What’s Your Favorite Short Story?

[Indysoda]

Favorite short story ever read?

[andy-hughes]

The one that's attributed to Earnest Hemmingway, but the origin is actually disputed.

Hemmingway said he was challenged to write a story in six words, and the (disputed) story is -

For sale - baby's shoes - never worn.

[DTCwordfan]

shortest Oxford University exam response. Philosophy the exam....

Question: "What's the philosophy of being brave?"

Answer: "This is."

[Buenchico]

How short is 'short'?

If you'll accept a novella as a 'short story', then this might well qualify as my favourite:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Abbess_of_Crewe

[Zacs-Master]

One where they time travel back to when dinosaurs were alive. They’re told not to step of the hovering path but someone steps on a butterfly and when they return to the present, the alphabet is different. As a 12 year old it blew my mind. Don’t know the title.

[Atheist]

My favorite is I think by Maupassant, and concerns a young woman who borrows an expensive necklace from a rich friend, loses it, borrows a fortune to have a copy made by the original posh jeweller, and spends most of her adult life in poverty trying to pay back the loan. Perhaps you can giuess the denouement.

[Zacs-Master]

Apparently it’s The Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury. Isn’t the internet wunnerful?

[Rosie29]

I havent read him in a while but I used to like O Henry - The Monkeys Paw comes to mind.

[Zacs-Master]

Atheist, I had an English teacher at middle school who read us that story. She was a bit of an actress and put so much feeling in to it and I remember her sitting cross legged on the classroom floor reading it like it was yesterday.

[Zacs-Master]

Atheist. The ‘kicker’ to that story is when she takes the replacement to her mistress and she says something like ‘it was only paste, my dear. Virtually worthless’

[andy-hughes]

My favourite is the first in a series of short stories in a collection called The Boy Who Cried Freebird - the author Mitch Myers is a good friend of mine.

The story concerns a blues fanatic who hears that there is a 'missing' Robert Johnson recording, just one song, and his efforts to find it - and the result when he does.

Reccomended.

[bookbinder]

Boule de Suif, by Guy de Maupassant.

[Ken4155]

Obviously cannot recall all of the short stories i have read but Stephen King's 'Graveyard Shift' stands out as one of the best.

[david small]

The monkeys paw.

[ducksie]

John Steinbecks - the Pearl - I really liked that story/novella

[brainiac]

Of the many short stories by H E Bates (a master of the form) I have re-read three lots of times: The Lighthouse, The Kimono and The Four Beauties.

[Dagman]

The Shepherd by Frederick Forsyth. A lone jet pilot lost on his way home.

[Khandro]

James Thurber's, 'The Secret Life of Walter Mitty'.

[Jackdaw33]

For those who may not have heard of him, may I recommend the stories by H.H. Munro, an Edwardian author who wrote under the pen-name of Saki. They are dark and wickedly funny. They are probably out of print so you may have to visit a library when they eventually reopen.

Munro was called up in WWI. He refused a commission and rose to the rank of lance sergeant. He was killed in the trenches in 1916. His last words were apparently, "Put that bloody light out!" to a soldier who had lit a cigarette. Hearing the voice and seeing the flame a German sniper fired and shot Munro dead.

[emmie]

not a short story as such i guess, but its not a long book Kim by Rudyard Kipling.

[brainiac]

The ghost stories of M R James are worth reading, especially at this time of year.