10 best short stories everyone should read in 2021

These days, we all need a short break from 2020. We recommend diving into a short story, which can be a transformative experience. It can make you feel like you're floating or like you've been punched in the stomach by Mike Tyson. Within a few pages, a story can turn words into a feeling you have never been able to express. It conveys revelation and makes you think, just like a great book (only shorter). Quench your thirst for flawless writing by reading the best short stories of all time.

Even now, when we are trapped inside, more people than ever are looking for that kind of escape, if only for a short time. The ability to transport someone from the present moment is a hallmark of a good story (regardless of length). However, the thing about short stories is that every word matters. Like drops of blood (according to great short story writer Denis Johnson), you only have a certain number of words in a story, and everything has to move the reader forward.

You won't find the same in our list. Some are timeless pieces assigned to college-lit classes, others are contemporary sci-fi by famous writers, but each piece is characterized by quirk and revelation. Start reading them now.

The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman

Revered as one of the best short stories ever written, "The Yellow Wallpaper" presses on the reader and refuses to leave. The story, published in 1892, archives a young woman's decay into madness while locked in the bedroom of a vacation home. Describing the room's decor, especially the yellow wallpaper, Charlotte Perkins Gilman showed the woman's mental anguish. The play is a commentary on the role of women in an oppressive patriarchy, and the story is brilliantly creepy.

See Also: 37 of the Best Crime Fiction

Cathedral By Raymond Carver

Raymond Carver is the king of short stories. He helped revive the genre in the 1980s and is known for her razor-sharp minimalism. No fluff. "Cathedral" is perhaps his most famous short film, told by a man visited by his wife's old blind friend. The narrator is jealous of this blind man and his closeness to his wife. They eventually attach themselves to the image of a cathedral in a final scene that leaves the reader short of breath and enraptured.

The Things They Carried by Tim O'Brien

The semi-autobiographical short story 'The Things They Carried' tells the belongings of every soldier in a platoon in the Vietnam War. These are more than physical items; Tim O'Brien extends the concept of weight and what we carry with us into memories, love and pain. In the story, Lieutenant Jimmy Cross contributes memories of a woman he loved, but who didn't love him either. When a member of his team dies, he has to decide what he can and cannot 'wear'. It's intense, heartbreaking and real.

The Cask of Amontillado by Edgar Allan Poe

There is no short summary without Poe. While many praise "The Tell-Tale Heart," our favorite macabre short from the OG horror writer is about a man buried alive by his friend. The Cask of Amontillado will teach you never to insult your friend or follow him to a wine cellar. Released in 1846, this short story is not a detective read like many of Poe's other stories, but a confessional. The reader is still tasked with uncovering the motive behind the insane murder.

Passion by Alice Munro.

As a Nobel Laureate in Literature, Munro will take you to places you never knew existed, but which still feel familiar. In "Passion," a woman visits the home of her boyfriend's parents, unsure of the strength of her feelings for him. She cuts herself and is taken to hospital by his drunken brother. A deep, inexplicable connection forms, after which tragedy strikes. The story is tense yet overflowing, highlighting the unruly nature of passion and attraction.

A Very Old Man with Huge Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marque

Gabriel Garcia Marquez is Colombian writer known for writing One Hundred Years of Solitude. This story is about, well, an old man with giant angel wings who turned up in a family's backyard. However, the old man cannot fly. The relatives, the city and the visitors weigh in on how to deal with the old man with wings. Is he an angel? Should he be their leader? The piece is a stunning dissection of the human condition through the lens of magical realism. Plus, the writing is impeccable.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson

I'm pretty sure everyone read this in school, and if you haven't read it go read it now. The story, published in The New Yorker in 1948, is about city dwellers who run a lottery to decide which member will be stoned to death to be sacrificed. Ripe with literary irony and deeper messages such as the dangers of blind traditions, Shirley Jackson is immortalized with this story. It has a great build up to a great twist.

Speech Sounds by Octavia Butler

The 1983 sci-fi short "Speech Sounds" begins with humanity fraught with a mysterious pandemic that limits communication. That's why gestures and symbols make up the whole piece, and it's brilliant. The story earned Octavia Butler a Hugo Award for Best Short Story.

Young Goodman Brown by Nathaniel Hawthorne

While talking about some of the most famous short stories ever written, "Young Goodman Brown" is among the high rollers. Set in 17th-century Puritan New England, Goodman Brown runs errands in the woods at night and encounters a terrifying ceremony where he sees himself and his wife undergoing initiation. He wakes up, unsure if the scene was a dream and lives paranoid of people and the community for the rest of his life. It's a broad allegory about seeing the evil of human nature and a piece loved by authors like Stephen King and, well, everyone.

Symbols and Signs by Vladimir Nabokov

The author of Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, wrote the subtle, mind-blowing short story "Symbols and Signs" in 1948 about an old couple trying to visit their son in a sanitarium. The son suffers from referential mania (a term invented by Nabokov) and tried to commit suicide, so the couple returns home. They receive a series of phone calls that make the son's condition uncertain. Simply describing the events in the story does not translate the power of this short film, which leads the reader to a cryptic assessment of characters and symbols to recreate the character's mania. In short, it's like watching Inception, only better.

Going to Meet the Man by James Baldwin

This essential short story is mean, violent and very necessary to read. It starts with a white sheriff in the South trying to be intimate with his wife. When he can't, he recalls being a little boy and going out with his parents to a community spectacle, which turned out to be a brutal lynching - a scene that is arguably the most heartbreaking in literary history. The story reflects themes such as historical racism and oppression, sex, violence and power.

Music for Chameleons by Truman Capote

The short story - in fact, the entire non-fiction / fiction collection "Music for Chameleons'' of which it is a part - is one of Truman Capote's greatest works; however, the anthology is often overlooked by his other masterpieces, In Cold Blood and Breakfast at Tiffany's. In this one case, we'll recommend the full book of short stories, which work together as an arc evolution of Capote's prose and showcase his unique eye for dandy and strange human behavior. Included is a short about Marilyn Monroe (they were good friends) and storyHandcarved Coffins, the account of a small town serial killer.