best short stories? im sick of screenwriting

Question

Russell Hill · Answer

The Umbrella by Tove Ditlevsen: Love everything Tove -- stumbled onto this short story in a copy of the New Yorker from back in 2021 -- still remember the feeling of being absolutely locked in and transported.

Kate · Answer

The Plain in Flames by Juan Rulfo, tr. Ilan Stavans: unbelievably great collection of stories. harsh and gorgeous - this translation in particular is the best.

Vicki · Answer

highway thirteen: Fiona McFarlane is a too-little- known Australian writer.  This collection won the Story Prize a couple years ago.

Vicki · Answer

daddy by emma cline: Emma Cline is also a novelist. She wrote The Girls.

Vicki · Answer

collected stories of william trevor

Vicki · Answer

brawler: Lauren Groff’s earlier collection Florida is also great.

Vicki · Answer

good and evil and other stories

jmd · Answer

Love and Hydrogen by Jim Shepard (2004): Includes stories from his first collection that I think went out of print (Batting Against Castro), and his “libel cycle” of stories written in the voices of various famous people (like “Won’t Get Fooled Again” about The Who)

jmd · Answer

The Night in Question by Tobias Wolff (1997): Perfect little diamonds of writing (also George Saunders’s mentor, although the two could not be more different)

jmd · Answer

The Things They Carried by Tim O’Brien (1990): Semi-autobiographical Vietnam War stories, absolute classic

jmd · Answer

Sixty Stories by Donald Barthelme (1981): Often more like surreal little poems than “stories” per se, and Barthelme probably isn’t for everyone, but I love him

jmd · Answer

Birds of America by Lorrie Moore (1998): Self-Help is also terrific but this one is even better IMHO

jmd · Answer

Tabloid Dreams by Robert Olen Butler (1996): One tabloid headline = one story (“Jealous Husband Returns in Form of Parrot," "Help Me Find My Spaceman Lover")

jmd · Answer

CivilWarLand in Bad Decline by George Saunders (1996): Hilarious and with a singular voice. Thomas Pynchon emerged from hiding to blurb it when it first came out.

Chad Nelson · Answer

Why Visit America (Matthew Baker)

Analisa Burns · Answer

Crazy Like a Fox - S.J. Perelman (1944): my favorite collection of essays & sketches by humorist S. J. Perelman-- a major early contributor to The New Yorker!

Soleil · Answer

The History of Sound: My favorite movie from last year and the short story was just as good, if not better. Actually, both mediums served the story well and in different ways. The collection as a whole is beautiful and worth the read!

“Written with breathtaking humanity and humor, The History of Sound is a love letter to New England, a radiant conversation between past and present, and a moving meditation on the abiding search for home.”

remi · Answer

bliss montage by ling ma: from the writer of severance

remi · Answer

Lawns by Mona Simpson: great short story

remi · Answer

self help by loorie moore: maybe my favorite book ever. i love her writing

Grace · Answer

You, Disappearing (Guernica): Alexandra Kleeman’s “You, Disappearing” is so beautifully melancholy

Steve M · Answer

The Last Question (Isaac Asimov): Want an existential crisis in 4000 words?

Evangeline · Answer

interpreter of maladies: Lahiri has a way of writing the five senses in such a tangible and visceral way. It’s been a long time since I read this (at least 10 years) but I remember feeling a unique embodiment with her stories.