A Very Long, yet Incomplete List of Short Stories

I decided to spend my free day cataloguing the short stories I've read, which would seem like an excessive, dull chore to someone else, but is an enjoyable use of time for me.

So, before we launch into this monstrosity, a few notes are in order:

First, obviously, this is not complete. I'm sure that I've read dozens, or perhaps hundreds, of short stories which I forgot about as I was working today. I didn't go back to my childhood books or scour the backlist of Harper's and New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly issues that I've read. I probably forgot a ton of Updike, Boyle, and Coover stories as a result.

Also, I left out some good humor pieces from The Onion, McSweeneys.net, and Modern Humorist because they seemed more like comical essays than stories. Plays and scripts had to go too, as well as graphic stories and comic-type stuff. Finally, I recalled collections of flash fiction which would have doubled the size of the list, so I dropped them as well. This was simply because I wanted to make the task more manageable, not because any of these things don't qualify somehow.

I've put an * by stories that blew me away. I'll probably do a "top twenty" in the next few days. So here is the list:

Alan Ackman
· No Cry of Distress in Our Streets

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
· Half of a Yellow Sun *

Chris Adrian
· The Stepfather

Daniel Alarcon
· City of Clowns *

Thomas Bailey Aldrich
· Marjorie Daw

Steve Amick
· Santa & Son

Daphne Beal
· The Poor Thing

David Benioff
· Zoantropy

Ambrose Bierce
· The Damned Thing
· An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

Tom Bissell
· God Lives in St. Petersburg *

Jenny Bitner
· The Pamphleteer

T.C. Boyle
· Blinded By the Light
· Wild Child

Arthur Bradford
· Chainsaw Apple
· Mollusks

Christopher Buckley
· We Have a Pope! *

Judy Budnitz
· Flush

Sean Casey
· The First Chapter

Daniel Clowes
· Justin M. Damiano

Randy Cohen
· DJ and Emma, A Story in Two Parts

Brendan Connell
· The Life of Captain Gareth Caernarvon *

Robert Coover
· The Case of the Severed Hand
· Heart Suite

Edwidge Danticat
· Lele

Amanda Davis
· Fat Ladies Floated in the Sky Like Balloons

Doug Dorst
· The Candidate in Bloom *

Roddy Doyle
· New Boy

Dave Eggers
· Another
· What it Means When a Crowd in a Faraway Nation Takes a Soldier Representing Your Own Nation, Shoots Him, Drags Him from His Vehicle and Then Mutilates Him in the Dust
· The Only Meaning of the Oil-Wet Water
· On Wanting to Have Three Walls Up Before She Gets Home
· Climbing to the Window, Pretending to Dance
· She Waits, Seething, Blooming
· Quiet
· Your Mother and I
· Theo

Ben Ehrenreich
· What You Eat

Courtney Eldridge
· Young Professionals

Stephen Elliott
· I’ll Change Completely

Jonathan Safran Foer
· Rhoda

Ken Foster
· Red Dresses

Adam Golaski
· Color Plates (Series)

Andrew Sean Greer
· Colton Wicks

Edward Everett Hale
· The Man Without a Country

Jim Hanas
· The Adventures of Bad Badger

Bret Harte
· The Luck of Roaring Camp *
· The Outcasts of Poker Flat
· The Right Eye of the Commander

John Haskell
· Good World

Nathaniel Hawthorne
· Rappaccini’s Daughter

Kaui Hart Hemmings
· The Minor Wars

Marc Herman
· Draft Text of a Proposal for a Focus Group Study on How Best to Relate The Discovery of El Dorado, City of Gold

Aleksandar Hemon
· The Liar

Rachel Haley Himmelheber
· Happiness Reminders

John Hodgman
· Fire: The Next Sharp Stick?

A.M. Homes
· Cindy Stubenstock

Nick Hornsby
· J. Johnson (with Posy Simmonds)

Christopher Howard
· Prince of the World

Samantha Hunt
· Blue

Washington Irving
· Rip Van Winkle
· The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Thom Jones
· Night Train

Camden Joy
· Hubcap Diamondstar Halo

Heidi Julavits
· Judge Gladys Parks-Schultz

Miranda July
· Roy Spivey

Tom Junod
· J.H.C.

Tom Kealey
· Bones

Robert Kelly
· How They Took My Body Apart and Made Another Me

A.L. Kennedy
· Frank

Brian Kennedy
· I Know What You Did Two Moons Ago (The Revenge)

Stephen King
· The Little Sisters of Eluria

Lawrence Krauser
· The Lemon

Milan Kundera
· The Hitchhiking Game

Hari Kunzru
· Magda Mandela

Jonathan Lethem
· Perkus Tooth

Adam Levin
· Hot Pink

Toby Litt
· The Monster

Benjamin Lytal
· Weena

Elizabeth McKenzie
· Stop That Girl

Paul Maliszewski
· Two Prayers

Gabriel Garcia Marquez
· A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings *
· Leaf Storm
· Tuesday Siesta

David Means
· Elyria Man *

Herman Melville
· Benito Cereno

Joe Meno
· People are Becoming Clouds

Philipp Meyer
· One Day This Will Be Yours

Magnus Mills
· Hark the Herald

David Mitchell
· Judith Castle

Yannick Murphy
· In a Bear’s Eye

Joyce Carol Oates
· Bad Habits
· The Gathering Squall
· The Sky Blue Ball *
· Death Mother
· The Hand Puppet
· Schroeder’s Stepfather
· The Sepulchre
· The Hands
· ------
· Labor Day
· The Collector of Hearts
· Demon
· Elvis is Dead: Why Are You Alive?
· Posthumous
· The Omen
· The Sons of Angus MacElster
· The Affliction
· Scars
· Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?
Gina Ochsner
· Hidden Lives of Lakes *

Flannery O’Connor
· Everything That Rises Must Converge *
· Greenleaf
· A View of the Woods *
· The Enduring Chill
· The Comforts of Home
· The Lame Shall Enter First
· Revelation *
· Parker’s Back
· Judgement Day

Andrew O’Hagan
· Gordon

Robert Olmstead
· The Probability of Great Events Sets Life in Motion

Lance Olsen
· Sixteen Jackies

Daniel Orozco
· Somoza’s Dream *

Julie Orringer
· The Smoothest Way is Full of Stones

ZZ Packer
· Gideon

T.Z. Parsa
· Christmas in China (O-E-O-E-O!)

A.G. Pasquella
· Why Not a Spider Monkey Jesus?

Paula W. Peterson
· Big Brother

Edgar Allan Poe
· The Unparalleled Adventure of One Hans Pfall
· The Balloon-Hoax
· Mesmeric Revelation
· Ms. Found in a Bottle
· A Descent into the Maelstrom
· Von Kempelen and His Discovery
· The Fall of the House of Usher
· The Murders in the Rue Morgue
· The Purloined Letter
· The Tell-tale Heart
· The Premature Burial
· The Pit and the Pendulum
· The Masque of Red Death

Neil Pollack
· Man’s Fate – 98: Learning to Love Again, A Story in Three Parts *

Cheryl Printup
· The Promise of Something

Todd Pruzan
· Hooper’s Bathhouse

Nelly Reifler
· The Railway Nurse

Tim Rogers
· The Monkey and the Snake

J.D. Salinger
· A Perfect Day for Bananafish
· Uncle Wiggily in Connecticut
· Just Before the War with the Eskimos
· Down at the Dinghy
· For Esme – with Love and Squalor
· Pretty Mouth and Green My Eyes
· De Daumier-Smith’s Blue Period
· Teddy

George Saunders
· Puppy

David Schickler
· Fourth Angry Mouse

Heidi Jon Schmidt
· Blood Poison

David Shields
· On Views and Viewing

Posy Simmonds
· J. Johnson (with Nick Hornsby)

Alison Smith
· The Specialist

Zadie Smith
· Hanwell Snr.

Frank R. Stockton
· The Lady, or the Tiger?

Adam Thirlwell
· Nigora

Colm Toibin
· Donal Webster

Mark Twain
· The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg *
· The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County

Deb Olin Unferth
· Deb Olin Unferth

Vendela Vida
· Soleil

David Foster Wallace
· Another Example of the Porousness of Various Borders (VI)
· Yet Another Example of the Porousness of Certain Borders (VIII)
· Mr. Squishy *
· The Soul is Not a Smithy
· Incarnations of Burned Children *
· Another Pioneer
· Good Old Neon *
· Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature
· Oblivion *
· The Suffering Channel *

John Warner
· The Circus Elephants Look Sad Because They Are

Sean Warren
· What Keeler Did to His Foot in the Navy

Edmund White
· My Hustlers

Thomas Wolfe
· The Lost Boy
· No Cure for It
· Gentlemen of the Press
· A Kinsman of His Blood