Think this deserves its own thread.
Not sure why but I was always dismissive of short stories (with a few exceptions) but have now realised they’re probably my favourite format.
Post your favourites in here, stand alone or collections.
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Starting with one of my favourites reads ever.
The Swimmer by Cheever 
(You can read it all online below)
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I’ve been to Bracknell if that counts?
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“I enjoyed Pendulum.”
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They’re the best ain’t they? Think the economy of space, and then moving on to something different is just really effective even if they’re linked on a wider level.
It’s a bit THE CANON Labyrinths by Borges, and 60 stories by Barthelme are both cracking. Kafka and Joyce had some cracking small yarns.
Trout Fishing in America by Richard Brautigan for sure. Really loved A manual for cleaning women by Lucia Berlin too.
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Definitely need to read Brautigan. Couldnt decide which to go for recently but Trout Fishing seems to be the one
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Would say he’s probably my favourite writer on balance. For short stories Trout Fishing’s definitely the one, though structurally it’s a bit weirder than that.
As ever I stand to be corrected, but off the top of my head Jose Luis Borges and M.R. James, who are two of my bestest favourites, only ever wrote short stories and never put out a novel.
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Sombrero Fallout > Trout Fishing. I also like The Hawkline Monster, but that is more in short novel territory, really.
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It was the Enriquez books that convinced me about short stories, Dangers of Smoking in Bed blew me away. And i love that if you dont like one then its not something you need to slog through before you’re rewarded witu a new one.
Read Fen this week by Daisy Johnson. Loved the first one, the others were ok but I didnt quite get them all.
https://www.waterstones.com/book/fen/daisy-johnson/9781784702106
Have been plowing through the Shirley Jackson shorts - obviously The Lottery is fantastic but I also loved Tooth and Nightmare. Totally bananas!
https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-tooth/shirley-jackson/9780141195995
https://www.waterstones.com/book/the-missing-girl/shirley-jackson/9780241339282
Mary Ventura and The Ninth Kingdom by Plath was great too.
Weird ones are my fave and I think weird fiction and horror is so much more effective in short form.
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Proper weird but really enjoyed cursed bunny
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I’m listening to M R James at the moment as loads are included free with Audible membership - narrated by David Suchet
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Been on my wishlist for ages but biding my time for it to be on 99p offer 
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Idgi
Haven’t got round to finsihing this yet but enjoying it so far
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Some good ones in here. Some not so good. Not enough context about the original stories and i wouldn’t say any of them are overly modern in their retelling but definitely worth a read.
Banging cover too.
https://www.waterstones.com/book/hag/daisy-johnson/kirsty-logan/9780349013596
Really liked this collection of bizarre stories including someone keeping their partners penis in a lunch box out of affection. There were more collections/authors I read around the same time but they seem to have disappeared from my Kindle, hate when that happens.
I read the complete Flannery O’Connor during the first lockdown and it was one of the best of the ridiculous amount of books I read during that time. Dated in many respects obviously but some of them chilled me to the bone in a good way.
I love buying huge themed anthologies that mostly gather digital dust, got a few of the Gardner Dozois sci-fi collections and the Vandermeer sci-fi/fantasy collections are really fun to dive in and out of.
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Ooo not heard of these.
I’ve only ever read Annihilation by Vandermeer and ots one of my favourite books so I’ll check out his short stories.
I also have just read annihilation, I meant these collections he and his partner edited from across sci-fi/fantasy history
Stonkin huge and full of the greats and lesser knowns
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This is a very well-timed thread. I started reading Dubliners by James Joyce last night (along with a podcast called Dubliners by Dubliners in which - as you might expect - two Dublin-based guys discuss each story and the context surrounding them). I think because I’m way more attuned to writing short stories than anything much longer (admittedly not that attuned even so), I always feel like short stories are a good place for some inspiration.
One Manches recs off the top of my head…
Yesterday by Haruki Murakami
I used to read short stories on the New Yorker site at work on slow days. I remember reading this in summer, with the sun shining in beautifully through the roller shutters. The wistful, nostalgic melancholy of this one was pretty perfectly in sync with how I was feeling that day and so I always think fondly of it.
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