Comments on: Odd tales

Question: Odd tales

Rinku — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:21:43 -0800

I'd like recommendations for short stories that are strange, humorous, or have a surprising twist.

I'm in an english class where we're reading long, kind of dull, "straight" novels, one after the other. I'm enjoying the class but I need some antidotes - stories that are off the wall, exotic, mysterious, or... something like that. They need to be short enough that I can read them in one sitting.

My favorite short story ever, which definitely qualifies, is Borges' The Secret Miracle. Donald Barthelme's short stories, which I've been reading recently (and enjoying very much), would also count. Recommendations for genre short stories - fantasy, science fiction, horror, whatever - would be very much appreciated as well.

Recommendations for specific short stories, rather than collections or authors, would be appreciated - but if everything an author's done is amazing, well... go for it.

By: jbickers

jbickers — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:23:40 -0800

You want every short story ever written by Roald Dahl. This was his stock in trade.

By: Chocolate Pickle

Chocolate Pickle — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:26:54 -0800

I think you want every short story ever written by James Thurber.

By: bewilderbeast

bewilderbeast — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:29:26 -0800

The Orphan's Tales: In the Night Garden by Catherynne M. Valente is a collection of nested fairytale-type short stories that are often strange and gruesome. (Its sequel is also fantastic.) If you want a quick fix, her story "A Buyer's Guide to Maps of Antarctica" is online for free.

By: phunniemee

phunniemee — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:33:21 -0800

2nding Roald Dahl.

By: radicarian

radicarian — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:40:28 -0800

An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge

The Lottery

Almost all of Poe's stories - Fall of the House of Usher, The Telltale Heart, etc.

The Martian Chronicles by Ray Bradbury - although the stories within are related, they are all short stories that can be read on their own, my favorite is Usher II

By: PhoBWanKenobi

PhoBWanKenobi — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:42:28 -0800

Check out Year's Best Fantasy and Horror anthology series--in it you'll find consistently strange, spooky, exciting short stories.

By: mateuslee

mateuslee — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:43:20 -0800

I'm a big fan of Borges, too. Check out "Chapter and verse", one of my favorites for the ending.

By: riane

riane — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:48:48 -0800

My favourite of Dahl's is Lamb to the Slaughter.

By: radicarian

radicarian — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:50:01 -0800

One more - Neil Gaiman's short stories are good ones that would qualify - of the ones I've read, Snow, Glass, Apples is my favorite

By: Bighappyfunhouse

Bighappyfunhouse — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 14:53:59 -0800

The amazing Fredric Brown

By: robverb

robverb — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:05:21 -0800

James Salter's "Last Night"

By: newfers

newfers — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:14:54 -0800

The first book I bought for my new Kindle is the following book of short stories, and New York Times picked it as one of its best of 2008 :

Steven Millhauser's Dangerous Laughter

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:37:07 -0800

Saki! (And Roald Dahl, too. They are similar: clever British writers with a delicious taste for the macabre.)

Saki stories are creepy and hilarious and twisty and short. Many will stay with you forever.

His classic, called Sredni Vashtar, is one of the most memorable short stories ever written. Here is the full text, if you don't mind reading online. The Open Window is another.

(These are MUCH better read from a musty hardcover wrapped in a blanket with some tea or a nice tumbler of whiskey.)

By: the latin mouse

the latin mouse — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:40:12 -0800

I came in here to push Dahl, Gaiman, Bradbury and Saki only to find I'd been beaten to the punch on three quarters on them.

So consider the first three Nthed and have some direct links to my favorite short stories by Saki.

By: CunningLinguist

CunningLinguist — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:42:19 -0800

Hah.

By: chowflap

chowflap — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:50:36 -0800

Anything by George Saunders. He's in the New Yorker a lot so some of his stories may be available online. But his collections are great. He's quirky, strange, dark, funny - just what you want.

By: You Should See the Other Guy

You Should See the Other Guy — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:57:00 -0800

If you like extremely short stories, check out Barry Yourgrau's work. The Sadness of Sex in particular. (Though the movie sucks so don't go by that.)

By: Thorzdad

Thorzdad — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 15:57:17 -0800

Salinger.

A Perfect Day for Bananafish was the first "WTF???" story of my youth.

By: tylerfulltilt

tylerfulltilt — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:25:22 -0800

I write pretty weird stuff. But you should also check out the works of...

The always fantastic O Henry.

Someone earlier linked An Occurence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce

Then there's the work of Robert E Howard, author of the Conan The Barbarian stories.

Last but not least, another pulp writer, Howard Philips Lovecraft

Those should do for a start. And look for any of the short story collections of Stephen King, with Everything's Eventual being a good place to begin

By: Griffinlb

Griffinlb — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:26:34 -0800

Haruki Murakami's short stories are short, easy to read, and definitely 'off the wall'.

English translations generally come in collections:

Blind Willow Sleeping Woman

The Elephant Vanishes

After the Quake

By: Gerard Sorme

Gerard Sorme — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:41:16 -0800

I have the complete collection of Guy de Maupassant and love nearly every story. He was a master. Many, maybe most, have a surprising twist.
Here's a favorite: The Necklace by Guy de Maupassant

By: ROTFL

ROTFL — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 16:49:18 -0800

Fancies and Goodnights by John Collier is exactly what you're looking for.

By: monju_bosatsu

monju_bosatsu — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:05:32 -0800

Philip K. Dick.

By: Tesseractive

Tesseractive — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:10:58 -0800

I love Borges, and coming across this guy Benjamin Rosenbaum's stuff (though meta, actually) tickled some of the same parts of my brain. His collection "The Ant King and Other Stories" is online for free through CC. I would particularly recommend the title story, and also "Biographical Notes to "A Discourse on the Nature of Causality, with Air-Planes," by Benjamin Rosenbaum".

Also, Kelly Link is really great too. "Magic for Beginners" (another creative commons link) is possibly my favorite short story collection of all time, even above Gaiman. Her stuff is very weird, funny, weird again, and tingly.

By: 5_13_23_42_69_666

5_13_23_42_69_666 — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:12:14 -0800

Naked by David Sedaris - each chapter is it's own little story, and so funny.

By: Tesseractive

Tesseractive — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:12:45 -0800

Ehh whoops missed the "specific story" part of the ask, as for Kelly Link, read "Stone Animals" and "Catskin", available at that link.

By: heatherann

heatherann — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:23:49 -0800

Sheila Heti's The Middle Stories. You can read the whole thing online. I would particularly recommend the second one, 'Mermaid in the Jar', for general absurdity. 'The Princess and the Plumber' is also really great.

By: geeky

geeky — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:33:10 -0800

Ray Bradbury's The Illustrated Man is one of the best collections of short stories I've ever read (and one of my favorite books ever). It's a story about a man who has tattoos that come to life and tell stories. Each tattoo is it's own short story, all very different.

By: Redhush

Redhush — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:37:54 -0800

https://www.jesuitcp.org/facultypages/rornelas/sandkings.pdf

sandkings, totally fantastic. If you can find the whole collection of George R.R. Martin short stories named after this story, even better

By: aquafortis

aquafortis — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:42:15 -0800

Patricia Highsmith: Nothing That Meets the Eye

By: escabeche

escabeche — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:46:19 -0800

Came in to recommend "A Shower of Gold" by Barthelme, the story that first made me realize there was such a thing as a short story of this kind. Presumably you've already read this one, but if not, go straight to it.

Some other contemporary books that are, in one way or another, a little like Barthelme: Miranda July's No One Belongs Here More Than You. Matthew Derby's Super Flat Times, which is somewhere between Barthelme, Ben Marcus, and SF. And Ben Marcus himself, of course, though he's far enough on the "experimental side" that you might want to read a bit of The Age of Wire and String in the store before you commit.

My very favorite book in this vein not actually by Barthelme, if you can find it, is George W.S. Trow's sadly out-of-print collection Bullies. I also have a soft spot for Diary of a Flying Man, by Randy Cohen, who sometime between the 1980s and now gave up being an experimental short-fiction writer and is now The Ethicist for the New York Times Magazine.

By: Alex Voyd

Alex Voyd — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 17:58:18 -0800

Michael Faber's Fish for the quirk.

Alice Munro because she's the best.

By: Wayman Tisdale

Wayman Tisdale — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 18:21:58 -0800

Short Story collections-- some strange, some humorous:
Jesus' Son- Denis Johnson
No One Belongs Here More Than You- Miranda July
Cosmicomics- Italo Calvino
Laughable Loves- Milian Kundera
Lost in the Funhouse- John Barth

Obvious/Traditional picks just in case you missed them:
Kafka
Edgar Allen Poe
In Our Time- Hemingway
Tales of the Jazz Age- Fitzgerald
What We Talk About When We Talk About Love- Carver
Where are you going where have you been
The lottery
Shooting an Elephant-Orwell

And I don't like sci-fi so much, but when I did I read Asimov and Phillip K. Dick.

By: dr. boludo

dr. boludo — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 19:01:33 -0800

Borges' countryman and contemporary, Enrique Anderson Imbert, is lighter on the philosophy and heavier on the oddball fantasy. His collection El Grimorio has been translated into English as The Other Side of the Mirror. Most of these stories are very short -- as in 2 paragraphs to 5 pages.

By: Beardman

Beardman — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 19:16:06 -0800

"In Persuasion Nation," by George Saunders

Since you asked for funny and strange.

By: storybored

storybored — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 19:47:16 -0800

Humorous short stories: P.G. Wodehouse - The Jeeves stories are great, clever and satisfyingly, excruciatingly happy!

By: Confess, Fletch

Confess, Fletch — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 19:50:55 -0800

Thang by Martin Gardner

By: Lipstick Thespian

Lipstick Thespian — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 19:54:18 -0800

Oh man, get your paws on another one of Italo Calvino's works, entitled Invisible Cities. A story on every page, and it's both absurdand fantastic. Not to mention lyrical, gorgeous and bittersweet.

This is my all-time favorite book outside of the Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster (which you should also read, although it's not short stories, but fits your bill in every other way).

By: illenion

illenion — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 19:58:28 -0800

Ray Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man," specifically I recommend "Marionettes, Inc." Short, interesting, and there's a twist! But really, the whole collection is pretty great.

From Kurt Vonnegut Jr's "Welcome to the Monkey House," try "Harrison Bergeron."

By: minkll

minkll — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 20:17:52 -0800

Cortazar was kind of Borges' heir:

Island at Noon
Southern Thruway
Blow Up/Devil's Spit
Apocalypse at Solintename

By: googly

googly — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 20:32:18 -0800

Adam Johnson, Emporium (especially "Teen Sniper").

George Saunders, Civilwarland in Bad Decline (especially the title story).

J.G. Ballard, just about anything (especially "The Terminal Beach").

Barry Hannah, Airships.

By: h00py

h00py — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 20:48:21 -0800

"The Same To You Doubled" (also known as Can you Feel Anything When I Do This?) is an exceptional collection of short stories by Robert Sheckley. Although I loved pretty much all of the short stories contained within, I'd have to say my favourite was 'The Petrified World'.

By: ambient2

ambient2 — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:11:59 -0800

T.C. Boyle gets a good way out there, with humor and twists are not uncommon.

By: pravit

pravit — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 21:14:05 -0800

Seconding O. Henry for short stories with a twist at the end.

By: PercussivePaul

PercussivePaul — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 23:34:08 -0800

Chekhov!

By: hurdy gurdy girl

hurdy gurdy girl — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 01:21:26 -0800

"Hairball," by Margaret Atwood. You can find it in her short story collection Wilderness Tips (which contains many other fine short stories too). Atwood is polarizing--people seem to either love her or hate her--but if you are looking for an odd, interesting short story, "Hairball" fits the bill. Definitely not for the squeamish.

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 03:29:20 -0800

M R James - Classic British ghost stories. 'The Casting Of The Runes' is probably his most famous one. I'm slowly making my way through one of his collections right now between novels.

Robert Bloch (of Psycho fame) wrote several really good twisty dark (and often dark humoured) short stories.

Also second Dahl and Stephen King (especially his early collections)

By: ninebelow

ninebelow — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 06:31:44 -0800

I would strongly recommend Kelly Link too and agree with Tesseractive that 'Stone Animals' is a good place to start.

Black Juice by Margo Lanagan is another excellent collection in a similar new wave fabulist vein to Link.

By: kirkaracha

kirkaracha — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 07:24:41 -0800

Robert Bloch's "Yours Truly, Jack the Ripper"

By: ludwig_van

ludwig_van — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 09:10:46 -0800

The Secret Miracle is probably my favorite short story as well. Have you read the rest of Borges' fictional output? Pick up his collected fictions if not. There are many more gems to be found. The Garden of Forking Paths, Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius, The Lottery in Babylon, The Wait, and Funes the Memorious are some of my favorites. The collection also includes his 1960s and later work, much of which inhabits a sort of lovely border area between short story and prose poem.

By: rtimmel

rtimmel — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 09:48:32 -0800

Your references to Barthelme and Borges makes me think you are looking for slipstream material. Feeling Very Strange is a nice collection of stories in the genre from multiple authors.

By: mattbucher

mattbucher — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:01:18 -0800

Check out Gary Lutz. He's frequently on the list of "best writers you've never heard of" --- especially if you are looking for something entirely out of the ordinary.

By: still_wears_a_hat

still_wears_a_hat — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 14:30:31 -0800

Anything, but particularly The Specialty of the House by Stanley Ellin.

Anything by Jack Ritchie. This book is a great collection.

By: hurdy gurdy girl

hurdy gurdy girl — Tue, 10 Mar 2009 00:43:35 -0800

"The Swimmer" by John Cheever.

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor.

By: Rinku

Rinku — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 19:12:59 -0800

Thanks so much for all the wonderful suggestions! I sense much reading bliss ahead of me.

By: aheckler

aheckler — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:37:21 -0800

Ray Bradbury's "The Veldt".