Some of you are in the same boat with me, and some have yet to approach the vessel o’ short fiction. That’s why I asked all our seasoned lovers of bite-sized stories for outstanding short stories to read next! You gave us short stories, collections, and anthologies galore. Without further ado, here are 53 of your favorites! “For Esmé with Love and Squalor” by J. D. Salinger A Diamond as Big as the Ritz by F Scott Fitzgerald Ashenden: Or the British Agent by W Somerset Maugham Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by Haruki Murakami “The Boy Nobody Could Handle” by Kurt Vonnegut “The Bungalow House” by Thomas Ligotti By the Silver Water of Lake Champlain by Joe Hill Everyone on the Moon is Essential Personnel by Julian K Jarboe; Exhalation by Ted Chiang Foggy Mountain Breakdown by Sharyn McCrumb, Ford County by John Gresham Fox 8 by George Saunders; Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman “The Gift of the Magi” by O. Henry Homesick for Another World by Ottessa Moshfegh “The Human Chair” by Edogawa Ranpo “The Husband Stitch” by Carmen Maria Machado Indian Country by Dorothy Johnson Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri Jackalope Wives and Other Stories by T Kingfisher “The Lady or The Tiger? by Frank Stockton” “The Laurel and Hardy Love Affair” by Ray Bradbury “The Lottery” by Shirley Jackson “The Necklace” by Guy de Maupassant Night Shift by Stephen King No One Belongs Here More Than You by Miranda July Nocturnes: 5 Stories of Music and Nightfall by Kazuo Ishiguro Pastoralia by George Saunders Some Soul to Keep by J. California Cooper The Cabinet of Curiosities: 36 Tales Brief & Sinister by Stefan Bachmann The Happy Prince and Other Tales by Oscar Wilde The Last Feast of Harlequin by Thomas Ligotti The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” by Ursula K Le Guin Tobermory and Other Stories by Saki “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” by Flannery O’Connor “A Guest of the Nation” by Frank O’Connor “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” by J. D. Salinger “A Rose for Emily” by William Faulkner “All Summer in a Day” by Ray Bradbury “Bettering Myself” by Ottessa Moshfegh “Chivalry” by Neil Gaiman “Green Hills of Earth” by Robert Heinlein “Help Me Find My Spaceman Lover” by Robert Olen Butler “Hills Like White Elephants” by Ernest Hemingway “Oil of Dog” by Ambrose Bierce “On the Rainy River” by Tim O’Brien “Pilgrims” by Julie Orringer “Sinners, Saints, Dragons, and Haints, in the City Under the Still Waters” by NK Jemisin “The Specialist’s Hat” by Kelly Link “Stone Boy with Dolphin” by Sylvia Plath “The Story of an Hour” by Kate Chopin “The Willows” by Algernon Blackwood “Yellow Wallpaper” by Charlotte Perkins Gilman
