What are some of your favorite short stories?

"Come Lady Death" by Peter S. Beagle
"More Light" by James Blish
"The Electric Grandmother" and "Homecoming" by Ray Bradbury (though really, everything of his I remember was great...)
"Lest Levitation Come Upon Us" by Suzette Hayden Elgin
"1408" by Stephen King
"The Events at Poroth Farm" by T.E.D. Klein
"The Call of Chthulhu" by H.P. Lovecraft
"Black God's Kiss" by C.L. Moore
"Ligeia" and "The Fall of the House of Usher" by Edgar Allan Poe

Huh. I guess I don't tend to read short stories. Plays seem to occupy that space for me.

Best short stories: ANYTHING by Alice Munro. Seriously. Although the whole collection Lives of Girls and Women & her later stories "The Bear Went Over the Mountain" & "The Albanian Virgin" are my personal favourites. She can write a novel in 10,000 words.

Mavis Gallant's "My Heart is Broken" & all of her Paris stories, esp. the collection From the Fifteenth District.

::waves & disappears in a puff of smoke::

ugh. Isaac has such trouble falling asleep these days. Poor kid. But it Wipes. Me. Out. I'll be glad when he outgrows this phase.

I did not get The Fall of the House of Usher. Made me think there'd been a shift in definition of short story between then and now. There's gotta be, in my estimation, something that makes a story a story, above and beyond a sequence of events. That story was a whole lot of "and then..." for me.

I'm trying to choose a family doctor. There is a practice that is affiliated with a Catholic hospital in town that looks like it has drop in child care for patients (I SO NEED THIS).

I've never been treated at a religiously affiliated facility before. I'm wondering if there would be any ethical issues that might come up that would cause problems. (e.g. birth control prescriptions, etc.) Or should I look for a OB-gyn services outside of this practice and find a GP in this office?

I think various states have regulations in that regard, Cash.

(gee, that was a non-helpful answer)

Heh. I should probably just call and talk to someone at the clinic and see what's up.

I'm looking at their staff pictures and wondering how the hell am I supposed to pick a doctor based on looks. Or just their limited profile information.

I'm wondering if there would be any ethical issues that might come up that would cause problems. (e.g. birth control prescriptions, etc.)

I'd call and ask.

Ahhh, so many good short stories already mentioned.

Jilli, did you get that very nice hardcover illustrated (pen and ink) edition of "Homecoming" that came out a couple years ago?

Speaking of goth short story classics (it might be the optimal goth literary expression): "A Rose for Emily" by Faulkner, "The Monkey's Paw"...

My favorite short story writer is Flannery O'Connor. While I do love "Good Country People," "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is the one that I will always love best.

My second favorite short story writer is I.B. Singer. He had a big influence on me. "Gimpel the Fool" is rightly his breakthrough masterpiece, but the most moving to me is "Taibele and her Demon." (Surprisingly similar to Joyce's "The Dead" now that I think of it.)

F. Scott Fitzgerald said that he was wiser in his writing than he was in his life and I felt that keenly in his very sad and rueful story "Babylon Revisited."

It's cool to see so many Harlan Ellison stories mentioned. I think he might go down as Bradbury's heir in a weird way. (They're both huge Oz fans.) My favorite of his, and the most chilling adult horror story I know is "All the Birds Come Home To Roost." The only story it reminds me of is another Bradbury masterpiece, "The Playground." (So freaking horrible! Ahhhh!)

I'm also a huge fan of Borges' puzzle pieces from Labyrinths, particularly "Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius," "Pierre Menard, The Real Author of the Quixote," "The Library of Babel."

Also love Hawthorne and Melville as short story writers.

Since Nutty tipped to South America I'll also mention my affection for Gabriel Garcia Marquez's "The Sea of Lost Time."