Books like Short stories
Short stories by Guy de Maupassant reads as cynical, realistic. These 12 books share its genome — matched by how they actually read, not just their shelf label.
What Short stories is like to read
Each story is a brisk, ironic snapshot of ordinary lives undone by vanity, poverty, or fate — bleak and observant rather than sentimental. Best for: readers who enjoy sharp, compact character studies with a bitter twist.
Dubliners
James Joyce · 1914
A deliberately unromantic portrait of Dublin life through fifteen interconnected vignettes that collectively diagnose a nation's spiritual paralysis.
Collected short stories
William Somerset Maugham · 1969
Shares the vspare thread
The odd number
Guy de Maupassant · 1889
Shares the vspare thread
The Best of Roald Dahl [20 stories]
Roald Dahl · 1978
A collection of tightly-crafted adult short stories that leverage Dahl's signature wry voice and plain diction to expose human vice and moral corruption, with cruel twists that rew
In other rooms, other wonders
Daniyal Mueenuddin · 2009
Shares the vspare thread
The Garden Party and other stories
Katherine Mansfield · 1922
Shares the vspare thread
How much land does a man need?
Лев Толстой · 1986
Shares the vspare thread
Ancient Lineage and Other Stories
Morley Callaghan · 2012
Shares the vspare thread
Dance of the Happy Shades
Alice Munro · 1968
Shares the vspare thread
Star Over Bethlehem and other stories [6 stories and poems]
Agatha Christie · 1965
Shares the vspare thread
A Farewell to Arms
Ernest Hemingway · 1929
Short declarative sentences carry an ambulance driver's love affair through the mud and retreat of the Italian front — emotionally flat on the surface, devastating underneath.
The Schoolmistress and Other Stories
Anton Chekhov · 2007
A collection of spare, piercing stories where ordinary lives and small private defeats reveal quiet yearning and loneliness.
About Short stories — what the genome says
Is Short stories a complete story or a cliffhanger?
It's a complete, standalone-satisfying story.
Who is Short stories for?
readers who enjoy sharp, compact character studies with a bitter twist
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