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Approximate Reading Times

Quick Read: under 5 minutes
Short Story: 5 to 30 minutes
Novelette: 30 to 90 minutes
Novella: 1.5 to 2.5 hours

Some Other Stories You May Like

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  • Dry September

    Short Story by William Faulkner. Set in a racially prejudiced community in America’s South, a misplaced or malicious complaint from a middle-aged spinster incites hatred against a local negro. Only one man (the town barber) stands up for him. A crazed ex-soldier leads a mob to avenge the woman’s honor.

  • The Lottery

    Short Story by Marjorie Barnard. Friends draw a man’s attention to a newspaper report that his wife has just won first prize in a lottery. He wonders “Why didn’t she let him know”, and “Where did she get the money?” The answers aren’t what he had expected.

  • The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

    Novelette by F. Scott Fitzgerald. A story about the life of a man who grows ““younger” by getting “older”. The people around him care more about protecting their reputations than his well-being. Sadly, the man proves himself as heartless as they are by luring an unsuspecting woman into marriage.

  • The Green Leaves

    Short Story by Grace Ogot. Greed drives a Kenyan villager to break a tribal taboo and try to rob a supposedly dead thief. This proves fatal for him, confusing to the authorities and other villagers, and will result in a life of loneliness and misery for his wives.

  • Wolf

    Young Adult Story by Francesca Lia Block. In this take on the Red Riding Hood fairy tale, a girl flees to her grandmother’s house after her stepfather repeatedly rapes her over several years. As in the fairy tale, when she reaches grandmother’s house the wolf is waiting for her.

  • Why I Learned to Cook

    Short Story by Sara Farizan. A bisexual Iranian-American teen makes her grandmother’s day by asking her to teach her to cook Persian food. Her request has an ulterior motive… to introduce the grandmother to her girlfriend. Over dinner, the observant grandmother guesses the true nature of the girls’ relationship.

  • A Child’s Dream of a Star

    Grade 3-4 Story by Charles Dickens. A heart-warming 19th Century children’s story about life after death. A brother and sisters’ love lasts a lifetime, even though the girl died at an early age. As the boy ages, she waits with other deceased family members in the rays of the North Star.

  • Vengeful Creditor

    Short Story by Chinua Achebe. After an African government abandons an election pledge to provide free education for all, a ten-year-old baby-nurse whose rich employer is too slow keeping what she thought was a promise to pay for her schooling decides to impose a heavy penalty.

  • Teacher Tamer

    Grade 5-6 Story by Avi. A burnt-out teacher regularly punishes the most promising student in class for things he did not do. In a moment of anger, the boy boasts to classmates that he will take revenge. When the class bully questions his courage, he feels pressured into going ahead.

  • She

    Short Story by Jason Brown. A junior high schooler drops her long-time platonic boyfriend for a classmate with a “bad boy” reputation. The new relationship takes a potentially tragic turn when, confused and ashamed, she calls it off after making out in the backseat of a car.

  • The Necessary Grace to Fall

    Short Story by Gina Ochsner. An “investigative assistant” in the claims department of a life insurance company compensates for his boring job by taking a morbid interest in the deaths he encounters, and becomes obsessed with learning more about a woman from his childhood neighborhood who jumped/fell from a bridge.

  • The Salt Inspector / Namak Ka Daroga

    Short Story by Premchand. An idealistic tax inspector refuses a huge bribe and arrests a wealthy man for smuggling salt. Because of his “connections”, the smuggler walks free and the inspector is suspended for being over-zealous. Shortly afterwards, the clever smuggler offers the inspector a highly-paid job overseeing his assets.

  • The Gentleman from San Francisco

    Novelette by Ivan Bunin. An overweight, fifty-eight-year-old industrialist who had grown rich off the sweat of Chinese immigrants treats himself and his family to a two-year trip around the world. He only makes it as far as Capri, where he dies of a heart attack.

  • Man from the South

    Short Story by Roald Dahl. A tale about gambling, greed, appearances and ‘face’. A young sailor trying to impress a girl accepts what appears to be an easy bet. If he is successful, he will win an expensive car. If he loses, he must give up a small body part.

  • The Book of Sand

    Short Story by Jorge Borges. A book lover obtains a book in a strange language that has an endless number of randomly changing pages. He is initially obsessed with the book, but then realizes it is so “monstrous” that it should be hidden away somewhere it will never be found.

  • Tuesday of the Other June

    Grade 5-6 Story by Norma Fox Mazer. A girl is being bullied. Should she follow her mother’s advice to “turn the other cheek, smile at the world, and the world'll smile back”, follow her dream of “kicking, punching, and biting her (the bully) like a dog” or try something else?

  • The Eyes Have It / The Girl on the Train

    Quick Read by Ruskin Bond. A blind man sitting in an empty train carriage is joined by a young woman. He is attracted by the sound of her voice as she farewells her family and, as he initiates a conversation, decides to conceal the fact that he is blind.

  • The Summer Solstice

    Short Story by Nick Joaquin. A submissive wife's attitudes towards life and marriage change following her attendance at "Tadtarin", a pagan fertility ritual performed by women. Turning the tables, she pitilessly humiliates her cruel, dominating husband by having him crawl across the floor and kiss her feet.

  • Blue

    Grade 7-8 Story by Francesca Lia Block. A girl abandoned by her mother finds temporary comfort in stories about how much her mother loved her told by an imaginary creature living in her closet. A class assignment to “write about someone we love” helps her face the loss.

  • Prey

    Short Story by Richard Matheson. A woman buys her new boyfriend a Zuni fetish doll for his birthday. A scroll inside the box reads: THIS IS HE WHO KILLS.... HE IS A DEADLY HUNTER. As she prepares to shower, the doll turns out to be the real deal.

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