recommend short stories?

[Andrew D. Gable]

Any particular genre? All my recommendations are older horror. That said:

There's a large collection of E.F. Benson's ghost stories (although some of them aren't really ghosts) available from Carroll & Graf. "Negotium Perambulans", "The Horror-Horn", "Caterpillars", and "...And No Bird Sings" are all pretty nifty, and none feature literal ghosts.

Most of Algernon Blackwood's stuff is good, although many of his best stories are also too long to read casually. There's two good collections of his stuff -- Ancient Sorceries and Other Weird Tales features most of his best stuff, and The Complete John Silence Stories is a series of stories about an occult investigator.

Finally, Chaosium has a few anthologies out collecting the works of Arthur Machen, who's a hit-or-miss author to me. The Three Impostors and Other Stories has "The Great God Pan", "The Inmost Light", "The Novel of the Black Seal", and "The Novel of the White Powder", while The White People and Other Stories has good ones like "The White People", "The Great Return", and "The Coming of the Terror".

 

[Kesh]

Dreams of Terror and Death - H. P. Lovecraft

A nice collection of his "Dream Cycle" stories, very nice stuff. The latter half of the anthology is tied together pretty well, with recurring characters or locations in the Dreamlands. But, don't skip the early ones... or you'll miss classics like "The Cats of Ulthar" that tie into the overall theme and influence later stories.

 

[fanboy2000]

Asimov's Azazel and Magic anthologies are excellent for book lovers. The stories are short. There are only two main characters, well three if you count the deamon, George and Isaac himself. Hilarious stuff.

 

[MaxKaladin]

I'll second H. Beam Piper's "Paratime". I'd add "Agent of Byzantium" by Harry Turtledove as well. The latter is a series of short stories about an agent of the Byzantine Empire in a timeline where Mohammed became a Christian monk rather than founding Islam. The stories generally deal with the main character discovering new technology. There's one about gunpowder, one about printing (which he then uses for his own ends in a later story) and so on. I thought they were pretty cool even if it isn't exactly realistic that all those things will pop up across that one person's life and all involving him.

 

[CCamfield]

I highly recommend any of Roger Zelazny's short story anthologies. The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth, Unicorn Variations, The Last Defender of Camelot, and Frost and Fire. Those are out of print ones. There is one collection which is in print, unhelpfully ALSO called The Doors of His Face, The Lamps of His Mouth which is a sort of best-of his short stories. So that'd be the easiest one to start with.

 

[Krug]

The Warhammer and WH40k short story collections are quite fun and light reads.

 

[diaglo]

i'll just add my love for Bradbury too.