Favorite Short Story Thread

I like some Stephen King short stories. Not all of them though.

 

I'm glad I finally noticed this thread, I'd been contemplating starting one myself. haha

As for my favorites...hmmm...well here's a few I'm fond of:

The Snows of Kilimanjaro by Ernest Hemingway
Recitatif by Toni Morrison (This is probably my favorite.)
The White Heron by Sarah Orne Jewitt
The Outsider by H. P. Lovecraft
The Cask of the Amontillado by Edgar Allen Poe

 

This is one commanly named favourite short story; I don't like it myself - I find The Gold Bug much more enjoyable: mabye my favourite story Poe wrote.

 

I think it may be on my top list because it was one of the first stories to get me into literature (Yes, I started very late). So I guess it has a special place for me.

 

I really can understand that; I think that's the reason why I hold The Call of Cthulhu in high regard.

 

That is a genuinely great story though. Gotta love Lovecraft.

 

I like Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes series. If I had to pick one favorite from the story I would say Speckled Band and then Musgrave Ritual.

 

^ I liked those too. Read one of them (something about the League of Red Haired People? Can't remember the title) and liked it.

 

The Outsider by H.P. Lovecraft. I'm not surprised it's been mentioned before, it is everything a horror story should be.

 

I mentioned it...=/

 

A lot of Lovecraft fans. I'll have to check him out. My favorite short story right now is In the Islands by Bret Easton Ellis. Just reminds me a lot of conflict and disconnection between me and my father.

 

Kafka--"The Judgement" is head-scratchingly amazing.

 

I'll tell you right now, I first read Lovecraft when I was maybe 13 or 14 or 15 - I really don't remember. I think it was Dagon, a short story I still enjoy today, and for a good year hereafter I read nothing other than Lovecraft, nothing else seemed to satisfy my want for pure adventure and horror, and I loved the way he wrote, there is something hypnotic about it: I even want to say poisonous.

Someone told me once, and I hated him for it at the time, but now I'm a lot older and a lot more read I can fully agree with him, he said: Lovecraft is the best bad writing you'll find - and it's true. I'll not say don't read him, because I'm really wanting to say the opposite, just don't write like him. It will take you years to expunge it from your system, simply because it is so pleasurable.