The Definitive Fiction Workhouse Short Story Reading List

(While I was away, some members at The Fiction Workhouse put together their 'definitive' short story reading list. Thanks to Valerie Waterhouse for collating, posting there, and sending it here for general consumption. My own bits were added at the bottom of the list.)



The Definitive Fiction Workhouse Short Story Reading List

ONE: The Fiction Workhousers Top Short Story Authors (They all had to have multiple votes to achieve this hallowed status)

Raymond Carver
Jhumpa Lahiri
Alice Munro
Nathan Englander
James Joyce
Katherine Mansfield
Lorrie Moore
Flannery O’Connor
William Trevor


TWO: The Fiction Workhousers Top Short Story Collections

Atwood, Margaret. Bluebeard’s Egg and other stories
Barnes, Julian. A History of the World in 10 ½ Chapters
Carver, Raymond. What we talk about when we talk about love; Where I’m calling from; Cathedral
Beckett, Samuel. Stories and texts for nothing
Camus, Albert. L’exil e le royaume
Chekhov, Anton. Lady with a Lapdog and other stories
Colette: Collected Stories
Conrad, Joseph: Short Fiction
(Read for: These are possibly novellas, but brilliant anyway; out of print?)
Coraghessan Boyle, T. If the River was Whiskey
Dinesen, Isak: Seven Gothic Tales
(Read for: Weird and beautiful, if your taste runs to this sort of thing)
Englander, Nathan. For the Relief of Unbearable Urges
Gebbie, Vanessa. Words from a Glass Bubble
(Read for: The Workhouse Bible) (Pah. Stuff and nonsense… the author.)
Ho Davies, Peter. The Ugliest House in the World
Hogan, Desmond. Stories
Jolley, Elizabeth. Woman in a Lampshade.
(Read for: Way ahead of her time; terrific characters; good at taking the reader by surprise)
Joyce, James. Dubliners.
Keegan, Alex. Ballistics
Lahiri, Jhumpa. Unaccustomed Earth
Mansfield, Katherine. Collected Stories
McEwan, Ian. First Love, Last Rites
Moore, Lorrie. Selected Stories.
Munro, Alice. Runaway; The Beggar Maid; Dance of the Happy Shades
O’Connor, Flannery. A Good Man is Hard to Find; Complete Short Stories
Phillips, Jayne Anne. Fast Lanes.
Proulx, Annie. Heartsongs.
Rhodes, Dan. Anthropology
(Read for: Perfect, funny little flashes)
Rourke, Lee. Everyday
(Read for: A recent find, so very much an of the moment favourite, but contains some great voices)
Saki (Hugh Hector Munro). Short Stories of Saki.
(Read for: The Great British Humorist – good on tiger-shooting memsahibs and child-eating wolves; some dodgy views)
Scott Fitzgerald, F. Collected Stories.
Simpson, Helen. Hey Yeah Right Get a Life
Thomas Dylan. Collected Short Stories
Trevor, William. Cheating at Canasta; Collected Stories
(Read for: Use of language; sometimes weird approach to dialogue)
Updike, John. Early Stories
Whitaker, Malachi. The Crystal Fountain and Other Stories
(Read for: Anti-fascist DH Lawrence contemporary from Yorkshire; witty and skilfully crafted; out of print)
Williams, Joy. Taking Care
(Read for: The best writer nobody has ever heard of)


THREE: The Fiction Workhousers best Anthologies

Best New American Voices (annual; various)
Granta American Short Stories
(Read for: Vol 1: Includes Carver, Vonnegut, Oates, Wolff)
The O. Henry Prize (annual; various)
Anthology (name not specified) featuring Alice Munro, William Trevor, Mishima, Tobias Wolff, Annie Proulx




Lots of my favourites are already there, above. But I will add these:

Anthologies:

Best American Short Stories of the Century, ed: Updike
New Irish Short Stories, Faber and Faber (any of them)

Single author collections:
John Cheever: Collected Stories
Adam Marek: Instruction Manual for Swallowing (Comma)
Wena Poon: Lion in Winter
Plus all the collections I mention on my blog anyway, because I love them. Especial mention to:
Petina Gappah, An Elegy for Easterly, (Faber and Faber)
Tania Hershman: The White Road and other Stories (Salt)


Writers:
Echo the list above. And add in
Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Calvino

From Readers of this Blog:Additions from Those Who Know:

Single Author collections:
Haruki Murakami: After the Quake
Alistair MacLeod: Island
Tim O’Brien: The Things They Carried
Anthony Doerr: The Shell Collector
Richard Yates : Eleven Kinds of Loneliness
Julian Barnes: The Lemon Table



Writers who must not be forgotten
Hemmingway