Saturday, February 12: Mississippi Mud
COLLECTIBLES
by John M. Floyd
Since I know most of you enjoy not only short stories in magazines and anthologies but collections of shorts by well-known authors, I thought I’d mention a few that I have here at home. Most of the books in this list are by mystery/suspense writers — I’ve intentionally left out collections by Hemingway, Maugham, Chekhov, L’Amour, Faulkner, Welty, Twain, Cheever, etc. — but I can’t resist including those by authors like Bradbury, King, and Matheson. Theirs aren’t always tales of crime or mystery, but they’re always long on suspense.
Here are the single-author short-story collections I have on my shelves:
- Twisted, Jeffery Deaver
- Hardly Knew Her, Laura Lippman
- Coronado, Dennis Lehane
- Little Boxes of Bewilderment, Jack Ritchie
- Sometimes They Bite, Lawrence Block
- Like a Lamb to Slaughter, Lawrence Block
- Some Days You Get the Bear, Lawrence Block
- Enough Rope, Lawrence Block
- Jesus Out to Sea, James Lee Burke
- The Convict and Other Stories, James Lee Burke
- The Roald Dahl Omnibus
- Small Felonies, Bill Pronzini
- The Good Old Stuff, John D. MacDonald
- More Good Old Stuff, John D. MacDonald
- For Your Eyes Only, Ian Fleming
- Octopussy, Ian Fleming
- Long Story Short, Jeffrey Archer
- Twelve Red Herrings, Jeffrey Archer
- Driving Blind, Ray Bradbury
- Quicker Than the Eye, Ray Bradbury
- When the Women Come Out to Dance, Elmore Leonard
- The Tonto Woman, Elmore Leonard
- Ford County, John Grisham
- No Comebacks, Frederick Forsyth
- High Cotton, Joe R. Lansdale
- Bumper Crop, Joe R. Lansdale
- Mad Dog Summer, Joe R. Lansdale
- Collected Stories of O. Henry
- Duel, Richard Matheson
- Nightmare at 20,000 Feet, Richard Matheson
- The Original Illustrated Sherlock Holmes, Conan Doyle
- Night Shift, Stephen King
- Skeleton Crew, Stephen King
- Nightmares & Dreamscapes, Stephen King
- Everything’s Eventual, Stephen King
- Just Past Sunset, Stephen King
- Poachers, Tom Franklin
- Diagnosis: Impossible, Edward Hoch
- The Lonely Sea, Alistair MacLean
- Miss Marple: The Complete Short Stories, Agatha Christie
- Field of Thirteen, Dick Francis
That adds up to several hundred stories that will keep you on the edge of your seat, and (when combined with all my novels) several thousand pounds that are probably shifting our house’s foundation closer to the edge of the hill. But I’ll never stop buying and reading collections of shorts. All of them are fun, and a few — Ritchie’s, Block’s, Dahl’s, King’s — rank among the best fiction I’ve read. What are some of your favorite story collections?
I’m a firm believer that you don’t have to be a novelist to shine as a mystery/suspense writer. Hey, sometimes less is better.
Read short and prosper.
From These Ashes by Frederic Brown contains all of his short science fiction. It’s a long, fat book. I bought it & only allowed myself to read one or two stories at a sitting. That way I had enough “new” Brown stories to last several years. He was equally well known for his mysteries, but I don’t know of a collection of those.
Nice collection. I guess I’ll have to quit collecting other things. 🙂
“Doctor Thorndyke: His Famous Cases” by R. Austin Freeman (a 1929 omnibus). Any of the Thorndyke collections are worth your while, the stories are fun! Likewise any collection of Jacques Futrelle’s “Thinking Machine” stories (many of these stories are online, or at least were!) As for your list, John, I’d read some of these and hadn’t heard of some of the others. Thanks!
I don’t have anything by Freeman, Futrelle, OR Brown, and I can tell you, I loved every short I ever read by Fredrick Brown. More things to look for on Amazon — thanks for the tips!
One of my favorite short story collections is Lord Peter. I may be the exception, but I like Sayer’s short stories better than her novels.
BTW, I heard from a reader that you have a new story in WW! Congratulations, John!
Thanks, Leigh. Yep, Woman’s World has now published 37 of my stories (most of them mysteries). I love that magazine!
As for Sayers, she was one of several writers (including Hemingway) who I think wrote better short stories than novels. And there are some (King, Block, Deaver, etc.) who seem equally good at both.
I went nuts over Sayers’ short stories about 15 years ago. And if you like Brown, may I suggest reading John Collier?
Thanks for the Collier suggestion, Jeff.
I think I just discovered one of the biggest benefits of the Kindle/iPad/Nook, etc. There’s not enough room in our house anymore for all the new books I want.