Part 1 of 2: Excavations-- Poe's "The cask of Amontillado" --
Hawthorne's "Goodman Brown" and lost faith --
Under Gogol's "Overcoat" --
Maupassant's "The necklace"-- real and paste --
Chekhov, love, and "The lady with the dog" --
James in the art studio-- "The real thing" --
Epiphany and the modern in Joyce's "Araby" --
Babel's "My first goose"-- violent concision --
Male initiation-- Hemingway's "The killers" --
Kafka's parable-- "A hunger artist" --
Lawrence's blue-eyed "Rocking-horse winner" --
Part 2 of 2: Jackson's shocking vision in "The lottery" --
O'Connor's "A good man is hard to find" --
Paley on survival and "An interest in life" --
The "Enormous wings" of Garcia Marquez --
A new world fable-- Malamud's "The Jewbird" --
Baldwin's "Sonny's blues"-- a Harlem song --
Updike's "A & P"-- the choice of gallantry --
Kingston's warrior myth-- "No name woman" --
Atwood's "Happy endings" as metafiction --
Gordimer's "Moment before" Apartheid fell --
Carver's "Cathedral"-- a story that levitates --
Why short fiction masterpieces?
