Short stories by novelists we know and love

Escape the drab of modern life by a breezy reading of a short story.

Short stories revel in their shortness and apologise for nothing, like Steven Millhauser has said. The purpose of a short story through narrowed down to secluded incidents arouses speculations and revelations of their own. Short stories are ambitious in their shortness. But for a convenient read that doesn’t take up as much time as a novel, short stories fascinate and titillate. Though there are authors who pen down only short stories, few novelists have dabbled in writing short stories as well.

Here are short stories by novelists we know and love.

  1. The Love of a Good Woman, Alice Munro – Canadian writer Munro crafts the story in a town in Canada, revolves around three boys, a murder and a love that very much revolves around keeping the murder a secret. The pace of the story matches the slow life of the town.
  2. We Didn’t Like Him, Akhil Sharma – Two friends grow up in Delhi in two different beliefs. While there’s a dislike of one, Hindu burial and the sacrament of the Ganges do bring them together. An emotional read if you must.
  3. The Tell-Tale Heart, Edgar Allan Poe – If you are in a mood for a perverse psychological thriller in a first-person narrative, The Tell-Tale Heart will keep you hooked. Poe’s urge to the atmosphere a scheme to commit the perfect crime while also hinting on mental illness is the heart of the story.
  4. What Do We Talk About When We Talk About Love, Ray Bradbury – Two couple speculate on the topic of love. Bradbury’s anthology of this book of short stories prides in minimalism while wasting no time to get to the main subject.
  5. Going to Meet the Man, James Baldwin – American south and racial tension went hand in hand. Baldwin’s story explored two sides of racial proliferation in American society and lays out the discrimination and violence that often accompanies it.
  6. A Haunted House, Virginia Woolf – A Haunted House is Virginia Woolf’s delve into modernist writing. A ghost couple searches for treasures in the house where a living couple lives in.
  7. Araby, James Joyce – Araby is part of Dubliners – a compilation of short stories that revolve around Dublin. Araby is coming-of-age of an adolescent boy whose voyage around the city at night to buy the perfect gift for a girl he likes becomes self-revelatory.