(Somebody's) List of Best novels of all time

[Sam Hill]

"The modern short story. Poe can be said to have invented the short story period."

Nah. Not even close. "Canterbury Tales" and "Decameron." Those were short story collections. There have been many many before Poe.

No, Poe invented the MODERN short story. He defined it in terms that Chekov also followed, wittingly or not.

Even Wikipedia agrees, and they know everything:

Short story - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Modern short stories

Modern short stories emerged as their own genre in the early 19th century. Early examples of short story collections include the Brothers Grimm Fairy Tales (1824-1826), Nathaniel Hawthorne's Twice Told Tales (1842), Edgar Allan Poe's Tales of the Grotesque and Arabesque (1836), and Guy de Maupassant's La Maison Tellier (1881). In the later part of the 19th century, the growth of print magazines and journals created a strong market demand for short fiction between 3,000 and 15,000 words in length. Among the famous short stories to come out of this time period was Ward No. 6 by Anton Chekhov.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_story#Modern_short_stories

[Borges]

There should be a distinction made between the short story and the 'sketch'. Technically there were what you could call short stories in Classical Greece. Boccaccio and Chaucer were following up on that tradition as was someone like Washington Irving. The Checkovian short story probably has its roots in Maupassant more the in Poe.

[justshutupandtakeit]

I have been looking at DD for a couple of years and will start after finishing the Idiot.

[justshutupandtakeit]

The story was the whole thing and the characters. Great tale.
Since I never read Bestsellers I avoided it until after I saw the movie which is my favorite of all. Then I was pleasantly surprised.

[JCEccles]

Try Finnegan's Wake at 27. Jarringly unreadable and impossibly opaque. I think Joyce wrote it as a practical joke.

Portrait of the Artist is accessible, as is Joyce's book of short stories, Dubliners. I personally have no use for his later works.

[Lonesome in Massachussets]

Sorry, I missed it. It's perfect for throwing at a cat.

[veronica]

IMO no list is complete without A Tale of Two Cities/Dickens.

[Borges]

It's regarded as one of his worst novels.

[veronica]

By whom?

[Borges]

Dickens scholars and Literary critics in general. The reaosn its taught in High schools so often is because its one of his shortest.

[veronica]

A Tale of Two Cities | Introduction

snip-"Modern critical opinion, however, has given the novel an important place among Dickens's most mature works of fiction."-

[Borges]

I don't who kney mean but certainly not Clifton Fadiman or even my old Victorianist Professor. If you read Dickens you read him for the fantastical London he created...not historical novels. He only wrote two, the other, Barnaby Rudge, may be his single least read. But the humorless ATOTC feels like ersatz Dickens.