--about a mad botanist and a cherimoya or carambola fruit.
> Very old book--very weird.
>
> Ellen
Yeesh, you ask the tough ones, Ellen! If you can tell me more, I'll ask
some friends.
Oh, and because I love lists and love adding to lists ...
_Great Tales of Terror and the Supernatural_ eds. Herbert Wise and
Phyllis Cerf -- cut into two sections, the first of which is probably of
greatest interest here. It includes: Dorothy Sayers' "Suspicion" (not a
favorite of mine, but anthologists seem to like it); Geoffrey
Household's "Taboo" (quite good); H. G. Wells' "The Sea Raiders"; Carl
Stephenson's "Leiningen vs. the Ants"; Richard Connell's "The Most
Dangerous Game"; Faulkner's "A Rose for Emily"; Hemingway's "The
Killers"; Thomas Hardy's "The Three Strangers"; and stories by Poe,
Balzac, Wilkie Collins, John Collier, and several others, all located in
that spot where crime stories, mysteries, thrillers, horror stories and
adventure stories converge.
_Black Water: An Anthology of the Fantastic in Literature_ and _Black
Water 2_ ed. Alberto Manguel. Don't have contents handy for the 2nd, but
the first includes Graham Greene's "A Little Place off the Edgeware
Road" (unsettling little story), Max Beerbohm's "Enoch Soames", L. P.
Hartley's "A Visitor from Down Under", Walter de la Mare's "Seaton's
Aunt", Ursula K. Le Guin's "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas", and
stories by Julio Cortazar, Italo Calvino, Kafka, Dickens, Kipling,
Tennessee Williams, Daphne Du Maurier, Lord Dunsany and Nabokov, among
many others. Great anthologies.
Randy M.
BLIND 321
I think I just had a small heart attack.
Not fond of O'Connor???
KS
Randy Money
Writes well, but I hate what she does to her characters. I've read
critics and fans who say she has compassion for them, but I don't see it
when I read her stories -- they are damned or not, and more the former
than the latter. Just grates on me. If I'm going to read Southern
writers, I'll take Faulkner over O'Connor any day; probably Welty, too,
if I ever get around to reading more by her.
Randy M.
J&J
> << I'm not fond of O'Connor >>
> Not fond of O'Connor???
> KS
Popcorn anyone?
judi
claguire
here: I don't count _memorable_ short stories among my favorites. I often find
myself avoiding "best of" collections.
I think the reason is that if the story is resonant enough to be special, it's
too much for a short story--I feel cheated by it, or manipulated. This is
especially in mystery shorts, for some reason.
My favorite short stories are those that don't try to do too much, and are
memorable in a group. For instance, my first thought, on recommending a mystery
short story, would be to say "read The Tuesday Club stories by Agatha Christie."
I like collections by Christie, Doyle, Wodehouse, Lawrence Block and Roald Dahl.
Camille
--
Louise Bell
I enjoy Brown's short stories. Almost O'Henry like with their twists
and many of them are short shorts which must be difficult to write
well. He also uses humor often which not enough writers do in some
genres.
How many short stories in the mystery field today are
requested/commissioned, and how many are written by the author on
spec?
I ask this because you sometimes hear a established/published writer
saying "I have to do a short story for... before I get back to my
book". And so many SS collections are of recognized authors. It would
be a good way of supplementing their incomes a little at least.
So how much room does that leave for people wishing to be published in
the SS field before or during the time they are writing their first
novel?
Which of course, brings up another question; how many authors even
bother with SS's now instead of just concentrating on novels?
Louise
ell...@webtv.net
<<Yeesh, you ask the tough ones, Ellen! If you can tell me more, I'll
ask some friends.>>
Thanks! In honor of my 2 year anniversary on RAM, here's the question:
The book is about a mad scientist--a botanist--(and/or a doctor) who is
convinced that the cherimoya (or carambola--I get them mixed up) will be
THE major, top sellling, most versatile fruit in the US. He does
experimental breeding of plants (I think maybe trying to improve the
fruit.)
He has a daughter; incest is involved. I believe they have a child, and
he says it's okay, because it's scientific testing of breeding, his
field.
I'm sure this was an obscure book to begin with, by the way. I think I
picked it up at an old library's book sale. It was already old when I
read it, which was at least 20 years ago.
It's not by Kellerman--some people originally suggested him, but
definitely considerably older. (And thinner!) I have no clue as to
title or author.
Who, me, ask the tough ones?
Thanks for your help.
Ellen
Donna
> The book is about a mad scientist--a botanist--(and/or a doctor) who is
> convinced that the cherimoya (or carambola--I get them mixed up) will be
> THE major, top sellling, most versatile fruit in the US. He does
> experimental breeding of plants (I think maybe trying to improve the
> fruit.)
>
> He has a daughter; incest is involved. I believe they have a child, and
> he says it's okay, because it's scientific testing of breeding, his
> field.
Oooooh, this rings a bell. Does he live on an island, or in the country
or something in a scruffy, messy house? And when the hero goes to see
him he gets attacked by the bloke's dog? Or am I thinking of something
else completely? :o)
Tata,
ell...@webtv.net
<Oooooh, this rings a bell. Does he live on an island, or in the country
or something in a scruffy, messy house? And when the hero goes to see
him he gets attacked by the bloke's dog? Or am I thinking of something
else completely? :o)>>
He lives in California--I don't remember a dog. For that matter, I
don't remember a hero! But there might be. I don't know about the
scruffy house either, but I think he keeps his daughter's daughter
locked up, maybe in an attic.
Ellen
Arthur Nelson
different from ours doesn't qualify him for the looney bin. Probably a
hard-working scientist looking to destroy all mankind. Average, typical
literary scientist. Art
<ell...@webtv.net> wrote in message
news:21009-3D...@storefull-2273.public.lawson.webtv.net...
ell...@webtv.net
different from ours doesn't qualify him for the looney bin. Probably a
hard-working scientist looking to destroy all mankind. Average, typical
literary scientist. Art>>
Gosh, I meant no offense, Art. I guess the part where he has a daughter
by his daughter and tells her it's for a breeding experiment gave me the
wrong impression--whereas, looking to destroy all mankind would be quite
credible.
Ellen
Carol Schwaderer Dickinson
> the preference.
> And any particular mystery short story book collections you feel are
> especially good.
>
> Thanks
> DW
I'm partial to Mike Ashley's "Mammoth Book of ......" short story
anthologies. I've found a great many new authors with them.
Carol
BLIND 321
stories--the best I've read since A Good Man is Hard to Find.
KS
Ila Lawton
> I'm partial to Mike Ashley's "Mammoth Book of ......" short story
> anthologies. I've found a great many new authors with them.
Oh, yes! Me, too.
Ila :-)
--
Laughter is the sun that drives winter from the human face.
-- Victor Hugo
Bill Burgess
Bill Burgess
and John Edgar Wideman writes a
mean short story.
Bill Burgess
Carol Schwaderer Dickinson wrote:
No mysteries, really, and all southern, but...
All of Flannery O'Connor's stuff
The Stories of Breece D'J Pancake
Facing the Music and Big Bad Love, Larry Brown
Town Smokes, Pinckney Benedict