Books

"The Long Rain" by Bradbury was the one that stuck with me.

The Lottery by Shirley Jackson was the one that did it for me.

It was not in English... But we had to read the golden egg. Story about a guy who s girl is missing. He keeps looking for her. Has driems about them being close together but not seeing the other. . At the end he finds a guy who sais he can do the same to him as he did to the girlfriend. Last you know he is like burried..

Recommend me one fellas

Oh man, let's talk about short stories that defined my taste in literature!

• To Build A Fire: definitely built a fascination in me of the morbid and got me way more into survivalism than quick sand ever did. I live in a cold place too and that put it well into perspective how dangerous that can be.

• The Sniper: This was my start into war literature, and what a good start. I keep coming back to this one when I hear people talk about a civil war in the US. It's more unsettling now than ever before.

• The Lottery. How couldn't that be on the list?

• Cask of Amontillado: big vibes. Poe made me goth-brained no doubt.

Our school also had us read Robert Frost. Really great way to introduce kids to the idea that 'some folks just kinda wanna die all the time'. That and why child labor laws are good and important.

Guts by chuck palahniuk.

guy maupassant? e.g. the necklace

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream. If comics count, The Enigma of Amigara Fault.

Of mice and men

Short stories:

• Flowers for Algernon
• I have no mouth and I must scream

Short-ish:

• Of mice and men
• Brave new world

Hardfought, by Greg Bear. Sci-fi set in the far future, spoken with a military patois that is difficult to understand but is meant to highlight the alienness of the forever war that the story takes place in. Themes upon themes fifteen-plus layers deep, even though this is only a novella.

I have something north of 3,000 volumes in my library, and if I was to pick the most influential fiction story of my life, this would be it. I had difficulty reading it as a teenager who was typically reading at a university level while in high school, so it’s going to take serious effort by most to truly benefit from it. But when you finally understand those themes… holy shit.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plague_Dogs_(novel)

go away now

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

"Nachts schlafen die Ratten doch" still haunts me...

Random shitposts on the internet have wiped away all the trauma I got from anything I read in school.

The Dweller in the Gulf by Clark Ashton Smith.

The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas by Ursula K. Le Guin

Maybe not disturbing enough, but the short story that really stuck with me was: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamb_to_the_Slaughter

I don't know about scary, but I would assign Teddy by J. D. Salinger.

Also, An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge by Ambrose Bierce.

Another one I really like that I feel like nobody else has ever read is: After I Was Thrown in the River and Before I Drowned by Dave Eggers (it's written from a dog's POV)

I guess this is more "short stories that I like" lol

Turkish elementary-school books.

Wanna read about a small girl getting beat up by her dad and kicked out before freezing to death as she vividly imagines her dead grandma and lighting matchsticks to prolong her suffering for 20 pages?

I think author was either Russian or Danish. Still no clue why that was a required read at age of 7 in my school.

The cold equations

A Modest Proposal traumatized one girl in my class.

We all had to write our own versions, trade them randomly, and read them aloud. She ended up with mine: Have the death row inmates build a prison on the moon, then turn off their air supply to complete their sentence. (Wrote it before I'd read The Moon is a Harsh Mistress)

She finished reading, and exclaimed "What is WRONG with you!?" She knew it was mine because of how hard I was laughing at her panic.

I was outdone by the quiet girl who included a recipe for "kitten kurry" in her essay though. I really should have tried to get with her, lol.

We read The Yellow Wallpaper and that was pretty effed.

"Computers Don't Argue" by Gordon Dickson. Guy gets shipped the wrong book by a book club, tries to return it, gets sent to a collections agency, and things spiral completely out of control from there. It's lived rent-free in my head since I read it years ago. (apologies for the mobile-unfriendly format, this is the only source I know for this story) https://www.atariarchives.org/bcc2/showpage.php?page=133

"Unauthorized Bread" by Cory Doctorow is a more up-to-date discussion of the same kind of power dynamics though. https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2020/01/unauthorized-bread-a-near-future-tale-of-refugees-and-sinister-iot-appliances/

We had to read 'Der Vorleser' in which a 15 year old boy gets into a relationship with a 36 year old woman. A strange choice to force kids about that age to read (we were a bit older than 15, I think. But still...)

The Cask of Amontillado messed me up a good bit. Being sealed into a wall would be a horrible way to die.