Yes, Alice Munro is wonderful - I'd forgotten about her. Thanks, Sammy.

Emma

I've not read anything else by Sedaris, oddly, as I really enjoyed DYFICAD. Will check out Barrel Fever. Am reading Scoop at the moment. It's my first Waugh and it's so good I'm already trying to ration the pages.

Your welcome, Emma. I can't work out how Munro manages to give her characters' lives coherent and fully-realised beginnings, middles and ends all in the space of around 15 pages. I guess that's the genius of her.

<Added>

You're welcome...

Waugh is hilarious. I laughed all the way through Black Mischief. So many hilarious and yet bleak lines. Actually I'd love for you to read Black Mischief and to hear what you think, as it is somewhat frowned upon these days for being somewhat non-PC in its depiction of African life. But I disagree completely - I think that Waugh satirises the English far more, and that a lot of the African characters are written sympathetically. And it has the most stunning twist ending.

Okay. So Scoop, Barrel Fever and then Black Mischief. I'm only reading comic novels at the moment. Am picking up loads.

I'd go along with a lot of the other classic suggestions and a few more contemporary writers:


Carol Shields
Alice Munro
Raymond Carver
Richard Ford
Lorrie Moore
Michel Faber
Ali Smith
Sarah Salway
Tessa Hadley
Julie Orringer
Nell Freudenberger
Hemingway - Hills Like White Elephants


Short story anthologies are worth looking at too, especially American ones. Not sure if some of the above are literary enough, but they are writers whose stories, or at least some of their stories, I have enjoyed!

Carson McCullers - Ballad of the Sad Cafe

I'm a fan of Helen Simpson's short stories too.

Maria
www.mariamccarthy.co.uk

Oh yes, Helen Simpson is fabulous! Forgot about her.

And Jackie Kay, of course!

Frances

Yes, I've just remembered Jackie Kay too. I heard her read, and wanted to buy some and get it signed, and the bookstall had run out! I was pissed off, but she was more so. She is a terrific reader too - certainly merits a detour, as the Michelin Guides would say.

Emma

Murakami is superb as well.

So is American writer Tobias Wolff. If you like Carver, you'll probably enjoy his work. "The Night in Question" is a fabulous collection.

Just been reading Stephan Zweig's novellas. Bit longer than shorts but great for Checkhov fans. Zweig writes about obsession better than anyone I know.

Edgar Allen Poe's good too for thrills, like "Masque of the Red Death", and Maupassant is maybe the best of all.

William Boyd is a wonderful short story writer - better than his novels, to my taste. Try "Cork."

And Bernhard Schlink. Forget the name of the collection - has "love' in the title. Story about man whose wife was unfaithful is absolutely brilliant - not your average infidelity fodder.

DH Lawrence - better than his novels (only my opinion!)
James Joyce's "The Dubliners"

Making me want to reread the lot.

Murakami's one of those authors I not only haven't read, but don't even know what kind of thing it is. This should clearly be rememdied. I realised last night that I'd forgotten Carver, who I do love. Can't be doing with Lawrence's stories, I'm afraid - I really, really can't cope with his attitude to women: a Freudian casebook if ever there was! <ducks and puts on bullet-proof vest>

I'm not good at setting myself tasks or targets - it brings out my inner homework-avoider - but I've decided I'm going to try to read one a night, picked from a different author each time. I find I don't get the best out of each story if I read straight through a collection by that author.

In fact, I'm tidying my study at last, having got the new novel off my desk, and I'm wondering whether to hive off the short fiction into a separate section, away from the novels...

Emma

Try anthologies - I have an Irish one which is marvellous & the Oxford one of Scottish short stories - it introduces you to authors - ones you may not have come across.
Hemingway shorts are magnificent - even though the bull fighting ones are a bit gory - The Hills Of Kilimanjaro[?sp] A masterpiece 'Cat In The Rain' one of the most finely crafted short stories around.

I must revisit Jack London - I haven't read him for a few decades - I'll get some of his.

Read Murakami!! He's the best!! Try "South of the Border, West of the Sun" or "The Wind-up Bird Chronicle" - outstanding stuff imo!

)

A
xxx

Hi Emma
Murakami's hard to define. Very plain conversational prose - a little like Carver in that respect, sort of surreal normality or nightmarish hyperrealism. Sorry - not good at pinning him down. Barns is the most chilling thing I've ever read, and Sleep is outstanding (both are shorts from Wind Up Bird) He's one of those apparently effortless writers who makes it look so easy until you have a go and see how finely tuned his balance is between the mundane and the absurd.
If all that puts you off - ignore it and just try him - he's brilliant.

Hi Emma,
Short stories that I love are by Will Self (bizarre but brilliant), Truman Capote, and Kafka.

Michelle