Tove Jansson's short stories about artistic creation are often chillingly cold. The artists she portrays have become lost in their isolated solitude, their creativity, which shuts other people out. Portraits of such loneliness are drawn in three short stories in the collection Lyssnerskan ('The listener', 1971), 'Ekorren' ('The squirrel'), 'Svart & vitt' ('Black & white') and 'Vargen' ('The wolf’), which probably frightened many readers - particularly those who knew and loved her Moomin books - away from Jansson's work. In their cosmos, warmth is unknown; their landscapes are frozen, just like the people who seek expression for their artistic dreams. [more inside]
posted by smcg
on May 31, 2012 -
19 comments
Lily, the caretaker's daughter, was literally run off her feet...
Today is the feast of Epiphany, the last day of the traditional Christmas season; the day also when the Misses Morkan held that grand affair, their annual dance, in James Joyce's
"The Dead." [more inside]
posted by Iridic
on Jan 6, 2012 -
71 comments
Ted Chiang is perhaps the finest author in contemporary science fiction -- and the most rarefied.
A technical writer by trade and a graduate of the distinguished
Clarion Writers Workshop, Chiang has published only twelve short stories in the last twenty years, one dozen masterpieces of the genre whose insightful, precise, often poetic language confronts fundamental ideas -- intelligence, consciousness, the nature of God -- and thrusts them into a dazzling new light.
Click inside for a complete listing of Chiang's work, with links to online reprints or audio recordings where available, as well as a collection of one-on-one interviews, links to his nonfiction essays, and a few other related sites and articles.
[more inside]
posted by Rhaomi
on Dec 27, 2010 -
116 comments
‘We feel that the stories in this book are such that if your nerves are not of the strongest, then it is wise to read them in daylight.' For a certain time, in every second-hand bookshop in the UK you would always be able to find a musty and dog-eared copy of one or more of the
Pan Books Of Horror Stories edited by the splendidly named Herbert Van Thal. Now the first is
being re-printed.
[more inside]
posted by fearfulsymmetry
on Sep 8, 2010 -
21 comments
The Dollar Dreadful Family Library offers gripping tales of scientific adventures in matrimony, mysterious Appalachian woodsmen, macabre travels in the ether, exotic travels in distant lands, itinerant prospectors, and cunning detectives who pose as genteel dressmakers. Assorted amusements are offered in the form of downloadable PDF booklets, perfect leisure literature for "the distinguished reader or the particularly wealthy dunder-head".
posted by sarabeth
on Jan 23, 2009 -
8 comments
Over 2000 classic short stories from
American Literature as well as an option to sign up for a
short story of the day rss feed. Among the authors on offer are Kate Chopin, Saki, O. Henry, Louisa May Alcott, Ambrose Bierce, H. P. Lovecraft, Jack London, James Joyce, Willa Cather, Guy de Maupassant, Charles Dickens, Herman Hesse, Mark Twain, Oscar Wilde, F. Scott Fitzgerald, Franz Kafka, Honoré de Balzac, Edith Warton, P. G. Wodehouse, Virginia Woolf, Langston Hughes, Leo Tolstoy, Aldous Huxley, Roald Dahl, Henry James, Katherine Mansfield and I could keep going for a while. The point is, there's over 2000 short stories in there.
posted by Kattullus
on Feb 17, 2008 -
31 comments
Classic Short Stories — "Fewer and fewer people these days read short stories. This is unfortunate—so few will ever experience the joy that reading such fine work can give. The goal of this site is to give a nice cross section of short stories in the hope that these short stories will excite these people into rediscovering this excellent source of entertainment." Authors represented include Saki, Edith Wharton, O. Henry, Guy de Maupassant, Mark Twain, Virginia Woolf, Gabriel García Marquez, H. G. Wells, Roald Dahl, Anton Chekhov, Charles Dickens, William Carlos Williams and Katherine Mansfield.
posted by Kattullus
on Apr 26, 2007 -
27 comments
Everyone is talking about Clint Eastwood's new movie,
Million Dollar Baby (
trailer). What you may not know however is that the movie was based on a short story in a book by the name of
Rope Burns: Stories From The Corner by the late F.X. Toole (aka Jerry Boyd). The book by the way was called, "...the best boxing short fiction ever written," by
James Ellroy of L.A. Confidential fame. Back in 2000 Toole gave an amazing
interview on Fresh Air about spending the last 20 years of his life as a cut man and the last 40 years of writing while trying to overcome his fear of rejection before getting his first book published at age 70.
posted by pwb503
on Jan 18, 2005 -
19 comments
Stories by Joe R. Lansdale If you're a fan of Joe Lansdale (or wonder who came up with the idea for
Bubba Ho-Tep), this site's for you. A different short story is posted every Thursday. Most of the stories are from his early years.
posted by joaquim
on Sep 2, 2004 -
6 comments
Spiritual Cockroaches the life and work of
K. Ungeheuer
Ungeheuer wrote short stories. Very short stories. Some are no more than a couple of sentences. The longest of them barely fills a half dozen pages. Ungeheuer explained his penchant for short short fiction in an interview with Jared Green in 1970:
"There's something enigmatic about the economy of these short pieces. Something about the lack of context that forces the reader to fill in the larger picture. I don't care about plotting a story, characterization or setting. I'm looking for a feeling, an instant in time. An uncomfortable floating instant, with no sense of anything that may have come to pass before it."
posted by tenseone
on Jan 12, 2004 -
18 comments
Tom Perrotta may be one of the best novelists working today, yet not that many folks know his name.
His books and
short stories portray prosaic suburbia accurately and without condescension, and he has uncanny insight into the mind of the terminally adolescent. Not to mention an uproarious sense of humor. If the films of Kevin Smith and Richard Linklater, the music of Weezer, or
Pete Bagge's comics resonate with you, you may want to check out their literary equivalent. As an added treat, here's an
audio link of Perrota reading his work. For my money, this guy is one of our best American writers right now, although you wouldn't know it.
posted by jonmc
on Mar 2, 2002 -
10 comments
third times a charm. after three different deadlines, two different formats, and a partidge in a pear tree, i'm still not sure if my entry got through. it's true, writers get no respect
posted by ethylene
on Nov 30, 2000 -
8 comments
