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Short Stories Category for 2018 Challenge

By January 21, 2018Cwts Club Book Club

So this year’s challenge is a bit different and as promised each month we’ll give you a list of suggested books for each category. For February I asked the Cwts Discussion Group to recommend their favourite books of short stories, I was inundated, these are just a few of the many:

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

A collection of twelve stories written by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle that feature his most famous detective – Sherlock Holmes. Join Sherlock and his assistant Dr. Watson, as they investigate everything from blackmailed kings to bank robberies.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes US
The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes UK

Tales of  Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling

As familiar to many Hogwarts students as Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty are to Muggle children, The Tales of Beedle the Bard is a collection of popular stories written for young wizards and witches.

Tales of Beedle the Bard US
Tales of Beedle the Bard UK

The Tsar of Love and Techno by Anthony Marra

1930s Leningrad: a failed portrait artist employed by Soviet censors must erase political dissenters from official images and artworks. One day, he receives an antique painting. The mystery behind this painting threads together each of the stories that follow.

The Tsar of Love and Techno US
The Tsar of Love and Techno UK

The Thing Around Your Neck by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

From the Orange Prize-winning author of ‘Half of a Yellow Sun’ come twelve dazzling stories that turn a penetrating eye on the ties that bind men and women, parents and children, Nigeria and the West.

The Thing Around Your Neck US
The Thing Around Your Neck UK

Reader I Married Him compiled by Tracy Chevalier

The twenty-one stories in Reader, I Married Him – one of the most celebrated lines in fiction – are inspired by Jane Eyre and shaped by its perennially fascinating themes of love, compromise and self-determination.

Reader, I Married Him US
Reader, I Married Him UK



Fortune Smiles by Adam Johnson

Adam Johnson takes you into the minds of characters you never thought you would meet – a former Stasi prison warden in denial of his past, a refugee from North Korea unsettled by his new freedom, a UPS driver in hurricane-torn Louisiana looking for the mother of his son.

Fortune Smiles US
Fortune Smiles UK

South Sea Tales by Robert Louis Stevenson

In these stories, as in his work generally, Stevenson shows himself to be a virtuoso of narrative styles: his Pacific fiction includes the domestic realism of `The Beach at Falesé, the folktale plots of `The Bottle Imp and `The Isle of Voices, and the modernist blending of naturalism and symbolism in The Ebb-Tide

South Sea Tales US
South Sea Tales UK

Dubliners by James Joyce

A collection of fifteen short stories by James Joyce, first published in 1914. They form a naturalistic depiction of Irish middle class life in and around Dublin in the early years of the 20th century. The stories were written when Irish nationalism was at its peak, and a search for a national identity and purpose was raging.

The Dubliners US
The Dubliners UK

Smoke and Mirrors by Neil Gaiman

An elderly widow finds the Holy Grail beneath an old fur coat. A stray cat fights and refights a terrible nightly battle to protect his unwary adoptive family from unimaginable evil. These tales and much more await in this extraordinary book.

Smoke and Mirrors US
Smoke and Mirrors UK

Dear Life by Alice Munro

Alice Munro captures the essence of life in her brilliant new collection of stories. Moments of change, chance encounters, the twist of fate that leads a person to a new way of thinking or being.

Dear Life US
Dear Life UK

The Complete Short Stories by Roald Dahl

There are lots of books of Roald Dahl’s short stories available, this is just one of the many you could choose from.

Complete Short Stories US
Complete Short Stories UK

Nocturnes by Kazuo Ishiguro

Kazuo Ishiguro explores the ideas of love, music and the passing of time. From the piazzas of Italy to the ‘hush-hush floor’ of an exclusive Hollywood hotel, the characters we encounter range from young dreamers to café musicians to faded stars, all of them at some moment of reckoning.

Nocturnes US
Nocturnes UK

Obviously these are just a few suggestions, we also have a list of For Reading Addicts 7 Short Story Collections suggested by our readers or if you fancy some P.G. Wodehouse 

Pick a collection of Short Stories using our lists or pick one off your TBR pile but don’t forget to let us know what you’re reading over on Cwts Club Discussion Group



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