Professional Documents
Culture Documents
The New Yorker Narrative Magazine: Tor Gutenberg
The New Yorker Narrative Magazine: Tor Gutenberg
The New Yorker Narrative Magazine: Tor Gutenberg
best, but require a subscription if you read too many in a month. I also
like Narrative Magazine, which will ask you for an email, but their
stories are free too. Tor of course has some great free stuff, and you can
find most of the classics through Gutenberg. The stories on this list that
are not from any of these publications, I found through simple Google
searches. If I’m interested in an author, but don’t necessarily want to
read a whole book, I look to see if they have any short fiction available
that I can read first.
From this list, my favorites are Zadie Smith and Italo Calvino’s stories.
I’d never read Zadie Smith, but after loving “The Embassy of Cambodia”
I started On Beauty (a 500 page book) and I absolutely love it. Both
stories satisfied a reading itch I needed scratched.
Here are a few of my favorite free short stories you can read online right
now.
“Perhaps my old age and fearfulness deceive me, but I suspect that the
human species—the unique species—is about to be extinguished, but the
Library will endure: illuminated, solitary, infinite, perfectly motionless,
equipped with precious volumes, useless, incorruptible, secret.”
The first four sentences of this short story sent chills down my spine. A
superbly told story of the extremes of girlhood and adolescence; the
pressures girls face as they get older.
“ON SEEING THE 100% PERFECT GIRL ONE BEAUTIFUL APRIL MORNING” BY
HARUKI MURAKAMI (GENIUS)
Love at first sight, if you believe love is predestined rather than a choice.
Fated love, to me, no matter how hard my heart becomes, still seems
ridiculously romantic. I haven’t read Murakami in a long time but now
I’m itching to pick up one of his books (I really want to read 1Q84, but
it’s soooo long!).
“CHECHNYA” BY ANTHONY MARRA (NARRATIVE MAGAZINE)
This was Anthony Marra’s first published short story, and works as an
outline for his novel A Constellation of Vital Phenomenon. It’s the kind
of story you read while holding your breath.
“THE FRUIT OF MY WOMAN” BY HAN KANG (GRANTA)
This story was written in 1997 before the publication of The Vegetarian.
The two stories share many of the same themes, and it’s evident that this
story served as a blueprint for the later book. In “The Fruit of My
Woman” the wife is slowly turning into a tree (something that also comes
up in The Vegetarian). The allusions to Daphne turning herself into a
laurel tree to escape the advances of Apollo are hard to miss, but there’s
no clear indication that Daphne was an actual influence on either story.
Han Kang can do no wrong in my eyes.
“A LADY’S MAID” BY SARAH GAILEY (BARNES & NOBLE)
I love Sarah Gailey. This is a great introduction if you’re unfamiliar with
her work. It’s Victorian London with androids—so much to love!
“A BRUISE THE SIZE AND SHAPE OF A DOOR HANDLE” BY DAISY JOHNSON
(AMERICAN SHORT FICTION)
A hot and bothered story about a house falling in love with the girl who
lives in the attic. I loved everything about this story. This is included in
Johnson’s short story collection, Fen, and I can’t wait to get my hands on
it. Also, the writing style reminded me of Samantha Hunt.
“HOLLOW” BY BREECE D’J PANCAKE (THE ATLANTIC)
Breece D’J Pancake died when he was 26. He was from West Virginia,
and I would label his writing “grit-lit”. This story was almost too gritty
for me. He’s the kind of writer that other writers love. His short story
collection has a blurb from Joyce Carol Oates.
Want more short stories? Check out our post on the 100 best
short story collections!
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If you like bookish tips and tidbits, you might want to consider following
British author Joanne Harris on Twitter. She’s known for being the
author of Chocolat and has a new book forthcoming called The
Strawberry Thief. Joanne regularly does threads she calls “Ten Things”,
which are sometimes advice and how-tos, and sometimes facts.
A recent thread was all about how to support an author, which, as
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for.
And that’s not the only useful useful advice she’s had for interacting with
writers, either.
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