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, a celebration of bite-size fiction. Fill your day with a tale or two.

Sensational short stories to read online for free

Whether you love Nabokov or have never read him before, this story proves how much punch the Russian master can pack into just four pages. In the tale, a family wrestles with a bittersweet birthday and unexplained phone calls.

Russell is a short story wunderkind who swept onto the scene with her dark and magical collection "St. Lucy's Home for Girls Raised as Wolves" in 2006. Her novel "Swamplandia" was a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, though 

In "Haunting Olivia," two young brothers think they've discovered scuba-diving goggles that will allow them to see the dead.

"The Last Night of the World" by Ray Bradbury

Bradbury mastered dystopia before it became the latest literary trend. In this short and bittersweet piece, which he wrote for Esquire in 1951, Bradbury lets a simple conversation grow into something more.

"A Good Man is Hard to Find" by Flannery O'Connor

O'Connor delivers an unsettling, satirical story of a family road trip gone horribly awry. When a grandmother tries to direct the family to her childhood home, she actually leads them right into the clutches of The Misfit, a dangerous character that will stick with you long after the last sentence.

"The Soul is Not a Smithy" by David Foster Wallace

"Infinite Jest," Wallace's best-known work of fiction, clocks in at 1,079 pages, complete with 388 endnotes. 

This short story delivers Wallace's wicked sense of humor and wild imagination in a much more convenient dose (though it's still the longest story on the list). In "Smithy," the narrator thinks back on a particular fateful day with a substitute teacher.

Zadie Smith has earned accolades aplenty for her novels, which include "White Teeth," "On Beauty" and "NW." In this taste from a modern master, Smith examines the lives of immigrant workers in London in the shadow of mysterious goings-on behind the walls of the Cambodian embassy.

Short Story Month: Best short stories to read online for free

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