Must read short stories 2023

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Washington Irving, “Rip Van Winkle” (1819) and “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” (1820)

Edgar Allan Poe, “The Tell-Tale Heart” (1843)

Herman Melville, “Bartleby, the Scrivener” (1853)

Ambrose Bierce, “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge” (1890)

Charlotte Perkins Gilman, “The Yellow Wallpaper” (1892)

Henry James, “The Turn of the Screw” (1898)

Anton Chekhov, “The Lady with the Toy Dog” (1899)

W. W. Jacobs, “The Monkey’s Paw” (1902)

O. Henry, “The Gift of the Magi” (1905)

James Joyce, “The Dead” (1914)

Franz Kafka, “The Metamorphosis” (1915)

Richard Connell, “The Most Dangerous Game” aka “The Hounds of Zaroff” (1924)

Ernest Hemingway, “The Killers” (1927)

Zora Neale Hurston, “The Gilded Six-Bits” (1933) 

Shirley Jackson, “The Lottery” (1948)

J. D. Salinger, “A Perfect Day for Bananafish” (1948)

Ray Bradbury, “There Will Come Soft Rains” (1950)

Daphne du Maurier, “The Birds” (1952)

Flannery O’Connor, “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” (1953)

Elmore Leonard, “Three-Ten to Yuma” (1953)

Philip K. Dick, “The Minority Report” (1956)

James Baldwin, “Sonny’s Blues” (1957)

Alan Sillitoe, “The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner” (1959)

John Cheever, “The Swimmer” (1964)

Joyce Carol Oates, “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been?” (1966)

Toni Cade Bambara, “The Lesson” (1972)

Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas” (1973)

Donald Barthelme, “The School” (1974)

Jamaica Kincaid, “Girl” (1978)

Stephen King, “The Body” (1982)

Amy Hempel, “In the Cemetery Where Al Jolson is Buried” (1983)
Want to feel bad about your writing? This was the first short story Amy Hempel ever wrote.

Lorrie Moore, “How to Be an Other Woman” (1985)

Mary Gaitskill, “Secretary” (1988)

Amy Tan, “Rules of the Game” (1989)

Tim O’Brien, “The Things They Carried” (1990)

Denis Johnson, “Emergency” (1992)

Jhumpa Lahiri, “A Temporary Matter” (1998)

Ted Chiang, “Story of Your Life” (1998)

Alice Munro, “The Bear Came Over the Mountain” (2001)

Kristen Roupenian, “Cat Person” (2017)

Eudora Welty, “Why I Live at the P.O.” (1941)
Clarice Lispector, “The Imitation of the Rose” (1960)
Leslie Marmon Silko, “The Man to Send Rain Clouds” (1969)
Ralph Ellison, “Cadillac Flambé” (1973)
Octavia Butler, “Bloodchild” (1984)
Bharati Mukherjee, “The Management of Grief” (1988)
John Edgar Wideman, “Fever” (1990)
Sandra Cisneros, “Woman Hollering Creek” (1991)
Christine Schutt, “To Have and to Hold” (1996)
ZZ Packer, “Brownies” (2003)
Edward P. Jones, “Marie” (2004)
Karen Russell, “Haunting Olivia” (2005)
Kelly Link, “Stone Animals” (2005)
Edwidge Danticat, “Ghosts” (2008)
Yiyun Li, “A Man Like Him” (2008)
Claire Vaye Watkins, “Ghosts, Cowboys” (2009)
Ottessa Moshfegh, “Bettering Myself” (2013)
Amelia Gray, “House Heart” (2013)
Zadie Smith, “Meet the President!” (2013)
Carmen Maria Machado, “The Husband Stitch” (2014)
Diane Cook, “The Way the End of Days Should Be” (2014)
Kirstin Valdez Quade, “Five Wounds” (2015)
NoViolet Bulawayo, “Shhhh” (2015)
Mariana Enriquez, “Spiderweb” (2016)
Ken Liu, “State Change” (2016)
Helen Oyeyemi, “Sorry Doesn’t Sweeten Her Tea” (2016)
Lesley Nneka Arimah, “What Is a Volcano?” (2017)
James McBride, “The Christmas Dance” (2017)
Viet Thanh Nguyen, “War Years” (2017)
Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah, “Friday Black” (2018).