Category: Favorites

2014 Favorites

It was a wonderful short story year for me. I started this blog in June, having stumbled onto a new abundance of reading time in my schedule. I’ve long wanted to do something like this, but I don’t think I could have anticipated just how much I’d enjoy it. I still have hopes of publishing my own short fiction someday. Of course reading the masters is the best way to get better in your own writing. That was the whole point at the blog’s outset. But as it turns out, I’ll be plenty happy continuing this blog into 2015 and beyond even if my writing dreams never pan out.

So, as the calendar page turns, here’s a pointlessly complete list of the stories I read in 2014 listed in order of my enjoyment. As always, I appreciate your comments and feedback. Thank you for all the support in 2014, and a sincerest Happy 2015 to you!

1. ‘Hot Ice’ by Stuart Dybek
2. ‘A Good Man Is Hard To Find’ by Flannery O’Connor
3. ‘The Lady With The Little Dog’ by Anton Chekhov
4. ‘Jeeves And The Impending Doom’ by P.G. Wodehouse
5. ‘The Babysitter’ by Robert Coover
6. ‘Everything That Rises Must Converge’ by Flannery O’Connor
7. ‘Bright And Morning Star’ by Richard Wright
8. ‘Symbols And Signs’ by Vladimir Nabokov
9. ‘Chickamauga’ by Ambrose Bierce
10. ‘Jeeves And The Yule-Tide Spirit’ by P.G. Wodehouse
11. ‘Venus, Cupid, Folly And Time’ by Peter Taylor
12. ‘The River’ by Flannery O’Connor
13. ‘Blackberry Winter’ by Robert Penn Warren
14. ‘Barn Burning’ by William Faulkner
15. ‘Gooseberries’ by Anton Chekhov
16. ‘A Solo Song: For Doc’ by James Alan McPherson
17. ‘The H Street Sledding Record’ by Ron Carlson
18. ‘A Christmas Memory’ by Truman Capote
19. ‘A&P’ by John Updike
20. ‘The Chrysanthemums’ by John Steinbeck
21. ‘The Ice Palace’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
22. ‘My Old Man’ by Ernest Hemingway
23. ‘I’m A Fool’ by Sherwood Anderson
24. ‘The Life You Save May Be Your Own’ by Flannery O’Connor
25. ‘Upon The Sweeping Flood’ by Joyce Carol Oates
26. ‘The Man In The Case’ by Anton Chekhov
27. ‘Free Fruit For Young Widows’ by Nathan Englander
28. ‘May Day’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
29. ‘Babylon Revisited’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
30. ‘Good Country People’ by Flannery O’Connor
31. ‘The Yellow Wallpaper’ by Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman
32. ‘The School’ by Donald Barthelme
33. ‘The Night The Bed Fell’ by James Thurber
34. ‘City Boy’ by Leonard Michaels
35. ‘Pomegranate Seed’ by Edith Wharton
36. ‘Sonny’s Blues’ by James Baldwin
37. ‘The Veldt’ by Ray Bradbury
38. ‘Paul’s Case’ by Willa Cather
39. ‘The Tall Men’ by William Faulkner
40. ‘That Evening Sun’ by William Faulkner
41. ‘You’re Ugly, Too’ by Lorrie Moore
42. ‘Of This Time, Of That Place’ by Lionel Trilling
43. ‘The Student’ by Anton Chekhov
44. ‘The Story Of An Hour’ by Kate Chopin
45. ‘The Tell-Tale Heart’ by Edgar Allan Poe
46. ‘Greasy Lake’ by T. Coraghessan Boyle
47. ‘A Christmas Tree And A Wedding’ by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
48. ‘The Wood Duck’ by James Thurber
49. ‘The Flats Road’ by Alice Munro
50. ‘My First Goose’ by Isaac Babel
51. ‘The Fireman’s Wife’ by Richard Bausch
52. ‘The View From The Balcony’ by Wallace Stegner
53. ‘The Secret Life Of Walter Mitty’ by James Thurber
54. ‘The Killers’ by Ernest Hemingway
55. ‘Train’ by Joy Williams
56. ‘Testimony Of Pilot’ by Barry Hannah
57. ‘Liars In Love’ by Richard Yates
58. ‘Nilda’ by Junot Diaz
59. ‘Double Birthday’ by Willa Cather
60. ‘About Love’ by Anton Chekhov
61. ‘The Magic Barrel’ by Bernard Malamud
62. ‘A Bear Hunt’ by William Faulkner
63. ‘The Diamond As Big As The Ritz’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
64. ‘The Adventure Of The Blue Carbuncle’ by Arthur Conan Doyle
65. ‘Christmas Eve’ by Maeve Brennan
66. ‘The Lady’s Maid’s Bell’ by Edith Wharton
67. ‘Luella Miller’ by Mary Wilkins Freeman
68. ‘Only The Dead Know Brooklyn’ by Thomas Wolfe
69. ‘The Joy Luck Club’ by Amy Tan
70. ‘His Father’s Son’ by Edith Wharton
71. ‘The Jelly-Bean’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
72. ‘Hand Upon The Waters’ by William Faulkner
73. ‘Christmas In Red Butte’ by Lucy Maud Montgomery
74. ‘One Christmas Eve’ by Langston Hughes
75. ‘The Nose’ by Nikolai Gogol
76. ‘The Gift Of The Magi’ by O. Henry
77. ‘In The Penal Colony’ by Franz Kafka
78. ‘He’ by Katherine Anne Porter
79. ‘The Rich Brother’ by Tobias Wolff
80. ‘Powder’ by Tobias Wolff
81. ‘A White Heron’ by Sarah Orne Jewett
82. ‘The Ledge’ by Lawrence Sargent Hall
83. ‘A Circle In The Fire’ by Flannery O’Connor
84. ‘No Place For You, My Love’ by Eudora Welty
85. ‘The Schreuderspitze’ by Mark Helprin
86. ‘The Sutton Place Story’ by John Cheever
87. ‘The Hartleys’ by John Cheever
88. ‘O City Of Broken Dreams’ by John Cheever
89. ‘The Lottery’ by Shirley Jackson
90. ‘A Day In The Open’ by Jane Bowles
91. ‘How Beautiful With Shoes’ by Wilbur Daniel Steele
92. ‘In The Zoo’ by Jean Stafford
93. ‘Young Goodman Brown’ by Nathaniel Hawthorne
94. ‘The Outcasts Of Poker Flat’ by Bret Harte
95. ‘The Lost Phoebe’ by Theodore Dreiser
96. ‘Lovers Of The Lake’ by Sean O’Faolain
97. ‘The Other Two’ by Edith Wharton
98. ‘Welcome To The Monkey House’ by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
99. ‘The Little Wife’ by William March
100. ‘A Distant Episode’ by Paul Bowles
101. ‘How To Date A Brown Girl (A Black Girl, A White Girl, Or Halfie)’ by Junot Diaz
102. ‘A Poetics For Bullies” by Stanley Elkin
103. ‘Greenwich Time’ by Ann Beattie
104. ‘Pretty Ice’ by Mary Robison
105. ‘Lechery’ by Jayne Ann Phillips
106. ‘Here Come The Maples’ by John Updike
107. ‘Territory’ by David Leavitt
108. ‘Bridging’ by Max Apple
109. ‘Premium Harmony’ by Stephen King
110. ‘The Faithful Wife’ by Morley Callaghan
111. ‘First Love’ by Vladimir Nabokov
112. ‘The Mysterious Kor’ by Elizabeth Bowen
113. ‘Two Thanksgiving Gentlemen’ by O. Henry
114. ‘Dawn Of Remembered Spring’ by Jesse Stuart
115. ‘The Middle Years’ by Henry James
116. ‘Thirst’ by Ivo Andric
117. ‘In Another Country’ by Ernest Hemingway
118. ‘A Cap For Steve’ by Morley Callaghan
119. ‘Winter Dreams’ by F. Scott Fitzgerald
120. ‘The Iron City’ by Lovell Thompson
121. ‘Dusky Ruth’ by A.E. Coppard
122. ‘The Net’ by Robert M. Coates
123. ‘The Christmas Wreck’ by Frank Stockton
124. ‘At Christmas Time’ by Anton Chekhov
125. ‘Christmas Day In The Morning’ by Pearl S. Buck
126. ‘Are These Actual Miles?’ by Raymond Carver
127. ‘The Little Match Girl’ by Hans Christian Andersen
128. ‘Three Players Of A Summer Game’ by Tennessee Williams
129. ‘A Child’s Christmas In Wales’ by Dylan Thomas
130. ‘Paper Losses’ by Lorrie Moore
131. ‘This Morning, This Evening, So Soon’ by James Baldwin
132. ‘The Circling Hand’ by Jamaica Kincaid
133. ‘A Stroke Of Good Fortune’ by Flannery O’Connor
134. ‘The Body Snatcher’ by Robert Louis Stevenson
135. ‘The Adventure Of The Christmas Pudding’ by Agatha Christie
136. ‘The Catbird Seat’ by James Thurber
137. ‘April Showers’ by Edith Wharton
138. ‘The Odour Of Chrysanthemums’ by D.H. Lawrence
139. ‘The Door’ by E.B. White
140. ‘The Camberwell Beauty’ by V.S. Pritchett
141. ‘The Fly’ by Katherine Mansfield
142. ‘Christ In Concrete’ by Pietro di Donato
143. ‘Going For A Beer’ by Robert Coover
144. ‘The Other Wife’ by Colette
145. ‘A.V. Laider’ by Max Beerbohm
146. ‘Markheim’ by Robert Louis Stevenson
147. ‘Christmas Is A Sad Season For The Poor’ by John Cheever
148. ‘The Golden Honeymoon’ by Ring Lardner
149. ‘The Fullness Of Life’ by Edith Wharton
150. ‘Awake’ by Tobias Wolff
151. ‘In Greenwich, There Are Many Gravelled Walks’ by Hortense Calisher
152. ‘White Rat’ by Gayl Jones
153. ‘Search Through The Streets Of The City’ by Irwin Shaw
154. ‘The Dead Man’ by Horacio Quiroga
155. ‘American Express’ by James Salter
156. ‘The Piano’ by Anibal Monteiro Machado
157. ‘Resurrection Of A Life’ by William Saroyan
158. ‘The State Of Grace’ by Harold Brodkey
159. ‘The Burglar’s Christmas’ by Willa Cather
160. ‘The Greatest Man In The World’ by James Thurber
161. ‘The Wonderful Tar-Baby Story’ by Joel Chandler Harris
162. ‘The Peach Stone’ by Paul Horgan
163. ‘Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius’ by Jorge Luis Borges
164. ‘A Telephone Call’ by Dorothy Parker
165. ‘The Survivors’ by Elsie Singmaster
166. ‘An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving’ by Louisa May Alcott
167. ‘Who Lived And Died Believing’ by Nancy Hale
168. ‘Papa Panov’s Special Christmas’ by Leo Tolstoy
169. ‘The Beggar Boy At Christ’s Christmas Tree’ by Fyodor Dostoyevsky
170. ‘The Devil And Tom Walker’ by Washington Irving
171. ‘A Life In The Day Of A Writer’ by Tess Slesinger
172. ‘The Facts Concerning The Recent Carnival Of Crime In Connecticut’ by Mark Twain
173. ‘A Dark Brown Dog’ by Stephen Crane
174. ‘Men’ by Kay Boyle
175. ‘A Couple Of Hamburgers’ by James Thurber
176. ‘In The Heart Of The Heart Of The Country’ by William Gass
177. ‘A New Year’s Gift’ by Guy de Maupassant
178. ‘The Christmas Banquet’ by Nathaniel Hawthorne
179. ‘The Indian Uprising’ by Donald Barthelme
180. ‘The Facts Of Life’ by Somerset Maugham
181. ‘Nothing Ever Breaks Except The Heart’ by Kay Boyle
182. ‘The Best Christmas Ever’ by James Patrick Kelly
183. ‘Christmas Eve’ by Guy de Maupassant