I made this list about 10 years ago. It still holds, but a newer list would include a few more contemporary writers, like the early stories of Willy Vlautin and maybe one of Sam Shepard’s. Maybe. Also Lucia Berlin, Denis Johnson and some I inadvertently missed, like Alice Munro.


Hills Like White Elephants -- Ernest Hemingway
A Train Ride Through Spain -- Truman Capote
Nairobi -- Carol Joyce Oates
The Dead -- James Joyce
The Birthday Party -- Gina Barriault
At the Bay -- Katherine Mansfield
Lady with the Little Dog -- Anton Chekhov
In the Ravine -- Anton Chekhov
The Villa on the Hill -- Cesar Pavese
To Esme, with Love and Squalor -- J.D. Salinger
The Sorrows of Gin -- John Cheever
Why I Live at the P.O. -- Eudora Welty
A Day in the Open -- Jane Bowles
Welding with Children -- Tim Gautreaux
Easy Pickings -- Tim Gautreaux

Each of these stories was included because I felt they taught me something and at the same time were highly entertaining. When I am accused of writing something without a proper plot, I find comfort in the Hemingway story. The Capote story is a great example of James Agee's advice to slow down. Capote offers a lyrical slowness of pace, and again no real plot.

Many of the stories listed were practical lessons for me in how to deal with a large cast of characters, all small versions of Virginia Woolf's To the Lighthouse, especially the dinner table scene.

The stories are not listed in a particular order. At one time the list was shorter, only a baker's dozen. Bowles and Gautreaux were added after a reread to confirm I still loved them. Gautreaux's two stories are set in southern Louisiana, funny as hell while grabbing you by the heart. Interesting that Gautreaux and Chekhov are the only two listed with more than one story. They really are alot alike.

I know Bowles' husband is much more popular, but here she narrates the story of a group of Mexico City whores on a picnic with a couple of their Johns. What's not to love about that?