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What is your favorite (or one of your favorite) short stories?


zambothegreat

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That's a hard one, I really love short stories.

Off the top of my head, I'd go for "Fondly Fahrenheit" by Alfred Bester in the older stories category, and "The Paper Menagerie" as a more modern entry.

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Nice! I like sci fi these days although I also like those that are realistic and also fantastic at the same time. Here's a reimagining of Snow White by Neil Gaiman. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow,_Glass,_Apples

Nice. I'm a big fan of Neil Gaiman, and never heard of that before. Still on topic, Neil Gaiman has a book out called Fragile Things, which is a collection of short stories. I definitely recommend it.

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Nice. I'm a big fan of Neil Gaiman, and never heard of that before. Still on topic, Neil Gaiman has a book out called Fragile Things, which is a collection of short stories. I definitely recommend it.

Fragile Things is wonderful! I recommend checking out the audiobook if you get a chance, he narrates it himself.

"Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire" is one of my favorite Gaiman stories, cracks me up every time.

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The first one that comes to mind for me is "The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov. Apparently, it was Asimov's favorite story of his, so you know it's good.

http://filer.case.edu/dts8/thelastq.htm

I have read the story "The Last Question" by Isaac Asimov, and I have to say that this is one of my favorites. I am not a big fan of short stories, but the story line of this one is very interesting, and love the ending!  :smile:

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Yeah, it's funny because I thought about lots of things too, possibly the end of the universe. I love how the ending basically used the creation story from the Bible. <-- obviously a spoiler. Highlight if you have read the story!

Oh, I'm reading a sci-fi group of short stories which you can get for free, it's the Machine of Death. There's a free version somewhere here. There are some funny and ironic short stories here, because the machine of death basically gives you a fact about your death, sometimes in a vague or cryptic way. Anyway, here's the shortest short story in the bunch which made me laugh.

HIV INFECTION FROM MACHINE OF DEATH NEEDLE

“Well,” I thought, “that sucks.”

Storyby Brian Quinlan

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Fragile Things is wonderful! I recommend checking out the audiobook if you get a chance, he narrates it himself.

"Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire" is one of my favorite Gaiman stories, cracks me up every time.

While we are on the topic of Gaiman (he's my absolute favorite author), do get Smokes and Mirrors for his short stories. He also gives an introduction to each story in this one and they are occasionally really interesting reads.

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I have several favorite short story authors and stories, but as I think about this question, right now, Jayne Anne Phillips' "Black Tickets" stands out for me.  It's the title of the book of short stories as well as one of the stories. 

I like all of the stories.  Probably my favorites from this collection -- if I had to choose would be "Home"  and "Black Tickets."  They are just amazing.  Evocative, and yet very sparse in language.  Her stories take elements from pop culture and television of the late 1970s, as that's when the book was published, but transform them so you see how they have influenced the lives of the characters.  Her characters are "ordinary" people who are often down on their luck, and living in America's Appalachian region.  Really a remarkable collection of stories. 

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Is Animal Farm by George Orwell considered a short story? If it is, that has to be my favorite.

Well, it's definitely a quick read, so we'll count it. Besides, it's Orwell. Check out Clutch's lyrics for their song "Animal Farm". Pretty great stuff.

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Well, it's definitely a quick read, so we'll count it. Besides, it's Orwell. Check out Clutch's lyrics for their song "Animal Farm". Pretty great stuff.

Technically, Animal Farm is a novella and not a short story.

Still, no doubting how good it is as a work.

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Well, I would never recommend anyone ever read it, but since you asked I guess I will tell. "Guts" by Chuck Palahniuk is my favorite short story. It's a very disgusting (thankfully fictional) account of sexual experimentation gone horribly wrong. No gruesome detail is spared. One might ask why it's my favorite, well, I find I've never been so physically affected by something I read. It's a great piece of literature for that reason; it leaves a very unique imprint on the reader that you would almost certainly never get from reading anything else.

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I really enjoy the short story medium, although I'm afraid a lot of the authors of the genre which I enjoy aren't English writers - I suspect a lot of them haven't even been translated.

Among English language authors my favourite is John Cheever, so much that I'm at a loss as to which of his short stories is my favourite. Apart from the better know, such as The Swimmer, Goodbye My Brother or O Youth and Beauty, I really enjoyed reading and still enjoy returning to The Enormous Radio, The Chimera, Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor or The Housebreaker of Shady Hill (I generally love the whole Shady Hill suburbial ambience repeated in many of his stories. It's the same thing I find in Mad Men, and probably one of the reasons I love that show so much).

I also enjoy some classics by HP Lovecraft, like The Music of Erich Zann and At the Mountains of Madness.

Is Melville's Bartleby the Scrivener a short story or a novella (it's between 60 and 90 pages, I think, depending on the edition)? That's also one of my favourites.

If I had to pick an absolute favourite, I think the abovementioned The Chimera would be my choice.

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We had this whole book of short stories as a part of our course in school. My favorite one out of those was Dr.Heidegger's experiment by none other than Nathaniel Hawthorne. It's a story about 4 elderly people who have lost their youth in sinful pleasures and go in search of the fountain of youth. A really inspiring story that shows us the human behaviour and how susceptible we are to any kind of sins.

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I absolutely love Edgar Allan Poe's works! I think the one that comes to mind as one of the best, regardless of its popularity, would be The Tell-Tale Heart. If by some chance you've never read it here's the link to it in it's entirety: http://poestories.com/read/telltaleheart

From beginning to end it grabs and keeps your attention and the suspense is well played out in this short story

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My favorite short story is "God Sees The Truth But Waits" by Leo Tolstoi. I love that story so much with all its dramatic plot and characters. :) It has been my well-loved short story ever since I first read that in a book collections of English essays and short stories I bought years ago. :)

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My favorite short story would be one from my childhood, Hansel and Gretel :cool:, for their wisdom and perseverance that brought them deliverance :angel:.

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I love "The Lesson" by Ionesco and "Continuity of Parks" by Cortazar. They're both thrillers, though one is exceptioanlly short, but an absolute mind blower. They both play with legitimacy of the story in the view point of the reader and reality vs realism.

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I love short stories and honesty I will pick from the children category. My all time favorite is the princess and the frog. I felt so sorry for the frog when it retrieved the ball for the princess and she ran off without fulfilling what she promised. I was amazed at the ending when the frog was able to get to the palace; Great ending to the story.

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My favorite short story is "The Little Matchstick Girl" by Hans Christian Andersen. It's quite poignant, and it really touched my heart the first time I read it. Most of Hans Christian Andersen's work always has a sad ending.

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