It’s easy to feel that you don’t have time to read literature, especially bulky works by classic novelists. Between busy jobs and hectic weekends, opening a long book that tackles humanity’s biggest questions doesn’t always seem like the most fun hobby.
Fortunately for us, many writers famous for their long sagas have also written short stories.
Here are some poignant story suggestions from the world’s finest writers, all of which you can read in the time it takes to browse your News Feed.
1. “A Haunted House” by Virginia Woolf
This very short story – just over 700 words – showcases Woolf’s signature Modernist style. Unlike Woolf’s other works, the story is a fantasy. In “A Haunted House”, a ghost couple searches for buried treasure in the home of a living couple. Mysterious in its subject matter and its writing style, the story takes on the power of love.
Read it for free here.
2. “Shooting at an Elephant” by George Orwell
This news from Orwell follows an English policeman in Burma who is called upon to kill an elephant. The tension of imperialism is represented through the anguish of the officer watching the majestic creature slowly suffer and die. It is also an excellent reading companion of Orwell’s novel. Burmese days.
Read it for free here.
3. “A Sound of Thunder” by Ray Bradbury
Ray Bradbury has written 11 novels and over 400 short stories. He was famous for writing a story every week, a practice that many other writers have since tried to emulate. “A Sound of Thunder” is the most republished science fiction story of all time and is the origin of the science fiction theme called “The Butterfly Effect”.
Read it for free here.
4. “The Nightingale and the Rose” by Oscar Wilde
“The Nightingale and the Rose” uses the form of a fairy tale to take a much more serious look at the themes of love and sacrifice. While the nightingale is an expected character in a fairy tale, ready to sacrifice himself for true love, the lovers in this story are quite surprising.
Read it for free here.
5. “The Stone Mattress” by Margaret Atwood
Best known for her novels, including classics like The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood is also a prolific short story writer. This story follows a serial seductress as she meets her former high school crush on vacation 50 years later – and begins planning her murder.
Read it for free here.
6. “A Perfect Day for Banana Fish” by JD Salinger
Salinger is considered one of the best American writers of the 20th century, but he actually wrote only one novel: The catcher in the rye. His other works were all short stories or short stories. This follows a comedic conversation of a woman on vacation with her husband, who has PTSD, talking on the phone with her worried mother.
Read it for free here.
7. “The snows of Kilimanjaro” by Ernest Hemingway
“The Snows of Kilimanjaro” follows a writer, Harry, on safari in Africa with his wife who dies of gangrene. A member of Hemingway’s “lost generation,” Harry reflects on how a luxurious and loveless marriage has ruined his life and his talent.
Read it for free here.
8. “A very old man with huge wings” by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
In Marquez’s magical realism style, “A Very Old Man with Huge Wings” is about a couple who find an angel in their garden. Soon everyone in town has a different opinion on what to do with the angel and why exactly he can’t fly.
Read it for free here.
9. “Three questions” by Leo Tolstoy
Tolstoy took a break from his famous long novels to write this short parable about a king finding out how he can learn to do the right thing at the right time. The answer comes to him in a very surprising way.
Read it for free here.
10. “The Famous Calaveras County Jumping Frog” by Mark Twain
This short story was Mark Twain’s first success as an author. A rather cynical narrator tells a story told to him by a bartender in a small town about a gamer and his famous jumping frog. The tale was written as part of a contest Twain organized with his friends to see who could create the most absurd but believable story.
Read it for free here.
11. “Eveline” by James Joyce
Although best known for Ulysses, one of the longest books in English, Joyce has also written many short stories about the Irish people. It follows a young woman who must choose between duty to her family and the potential for a better life abroad with her lover.
Read it for free here.
12. “Symbols and signs” by Vladimir Nabokov
Nabokov wrote this piece for The New Yorker in 1948, seven years before Lolita has been published. There he follows an elderly couple who visit their mentally ill son on his birthday. As everything starts to go wrong, the story explores the truly touching efforts of these loving parents.
Read it for free here.
13. “The Diamond as Big as the Ritz” by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Best known for his novel Gatsby the magnificent, Fitzgerald once again enters the world of the rich and glamorous in this short story. Fitzgerald’s critique of wealth remains scathing, this time exploring how far a family is willing to go to hide the secret of their wealth.
Read it for free here.
For more reading suggestions, see “14 brilliant pieces of literature you can read in the time it takes to eat lunch. ”
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