About Short Stories

alternativedoubt
3 min readFeb 18, 2019
People sitting around a bonfire and sharing short stories, Photo by Joris Voeten on Unsplash

With the start of this year, I decided to spend more time reading fiction. But, I always find it challenging to complete an entire Novel. I was wondering how to do it, then I stumbled upon this amazing post by N.A. Turner about short stories.

I absolutely loved what he says about short stories, and I was convinced that I will hardly read any Novel this year, and will instead use short stories to get better at absorbing and appreciating fiction.

“Short fiction seems more targeted — hand grenades of ideas, if you will. When they work, they hit, they explode, and you never forget them. Long fiction feels more like atmosphere: it’s a lot smokier and less defined.” ― Paolo Bacigalupi

It has been almost two months now, and I have compiled a list of books and resources to get my supply of short stories. But for now, it’s all in my head only. I wanted to write it down somewhere and then thought about sharing it on Medium.

Compared to a file in my computer or a page in my notebook, this post will be open to people to add their suggestions and maybe pick some as well.

Here’s the list:

  1. 50 Greatest Short Stories: I found this lying on the couch at my friend’s place. Upon going through the table of contents, I was sure that I wanted a copy for myself. As the name suggests, it is a collection of 50 short stories. The claim of them being the greatest is something I am neither sure nor concerned about. It is a collection of 50 well-known stories from some great authors. And if you have been reading short stories a lot, chances are you have already read most of them.
  2. Will You Please Be Quiet, Please? by Raymond Carver: This is a collection of some peculiar stories. I am still struggling to understand what the stories are about. I will add the link to the post that convinced me to get a hard copy of this at the end of this post.
  3. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri: Just Google ‘top ten short story books’ and this will be in almost all the list you will find. This is how I came to know about this book. It has some of the longest short-stories I have read, but you get too absorbed to mind it.
  4. Nine Stories by J.D. Salinger: This was suggested to me by Life and All The Other Mishaps in response to one of my posts. I am yet to start, but I loved Salinger’s work in The Catcher in the Rye. So, I’ll definitely give it a try.
  5. The ‘short story’ tag here on Medium.
  6. https://americanliterature.com/ this website. I have not gone there looking for one yet, but whenever I am trying to read more about a story I’ve read in the ’50 Greatest Short Story’ book, I found the story here as well.
  7. https://www.sparknotes.com/short-stories/ Spark Notes, not exactly to read stories, but to read a detailed analysis of the ones you have read. I guess I’ll find all the stories interpreted here on the site I mentioned in the last point.

If you liked the post, feel free to clap for it to let me know and help others find it.

Please respond with what you think or with your favorite collection that I haven’t come across yet.

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