The 100 best easy short story collections

Each point of light is one of the 100, placed by how hard it is to read. The brighter, the higher it ranks. The dotted line is one way up.

100
books
328
hours to read
7
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Start low: Uncle Tom's ChildrenSee all 100
Very Easy5 booksEasy56 booksModerate39 books

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No. 1 of 100

The True Story of Ah Q

Lu Xun · 1921

Difficulty 38/1001.5 hours

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Readable here · 7

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About 328 hours for 100 of 100 books with measured lengths. Estimates use 250 words a minute, adjusted for each book's difficulty. At 2 hours a day, about 165 days for those books.

1–10 · 53 hours

  1. Ah Q stands with Quixote, Oblomov, and Babbitt as literature's archetypal national figures. For modern Chinese literature, this text functions as foundational myth—the work that demonstrated vernacular Chinese could carry savage social critique and established Lu Xun as the tradition's father.

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  2. No. 2 on this list. Of Mice and Men

    John Steinbeck · 1937

    Easy1.7 hours

    Taught in schools: Pacific Senior Secondary Certificate – English, Turkish edebiyat curriculum (Turkey)

    One of the most taught works in American secondary and post-secondary education, with 548 syllabus appearances placing it in the top tier of assigned literature. Included in Library of America, Penguin Classics, Everyman's Library, and Penguin Modern Classics. Appears on the BBC Big Read Top 100 and 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die. Its status as core American literary reading is unquestioned.

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  3. One of the most important short story collections in American literature. The title story alone is among the most widely taught and analyzed works of American fiction.

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  4. No. 4 on this list. A Christmas Carol

    Charles Dickens · 1843

    Easy1.7 hours

    Taught in schools: AQA GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK), CSEC English B – Caribbean Examinations Council, OCR GCSE and A-level English Literature (UK)

    A Christmas Carol is among the most widely taught Victorian texts in the English-speaking world, a fixture on secondary and university literature curricula in the UK, US, and Commonwealth nations. Its Wikipedia article exists in over 60 languages, and it appears on virtually every canonical list of Victorian prose. No other work of comparable length has achieved the same degree of curricular permanence.

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  5. The Grimm tales are among the most widely taught and anthologized texts in the Western world, and they anchor folklore, children's literature, and German studies courses. Cinderella, Snow White, and Hansel and Gretel are cultural touchstones, though the edition itself is more of a reading text than a syllabus staple.

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  6. No. 6 on this list. The Death of Ivan Ilyich

    Leo Tolstoy · 1886

    Moderate1.2 hours

    Taught in schools: Hungarian literature curriculum (magyar nyelv és irodalom) (Hungary), Russian FGOS literature standard

    Included in: Bokklubben World Library

    Universally regarded as one of the greatest novellas ever written. Studied across literature and philosophy courses.

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  7. Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm collected Cinderella, Rapunzel, Hansel and Gretel, Snow White, and Rumpelstiltskin from oral sources and fixed them in print, giving Western childhood its permanent mythology. The collection launched the discipline of folklore studies and remains the most influential story anthology ever published.

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  8. The Nights are a cornerstone of world literature and widely taught in comparative and Middle Eastern literature courses, though this 2004 edition is one of many renderings.

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  9. Holmes is a staple of English-language literature, taught widely in detective fiction and Victorian literature courses, and the stories are among the most-translated in the world. They are taught less as high literature than The Great Gatsby but are universally recognized.

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  10. One of the most widely taught early American short stories, regularly anthologized in school and college readers. It sits beside Rip Van Winkle as a foundation of American literature.

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11–20 · 30 hours

  1. No. 11 on this list. Rip Van Winkle · Washington Irving · 1819

    Rip Van Winkle is a staple of American literature anthologies and school curricula, the founding American short story alongside 'The Legend of Sleepy Hollow'. It is taught more widely than most short fiction, though less than Gatsby.

    Easy58 min

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  2. No. 12 on this list. Ethan Frome · Edith Wharton · 1911

    One of the most widely assigned American novels, a staple of high school and college curricula. A central text of American literary realism.

    Easy1.7 hours

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  3. No. 13 on this list. A Christmas Carol / The Chimes / The Cricket on the Hearth · Charles Dickens

    A Christmas Carol is a staple of school reading and holiday tradition, and its retellings are everywhere. The companion tales are less taught, which pulls the collection below the major-canon fixtures.

    Easy4.7 hours

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  4. No. 14 on this list. Men in the Sun · Ghassan Kanafani · 1963

    Foundational text of Palestinian literature. Widely taught and translated.

    Easy1.4 hours

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  5. No. 15 on this list. Return to Haifa · Ghassan Kanafani · 1969

    Taught in schools: Moroccan secondary Arabic literature (Morocco)

    One of the foundational texts of Palestinian literature and one of the most widely read Arabic novellas worldwide.

    Easy1.4 hours

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  6. No. 16 on this list. Kolyma Tales · Varlam Shalamov · 1978

    Recognized as one of the definitive literary works about the Soviet Gulag and a masterpiece of twentieth-century short fiction.

    Easy11 hours

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  7. No. 17 on this list. Night on the Galactic Railroad · Kenji Miyazawa · 1934

    One of the most beloved and widely adapted works in Japanese literature. Cultural landmark.

    Moderate1.9 hours

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  8. No. 18 on this list. The Little Prince · Antoine de Saint-Exupéry · 1943

    Taught in schools: Common Core text exemplars (Appendix B) (US)

    One of the most translated books in history with over 300 language editions, making it among the most widely read works of French literature. A staple of French school curricula and taught globally in world literature, philosophy, and children's literature courses. Wikipedia articles exist in well over 100 languages, reflecting universal cultural penetration.

    Easy60 min

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  9. No. 19 on this list. Dear Life · Alice Munro · 2012

    Munro's final collection, published the year before her Nobel Prize. Regarded as a fitting capstone to one of the great careers in short fiction.

    Easy4.6 hours

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  10. No. 20 on this list. A Universal History of Infamy · Jorge Luis Borges · 1935

    Borges's first fiction collection and the origin of his narrative method. Important in the Borges canon but overshadowed by Ficciones and The Aleph.

    Moderate1.6 hours

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21–30 · 19 hours

  1. No. 21 on this list. Our Twisted Hero · Yi Munyol · 1987

    One of the most widely read and taught works of modern Korean literature, both domestically and in translation.

    Easy1.4 hours

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  2. No. 22 on this list. Odessa Tales · Isaac Babel · 1931

    A celebrated work of Russian and Jewish literature, widely anthologized and studied alongside Red Cavalry.

    Easy1.1 hours

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  3. No. 23 on this list. Master and Man · Leo Tolstoy · 1895

    Frequently anthologized and taught as one of Tolstoy's finest short works. Its concentrated power and accessible length keep it in regular circulation.

    Easy51 min

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  4. No. 24 on this list. Tonio Kröger · Thomas Mann · 1903

    One of Mann's most beloved early works and a key text in the literature of the artist's self-understanding.

    Moderate1.3 hours

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  5. No. 25 on this list. Malgudi Days · R.K. Narayan · 1943

    'An Astrologer's Day' and 'The Blind Dog' are fixtures of Indian school and university syllabi, making this Narayan's most assigned book.

    Easy3.6 hours

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  6. No. 26 on this list. Uncle Tom's Children · Richard Wright

    Recognized as a major debut collection and an important work of African American literature. Widely taught alongside Native Son and Black Boy.

    Very Easy3.1 hours

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  7. No. 27 on this list. Father Sergius · Leo Tolstoy · 1898

    Father Sergius appears on university syllabi in Tolstoy studies and 19th-century Russian literature courses, but it occupies a secondary position relative to War and Peace, Anna Karenina, and The Death of Ivan Ilyich. No syllabus or Wikipedia data was returned by the data signals tool, consistent with the novella's status as a respected but not widely-taught shorter work. It appears in major collected editions of Tolstoy but is rarely the primary text in survey courses.

    Moderate1.1 hours

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  8. No. 28 on this list. The Happy Prince and Other Stories · Oscar Wilde · 1888

    'The Happy Prince' is a fixture of primary and secondary reading lists and one of the most widely anthologized fairy tales in English, translated into dozens of languages and repeatedly adapted for stage, opera, and animation. It's a children's-literature classic on the order of Andersen's tales rather than a university-syllabus staple like Gatsby or Mockingbird.

    Moderate1.3 hours

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  9. No. 29 on this list. Breakfast at Tiffany’s and Three Stories · Truman Capote · 1993

    The title novella is widely taught and known worldwide, thanks in part to the film. It is less central to syllabi than the major canon works, and this combined collection is mostly a reprint.

    Moderate2.5 hours

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  10. No. 30 on this list. The Complete Fairy Tales · Oscar Wilde

    'The Happy Prince' and 'The Selfish Giant' are staples of school anthologies and children's reading lists worldwide, and they appear in Victorian and Wilde courses. Wilde's plays and Dorian Gray take up more syllabus space than the tales do.

    Moderate2.4 hours

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31–40 · 28 hours

  1. No. 31 on this list. Love in a Fallen City

    Eileen Chang · 1943

  2. No. 32 on this list. The Red Pony

    John Steinbeck

  3. No. 33 on this list. The Pearl

    John Steinbeck · 1947

    Taught in schools: Pacific Senior Secondary Certificate – English

  4. No. 34 on this list. Drown

    Junot Diaz · 1996

  5. No. 35 on this list. Miss Sophia's Diary

    Ding Ling · 1928

  6. No. 36 on this list. Raise the Red Lantern

    Su Tong · 1990

  7. No. 37 on this list. The Unvanquished

    William Faulkner · 1938

  8. No. 38 on this list. The Ripening Seed

    Colette · 1923

  9. No. 39 on this list. Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories

    Sandra Cisneros · 1991

  10. No. 40 on this list. I Have No Mouth & I Must Scream

    Harlan Ellison · 1967

41–50 · 28 hours

  1. No. 41 on this list. White Nights

    Fyodor Dostoevsky · 1848

  2. No. 42 on this list. The Most Dangerous Game

    Richard Connell · 1924

  3. No. 43 on this list. A River Runs Through It and Other Stories

    Norman Maclean · 2001

  4. No. 44 on this list. A Christmas Memory

    Truman Capote · 1956

  5. No. 45 on this list. Lost in the City

    Edward P. Jones · 1992

  6. No. 46 on this list. The Star Diaries

    Stanisław Lem · 1957

  7. No. 47 on this list. Binti

    Nnedi Okofor · 2015

  8. No. 48 on this list. Old Tales Retold

    Lu Xun · 1936

  9. No. 49 on this list. The Tolkien Reader

    J.R.R. Tolkien · 1966

  10. No. 50 on this list. A Good Scent from a Strange Mountain

    Robert Olen Butler · 1993

51–60 · 25 hours

  1. No. 51 on this list. The Lesson

    Toni Cade Bambara · 1972

  2. No. 52 on this list. Closely Watched Trains

    Bohumil Hrabal · 1965

  3. No. 53 on this list. The Tendrils of the Vine

    Colette · 1908

    Taught in schools: Programme de français, lycée général et technologique (France)

  4. No. 54 on this list. All Systems Red

    Martha Wells · 2017

  5. No. 55 on this list. The Grass Harp, Including A Tree of Night and Other Stories

    Truman Capote · 1993

  6. No. 56 on this list. Things We Lost in the Fire

    Mariana Enriquez · 2016

  7. No. 57 on this list. Soul

    Andrei Platonov · 1964

  8. No. 58 on this list. Trash

    Dorothy Allison · 2002

  9. No. 59 on this list. Kitchen

    Banana Yoshimoto · 1988

  10. No. 60 on this list. Legends of the Fall

    Jim Harrison · 1980

61–70 · 37 hours

  1. No. 61 on this list. Scenes of Clerical Life

    George Eliot · 1858

  2. No. 62 on this list. Black Spring

    Henry Miller · 1936

  3. No. 63 on this list. Strange Pilgrims

    Gabriel García Márquez · 1992

  4. No. 64 on this list. The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

    F. Scott Fitzgerald · 1922

  5. No. 65 on this list. Sabrina & Corina

    Kali Fajardo-Anstine · 2019

  6. No. 66 on this list. Come to Me

    Amy Bloom · 1993

  7. No. 67 on this list. Lady Susan

    Jane Austen

  8. No. 68 on this list. Flappers and Philosophers

    F. Scott Fitzgerald · 1920

  9. No. 69 on this list. Dark Water

    Koji Suzuki · 1996

  10. No. 70 on this list. Different Seasons

    Stephen King · 1995

71–80 · 30 hours

  1. No. 71 on this list. The Dangers of Smoking in Bed

    Mariana Enriquez · 2009

  2. No. 72 on this list. Slow Days, Fast Company

    Eve Babitz · 1977

  3. No. 73 on this list. A Lucky Man

    Jamel Brinkley · 2018

  4. No. 74 on this list. If I Had Two Wings

    Randall Kenan · 2020

  5. No. 75 on this list. Refund

    Karen E. Bender · 2015

  6. No. 76 on this list. A Psalm for the Wild-Built

    Becky Chambers · 2021

  7. No. 77 on this list. Skin and Other Stories

    Roald Dahl · 2002

  8. No. 78 on this list. Mathilda

    Mary Shelley

  9. No. 79 on this list. Temple Folk

    Aaliyah Bilal · 2023

  10. No. 80 on this list. North American Lake Monsters

    Nathan Ballingrud · 2013

81–90 · 50 hours

  1. No. 81 on this list. Without Feathers

    Woody Allen · 1986

  2. No. 82 on this list. Ideas of Heaven

    Joan Silber · 2004

  3. No. 83 on this list. Antarctica

    Claire Keegan · 2002

  4. No. 84 on this list. Maria, Maria & Other Stories

    Marytza K. Rubio · 2022

  5. No. 85 on this list. Fancies and Goodnights

    John Collier · 1951

  6. No. 86 on this list. Skeleton Crew

    Stephen King · 1985

  7. No. 87 on this list. Drinking Coffee Elsewhere

    ZZ Packer · 2003

  8. No. 88 on this list. The Black Swan

    Thomas Mann · 1953

  9. No. 89 on this list. The Complete Prose of Woody Allen

    Woody Allen · 1991

  10. No. 90 on this list. Vampires in the Lemon Grove

    Karen Russell · 2013

91–100 · 29 hours

  1. No. 91 on this list. Wounds: Six Stories from the Border of Hell

    Nathan Ballingrud · 2019

  2. No. 92 on this list. The Wild Robot

    Peter Brown · 2016

  3. No. 93 on this list. Pleasures and Days

    Marcel Proust · 1896

  4. No. 94 on this list. Homesick for Another World

    Ottessa Moshfegh · 2017

  5. No. 95 on this list. Small Scale Sinners

    Mahreen Sohail · 2025

  6. No. 96 on this list. Ordinary Love

    Marie Rutkoski · 1989

  7. No. 97 on this list. Three-Ten to Yuma and Other Stories

    Elmore Leonard · 2006

  8. No. 98 on this list. Seasons of Glass and Iron: Stories

    Amal El-Mohtar · 2026

  9. No. 99 on this list. The Giving Tree

    Shel Silverstein · 1964

  10. No. 100 on this list. Friday Black

    Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah · 2018

About this list

These 100 books are the highest-scoring eligible easy short story collections currently in the catalogue. By literary regard, it opens with The True Story of Ah Q, Of Mice and Men and A Good Man Is Hard to Find. About 328 hours of reading in all. Difficulty runs from 33 to 42 out of 100 for the middle half of the list; the summit is Temple Folk at 45.

This list is ranked by literary regard, with a consistent order for equal scores. Membership follows authors and co-authors, not translators or editors. Catalogue coverage and the historical canon both limit what this list can represent, and genre labels are the catalogue’s own, gathered into broader kinds.

When we matched the Canons dataset to our catalogue in October 2026, our canonical-status scores rose with the number of school curricula, publisher series and lists in it that cite a work: the median score was 72 for books one such source cites, 84 at two, 88 at three, 92 at four and 93 at five or more. Prizes are left out of that count. Outside the state curricula, the dataset’s sources choose mostly from what has been translated into English or French, so it is a weaker check on other literatures. Source: Canons (Andrew Piper), CC BY 4.0

Questions people actually ask

What are the best easy short story collections?
By literary regard, which weighs canonical status, critical standing and influence, The True Story of Ah Q, Of Mice and Men, A Good Man Is Hard to Find, A Christmas Carol and The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales lead. ReadingRate ranks 100 such books, each with a difficulty score and a reading-time estimate.
Where should I start with easy short story collections?
Start from difficulty, not from rank. The most approachable books on this list that still carry top literary regard are The Complete Grimm's Fairy Tales by Jacob Grimm (about 12 hours), The Complete Sherlock Holmes by Arthur Conan Doyle and Ethan Frome by Edith Wharton.
How hard are easy short story collections to read?
Most of this list sits between 33 and 42 on ReadingRate's 100-point difficulty scale, where 40 to 55 is moderate. The summit is Temple Folk at 45. Every entry carries its own score, so a reader can pick a great book at a difficulty they will finish.
How is this list ranked?
On literary-regard data: how canonically established a work is, its critical standing, and its influence on later writing. It is not a readers’ poll, which is why recent bestsellers rarely appear. Membership follows authors and co-authors, not translators or editors. A list that is not a genre list keeps to literature (fiction, poetry, drama and philosophy), with philosophy taking no more than one slot in five while there is literature left to rank; every list holds at most three works by one author.