Category: Favorites

September 2021 favorites

September 2021

The September stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘The Singers’ by Ivan Turgenev
  2. ‘The House With The Mezzanine’ by Anton Chekhov
  3. ‘The Country Doctor’ by Ivan Turgenev
  4. ‘The Husband’ by Anton Chekhov
  5. ‘The Story Of A Horse’ by Isaac Babel
  6. ‘Dolgushov’s Death’ by Isaac Babel
  7. ‘Salt’ by Isaac Babel
  8. ‘How Much Land Does A Man Need?’ by Leo Tolstoy
  9. ‘The Queen Of Spades’ by Alexander Pushkin
  10. ‘A Dashing Fellow’ by Vladimir Nabokov
  11. ‘Khor And Kalinich’ by Ivan Turgenev
  12. ‘After The Battle’ by Isaac Babel
  13. ‘The Continuation Of The Story Of A Horse’ by Isaac Babel
  14. ‘Ivan And Ivan’ by Isaac Babel
  15. ‘Polinka’ by Anton Chekhov
  16. ‘Afonka Bida’ by Isaac Babel
  17. ‘Katania’ by Lara Vapnyar
  18. ‘Prince Hamlet Of Shchrigrovo’ by Ivan Turgenev
  19. ‘Two Landowners’ by Ivan Turgenev
  20. ‘The Destiny Of A Professor’s Wife’ by Daniil Kharms
  21. ‘On The Golden Porch’ by Tatyana Tolstaya
  22. ‘A Drama’ by Anton Chekhov
  23. ‘Little Whale, Varnisher Of Reality’ by Vasily Aksenov
  24. ‘Rapture’ by Anton Chekhov

As always, join the conversation in the comments section below, on SSMT Facebook or on Twitter @ShortStoryMT.

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August 2021 favorites

August 2021

The August stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘The Mad Lomasneys’ by Frank O’Connor
  2. ‘Bluebell Meadow’ by Benedict Kiely
  3. ‘Bravado’ by William Trevor
  4. ‘Upturned’ by Frank O’Connor
  5. ‘The Trout’ by Sean O’Faolain
  6. ‘News For The Church’ by Frank O’Connor
  7. ‘The Mouth Of The Cave’ by Edna O’Brien
  8. ‘The Day We Got Our Own Back’ by Maeve Brennan
  9. ‘Unread Messages’ by Sally Rooney
  10. ‘The Majesty Of The Law’ by Frank O’Connor
  11. ‘Lord Emsworth Acts For The Best’ by P.G. Wodehouse
  12. ‘The Sugawn Chair’ by Sean O’Faolain
  13. ‘Unholy Living And Half Dying’ by Sean O’Faolain
  14. ‘Color And Light’ by Sally Rooney
  15. ‘The Wine Breath’ by John McGahern
  16. ‘Everything In This Country Must’ by Colum McCann
  17. ‘A Dead Cert’ by Sean O’Faolain
  18. ‘The Poteen Maker’ by Michael McLaverty
  19. ‘Up The Bare Stairs’ by Sean O’Faolain
  20. ‘Who’s-Dead McCarthy’ by Kevin Barry
  21. ‘The Curfew’ by Roddy Doyle
  22. ‘Judas’ by Frank O’Connor
  23. ‘Legend For A Painting’ by Julia O’Faolain
  24. ‘On The Empty Shore’ by Seosamh Mac Grianna
  25. ‘(She Owns) Every Thing’ by Anne Enright

As always, join the conversation in the comments section below, on SSMT Facebook or on Twitter @ShortStoryMT.

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July 2021 favorites

July 2021

The July stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘Blow-Up’ by Julio Cortázar
  2. ‘The Secret Miracle’ by Jorge Luis Borges
  3. ‘Happy Birthday’ by Clarice Lispector
  4. ‘End Of The Game’ by Julio Cortázar
  5. ‘Lima, Peru, July 28, 1979’ by Daniel Alarcón
  6. ‘Balthazar’s Marvelous Afternoon’ by Gabriel García Márquez
  7. ‘I’m Your Horse In The Night’ by Luisa Valenzuela
  8. ‘Birds In The Mouth’ by Samanta Schweblin
  9. ‘The Smallest Woman In The World’ by Clarice Lispector
  10. ‘House Taken Over’ by Julio Cortázar
  11. ‘A Singular Occurrence’ by Machado de Assis
  12. ‘The Challenge’ by Mario Vargas Llosa
  13. ‘Absit’ by Angélica Gorodischer
  14. ‘The Lottery Ticket’ by Ventura García Calderón
  15. ‘Meat’ by Virgilio Piñera
  16. ‘The Chicken’ by Clarice Lispector
  17. ‘The Obedient Ones’ by Clarice Lispector
  18. ‘Letter To A Young Lady In Paris’ by Julio Cortázar
  19. ‘Decoration Day’ by Sarah Orne Jewett
  20. ‘Penelope’ by Dalton Trevisan
  21. ‘The Night Face Up’ by Julio Cortázar
  22. ‘The Dinner’ by Clarice Lispector
  23. ‘The Legend Of ‘El Cadejo’’ by Miguel Angel Asturias

As always, join the conversation in the comments section below, on SSMT Facebook or on Twitter @ShortStoryMT.

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June 2021 favorites

June 2021

The June stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘A Dedicated Man’ by Elizabeth Taylor
  2. ‘A Success Story’ by Margaret Drabble
  3. ‘Butcher’s Perfume’ by Sarah Hall
  4. ‘The Boots At The Holly-Tree Inn’ by Charles Dickens
  5. ‘An Abduction’ by Tessa Hadley
  6. ‘Crossing The Alps’ by Margaret Drabble
  7. ‘The Lumber-Room’ by Saki
  8. ‘Lappin And Lapinova’ by Virginia Woolf
  9. ‘Summer 1976’ by Chris Power
  10. ‘Mortmain’ by Graham Greene
  11. ‘The Spring Hat’ by H.E. Bates
  12. ‘A Day In The Life Of A Smiling Woman’ by Margaret Drabble
  13. ‘The Gifts Of War’ by Margaret Drabble
  14. ‘If It Keeps On Raining’ by Jon McGregor
  15. ‘She Said He Said’ by Hanif Kureishi
  16. ‘The Pier Falls’ by Mark Haddon
  17. ‘Les Liaisons Dangereuses’ by Margaret Drabble
  18. ‘G-String’ by Nicola Barker
  19. ‘Louise’ by Somerset Maugham
  20. ‘Let Me Count The Times’ by Martin Amis
  21. ‘Wolf-Alice’ by Angela Carter
  22. ‘Nadine At Forty’ by Hilary Mantel

As always, join the conversation in the comments section below, on SSMT Facebook or on Twitter @ShortStoryMT.

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May 2021 favorites

May 2021

The May stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘The Swimming Contest’ by Benjamin Tammuz
  2. ‘Waiting’ by Amos Oz
  3. ‘Success’ by Adriana Lisboa
  4. ‘The Earthquake In Chile’ by Heinrich von Kleist
  5. ‘Civil Peace’ by Chinua Achebe
  6. ‘Remnants Of Carnival’ by Clarice Lispector
  7. ‘Boule de Suif’ by Guy de Maupassant
  8. ‘The Third Bank Of The River’ by João Guimarães Rosa
  9. ‘Only Orange’ by Camille Bordas
  10. ‘Heirs’ by Amos Oz
  11. ‘A Passion In The Desert’ by Honoré de Balzac
  12. ‘How Old Timofei Died With A Song’ by Rainer Maria Rilke
  13. ‘The Baby In Pink Tarlatan’ by Joaõ do Rio
  14. ‘The Path To The Cemetery’ by Thomas Mann
  15. ‘XII’ by Nathalie Sarraute
  16. ‘Fly Already’ by Etgar Keret
  17. ‘Why I Became A Nightingale’ by Wolfgang Hildesheimer

As always, join the conversation in the comments section below, on SSMT Facebook or on Twitter @ShortStoryMT.

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April 2021 favorites

April 2021

The April stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘The Mother’ by Natalia Ginzburg
  2. ‘A Lodging For The Night’ by Robert Louis Stevenson
  3. ‘A Day In The Country’ by Dan Jacobson
  4. ‘The House Of The Famous Poet’ by Muriel Spark
  5. ‘The Clearing’ by Luisa Mercedes Levinson
  6. ‘The Life Of The Imagination’ by Nadine Gordimer
  7. ‘Doctors’ by Anneliese Mackintosh
  8. ‘Tony Takitani’ by Haruki Murakami
  9. ‘The Pet’ by Nadine Gordimer
  10. ‘The Tiger Of The Plains’ by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento
  11. ‘Crabs’ by Haruki Murakami
  12. ‘The Rise And Fall Of Sharpie Cakes’ by Haruki Murakami
  13. ‘Night Calls’ by Lisa Fugard
  14. ‘As You Would Have Told It To Me (Sort Of) If We Had Known Each Other Before You Died’ by Jonas Hassen Khemiri
  15. ‘The Shinagawa Monkey’ by Haruki Murakami
  16. ‘The Yellow Paint’ by Robert Louis Stevenson
  17. ‘How To Travel With A Salmon’ by Umberto Eco
  18. ‘He Who Listens May Hear – To His Regret: Confidence Of A Confidence’ by Juana Manuela Gorriti
  19. ‘The Stump-Grubber’ by Torgny Lindgren
  20. ‘The Little Green Monster’ by Haruki Murakami
  21. ‘A Leading Role’ by Tove Jansson
  22. ‘The Braider’ by Ricardo Güiraldes

As always, join the conversation in the comments section below, on SSMT Facebook or on Twitter @ShortStoryMT.

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March 2021 favorites

March 2021

The March stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘Lorry Raja’ by Madhuri Vijay
  2. ‘The Child’s Return’ by Rabindraneth Tagore
  3. ‘The Log’ by Guy de Maupassant
  4. ‘Alyosha The Pot’ by Leo Tolstoy
  5. ‘A Horse And Two Goats’ by R.K. Narayan
  6. ‘The Fashion Plate’ by Rhys Davies
  7. ‘Oysters’ by Anton Chekhov
  8. ‘The Tryst’ by Ivan Turgenev
  9. ‘A Russian Beauty’ by Vladimir Nabokov
  10. ‘Extraordinary Little Cough’ by Dylan Thomas
  11. ‘Roman Spring’ by Leslie Norris
  12. ‘The Golden Pony’ by Glyn Jones
  13. ‘His Excellency’ by Indro Montanelli
  14. ‘Madame de Luzy’ by Anatole France
  15. ‘A Small Sacrifice For An Enormous Happiness’ by Jai Chakrabarti
  16. ‘The State Of Nature’ by Camille Bordas
  17. ‘The Gentle Libertine’ by Colette
  18. ‘Love Far From Home’ by Italo Calvino
  19. ‘Jewellery’ by Alberto Moravia

As always, join the conversation in the comments section below, on SSMT Facebook or on Twitter @ShortStoryMT.

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February 2021 favorites

February 2021

The February stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘A Family Supper’ by Kazuo Ishiguro
  2. ‘Filling Up With Sugar’ by Yuten Sawanishi
  3. ‘A Perfect Day For Kangaroos’ by Haruki Murakami
  4. ‘The Rocking-Horse Winner’ by D.H. Lawrence
  5. ‘Gómez Palacio’ by Roberto Bolaño
  6. ‘Two Gentle People’ by Graham Greene
  7. ‘The Confession’ by Leïla Slimani
  8. ‘A Family Like Any Other’ by Carlos Fuentes
  9. ‘The Kangaroo Communiqué’ by Haruki Murakami
  10. ‘The Adopted Son’ by Guy de Maupassant
  11. ‘The Lazy River’ by Zadie Smith
  12. ‘I Arrive First’ by Emma Jane Unsworth
  13. ‘Saint Julian The Hospitaller’ by Gustave Flaubert
  14. ‘Tell Them Not To Kill Me!’ by Juan Rulfo
  15. ‘The Switchman’ by Juan José Arreola
  16. ‘Kew Gardens’ by Virginia Woolf
  17. ‘The Hammam’ by Hervé Guibert

As always, join the conversation in the comments section below, on SSMT Facebook or on Twitter @ShortStoryMT.

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January 2021 favorites

January 2021

The January stories ordered solely on my personal tastes.

  1. ‘The Love Object’ by Edna O’Brien
  2. ‘Dandelion’ by Lore Segal
  3. ‘The Headstrong Historian’ by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  4. ‘The Black Monk’ by Anton Chekhov
  5. ‘Her Table Spread’ by Elizabeth Bowen
  6. ‘Cloud, Castle, Lake’ by Vladimir Nabokov
  7. ‘Modern Girls’ by Teju Cole
  8. ‘The Bound Man’ by Ilse Aichinger
  9. ‘The Married Couple’ by Franz Kafka
  10. ‘Everything’ by Ingeborg Bachmann
  11. ‘The Sacrificial Egg’ by Chinua Achebe
  12. ‘Phantoms’ by Ivan Turgenev
  13. ‘In The Shadow Of War’ by Ben Okri
  14. ‘The Hawk’ by Liam O’Flaherty
  15. ‘Work, Death, And Sickness’ by Leo Tolstoy
  16. ‘The Hotel’ by Anne Enright
  17. ‘Aspic’ by Tatyana Tolstaya

As always, join the conversation in the comments section below, on SSMT Facebook or on Twitter @ShortStoryMT.

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2020 favorites

2020 Favorites

Seven years in and going strong on the SSMT website.

It was a difficult 2020 all around. And as life got infinitely more stressful, the notion of having time to sit back and read a short story seemed comical.

But, I would argue, taking time to read a short story (at least every so often) becomes even more important during times of adversity. Art can lift us out of our own anxiety, away from our own grief, and give us someone else’s perspective. Getting out of your own head, even only temporarily, was essential self-care in 2020.

So in keeping with SSMT tradition, here is the annual list ranking the stories highlighted this year on the site, sorted in order of my own enjoyment.

And look for a new spin on things in 2021 here. Every week, we’ll be highlighting stories from a different country. After leaning overwhelmingly American for seven years, it seemed like it was well past time to expand my reading horizons. Can’t hurt to change things up for 2021.

So look forward to that, and have a happy new year! Continue reading →

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