Challenge: 50 Books discussion

I like to read these on the train because there are more good stopping places and there's less to remember between readings. What short story collections have you read or intend to read?

Mine are:
Cosmicomics
Descent of Man Stories
The Arabian Nights
The Torturer's Apprentice Stories

I've read two books by David Sedaris that are broken up into short stories/chunks.
Holidays on Ice
When You are Engulfed in Flames

Also, Kurt Vonnegut's Welcome to the Monkey House may work for you too.

Lastly, Chuck Klosterman breaks his books into shorts. Try Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs A Low Culture Manifesto

purely by chance i've read more short story collections this year than, well, probably a lifetime... at least a lifetime i can remember. collections i've enjoyed are...

• Fire Ants by gerald duff
• Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman by haruki murakami
• Dark Water by koji suzuki
• Five by Endo by shusaku endo
• Hauntings Bangla Ghost Stories by samanta suchitra
• Fever by jean-marie gustave le clézio
• The Tenant by roland topor
• The Nimrod Flipout Stories by keret etgar
• Stories of Anton Chekhov by anton chekhov

and my favorite by far is a series of essays...

• Seven Nights by jorge luis borges

and i'm currently reading...

• The Haunted Dolls' House by m.r. james

I am currently reading M Is for Magic written by Neil Gaiman. In this book there are lots of short stories and I can only recommend to read it. I have not read very much, but I really like it so far.

The Snows of Kilimanjaro is a great book of short stories by Ernest Hemingway. My favorite story is "A Clean Well Lit Place"

oooh...also, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button is in a collection of short stories by F. Scott Fitzgerald called Tales of the Jazz Age. But...honestly...I didn't read the whole thing...only the Curious Case of Benjamin Button.

Hm, how about the works of Lovecraft? A lot of people are rather anti-Lovecraftian, but I think he's great at setting up a sense of horror!

Also Oxfam are doing some little books at the moment too called Ox-Tales, collections of original stories contributed for free from renound authors for charity. I've read the 'Air' collection and the stories are a bit hit and miss, but most of them were pretty good. The only offputting thing is the books are a bit expensive for my tastes for what they are, but as all the profit goes directly to charity rather than royalties, I treat it as a donation and then the book itself is rather cheap!

I enjoyed Neil Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors.

I really enjoyed Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan. It is possibly the best collection of shortish stories I have read in a while. I noticed a couple of days ago that Oprah has now selected it for her book club so it must be available in paperback by now. I am also planning to read The Thing Around Your Neckby Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie next.

I've read: Holidays on Ice by David Sedaris, The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death by Laurie Nataro(sp?), Say You're One of Them by Uwem Akpan; a collection of Ernest Hemingway's short stories (can't remember title of book); and Fine Just the Way It Is by Annie Proulx.

I am going to read: Just After Sunset by Stephen King and I think I'd like to read Ford County by John Grisham and also The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. I also have Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri which I think is a collection of short stories as well.

Nine Stories by J. D. Salinger
Me Talk Pretty One Day by David Sedaris
The Idiot Girls' Action-Adventure Club by Laurie Notaro

I've read several books by each of these authors and these are some of my favorites.

Mollie, you've hooked me into queuing up Cosmicomics. That looks wonderful!

Some of my favorite collections:

Sum Forty Tales from the Afterlives by David M. Eagleman

Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang

The Stories of John Cheever by John Cheever

Looking for Jake Stories by China Miéville

Last Summer at Mars Hill by Elizabeth Hand

Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link

The Illustrated Man by Ray Bradbury

The Lottery And Other Stories by Shirley Jackson

Also: any of the collections of short stories by
Sherman Alexie

I also just finished and enjoyed The Elephant Vanishes Stories by Haruki Murakami.

I love the following
Complete Stories and Poems of Edgar Allan Poe
The October Country by Ray Bradbury
Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love Stories by Raymond Carver
Dubliners by James Joyce
Tales of the Unexpected by Roald Dahl
Todos Los Fuegos El Fuego by Julio Cortazar; Gregory Rabassa (translator)
The Cubs And Other Stories by Mario Vargas Llosa
In the penal settlement tales and short prose works by Franz Kafka

Lisi wrote: "I am currently reading M Is for Magic written by Neil Gaiman. In this book there are lots of short stories and I can only recommend to read it. I have not read very mu..."

The only book of short stories that I recall reading this year (it's becoming more difficult to recall the individual books) was Fragile Things Short Fictions and Wonders by Neil Gaiman, and what a treat that was. Normally I avoid short stories but I am very glad a friend loaned this book to me.

Oops! Also read and loaned to me by the same friend The Horror Stories of Robert E. Howard...also a really good read if you like old pulp fiction!

I've just finished Out of Bounds. Stories of Conflict and Hope. by Beverley Naidoo. It's a book of short stories about South Africa beginning in 1945 and finishing in 2000. Very good read.