Today’s list is on short stories. It’s the only list I know of that doesn’t include a recommendation from Chekhov, Poe, Joyce or Twain. They wrote some wonderful stories. But this list is short, and I'm starting elsewhere.
• Stephen Crane, “The Open Boat,” a story that convinced me that I wanted to be a writer.
• Leo Tolstoy, “What Men Live By,” a retelling of the gospel through the eyes of a poor shoemaker.
• Ernest Hemingway, “Big Two-Hearted River,” about healing after trauma.
• Truman Capote: “The Grass Harp,” a story of two old women who go off to live in a tree house, and how hearts break and mend.
• J.D. Salinger, “Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters,” a story that occurs in a cab.
• Roberto Bolaño, “Last Evenings on Earth.”
• Jorge Luis Borges, “Borges and I.”
• Hilary Mantel: “The Assassination of Margaret Thatcher.”
• William Carlos Williams: “The Use of Force.”
• D.H. Lawrence, “The Blind Man,” a story that contrasts temperaments.
• Alice Munro, “Dear Life,” about misperceptions and family lore, “Amundsen,” about the unfortunate ways we seek love, and “Mrs. Cross and Mrs. Kidd,” about an improbable friendship.
• Arthur Conan Doyle, “The Speckled Band.” A literature that excludes Sherlock Holmes is of not for me.
I’ve enjoyed stories by William Trevor, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Bernard Malamud, Somerset Maugham and Tennessee Williams. But this list could easily get out of control.
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