# Your fave short-story writer?



## Ingélou

Who is your favourite writer of short stories? Or do you find short stories frustrating, shallow or passé?

What do you look for in a short story? Mystery? Wit? The aptness of a poem?

My favourite short story of all is James Thurber's 'Secret Life of Walter Mitty'; it was something that I always taught to disaffected boys as part of the retake GCSE English course; they always liked it, they always got the point, and I never got sick of it. My second favourite is 'Blackberry-Picking' by Philippa Pearce, the writer of _Tom's Midnight Garden_, the children's classic. Again, there's not a word wasted & it so corresponds with my own experience.

But, without thinking him the 'greatest', I've probably spent most hours reading Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories. They are so funny and so ingenious. G.K. Chesterton's Father Brown stories - ditto!

Which writers and short stories do you like best? I'd love to know.
Thanks in advance for any replies.


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## Tristan

Well, I don't have all that much experience with short stories, but I really enjoyed James Joyce's _Dubliners_ set of short stories. What I liked about them was knowing that there was some sort of deeper meaning to each of the stories and I actually enjoyed analyzing them.


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## Blancrocher

Theodor Storm speaks to my heart, and E.T.A. Hoffmann to my head. I couldn't do without either Immensee or The Sandman.

*PS* This is the last recent story that I really enjoyed: http://www.newyorker.com/fiction/features/2009/11/30/091130fi_fiction_delillo


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## Ukko

Back in the day when I read a lot of them, it was O. Henry. I prefer more penetration in stories now. Doesn't seem to apply to music though - maybe because the good short stuff goes deep. Late Brahms for instance.


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## Ingélou

Tristan said:


> Well, I don't have all that much experience with short stories, but I really enjoyed James Joyce's _Dubliners_ set of short stories. What I liked about them was knowing that there was some sort of deeper meaning to each of the stories and I actually enjoyed analyzing them.


*Duh*! I *knew* there was someone major that I'd missed out - and you found him, Tristan.
What a clot am I!
I *love* The Dubliners; an absolute classic. Thanks!


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## Kivimees

I voted Roald Dahl and W. Somerset Maugham, my favourites (in English).


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## Ukko

Ingélou said:


> *Duh*! I *knew* there was someone major that I'd missed out - and you found him, Tristan.
> What a clot am I!
> I *love* The Dubliners; an absolute classic. Thanks!


Note to Mods: OT!

Clot? In my neck of the woods it would be 'clod'. Shares some characteristics, but is earthier.


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## deggial

not short story writers by formation, but I like Kafka's and Hesse's short stories. I'm currently reading a collection of Alice Munro's (trendy, I know) which I found pretty good.


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## arpeggio

*Ray Bradbury*

Mine is Ray Bradbury.

One of my favorites is "Kaleidoscope". The story is about an astronaut whose space craft is destroyed and, like in the movie _Gravity_, he is falling back to Earth:

"He fell swiftly, like a bullet, like a pebble, like an iron weight, objective, objective all of the time now, not sad or happy or anything, but only wishing he could do a good thing now that everything was gone, a good thing for just himself to know about.

When I hit the atmosphere, I'll burn like a meteor.

"I wonder," he said, "if anyone'll see me?"

The small boy on the country road looked up and screamed. "Look, Mom, look! A falling star!"

The blazing white star fell down the sky of dusk in Illinois. "Make a wish," said his mother. "Make a wish."


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## Aramis

Proust. sssssss


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## Taggart

Aramis said:


> Proust. sssssss


Sounds a little bit recherché.

In the mainstream, I love Kipling , Conan Doyle and Chesterton. Kipling I think has to come tops because of his sheer variety of styles and techniques.

Trouble is, a lot of the short stories I read are genre fiction - sci fi and crime and don't usually count as literature. Bradbury is one of those who has managed the cross over because of the sheer quality of his writing.


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## Ingélou

A lot of my favourite short stories are one-offs for me - either the sole work that I *know* from a writer I'm not familiar with, or the sole work that I *like* from a writer that I don't care for.

An example of the former is 'An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge' by Ambrose Bierce (1842-1913), a masterly construction set during the American Civil War.

An example of the latter is 'Weekend' by Fay Weldon, the British feminist writer. I am not averse to feminism, just to Weldon's simplistic version of it. But 'Weekend' is a brilliant depiction of a female dilemma, trying to be Superwoman in order to keep a marriage from crashing.


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## Cheyenne

Where are Poe and Chekhov on the poll? Maupassant? Then you'd have all the classic ones - save perhaps Joyce and Tolstoy, but they are debatable.

I prefer Salinger, Jack London, Conrad and Joyce. Neither Joyce nor Conrad was very prolific in the genre, but I tend to enjoy them in general. Conrad's _Youth_ is especially excellent; the ones in Joyce's Dubliners are occasionally messy, but the greatest ones are among the best in the language. Salinger's short story collection _Nine Stories_ was the first collection of short stories I ever read, and they, along with _Heart of Darkness_ and _Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? _, finally got me reading again. _For Esme - With Love and Squilor_ is so lovable and cute, I can't help but smile reading it. Jack London is unfortunately overlooked often; whoever has yet to read his classic ones is missing out.

Of the ones mentioned, I reluctantly admit I like Hemingway the most, but with severe reservations. My favorite of his is _A Clean, Well-Lighted Place_, which, incidentally, was praised by Joyce. It's so short I might as well post it here:
http://www.mrbauld.com/hemclean.html


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## Ingélou

You're right - of necessity, I've missed several important authors out. There are only fifteen options & I've filled twelve. I certainly wish I'd remembered Joyce. But I didn't overlook de Maupassant or Chekhov, because I'm only including writers who wrote in English.

I like Jack London, both his novels 'Call of the Wild' & 'White Fang', and his fab short story 'To Light a Fire'. But Conrad's *Heart of Darkness* and *Youth* are classed as novellas, along with John Steinbeck's *The Pearl*.

There are some brilliant stories in *The Penguin Book of Modern Women's Short Stories*, edited by Susan Hill. It includes the satirical 'Black Madonna' by Muriel Spark, for instance, and the fall-about-laughing slice-of-life story about factory work called 'Slave to the Mushroom' - alas, I can't remember the author nor trace her name on Google.

Thanks for posting & including the Hemingway story; it's so interesting to see what other TC members think.


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## Cheyenne

_Heart of Darkness_ is certainly a novella, but _Youth_ borders on short story - I've seen it referred to as such by at least Mencken and one minor biography I'd need to dig up. The Lagoon and Amy foster are good too, in any case. As for Jack London, he was a strange case in literary history - I haven't actually read his two famous novels yet. But even Mencken - who obviously (and hilariously) despised his socialistic non-fiction works (such as The People of the Abyss) - found him a great story-teller; so I read the majority of his stories and was very impressed.

I have to write an essay on Poe in two days, and it will likely deal with his short stories. To be frank, I am not particularly impressed with them. Because Gothic stories were the fashion, he was forced to write stories with dull and violent surfaces; the only depth he could infuse them with was an examination of the psychological states of his characters, which usually led to some unpolished reflections on the anticipation and fear of death. His literary criticism, meanwhile, is basically unavailable to non-scholars - that is to say, to those who don't have access to a university library system. His prose style was fancy and impressive, and his vocabulary extensive, but the stories themselves are unprepossesive to me.


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## Ingélou

Oh, shame. I remember reading my brother's copy of *Tales of Mystery and the Imagination* while we were on holiday at a Welsh farmhouse lit by calor gas. I was eleven, and Poe's horror stories scared me witless!

If I were to read them now, I'd probably agree with you on their literary merits. But they're certainly original, and his *Murders in the Rue Morgue* has an important place in the history of crime fiction.

Actually, I'm not a fan of *horror* in any case. I'm glad I don't have to cope with your assignment. 
Good luck!


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## StlukesguildOhio

J.L. Borges, Italo Calvino, Franz Kafka, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Theophile Gautier, Guy de Maupassant, E.T.A. Hoffmann, E.A. Poe, Flannery O'Connor, and a few others.


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## GreenMamba

I have yo say, this is the sort if question that shouldn't be a poll. I'm curious as to how you came up with this list. It seems arbitrary.

I don't know who my favorite I'd. James Joyce's Dubliners is one of my favorites. More recently, I like a George Saunders a lot. Alice Munro.


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## Ingélou

Ah, sorry you feel that, Green Mamba. I only made it a poll to stimulate discussion. The list was made up from what I have in my head from fifty plus years of reading and forty of teaching, with the 'wild card' factor of my fading memory. By all means, TC Members, ignore the poll if you will, and just tell me what you like to read. That's the whole point of the thread, really.


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## MrTortoise

Eudora Welty and Flannery O'Connor. Two fine examples of great southern story tellers.


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## GreenMamba

No big deal. I overreacted.


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## Blancrocher

Cheyenne said:


> I have to write an essay on Poe in two days, and it will likely deal with his short stories. To be frank, I am not particularly impressed with them. Because Gothic stories were the fashion, he was forced to write stories with dull and violent surfaces; the only depth he could infuse them with was an examination of the psychological states of his characters, which usually led to some unpolished reflections on the anticipation and fear of death. His literary criticism, meanwhile, is basically unavailable to non-scholars - that is to say, to those who don't have access to a university library system. His prose style was fancy and impressive, and his vocabulary extensive, but the stories themselves are unprepossesive to me.


I was interested to learn yesterday that Sibelius wrote a theme for Poe's "The Raven" and used it in the 5th Symphony, by the way. Apparently Sibelius was attracted to a certain mythic element in Poe.

I think Poe's a great writer of short stories--though I don't mind anyone having the opposite opinion!


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## Taggart

Cheyenne said:


> I have to write an essay on Poe in two days.... His prose style was fancy and impressive, and his vocabulary extensive, but the stories themselves are unprepossesive to me.


Best of luck with the essay. The stories may be unprepossessing, but they made excellent films especially the ones directed by Roger Corman and starring Vincent Price: House of Usher (1960), The Pit and the Pendulum (1961), Tales of Terror (1962), The Raven (1963), The Masque of the Red Death (1964), and The Tomb of Ligeia (1965). His poetry is a weird mixture, this from The City in the Sea has echoes of the AV and prefigures some of Kipling's style:

Lo! Death has reared himself a throne 
In a strange city lying alone 
Far down within the dim West, 
Where the good and the bad and the worst and the best 
Have gone to their eternal rest.

As I said earlier, I read a lot of genre fiction and would tend to put Poe in the horror category together with people like H P Lovecraft, William Hope Hodgson, Lord Dunsany and M R James.


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## Cheyenne

Well, it's a shame his non-fiction works have never been properly compiled - then at least I could attempt to understand his views on literature and life in greater detail.


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## Guest

I'm not a great fan of short stories, though they do have the virtue of being...short. However, I do like a good ghost story, and M R James wrote the best...though, come to think of it, Dickens' _The Signalman_ is pretty good.

Of the posh stuff, I enjoyed one by Guy De Maupassant the best..._The Necklace._


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## Weston

Forgive me if I'm not entirely convinced everyone here is completely into classic literature. I'll admit I'm into science fiction, and for short stories it's hard to beat Arthur C. Clarke or Harlan Ellison. Bradbury mentioned above is a more literary take on the genre and is very good too.

I'm surprised no one has mentioned Mark Twain. Better known as a novelist and essayist (or maybe just better known to Americans), his Story of the Old Ram, an excerpt from _Roughing It_ holds up as a short story by itself, and is one of my all time favorite shaggy dog stories -- but it is not about a dog.


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## Winterreisender

I like J.D. Salinger's "Nine Stories" collection, especially "For Esme with Love and Squalor." He has a great knack for writing stories with virtually no plot but with extremely captivating description and dialogue.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde

Edgar Allan Poe is my favourite, it is a shame he was not mentioned in the original poll. 
I also really enjoy Isaac Asimov....probably an equal first with Poe actually.


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## brianvds

Weston said:


> Forgive me if I'm not entirely convinced everyone here is completely into classic literature. I'll admit I'm into science fiction, and for short stories it's hard to beat Arthur C. Clarke or Harlan Ellison. Bradbury mentioned above is a more literary take on the genre and is very good too.


Yup. I voted Roald Dahl in the poll, but I am not much into high literature. I have tried Hemingway and found it depressing and mind-numbingly boring at the same time.

When it comes to short stories, I also tend to prefer science fiction like Clarke or Asimov, and some of Steve King's stories (though they tend to vary greatly in quality). Another writer who surely deserves a mention is Kurt Vonnegut.

And then of course there are children's stories like the ones written by Hans Andersen; at least to me they remain evergreen favourites.

Guess I'm too dumb to get real literature. 

Edit: Just remembered another one. There is a collection of SF short stories titled _The state of the art_, by the late Iain M. Banks, and they are simply fabulous, as are his SF novels.


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## Huilunsoittaja

I like a lot of those mentioned above. But may I also include myself as one of my favorite short story writers? :lol:

I'm well on my way to writing a new story, it's directly Dostoevsky inspired... I want to create the perfect evil man...


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## Cheyenne

brianvds said:


> I voted Roald Dahl in the poll, but I am not much into high literature. I have tried Hemingway and found it depressing and mind-numbingly boring at the same time.


Hemingway is a controversial subject among literati, as you perhaps know.. Salinger too, but his short stories are often ignored.

Has anyone read the short stories of Henry James? I think I have one or two lying around in a collection of his writings, and may read them soon.


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## Ingélou

MacLeod said:


> I'm not a great fan of short stories, though they do have the virtue of being...short. However, I do like a good ghost story, and M R James wrote the best...though, come to think of it, Dickens' _The Signalman_ is pretty good.
> 
> Of the posh stuff, I enjoyed one by Guy De Maupassant the best..._The Necklace._


All the stories you mention are absolutely fabulous. You are a man of discernment, MacLeod!


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## Ingélou

brianvds said:


> Yup. I voted Roald Dahl in the poll, but I am not much into high literature. I have tried Hemingway and found it depressing and mind-numbingly boring at the same time.
> 
> When it comes to short stories, I also tend to prefer science fiction like Clarke or Asimov, and some of Steve King's stories (though they tend to vary greatly in quality). Another writer who surely deserves a mention is Kurt Vonnegut.
> 
> And then of course there are children's stories like the ones written by Hans Andersen; at least to me they remain evergreen favourites.
> 
> Guess I'm too dumb to get real literature.
> 
> Edit: Just remembered another one. There is a collection of SF short stories titled _The state of the art_, by the late Iain M. Banks, and they are simply fabulous, as are his SF novels.


When it comes to short stories, even non-literary authors can write absolute crackers. Please, everyone, don't bother about how highfalutin' your favourite author is! In the original poll, based purely on my own experience, Conan Doyle, Chesterton, Maugham & Wells are not (to my mind) in the first rank of literary writers. Thurber & O. Henry specialise in short stories & otherwise don't rate all that highly. I too have read some brilliant stories by Clarke and Asimov. We used to own *The Penguin Book of Science Fiction Short Stories*, and they were so hauntingly good, it was painful...

I love fairy stories. Does anyone else remember as a child borrowing from libraries those Andrew Lang collections, *The Green Fairy Book, The Violet Fairy Book*, and so on? I also remember when I was eight years old reading about Sinbad and the Roc from the *Arabian Nights*, and believing implicitly that there were such things as Rocs.









But my favourite short story of all is from Grimm, *The Dancing Princesses*.

Thanks so much for all the fab posts, amigos. :cheers:


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## Crudblud

At the moment, probably Jorge Luis Borges, but I will admit I have not read all that many short stories in general.


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## Ingélou

Crudblud said:


> At the moment, probably Jorge Luis Borges, but I will admit I have not read all that many short stories in general.


I know what you mean. I've read a lot of short stories, but it's often been as part of my teaching work. I've loved them, but when I go to the library & look for an author, if I see a collection of his/her short stories instead of a novel, I don't usually get it out. The first pages of a book demand a bit of effort, learning who everyone is etc, and one thinks, do I want to make that effort for it to be over so soon?

But when you do read a *good* short story, it lives in the mind forever. The Parables of Jesus, Aesop's Fables, the stories of Lao Tze, Buddhist allegories, fairy stories, even a narrated joke - there's something that appeals to the human psyche in a good story.

I think we even see our own lives in terms of a story - well, I do, anyway. (But I hope, not a *short* story! :lol


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## aleazk

Definitely J.L. Borges for me. 
In spanish, we have a word for this kind of short stories, "cuentos". The translation is something like "tale" (but I think in english this word doesn't have exactly the meaning it has in spanish, i.e., related to the short story genre of narrative)


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## Weston

Ingélou said:


> . . .The first pages of a book demand a bit of effort, learning who everyone is etc, and one thinks, do I want to make that effort for it to be over so soon?


I think this is why the short story is supposed to be much harder to write than a novel. It has to be distilled to the very essence of the plot with no extraneous words. But then lately I think a lot of novels could use some distilling / editing.


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## Garlic

I haven't read short stories for years, but when I was younger Wells captured my imagination like nothing else. If I get back to reading regularly I'd like to read more sci-fi. I haven't read any of the others on the list, except for Dahl who I loved when I was very young.


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## brianvds

Perhaps we should start a thread of short stories, with a rule that they must be at most, say, hundred words in length. 

We may have some talented writers of microfiction here...


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## Cheyenne

Weston said:


> I think this is why the short story is supposed to be much harder to write than a novel. It has to be distilled to the very essence of the plot with no extraneous words. But then lately I think a lot of novels could use some distilling / editing.


To be frank, I have started to prefer poetry and non-fiction over both forms. The artist has immeasurably more freedom when writing non-fiction or poetry, and he can present his thoughts directly, with increased clarity. All the fidgeting around with plots is basically annoying me by now; thank god the modernists got rid of it. In fact, many of the classic novels and novelists do things with the novel the form normally isn't used for - the epistolary forms used by Sterne, the small essays and reflections interjected into the narrative by George Eliot, the polemicism of Swift and Orwell, the experimental narrative employed in Moby-dick, and so forth. Then Joyce arrived and the plot was, for a while, made almost redundant. I'd rather read a straightforward, unprepossesive series of essays than a straightforward, unprepossesive novel or short story collection. Drama is impressive too, before I forget. I never really understood why the novel and the short story became the preeminent forms of 'artistic' writing - but that's just me.

Edit:
Actually, that was short-sighted; but the usual, formal novel, without the narrative developments rarely employed outside literary spheres, is usually quite dull to me.


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## Ukko

This came up in a discussion of the Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade last evening: Richard Burton's _Thousand and One Nights_. Must be considered a series of short stories - and a great read from my youth.


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## Ukko

Cheyenne said:


> To be frank, I have started to prefer poetry and non-fiction over both forms. The[...]


No doubt it's the extreme density of my cranium, _Cheyenne_, but the sense of this post doesn't penetrate. Starting with "The artist has immeasurably more freedom when writing non-fiction...", which doesn't compute, none of the following adjectival phrases succeed in illuminating their objects.

This information isn't of much use to you of course, just letting you know that the communication is not universally successful.


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## Cheyenne

Yeah sorry, I suppose it is a mess.

Anyhow, I found this in Mencken's smart set criticism:

"The current doctrine in high-schools seems to be that he [Poe] was a superb poet and the inventor of the short story, or, at all events, of the tale of mystery and horror. He was actually neither. Nine-tenths of his poetry is so artificial that it is difficult to imagine even college tutors reading it voluntarily; as for his tales, they have long since passed over to the shelf of juveniles. But Poe was nevertheless a man with a first-rate head on him, and it seems to me that he proved it abundantly in his criticism, which the pedagogues now neglect. This criticism was not only revolutionary in its own time; it would have continued to seem revolutionary, had it been read, down to a few years ago."

How nice that it still holds up nearly a hundred years later - but now I _really _want to read the literary criticism!


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## Blancrocher

For fans of both Borges and The 1001 Nights--there is an essay by Borges about The 1001 Nights!

http://www.oocities.org/tidbits4you/ArabianNights.Borges.html

(I like how he managed to tie in the Father Brown mysteries, by the way--Borges is wild.)


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## moody

Algernon Blackwood out of favour but great.


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## Vesteralen

There are many individual short stories that have hit me hard in one way or another (I can still remember the effect that Graham Greene's "The End of the Party" had on me years ago, and how embarrassed I was at tearing up while reading James Herriot on the bus once). But, there is one writer whose short story volumes have been on my bookshelves for years and whose stories I never tire of reading (they are better than his novels, by far) - P G Wodehouse. The Golf Stories, the Mr Mulliner stories, the Jeeves stories, the Drones Club stories - all of them. So many classics - try "Uncle Fred Flits By" for starters.


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## Taggart

moody said:


> Algernon Blackwood out of favour but great.


Also Arthur Machen from the same period.



Cheyenne said:


> How nice that it still holds up nearly a hundred years later - but now I _really _want to read the literary criticism!


Try

The Philosophy of Composition

or

The Poetic Principle

See also this from the Poe Society website.


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## schuberkovich

I don't usually read short stories; I tend to prefer novels.
However, one which has really stuck with me is Nabokov's _Signs and Symbols_ - it is one of the most peculiar and ambiguous things I've read.

I also remember picking up my dad's collection of JG Ballard's short stories when I was too young to read them properly (I was about ten). I only read the first few, but something about them has stuck with me - especially one called _Prima Belladonna_, which was once again incredibly peculiar, with a strange heady atmosphere that I can still remember today, even after forgetting what it was actually about.

But in general, I need to read more short stories.


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## kv466

The man from Bangor, Maine


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## Vaneyes

"Anything that comes out of the South is going to be called grotesque by the northern reader, unless it is grotesque, in which case it is going to be called realistic."[SUP] [/SUP]

- Flannery O'Connor

View attachment 27829


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## Weston

I'm debating whether I should mention the lurid writing of Robert W. Chambers whose late 19th century tales brim with unbridled purple prose.

No. I think perhaps I'll leave _The King in Yellow_ as a guilty pleasure.


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## clavichorder

I like what I've read of Ambrose Bierce, particularly "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge."


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## StlukesguildOhio

I have to write an essay on Poe in two days, and it will likely deal with his short stories. To be frank, I am not particularly impressed with them. Because Gothic stories were the fashion, he was forced to write stories with dull and violent surfaces; the only depth he could infuse them with was an examination of the psychological states of his characters, which usually led to some unpolished reflections on the anticipation and fear of death. His literary criticism, meanwhile, is basically unavailable to non-scholars - that is to say, to those who don't have access to a university library system. His prose style was fancy and impressive, and his vocabulary extensive, but the stories themselves are unprepossesive to me.

Unadulterated nonsense. First lets deal with the facts of his literary criticism which is easily available to anyone with a minimal budget:










$9.21 used on Amazon $24.00 new.

Poe was certainly not merely writing in the fashion of the time... he was one of the leading innovators of the genre. Matthew Lewis' _The Monk_ 1796 is often sited as one of the first examples of the nascent movement, but it isn't until E.T.A. Hoffmann's tales (1815) and the Romantics (Coleridge's Cristabel-1800, Keat's _La Belle Dame sans Merci_-1819 and _Isabella or the Pot of Basil_-1820 and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein-1818) that the fashion for Gothic/dark literature really takes off. Poe's first efforts date from the 1920's and take off in the 1930s. If Poe had an American predecessor it was most certainly Nathaniel Hawthorne.

With a few exceptions, Poe was a mediocre poet who modeled himself upon Shelley. It was his short stories, however, that made his reputation. It was not so much the narrative... but rather the Romantic-era exploration of the psychological states of the characters... or in most cases, the lead character/narrator, the setting, and the use of irony that made Poe a model and idol to writers ranging from Theophile Gautier, Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé, Arthur Conan Doyle, Jules Verne, H.G. Wells, Ambrose Bierce, H.P. Lovecraft, the Surrealists, on through Philip Roth and most certainly J.L. Borges.

Poe's virtual invention of the detective/mystery tale spawned not merely A.C. Doyle but the whole of the detective genre. To this day Poe's importance in this genre is recognized in the Edgar Awards, the highest recognition afforded to American Mystery writers. Poe's literary criticism... wholly rational in spite of the dark emotional content of his work, was greatly admired by the writers of the Art pour l'Art movement (Oscar Wilde, Mallarme, Gautier, Huysmans, Walter Pater, Paul Verlaine, Charles Baudelaire, etc...). The French Symbolists... such as Gautier, Baudelaire & Mallarme (who both translated Poe's works into French) were profoundly influenced by Poe's stress of atmosphere, mood, and setting over narrative... and his blurring of senses (using words descriptive of colors, for example, to describe sounds).

Beyond the realm of literature, Poe was highly admired (and remains so) by composers, musicians, film-makers, and other visual artists. Rachmaninoff's choral symphony _The Bells_ set Poe's poem to music. In the realm of popular music, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, & Lou Reed, among others, admired Poe. Among visual artists (painters, print artists, etc...) inspired by Poe one must include Aubrey Beardsley, Harry Clarke, Odilon Redon, Gauguin, Robert Motherwell, Félix Edouard Vallotton, James Ensor, Henri Matisse, etc...

Yes... Poe had his detractors, including T.S. Eliot. Then again, Eliot also downplayed Shakespeare in favor of Dante, and was highly critical of William Blake and the Romantics as a whole... even Walt Whitman (while modeling his own work upon Whitman and the Romantics). Poe, unfortunately, is one of the instances in which he is more valued (critically) outside of his native land. Beyond the French, he was highly admired by the Russians... and following J.L. Borge's example, the writers of Latin-America. Ultimately, Poe remains one of the most popular "classic" writers and will clearly maintain this status on the basis of the audience taste (not unlike Alexandre Dumas or even Arthur Conan Doyle) as well as the opinions of subsequent writers more than upon the basis of the opinions of critics


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## StlukesguildOhio

This came up in a discussion of the Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade last evening: Richard Burton's Thousand and One Nights. Must be considered a series of short stories - and a great read from my youth.

Well there are any number of such works... collections of shorted narratives held together under an over-arching frame story. You could include the Canterbury Tales, Dante's _Comedia_, Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, the _Shahnameh_, many Medieval Romances, etc...

By the way... Ukko?


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## Ukko

StlukesguildOhio said:


> This came up in a discussion of the Rimsky-Korsakov Scheherazade last evening: Richard Burton's Thousand and One Nights. Must be considered a series of short stories - and a great read from my youth.
> 
> Well there are any number of such works... collections of shorted narratives held together under an over-arching frame story. You could include the Canterbury Tales, Dante's _Comedia_, Ovid's _Metamorphoses_, the _Shahnameh_, many Medieval Romances, etc...
> 
> By the way... Ukko?


Sure but uh... I haven't read any of those, except a few of the Canterbury Tales in high school.

Ukko = Geezer.


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## brianvds

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Beyond the realm of literature, Poe was highly admired (and remains so) by composers, musicians, film-makers, and other visual artists. Rachmaninoff's choral symphony _The Bells_ set Poe's poem to music.


I am a fan of Rachmaninoff's work but "The Bells" is the one work by him that I just cannot warm to. Perhaps I just have a bad recording: Naxos, and the soloist sounds horridly off-key to me. Not sure if it was intended that way.


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## PetrB

E. A. Poe / Joseph Conrad / Isak Dineson (Karen Blixen) / Nikolai Gogol / Pushkin / Eudora Welty ('Why I live at the Post Office) / Truman Capote ~ imho, that form found him at his best / and some of those by Carson McCullers....

[[ Add; a major oversight: Stephen Crane ]]


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## Cheyenne

Ah, Stlukesguild, I hoped you'd come back to rebut me after listing him as one of your favorite short story writers.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Unadulterated nonsense.


Why, thank you.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> First lets deal with the facts of his literary criticism which is easily available to anyone with a minimal budget:
> 
> $9.21 used on Amazon $24.00 new.


An unforgivable oversight. I'll order it when my budget is stabler.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Poe was certainly not merely writing in the fashion of the time... he was one of the leading innovators of the genre. Matthew Lewis' _The Monk_ 1796 is often sited as one of the first examples of the nascent movement, but it isn't until E.T.A. Hoffmann's tales (1815) and the Romantics (Coleridge's Cristabel-1800, Keat's _La Belle Dame sans Merci_-1819 and _Isabella or the Pot of Basil_-1820 and Mary Shelley's Frankenstein-1818) that the fashion for Gothic/dark literature really takes off. Poe's first efforts date from the 1920's and take off in the 1930s. If Poe had an American predecessor it was most certainly Nathaniel Hawthorne.


If he started in the 1920's he certainly wasn't writing following the public's fancy, but then he could hardly be called an innovator :lol: Fine, excuse me for the slip-up; he was an innovator, not a follower. Nevertheless he wrote stories with a surface of violence and horror that isn't appealing to me. Of course the narrative isn't important. As I stated and you backed up, it is the examination of the psychological states that made his lasting reputation, not the macabre à la Ambrose Bierce. Nevertheless it is only in the limited context of the narratives and settings that he could do this, and that damages his stories severely.

I think Poe was a fine artist and craftsman, but was held back by the fantastical and Gothic elements that were so populous in his stories. Why he put them in is frivolous to me as it hardly effects my judgement.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> Poe's virtual invention of the detective/mystery tale spawned not merely A.C. Doyle but the whole of the detective genre. To this day Poe's importance in this genre is recognized in the Edgar Awards, the highest recognition afforded to American Mystery writers.


And yet are the mystery stories themselves so great? Is _The Man of the Crowd_ that great a story? His influence is clear and admirable, but the stories themselves are still lackluster to me.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> The French Symbolists... such as Gautier, Baudelaire & Mallarme (who both translated Poe's works into French) were profoundly influenced by Poe's stress of atmosphere, mood, and setting over narrative... and his blurring of senses (using words descriptive of colors, for example, to describe sounds).


He had many interesting ideas. I wrote my essay about the Unity of Effect a few hours ago as it certainly was an interesting topic; nevertheless what he crafted with these ideas is not something altogether great.


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## Weston

brianvds said:


> I am a fan of Rachmaninoff's work but "The Bells" is the one work by him that I just cannot warm to. Perhaps I just have a bad recording: Naxos, and the soloist sounds horridly off-key to me. Not sure if it was intended that way.


I too found this work unlistenable. Even went so far as to delete it from my library. I love the poem though if read aloud by a skilled narrator.


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## brianvds

Weston said:


> I too found this work unlistenable. Even went so far as to delete it from my library. I love the poem though if read aloud by a skilled narrator.


A bloke named Eric Woolfson made a nice musical version, but there doesn't seem to be a recording of it online anywhere.


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## quack

No mention of the inestimable Saki? Quite extraordinary how fleet of wing is fame.


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## elgar's ghost

I don't read much fiction but have enjoyed some shorter works by H. H. Munro, Martin Waddell (his more dark-humoured macabre offerings rather than his children's stories) and Isaac Asimov down the years.

EDIT: Nice coincidence, Quack - your post hadn't come through before I sent mine!


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## Vaneyes

clavichorder said:


> I like what I've read of Ambrose Bierce, particularly "An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge."


A Southern humorist Lewis Grizzard (1946 - 1994) may appeal, or not. :tiphat:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Grizzard


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## Ingélou

Yes, thank you, Quack & Elgar's Ghost - Saki is another one who should have gone in the original poll.  He is so brilliant & so sharp that I find him painful to read & I suspect that my mind had blotted him out! Definitely a model for the more robust psyches to follow, though!


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## quack

Vaneyes said:


> A Southern humorist Lewis Grizzard (1946 - 1994) may appeal, or not. :tiphat:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Grizzard


Another foolishly named funny fellow is Gelett Burgess: depicter of Goops! discoverer (or otherwise) of the Purple Cow! inventor of blurbs!!

https://archive.org/search.php?query=creator:"Gelett+Burgess"


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## SiegendesLicht

Conan Doyle, Roald Dahl, O'Henry and Kipling (I love his poetry as well). And apart from the poll options, Jack London and H.P. Lovecraft, depending on what I am in the mood for.

And if you count fairy tales to short stories as well, then Astrid Lindgren, H.C. Andersen and Oscar Wilde.


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## Blancrocher

PetrB said:


> Eudora Welty ('Why I live at the Post Office)


I gave this one a read over lunch and enjoyed it (http://art-bin.com/art/or_weltypostoff.html). Thanks for the recommendation.

By the way, I don't think Herman Melville's been mentioned yet: Bartleby the Scrivener is one of my favorite stories by anybody. A little on the long side, but worth it! http://www.bartleby.com/129/


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## brianvds

elgars ghost said:


> I don't read much fiction but have enjoyed some shorter works by H. H. Munro, Martin Waddell (his more dark-humoured macabre offerings rather than his children's stories) and Isaac Asimov down the years.


Not that children's stories are necessarily always lightweight. Some of Andersen's stories, or the original versions of the Grimm collection, can be pretty dark and macabre.


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## drpraetorus

H.P. Lovecraft. I was reading him before he was cool.


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## Taggart

drpraetorus said:


> H.P. Lovecraft. I was reading him before he was cool.


Grief, you must have been reading the original pulps! I read him in the 60's when Gollancz brought him out. Gollancz had been a British left wing publishing house in the 1930's but they moved into sci-fi in a big way. There was also a short phase in the 60's when they did a number of his stories as films - Die, Monster, Die!, Curse of the Crimson Altar both with Karloff and The Haunted Palace with Vincent Price and then it seemed to die for a while.


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## Winterreisender

Might as well mention another of my favourite short stories, "The Snow Goose" by Paul Gallico. Not sure if this story is meant for children, but nevertheless it is a sentimental tale of unlikely friendship against the backdrop of the Second World War.

I'm not familiar with any other works by this author, however.


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## Ingélou

Ah - *The Snow Goose*. Because my father was evacuated from Dunkirk as a young man of 20, this has special significance for me. It always makes me . I remember the last time I read *The Snow Goose*, I was on a train from Nottingham to Grantham, commuting home from a teaching job. My tears just about flooded the carriage... 

So yes, a brilliant story, and if you haven't read it, anyone, you *must* - but have the tissues ready!


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## Jos

Hemingway did the shortest of them all, and ,according to himself, his best. A 6 word story.

"For sale: baby shoes. Never worn"

Jos


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## StlukesguildOhio

There's debate concerning the anecdote of Hemingway's short story... supposedly written on a bet. Augusto Monterroso, a Guatemalan heir of J.L. Borges might have written the shortest published story:

*The Dinosaur*

When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there.

Beyond Borges and Monterroso, there are any number of Latin-American writers who were marvelous short-story writers... including:

Julio Cortazar, Gabriel Garcia-Marquez, and Carlos Fuentes. I would also recommend the Italian, Tommaso Landolfi's works... especially the absolutely riotous, _Gogol's Wife_.


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## drpraetorus

Taggart said:


> Grief, you must have been reading the original pulps! I read him in the 60's when Gollancz brought him out. Gollancz had been a British left wing publishing house in the 1930's but they moved into sci-fi in a big way. There was also a short phase in the 60's when they did a number of his stories as films - Die, Monster, Die!, Curse of the Crimson Altar both with Karloff and The Haunted Palace with Vincent Price and then it seemed to die for a while.


I was, I admit, a strange child. My grandmother lived in an old house close to downtown Salt Lake. I remember spending weekends with her quite often. There were regular venues I would insist on seeing. In the early 60's, there was a historic/anthropologic museum on Temple Square I HAD to visit. Aside from the historic exhibits, the second floor had a display of Incan (I think) mummies. They fascinated me. Not wrapped like Egyptian mummies but still desiccated bodies and grave goods. (These are no longer on exhibit in the church Museum or History and Art. I think they may be in safe keeping at BYU.)

Another must visit was a book/magazine store on 2nd South (if you know Salt Lake it was right next to the Capitol Theatre in what is now a parking terrace.) Anyway, I was very fond of the Classics Illustrated series of comic books. I would usually get at least one of those and maybe a paperback of some kind. I believe I was eight or nine when I got my first book of Poe. Inspired by those Roger Corman movies. I remember sitting next to my grandmother as she tried to read "The Pit and the Pendulum" to me. She had been born in a homesteaders cabin in Montana in the early 1900's so she probably thought it a bit odd.

It was the Karloff movie "The Colour out of Space" (Lovecraft insisted on the British spelling of things like "colour") that pointed me un the Lovecraft direction. I bought a collection of horror stories that included the Colour, read it and was hooked. That movie has gone by several names over it lifetime. "Die, Monster, Die", "Monster of Terror", "The House At The End Of The World". That was in 1965.

I have read a great deal of Lovecraft since then and find him to be like the little girl with the curl. When he is good he is very good and when he is bad he is horrid. He continues to influence me even now. I have written a Lovecraft piece of music and my Facebook page picture is Cthlhu.


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## MagneticGhost

I've not read through the whole thread. Many votes for Checkov? He would be my number 1.


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## Celloman

I almost never read short stories. I couldn't tell you why I don't...I just don't.


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## Blancrocher

I read the first few of the (very) short stories in Patricia Highsmith's "Little Tales of Misogyny." The first sentence of the first story, "The Hand," gives you the flavor:



> A young man asked a father for his daughter's hand, and received it in a box--her left hand.


If this sounds interesting to you, it might be worth a try--though perhaps the rest of us should then be a bit concerned about you!


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## Taggart

Blancrocher said:


> I read the first few of the (very) short stories in Patricia Highsmith's "Little Tales of Misogyny." The first sentence of the first story, "The Hand," gives you the flavor:
> 
> If this sounds interesting to you, it might be worth a try--though perhaps the rest of us should then be a bit concerned about you!


Sounds like she's been listening to Tom Lehrer's "I Hold Your Hand in Mine". You Tube here.


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## Sonata

Give me Ray Bradbury! "There Will Come Soft Rains" is one of the most chilling short stories I've ever read.


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## Berlioznestpasmort

Maugham was a tempting click, I like his stories but I think I prefer his novels, actually. I have read _Of Human Bondage _ and _Moon and Sixpence_ several times. My favorite short story writer is: Guy de Maupassant, both because he's a master of the form (at nearly 300 stories he ought to have been!) and for his you-are-there objectivity which is particularly effective in his tales of the supernatural. For intermediate students of the language, many of his stories are easily read in the original French.


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## Berlioznestpasmort

Sonata said:


> Give me Ray Bradbury! "There Will Come Soft Rains" is one of the most chilling short stories I've ever read.


How did you like his "Wind" story? - I often think of it when the wind howls around our house seeking entry.


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## mirepoix

Cheyenne said:


> ...I reluctantly admit I like Hemingway the most, but with severe reservations. My favorite of his is _A Clean, Well-Lighted Place_, which, incidentally, was praised by Joyce. It's so short I might as well post it here:
> http://www.mrbauld.com/hemclean.html


When I read the thread title that was the first short story which came to mind.

I'm not sure I've a favourite, but I do enjoy Guy de Maupassant. And a while ago someone kindly gave me (accompanied by a sweet and innocent smile) a small collection of short stories by Anais Nin, titled 'A Model'.


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## Manxfeeder

I'm glad for all the Ray Bradbury fans here. When I was in junior high, I read every book of his I could find. I liked how his sci fi didn't forget we had a past. And he sure had a way with words. One description stayed with me of how he described a woman's figure: a plentitude above, an amplitude below. There's not much more you need to say after that. 

I would like to explore Flannery O'Connor further. I've liked what I've read from her.


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## hpowders

O. Henry. No doubt about it. The man was a genius.

Penned one of the most moving Christmas stories ever.

Immortal!!

Check out "The Gift of the Magi".


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## clara s

the english writers are top in short stories,

and I also enjoy reading the russians, who have created some very distinct work,

but my favourite is H.P. Lovecraft


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## hpowders

clara s said:


> the english writers are top in short stories,
> 
> and I also enjoy reading the russians, who have created some very distinct work,
> 
> but my favourite is H.P. Lovecraft


H.P. eh??????


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## clara s

hpowders said:


> O. Henry. No doubt about it. The man was a genius.
> 
> Penned one of the most moving Christmas stories ever.
> 
> Immortal!!
> 
> Check out "The Gift of the Magi".


very clever stories he wrote

"the gift of the Magi" is very very special


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## clara s

hpowders said:


> H.P. eh??????


what? you don't like him?


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## Taggart

clara s said:


> the english writers are top in short stories,
> 
> and I also enjoy reading the russians, who have created some very distinct work,
> 
> but my favourite is H.P. Lovecraft


If you like Lovecraft, what about Arthur Machen or Hope-Hodgson or M R James or Lord Dunsany for the brits or Clark Ashton Smith or Robert E. Howard for the Americans.


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## hpowders

clara s said:


> what? you don't like him?


I like him! I like him!

I'm glad to see you are so well read. Next time I'm across the pond, I will set my sights for an A3 whizzing by with a driver who looks like she is reading. Hope it's one of those cars that can drive itself.


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## hpowders

clara s said:


> very clever stories he wrote
> 
> "the gift of the Magi" is very very special


Every Christmas they show a film of it. Folks might like it even more if they actually read it.


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## hpowders

Given all these terrific authors and so much music still to be discovered, I feel cheated as to my time allotment for all this.


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## clara s

taggart said:


> if you like lovecraft, what about arthur machen or hope-hodgson or m r james or lord dunsany for the brits or clark ashton smith or robert e. Howard for the americans.


excellent

now we are talking

the british are all top of the tops

and the 2 americans are with my h.p. The big three of weird stories

horror at its best


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## clara s

hpowders said:


> I like him! I like him!
> 
> I'm glad to see you are so well read. Next time I'm across the pond, I will set my sights for an A3 whizzing by with a driver who looks like she is reading. Hope it's one of those cars that can drive itself.


hahaha

automatic pilot on A3

and H.P on the wheel


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## Berlioznestpasmort

hpowders said:


> Given all these terrific authors and so much music still to be discovered, I feel cheated as to my time allotment for all this.


That's all well and good, but don't cheat us out of YOU!


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## clara s

hpowders said:


> Given all these terrific authors and so much music still to be discovered, I feel cheated as to my time allotment for all this.


you still have time for rearrangements


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## hpowders

Berlioznestpasmort said:


> That's all well and good, but don't cheat us out of YOU!


Thank you! I'll try and find the time, even though I may eventually be long-bearded and disheveled.


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## hpowders

clara s said:


> you still have time for rearrangements


Seriously though, even though I've spent quite a while listening to tons of music, there is still so much music of good quality that I haven't even heard of. As for books, I'm reading 3 at one time. Then there has to be time for eating and drinking and wondering why the dog runs away when I play a Persichetti Piano Sonata CD and did I mention time is needed for drinking.
There really isn't enough time here!


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## clara s

hpowders said:


> Seriously though, even though I've spent quite a while listening to tons of music, there is still so much music of good quality that I haven't even heard of. As for books, I'm reading 3 at one time. Then there has to be time for eating and drinking and wondering why the dog runs away when I play a Persichetti Piano Sonata CD and did I mention time is needed for drinking.
> There really isn't enough time here!


I am sure there isn't, but we must be pleased with what we have.

and we try of course to succeed to every target we set

I must listen to Persichetti piano sonata, to see what european dogs are doing 

believe me, youare doing more than much


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## hpowders

clara s said:


> I am sure there isn't, but we must be pleased with what we have.
> 
> and we try of course to succeed to every target we set
> 
> I must listen to Persichetti piano sonata, to see what european dogs are doing
> 
> believe me, youare doing more than much


Ha! Ha! I'm sure European dogs will react the same, like lava from Mt. Vesuvius is coming at them!
Anyhow, I've found that dogs run away from Beethoven too. Not big classical fans.


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## hpowders

Other favorite short story writers of mine are Ambrose Bierce, wrote mainly about the American Civil War. "Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge" is a favorite of mine.
Also Shirley Jackson. Perhaps you've read "The Lottery"? Devastating.


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## Blancrocher

hpowders said:


> War. "Occurrence At Owl Creek Bridge" is a favorite of mine.


Have you seen the short film from 1962 based on it? I saw it some time ago and liked it a lot.


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## SixFootScowl

I voted for Sherlock Holmes and have to add that Jack London wrote some very gripping and harsh short stores.


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## hpowders

Blancrocher said:


> Have you seen the short film from 1962 based on it? I saw it some time ago and liked it a lot.


Yes, I have! Thanks. I love that title. Typical "Twilight Zone" stuff.


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## hpowders

Florestan said:


> I voted for Sherlock Holmes and have to add that Jack London wrote some very gripping and harsh short stores.


Jack London is one of my favorite writers of all time!


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## clara s

hpowders said:


> Ha! Ha! I'm sure European dogs will react the same, like lava from Mt. Vesuvius is coming at them!
> Anyhow, I've found that dogs run away from Beethoven too. Not big classical fans.


are you sure?

try Pettersson at your dog hahaha


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## Morimur

*Anton Chekhov*

Far as short stories are concerned, no one else comes close.


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## hpowders

clara s said:


> are you sure?
> 
> try Pettersson at your dog hahaha


I'm afraid it might kill him. Diagnosis: acute canine depression.


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