Hi,
I need some recommendations on contemporary short story authors or books. I am looking for something that is both interesting to read and helpful for learning modern American English for my friends in China who are college English majors (US equivalent of high school level of English in general) and who want to improve their English language skill by reading. I previously recommended some of W. S. Maugham's short stories and they loved those except that they are looking for something more contemporary and ideally American now.
Basically, I would love to have a couple of short story writers that resemble Maugham in the style but more contemporary and ideally American, so here is roughly what I am looking for:
1. It must reflect modern but structured American English, a little bit colloquial is OK, but not too heavy slang usage or dialects pertaining to a particular locale or social class. They already read quite some Poe, Twain, Jack London, Washington Irving, etc in Chinese colleges, so no such classic American authors, they emphasized "contemporary" - hopefully in the last decade or two.
2. It must be short - I know some so-called short stories can be as long as 100+ pages nowadays, but I am looking for something less than 10 or 20 pages for each story yet have enough meat for language learning purpose.
3. Ideally, these are vignettes that embodies the same wisdom, wit and detached observations of human nature similar to the ones Maugham wrote half a century ago. A broad cultural background setting will be nice but not necessarily travel or international settings as Maugham's stories, as they are still more interested in learning modern American culture/language.
4. Some suspense is OK, but they are looking for light-hearted readings, so no horror stories - they've tried some Stephen King and Dean Koontz I recommended, can't say they like those and I don't know myself if King and Koontz have any humorous lighter stories that are short enough.
5. Ideally, one or two authors would be good, but if it is hard to find a particular author, a compilation of stories by several or a dozen writers with similar style will also do.
6. Finally, does anyone know if "The Best American Short Stories of the Century" currently selling on Amazon would be a good candidate that meets the above?
Many many thanks. As I am not a native English speaker myself and don't read much, it is always a pain each time they asked me for recommendations for English reading. Their language skill is hard to fathom, they don't sound very fluent speakers of English, but as they learned the language mostly through readings, they all have a decent vocabulary (probably better than mine even though I stayed in the states for more than a decade.) I once recommended some Sherlock Holmes stories as one of my English teachers told me it's both interesting and has very good English style (and it's easily accessible as these works are in public domain now), but given the stories were written almost a century ago, my friends argued that the English might be outdated and they are not sure if I am giving them the right material for live language, and being non-native speaker myself, I cannot tell for sure if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's language is outdated or not. I tried recommending some modern bestsellers, but they complain the language is all fourth-grader level and although the stories might be interesting, most of them are not intellectually entertaining enough and don't offer much cultural enrichment and they don't benefit too much from language learning perspective. I have a very unique savvy reader group for the modern English short stories that I find myself totally incompetent in recommending anything now. Can someone help!
I need some recommendations on contemporary short story authors or books. I am looking for something that is both interesting to read and helpful for learning modern American English for my friends in China who are college English majors (US equivalent of high school level of English in general) and who want to improve their English language skill by reading. I previously recommended some of W. S. Maugham's short stories and they loved those except that they are looking for something more contemporary and ideally American now.
Basically, I would love to have a couple of short story writers that resemble Maugham in the style but more contemporary and ideally American, so here is roughly what I am looking for:
1. It must reflect modern but structured American English, a little bit colloquial is OK, but not too heavy slang usage or dialects pertaining to a particular locale or social class. They already read quite some Poe, Twain, Jack London, Washington Irving, etc in Chinese colleges, so no such classic American authors, they emphasized "contemporary" - hopefully in the last decade or two.
2. It must be short - I know some so-called short stories can be as long as 100+ pages nowadays, but I am looking for something less than 10 or 20 pages for each story yet have enough meat for language learning purpose.
3. Ideally, these are vignettes that embodies the same wisdom, wit and detached observations of human nature similar to the ones Maugham wrote half a century ago. A broad cultural background setting will be nice but not necessarily travel or international settings as Maugham's stories, as they are still more interested in learning modern American culture/language.
4. Some suspense is OK, but they are looking for light-hearted readings, so no horror stories - they've tried some Stephen King and Dean Koontz I recommended, can't say they like those and I don't know myself if King and Koontz have any humorous lighter stories that are short enough.
5. Ideally, one or two authors would be good, but if it is hard to find a particular author, a compilation of stories by several or a dozen writers with similar style will also do.
6. Finally, does anyone know if "The Best American Short Stories of the Century" currently selling on Amazon would be a good candidate that meets the above?
Many many thanks. As I am not a native English speaker myself and don't read much, it is always a pain each time they asked me for recommendations for English reading. Their language skill is hard to fathom, they don't sound very fluent speakers of English, but as they learned the language mostly through readings, they all have a decent vocabulary (probably better than mine even though I stayed in the states for more than a decade.) I once recommended some Sherlock Holmes stories as one of my English teachers told me it's both interesting and has very good English style (and it's easily accessible as these works are in public domain now), but given the stories were written almost a century ago, my friends argued that the English might be outdated and they are not sure if I am giving them the right material for live language, and being non-native speaker myself, I cannot tell for sure if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's language is outdated or not. I tried recommending some modern bestsellers, but they complain the language is all fourth-grader level and although the stories might be interesting, most of them are not intellectually entertaining enough and don't offer much cultural enrichment and they don't benefit too much from language learning perspective. I have a very unique savvy reader group for the modern English short stories that I find myself totally incompetent in recommending anything now. Can someone help!
