The Best Short Stories of All Time

A librarian looks to patrons for sex on the day her father dies. NSFW!

Two women discuss what to do if there is a shooter in their synagogue. (Content warning for, well, that)

What happens in the seconds leading up to Lizzie Borden’s parents’ infamous murder? Carter sets the scene.

Perhaps “Story of Your Life” is a more obvious choice, but this story uses mathematics in such a clever way that it captures the imagination of any reader.

A woman is told of her husband’s death, and everyone fears she will become ill — but what if it isn’t actually bad news?

What’s it like to be a year older? Is eleven different than ten?

George Washington’s teeth weren’t made of wood; they were stolen from enslaved people. Clark tells their stories.

Sherlock Holmes attempts to recover a photograph from Irene Adler (or “the woman”) for a client.

A young girl saves a Nutcracker from the Mouse King, and is told the story of Princess Pirlipat by her Uncle Drosselmeyer. Tchaikovsky’s ballet is based on the Dumas version, so it is my choice here — but a comparison read of Hoffmann and Dumas is a delight.

A conversation between a customer and the operator of a simulation and a potential customer. The simulation has rules.

A postpartum woman’s physician husband makes her stay alone in a room that haunts her, but she knows she is ill, not hysterical.

While the sheriff looks for evidence of murder in a mysterious death, his wife and a neighbor woman find it by looking at things the men deem unimportant. Based on the author’s play, Trifles.

Some people come to the library looking for an escape; some librarians know just the books to push them toward. This story won the Hugo and the Nebula.

Every list includes her slightly more famous story “The Lottery,” but have you read this one? A New York City couple decides to stay in their Vermont summer home for a few extra weeks, but the locals don’t like that.

Gabriel attends a family party and frets about a speech he is to give.

A mother instructs her daughter on life in a single, 650-word sentence.

A girl takes a live-in babysitting job and observes the lives of the adults in the house while over-identifying with the heroine of Jane Eyre.

The locals at a Hawai’ian resort observe the tourists while they go out to celebrate.

Omelas is a utopia where everyone is happy and fulfilled, except one child who is kept miserable. (CW: ableist language)

A man reflects on his childhood and the way his mother brought paper animals to life. This story won the Hugo, Nebula, and World Fantasy Award. It is also available as read by LeVar Burton.

A man traps his family in a house that is falling apart, full of opium smoke, and has a hungry viper hidden beneath the floorboards.

Andrew’s sister has died by accident just before her wedding, and his memories of her are interspersed with his thoughts about his job.

A woman in an unhappy marriage takes solace in her guitar, and makes a strange new friend through her music.

You work at the Experience, giving Tourists their choice — mostly they want the Vision Quest. But one of them wants more. Also available as read by LeVar Burton!

Two girls attend a party in a remote ski lodge where they discover that they are the only living guests.

A fisherman with insomnia meets a mermaid and loses interest in his life on the shore.

A man reminisces about the time when he was about to deploy in World War II and met a young lady who corresponded with him.

A man claims to be a werewolf to get his date to come home with him, and is surprised when she readily agrees.

A woman and her daughters run a 24 hour donut shop. A customer comes in every night, buys an apple fritter, and sits for an hour without eating it.

The children’s parents have taken away their books, but there’s one book still hidden, and they plan to use it.

A woman from the Pine Barrens reluctantly agrees to bring an old college friend she’d lost touch with into the Barrens to research the Jersey Devil. (CW: extremely dated man-writing-woman nonsense, but not overwhelmingly so, in my opinion)

The magician is shot to death every night, and every night he comes back to life, until one night he doesn’t.

The narrator’s job is to feel other people’s pain, but someday he hopes to buy himself a better life.

This is the only story I’ve included that really doesn’t stand alone well. Every time Croyd Crenson goes to sleep, he hibernates and wakes up in a new form, with new abilities.