# Favorite Short Story **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [July 23, 2017, 10:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970 "2017-07-23T22:34:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2017, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/61 "2017-07-25T20:00:12Z")
There’s no way that _Of Mice and Men_ is a short story. Novella or novelette (I can never remember which of those is which), maybe. But it’s an entire book. ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2017, 8:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/62 "2017-07-25T20:33:04Z")
Roald Dahl’s _ **Lamb to the Slaughter** _. ---
**Author:** ![Crane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/crane/32/3495_2.png) [@Crane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crane)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 3:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/63 "2017-07-26T03:30:25Z")
Chronos, Agreed, _Of Mice and Men_ is definitely a novel. I believe _The Unbearable Bassington_, Saki, would qualify as a novella. Crane ---
**Author:** ![TheSundial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/6f9a4e/32.png) [@TheSundial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheSundial)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 3:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/64 "2017-07-26T03:56:23Z")
@ terentii, that’s a great one. I also love Poison and The Hitchhiker by him. ---
**Author:** ![Clothahump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/51bf81/32.png) [@Clothahump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Clothahump)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/65 "2017-07-26T04:25:46Z")
Where to start? How about some obscure ones? “‘Oh, Whistle, and I’ll Come to You, My Lad’” “Casting the Runes” Both from The Collected Ghost Stories of M. R. James ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 11:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/66 "2017-07-26T11:47:07Z")
> [@terentii](#): > > Roald Dahl’s _ **Lamb to the Slaughter** _. One of my mother’s favorites. I found a bound edition of it and gave it to her as a present. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/67 "2017-07-26T12:18:56Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > “The Dead,” by James Joyce. One of the few pieces I can teach every year – sometimes more than once a year – and still feel like I notice something new every single time. I read that once many years ago, and fell into such deep depression that I’ve never read it again. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/68 "2017-07-26T13:21:09Z")
Christmas is a Sad Season for the Poor by John Cheever. I read it every December. It begs for a movie treatment starring Morgan Freeman. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/69 "2017-07-26T14:26:01Z")
“The Conversion of the Jews,” Philip Roth “Cathedral,” Raymond Carver “The Things They Carried,” Tim O’Brien ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/70 "2017-07-26T15:09:51Z")
“Flowers For Algernon” (the original short story) by Daniel Keyes. Best short story ever. I am particularly partial to “Elegantly, In the Least Number of Steps”, from Monica McFawn, whose collection _Bright Shards of Someplace Else_ won the Flannery O’Connor award in 2014. Great stories! Oh, and I would be remiss if I didn’t mention “Captivity”, by Zenna Henderson. I read it originally as a very young person, in an old F&SF magazine my parents had. I’ve been captivated by her stories ever since, and by “Captivity” the most. ---
**Author:** ![G0sp3l](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/c68b51/32.png) [@G0sp3l](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/G0sp3l)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/71 "2017-07-26T15:23:19Z")
_[Earthmen Bearing Gifts](http://www.flashfictiononline.com/fpublic0013-earthmen-bearing-gifts-fredric-brown.html)_ - Fredric Brown _Interview with a Psycho_ - Billie Sue Mosiman _The Cold Equations_ - Tom Godwin ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/72 "2017-07-26T15:40:56Z")
> [@Saint\_Cad](#): > > Robert Siverberg’s “The Man Who Never Forgot” I forgot all about Silverberg. My favorite of his is “Nightwings”. Another SF favorite is “The Moon Moth” by Jack Vance. ---
**Author:** ![salinqmind](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/3ec8ea/32.png) [@salinqmind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/salinqmind)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/73 "2017-07-26T16:32:20Z")
The short stories of Dorothy Parker. ‘Big Blonde’ is a good one. The short stories of Ray Bradbury - I couldn’t possibly pick one! The short stories of Roald Dahl - ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ has been mentioned, but he wrote a story about an antiques ‘picker’ (in England, years ago) who went out to old farmhouses looking for antique furniture. To buy for chump change, and then sell for major money. He made The Find of his life at one farm… I have two bound volumes of the Collected Short Stories of William Somerset Maughm, which I read cover to cover as a teenager living in distressing circumstances. They are all over the place: English drawing rooms, colonials mixing it up with the natives on rubber plantations in Malaysia, drunks in Singapore and Hawaii, proper types on board cruise ships in the Far East, and a great little group of stories about a pre-James Bond spy, ‘Ashenden’. All written long ago but utterly enthralling, with twists and turns of the human condition. His best known story is ‘Rain’ with Miss Sadie Thompson being persecuted by a blood-and-thunder preacher when a group of travellers is taking shelter from a monsoon. Can non-fiction be short stories? Any travel book, each chapter, I love. Can pick it up and put it down as needed. ‘At Home’ by Bill Bryson - a history of the house, how rooms in a typical house evolved over the centuries to what they are used for today - very interesting, each chapter about each room. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/74 "2017-07-26T17:42:57Z")
> [@](#): > > The short stories of Roald Dahl - ‘Lamb To The Slaughter’ has been mentioned, but he wrote a story about an antiques ‘picker’ (in England, years ago) who went out to old farmhouses looking for antique furniture. To buy for chump change, and then sell for major money. He made The Find of his life at one farm… If that’s the one I’m thinking of, it was nonfiction. As was his first published work, a hilarious first-person account of him getting shot down in flames and burning nearly to death in WWII. ---
**Author:** ![GreenWyvern](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/greenwyvern/32/2834_2.png) [@GreenWyvern](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GreenWyvern)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 5:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/75 "2017-07-26T17:55:28Z")
Rudyard Kipling hasn’t been mentioned, though he is a true master of short stories. I don’t mean only the children’s stories - _The Jungle Book_, _The Just-So Stories_, _Puck of Pook’s Hill_ and its sequel _Rewards and Fairies_. (The last two deserve to be better known.) Or the stories written when he was a young man in India. The stories written towards the end of his life, mostly set in England, are very much worth reading. [The Madonna of the Trenches](https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kipling/rudyard/debits/complete.html#chapter22) is about PTSD (‘shell shock’) after WW1 - and a strange and disturbing love story. _The Wish House_, in the same volume (_Debits and Credits_) is often regarded as one of his best. It starts out with a couple of old ladies having afternoon tea and chat, but the story that eventually emerges is both powerful and creepy. [Their Lawful Occasions](https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/k/kipling/rudyard/traffics/complete.html#chapter4) in _Traffics and Discoveries_ is an hilarious story about a British Navy exercise in peace time. There are many others of his later stories that surpass any of his Indian stories. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/76 "2017-07-26T18:22:15Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > …Another SF favorite is “The Moon Moth” by Jack Vance. Yes, I mentioned that, too. > [@salinqmind](#): > > …Roald Dahl… wrote a story about an antiques ‘picker’ (in England, years ago) who went out to old farmhouses looking for antique furniture. To buy for chump change, and then sell for major money. He made The Find of his life at one farm… A great story! It’s “Parson’s Pleasure,” from 1958: > **[English](https://peda.net/orivesi/lukio/oppiaineet/englanti:readerkeyprompt?sessionrecoveryid=8f04d28a-a798-4084-a244-3874f2b336f6#top)** > > Elinikäinen ja toimintavarma kotimainen oppimisen ympäristö > **[Parson's Pleasure (short story)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parson%27s_Pleasure_(short_story))** > > "Parson's Pleasure" is a short story written by Roald Dahl. > Boggis is a skilled antiques dealer who has a small shop in Chelsea, London. He manages to make a profit each year by buying valuable furniture cheaply from unsuspecting country people while posing as a clergyman and president of the Society for the Preservation of Rare Furniture. He gains entry to their houses in the guise of cataloguing their old furniture; if he sees something he can re-sell, he offers to buy it. In order to buy th... ---
**Author:** ![CalMeacham](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/calmeacham/32/35_2.png) [@CalMeacham](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CalMeacham)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/77 "2017-07-26T18:23:13Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > If that’s the one I’m thinking of, it was nonfiction. As was his first published work, a hilarious first-person account of him getting shot down in flames and burning nearly to death in WWII. That’s not it – the story is a murder mystery, told from the POV of the very clever criminal. It was adapted as an episode of _Roald Dahl’s Tales of the Unexpected_. At any rate, I _hope_ it’s not nonfiction! > **[Lamb to the Slaughter](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb_to_the_Slaughter)** > > "Lamb to the Slaughter" is a 1953 short story by Roald Dahl. It was initially rejected, along with four other stories, by The New Yorker, but was published in Harper's Magazine in September 1953. It was adapted for an episode of Alfred Hitchcock Presents (AHP) that starred Barbara Bel Geddes and Harold J. Stone. Originally broadcast on April 13, 1958, this was one of only 17 AHP episodes directed by Hitchcock. The episode was ranked #59 of the Top 100 Episodes by TV Guide in 2009. The stor "Lamb... ---
**Author:** ![terentii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/terentii/32/212_2.png) [@terentii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/terentii)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/78 "2017-07-26T19:36:55Z")
Has no one mentioned John D MacDonald? My favorite one of his so far is _ **The Homesick Buick** _. There’s another one I think was written by Roald Dahl, where a husband and wife bump each other off around the breakfast (or maybe dinner?) table; she offs him by putting something to which he’s deathly allergic (wool?) into one of his cigars with a knitting needle. I can’t remember the name of this one. Sound familiar? ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/79 "2017-07-26T19:47:25Z")
No, no, not “A Lamb to the Slaughter”; I meant the one about the antiques dealer. IIRC, the find was a great deal of Roman-era silver, and the copy I had included photographs of the actual items. ---
**Author:** ![Maserschmidt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/maserschmidt/32/18829_2.png) [@Maserschmidt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Maserschmidt)\ **Post date:** [July 26, 2017, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970/80 "2017-07-26T21:19:01Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > No, no, not “A Lamb to the Slaughter”; I meant the one about the antiques dealer. IIRC, the find was a great deal of Roman-era silver, and the copy I had included photographs of the actual items. Funny, I remember a Dahl story about an antiques dealer, but it features a Hepplewhite commode. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/favorite-short-story/791970.md?page=5)