Your Picks: Short Stories
What better way to spend a summer afternoon than by reading a story from start to finish? This summer, we asked you to help us pick the best short story writers of all time. Here is a selection of some of the writers you think we should be taking with us down to the beach this month, and beyond.
Find out which other authors made our top ten list on the blog.
Kurt Vonnegut:
Welcome to the Monkey House
Recommended by Grantn
Kurt Vonnegut's Welcome to the Monkey House is an eclectic collection of stories first published in 1968. The story topics are as wide ranging as you would expect from an author as prolific and genre-busting as Vonnegut. The collection includes everything from futuristic thrillers to battlefield epics and even one heart-wrenching love story. The contents were originally published in an extremely diverse set of publications, including The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Atlantic Monthly.
Vonnegut is known for being one of the few authors whose work crosses the boundary of science fiction and "high" literature. This collection of short stories appeared one year before the publication of the book for which he is probably best known, Slaughterhouse-Five.
Edgar Allan Poe:
The Complete Tales and Poems
Recommended by McQuaid
If you haven't been scared by an Edgar Allan Poe poem yet, you've got a real surprise in store for you. Poe, largely acknowledged as being one of the pioneers of the short story form, spins a dark and twisted tale that stays with you long after you've turned the page.
This definitive collection of Poe stories and poems contains long-time favourites such as "The Tell-Tale Heart" and "The Cask of Amontillado," as well as some lesser-known works. These are reads guaranteed to make the noises outside your open window sound much more sinister these hot summer nights.
Sherman Alexie:
The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven
Recommended by Tracy Rosen
First published in 1993 by Atlantic Monthly Press, The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven was the work that first brought Sherman Alexie to the attention of a lot of readers. The stories follow the lives of several Native Americans on the Spokane Indian Reservation. The characters and plotlines were the inspiration for the 1998 film Smoke Signals.
Alexie, who won the 2007 National Book Award for his YA novel The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, has said that the collection is thinly-veiled memoir. A Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, he grew up on the Spokane Indian Reservation himself and now lives with his family in Seattle.
Judy Fong Bates:
China Dog and Other Stories
Recommended by Zengarden 17
Judy Fong Bates tells the stories of one of the many other solitudes in Canada — the experience of the Chinese immigrant. Born in China in 1949, she came to Canada with her family as a young child. Her family settled in small-town Ontario — where she has chosen to set this collection.
The characters in these stories struggle to walk the line between their old and new lives, a desire to fit in and a longing to stay true to their roots. Judy Fong Bates creates characters that enter your life and then never really leave. She has since published a novel, Midnight at the Dragon Café, and a memoir, The Year of Finding Memory.
Alice Munro:
Too Much Happiness
Recommended by Morgan Peltier, Rachel Berman, rosemarin and Strepsi Barcolet
Of course, no list of short story writers would be complete without Alice Munro. A national treasure, Munro has won more awards and honours than we can count, including the 2009 Man Booker International Prize and the Governor General's Award for fiction — the latter a total of three times.
Munro's stories take snapshots of daily life and subtleties of the everyday to explore the human condition. Her most recent collection of stories, Too Much Happiness, keeps true to this form, but also delves into a darker side of humanity — dabbling in odd sex acts, terrifying violence and even a child murder.
Spotlight
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Haroon Syed | |
Book Club member Haroon Syed is reading Chuck Palahniuk's The Fight Club. Join Haroon as a Featured Reader, and tell us what book you've got on the go.
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