Welcome to create on WEBNOVEL

WEBNOVEL's writing platform-INKSTONE can realize your creative dream and connect you with readers all over the world with words. You can also visit https://inkstone.webnovel.com Create on the PC.

Diving into a short story is a transformative experience, and it can make you feel like you're floating or like you've been punched in the gut by Mike Tyson. Within a few pages, a story can put words to a feeling you've never been able to express. It renders epiphany and leaves you thinking, much like a great book (only shorter). Quench your thirst for impeccable writing by reading the best short stories of all time.

Related Guides

10 Great Books You Can Read in One Sitting

The Best Long Books for a Good Read

20 Classic Books Everyone Should Read

Now, too, when we're stuck inside, more people than ever are looking for that sort of escape, if even for a little while. The ability to transport someone out of the current moment is a hallmark of a good story (no matter the length). The thing about short stories, though, is that every word matters. Like drops of blood (as per the great short story writer Denis Johnson), you only have a certain amount of words in a story, and all must advance the reader.

Among our list, you won't find a single one alike. Some are timeless pieces assigned in college lit classes, others are contemporary sci-fi by famous writers, but each piece is marked with oddity and revelation. Start reading them now.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman



Revered as one of the best short stories ever written, "The Yellow Wallpaper" imprints on the reader's mind and refuses to leave. Published in 1892, the story archives a young woman's decline into madness as she is confined to the bedroom of a vacation home. By describing the décor of the room, particularly the yellow wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman shows the mental distress of the woman. The piece is a commentary on the role of women in an oppressive patriarchy, and the story is brilliantly eerie.

READ

$9 FROM AMAZON

Cathedral By Raymond Carver



Raymond Carver is the king of short stories. He helped revitalize the genre in the '80s and is known for razor-sharp minimalism. No fluff. "Cathedral" might be his most famed short, narrated by a man who is visited by his wife's old blind friend. The narrator is jealous of this blind man and his closeness with his wife. They eventually bond over the image of a cathedral in a final scene that leaves the reader short of breath and in rapture.

READ

$13 FROM AMAZON

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien



The semi-autobiographical short story, "The Things They Carried," recounts the belongings of each soldier in a platoon in the Vietnam War. These are more than physical items; Tim O'Brien stretches the concept of weight and what we carry with us to span memories, love, and pain. In the story, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross carries reminders of a woman he loved but who did not love him back. When a member of his squad dies, he must decide what he can and cannot "carry." It's intense, heart-tugging, and real.

READ

$10 FROM AMAZON

$23 FROM WALMART

The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe



There is no short story round-up without Poe. While many praise "The Tell-Tale Heart," our favorite macabre short by the OG horror writer is about a man being buried alive by his friend. "The Cask of Amontillado" will teach you to never insult your friend or follow them down to a wine cellar. Released in 1846, this short story isn't a detective read like many of Poe's other stories, but a confessional. The reader is still tasked with figuring out the motive behind the mad killing.

READ

$7 FROM AMAZON

Passion by Alice Munro



A Nobel Prize Winner in Literature, Munro will take you to places you didn't know existed, yet that feel familiar. In "Passion," a woman visits the home of her boyfriend's parents, unsure of the strength of her feelings for him. She cuts herself and is taken to the hospital by his drunken brother. A deep, unexplainable connection forms, then a tragedy strikes. The story is tense yet overflowing and spotlights the unruly nature of passion and attraction.

READ

A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez



Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a Colombian writer famous for penning One Hundred Years of Solitude. This story is about, well, an old man with giant angel wings who has turned up in a family's backyard. However, the old man is unable to fly. The family members, town, and visitors weigh in on how the old man with wings should be dealt with. Is he an angel? Should he be their leader? The piece is a stunning dissection of the human condition through the lens of magical realism. Plus, the writing is impeccable.

READ

$969 FROM AMAZON

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson



I'm fairly certain everyone read this in school, and if you didn't, go read it now. Published in The New Yorker in 1948, the story is about townspeople performing a lottery to decide which member will be stoned to death for sacrifice. Ripe with literary irony and deeper messages like the dangers of blind traditions, Shirley Jackson is immortalized with this story. It boasts a great build-up to a great twist.

READ

$11 FROM AMAZON

Speech Sounds by Octavia Butler



The sci-fi short published in 1983 "Speech Sounds" begins with humankind fraught with a mysterious pandemic that limits communication. Therefore, the entire piece is formed by gestures and symbols, and it's brilliant. The story earned Octavia Butler a Hugo Award for Best Short Story.

READ

Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne



While we're on the topic of the most famous short stories ever written, "Young Goodman Brown" sits with the high rollers. Set in 17th-century Puritan New England, Goodman Brown goes to run errands in the woods at night and stumbles upon a terrifying ceremony where he sees himself and his wife undergoing an initiation. He wakes, unsure if the scene was a dream and lives the rest of his life paranoid of people and the community. It's a broad allegory about seeing the evils of human nature and a piece loved by authors like Stephen King and, well, everyone.

READ

$4 FROM AMAZON

$5 FROM WALMART

Symbols and Signs by Vladimir Nabokov



The author of Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov wrote the subtly mind-bending short story "Symbols and Signs" in 1948 about an old couple who try to visit their son in a sanatorium. The son suffers from referential mania (a term invented by Nabokov) and tried to commit suicide so the couple returns home. They receive a series of phone calls leaving the state of the son uncertain. Simply describing the events of the story doesn't translate the power of this short, which leads the reader down a cryptic assessment of signs and symbols to mimic the mania of its character. Basically, it's like watching Inception, only better.

READ

Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin



This essential short story is vicious, violent, and deeply necessary to read. It opens with a white sheriff in the South trying to be intimate with his wife. When he can't, he remembers being a little boy and going out with his parents to a community spectacle, which turned out to be a brutal lynching — a scene that is arguably the most heart-wrenching in literary history. The story echoes themes of historical racism and repression, sex, violence, and power.

READ

$29 FROM AMAZON

Music for Chameleons by Truman Capote



The short story — in fact, the entire non-fiction/fiction collection "Music for Chameleons" of which it is a part — is one of Truman Capote's greatest works; however, the anthology is often overlooked by his other masterpieces, In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany's. In this single instance, we're going to recommend the full book of short stories, which work together like an arcing evolution of Capote's prose and demonstrate his unique eye for dandy and strange human behavior. Included is a short piece about Marilyn Monroe (they were good friends) and Handcarved Coffins, the account of a serial killer in a small town.

READ

$13 FROM AMAZON

Editors' Recommendations

The 9 Best Men's Hair Styling Products for Every Hair Type

The Best Shampoos for Men to Keep Your Mane Moisturized and Clean

The Best Face Washes for Men To Unclog and Cleanse Your Mug

The Best Beard Products for Men in 2021

The 7 Best Men's Deodorants So You can Stay Fresh Anytime, Anywhere

The 9 Best Men's Hair Styling Products for Every Hair Type



The Best Shampoos for Men to