Chaos Reading discussion

I'm reading a short story anthology at the moment, which is a very rare thing for me. Rarer still, I am absolutely loving it. It's pretty much a definitive anthology of dystopian short fiction: Brave New Worlds with an absolute who's who of authors from Shirley Jackson, Philip K Dick, Kurt Vonnegut, Ursula Le Guin, Kate Wilhelm, Neil Gaiman, JG Ballard, Paolo Bacigalupi... and the list goes on and on, 33 stories, 3 essays, study guide, filmography, further reading etc etc.

Anyway, it got me thinking that maybe in between the big group reads we could maybe do some short story discussions? My first thought was to just have a folder for people to start discussions about whatever short stories they've read and would like to discuss and people could jump in as they see fit. I think that could work well, since we wouldn't all have to keep to timelines. The only issue I can see is availability of some of the stories. Maybe we could put in urls for the stories that are available online as text or podcast, and list the anthologies the others are in for people to hunt down in their own time?

What do people think? Is there an easy way to figure out which stories are in which anthologies?

There are a couple of great stories I've read lately that would be great to discuss. Off the top of my head, any of these would be great:
- The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas by Ursula LeGuin
- A Hunger Artist by Franz Kafka
- A Village After Dark by Kazuo Ishiguro

Kathy wrote: "I love this idea. Maybe include novellas?"

I don't see why not. We have had some group reads that could be considered "novellas" too, but since it's a drop-in-whenever-you-like type thing, I think that'd be okay to include here too.

Are we talking specific short stories? Or collections of short stories? Or both?

I left this in the "currently reading" thread, but it seems like this might be a better place for it:

2012 Sci-Fi/Fantasy short story recommendations by Rachel Swirsky

Also, I've been meaning to pick up Brave New Worlds and would definitely be down to do some short story discussions.

Ben wrote: "Are we talking specific short stories? Or collections of short stories? Or both?"

I'd rather we post one story per thread. That's not to say you can't start multiple threads though. I'll set up a folder in the morning if people are keen. It's past 3am here...... yawning........zzzzz

Nicholas wrote: "Also, I've been meaning to pick up Brave New Worlds and would definitely be down to do some short story discussions. ..."

I'm only about 8 stories in, but I highly recommend it so far. Remind me to check that link in the morning.......

Hm, not a huge short story fan apart from Roald Dahl but that's a bit creepy...don't think I've found a collection that I proper like so definitely looking to broaden short story horizons if youse have good suggestions :D

For novellas maybes Candide or The Crying of Lot 49?

I love this idea! I don't read a lot of short stories but I've been trying to get more into them for a while. Besides, I sometimes have trouble fitting in group reads because of the length of other books I'm reading on my own, but I'm sure I can fit in a short here and there!

A few great short stories that I think would make good discussion fuel (in addition to Ruby's suggestions, which are all great ones as well):

A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories (title story)
I Have No Mouth and I Must Scream (title story)
Going to Meet the Man (title story) and
"Stranger Bear Word to the Spartans We..." from The Collected Stories of Heinrich Böll

Any story by George Saunders

Awesome! Great suggestions. I have some stuff to do right now, but I'll start the folder soon, and then people can add their threads to it once it's up. :)

Do you just want suggestions for individual short stories, or suggestions for short story anthologies and collections as well?

I've started the folder here: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...

And the first story is here: http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/1...
I've posted the Ursula K. Le Guin I was talking about earlier.

Cheers everyone - and feel free to add more.

.....in the thread I've started under the "Short Reads" folder :)