looking for good short stories

hello. i am not a very good reader, but am trying very hard to better my reading abilities. i currently am a senior in highschool, and im going to make the leap into college next fall. because of this transition, im sure that im going to have to be a better reader to do well in college. i read more slowly than most people and i sometimes have difficulty understanding what i am reading and i also find it hard to concentrate sometimes. take for instance shakespear. i cannot for the life of me read that stuff. it is way, way, way beyond me. i personally like short stories. i usually can stay focussed and read through them fairly easily, and i have gotten a lot of anthologies through school. also, my little brother who is an avid reader has a collection of short stories by kurt vonegut and i really loved pretty much all of them i read. well, to try to improve my reading, i was wondering if some of you could direct me to some good short stories that are on the internet (i hate going to the library). well, whatever you guys could tell me i would very much appreciate

Try some O'Henry stories. "Twenty Years Later" and "The Last Leaf" are some good ones. I also liked "The Scarlet Ibis", but right now I can't remember who it's by.

Hope that helped,
Maria

I like Saki, he writes about 19th century English aristocratic life, but with a great sense of humor. Try "Sredni Vashtar" or "Tobermory."

Sherlock Holmes stories are great, most of them are a quick, engrossing read.

Steven King, often much different than his novels.

Shirley Jackson is good. I also like collections by different authors, the library is full of them. You can get Sci Fi collections or the Best American Short Story collections or all sorts.

There is a very good SciFi magazine on the web. It's better than any of the others I've tried. It's called Surprising Stories.
http://surprisingstories.dcwi.com

Try some Edgar Allen Poe. In my opinion one of the best short story writers of all time. I'm a horror fan though.

His stories can be found on the internet here:


http://bau2.uibk.ac.at/sg/poe/Work.html

I don't have links offhand, but my favorite short story authors are
William Trevor
Frank O'Connor
Isaac Asimov
Edgar Allen Poe.

I really liked 'The Bus Driver Who Wanted to Be God & Other Stories' by Etgar Keret (he's a little bit different and sometimes dark) and 'Idle Hour in the County of Hope' by Julie Simpson. I also like Penelope Fitzgerald who tends to write fairly short novels, but she's not to everyone's taste. Can't help with online I'm afraid.

Ray Bradbury has some amazing short stories, and not too hard to read. Try The Illustrated Man.

On a harder note, but worth it:
The Dubliners- James Joyce. An awesome collection of short stories. Don't be scared off by the name Joyce, its an awesome read, especially stories like 'Araby' and 'The Dead'.

Labyrinths- Jorges Luis Borges. The coolest collection of short stories I have ever read. I don't even know how to explain the amazingness of his works. Its like art. Each story is so thought-provoking, causing you to question things and see life in a completely different way. Each will teach you something, and they are all absolutely fabulous.

Like I said, Bradbury is much easier than the latter two, but if you want to learn and don't mind the challenge, I would reccomend Joyce or Borges. Its great for expanding vocabulary, Joyce especially favors the obscurest of words. The stories also can teach you how to analyze a work, in order to understand what is going on, like in The Sisters.

Hope this helped.

Ooh, and most of 'The Dubliners' and 'Labyrinths' can be found online.

Try...

Shooting An Elephant by George Orwell.


One of my favorite essays.

chocolatclari said:

Try some O'Henry stories. "Twenty Years Later" and "The Last Leaf" are some good ones. I also liked "The Scarlet Ibis", but right now I can't remember who it's by.

Hope that helped,
Maria

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Holy crap, I remember reading "Twenty Years Later." That was in, like, fifth grade. Alright, I'm only a junior in high school, but it's still weird...

Sorry, just a moment of recollection.

The Scarlet Ibis.. I read that 2 years ago, in english. I didn't think it was anything spectacular.

Oh, one more reccomendation: Nine Stories, by J.D. Salinger.

Ashlea said:

Shirley Jackson is good.

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That is the exact same author that I was going to recommend until I saw your post. Especially, The Lottery.

As I was searching the archives with the view of starting a short story thread, I found this one and decided to bump it to the top to see if anyone had more to add. Stewart's suggestion to include short story collections for Book of the Month reads, made me think it would be nice to have some suggestions centrally located in one thread. Just last night, at borders I found a collection of stories by Charles DeLint called Moonlight and Vines. I had to walk away quickly before I could get too attached...will check the library in a few minutes.
Another book of stories I'd recommend is I Hate to See That Evening Sun Go Down by William Gay. I thought they were too morbid, but the stories are beautifully written just the same.

http://www.short-stories.co.uk/

This is a very good site. Hundreds of stories by loads of famous and not so well known authors.