Poll

To make things easier for you: I have added all of these books to our group shelves, to be found here: https://www.goodreads.com/group/books..., or simply click on the thumbnails above.

Note that we don't have to read ALL of the stories in a collection; we can pick and choose as you like.

Bear with me and I will add a table of contents of the books along with places where you can find those that are in the public domain, by constantly editing this post and other posts below.

Best Russian Short Stories can be found on Gutenberg.org, and on free wikisource, here: en.wikisource.org. Sadly GR is now not allowing me to link, but just search for it on those places, it's edited by Thomas Seltzer.
Contents:
The Queen Of Spades .. A.S. Pushkin
The Cloak .. N.V. Gogol
The District Doctor .. I.S. Turgenev
The Christmas Tree And The Wedding .. F.M. Dostoyevsky
God Sees The Truth, But Waits .. L.N. Tolstoy
How A Muzhik Fed Two Officials .. M.Y. Saltykov
The Shades, A Phantasy .. V.G. Korolenko
The Signal .. V.N. Garshin
The Darling .. A.P. Chekhov
The Bet .. A.P. Chekhov
Vanka .. A.P. Chekhov
Hide And Seek .. F.K. Sologub
Dethroned .. I.N. Potapenko
The Servant .. S.T. Semyonov
One Autumn Night .. M. Gorky
Her Lover .. M. Gorky
Lazarus .. L.N. Andreyev
The Revolutionist .. M.P. Artzybashev
The Outrage .. A.I. Kuprin

International Short Stories: French by Francis J. Reynolds et al., is available on Gutenberg.com, and contains the following stories:

A PIECE OF BREAD By Francois Coppee
THE ELIXIR OF LIFE By Honore De Balzac
THE AGE FOR LOVE By Paul Bourget
MATEO FALCONE By Prosper Merimee
THE MIRROR By Catulle Mendes
MY NEPHEW JOSEPH By Ludovic Halevy
A FOREST BETROTHAL By Erckmann-Chatrian
ZADIG THE BABYLONIAN By Francois Marie Arouet De Voltaire
ABANDONED By Guy De Maupassant
JEAN MONETTE By Eugene Francois Vidocq
SOLANGE—DR. LEDRU’S STORY OF THE REIGN OF TERROR By Alexandre Dumas
THE BIRDS IN THE LETTER-BOX By Rene Bazin
JEAN GOURDON’S FOUR DAYS By Emile Zola
BARON DE TRENCK By Clemence Robert
THE PASSAGE OF THE RED SEA By Henry Murger
THE WOMAN AND THE CAT By Marcel Prevost
GIL BLAS AND DR. SANGRADO By Alain Rene Le Sage
A FIGHT WITH A CANNON By Victor Hugo
TONTON By A. Cheneviere
THE LAST LESSON By Alphonse Daudet
CROISILLES By Alfred De Musset
THE VASE OF CLAY By Jean Aicard

Included in the Stephan Zweig collection:

Forgotten Dreams
In the Snow
The Miracles of Life
The Star Above the Forest
A Summer Novella
The Governess
Twilight
A Story Told in Twilight
Wondrak [unfinished]
Compulsion
Moonbeam Alley
Amok
Fantastic Night
Letter from an Unknown Woman
The Invisible Collection
Twenty-Four Hours in the Life of a Woman
Downfall of the Heart
Incident on Lake Geneva
Mendel the Bibliophile
Leporella
Did He Do It?
The Debt Paid Late

The contents of Great French Stories and Rashomon collections are shown on the description page if you click on the thumbnail.

The contents of the Kafka collection are:

A Message from the Emperor
The Metamorphosis
I
II
III
The Judgment
The Stoker: A Fragment
In the Penal Colony
A Country Doctor
An Old Leaf
A Hunger Artist
Josephine the Singer, or The Mouse People
Before the Law

The Japanese tales by Rampo contains the following stories:

The Human Chair
The Psychological Test
The Caterpillar
The Cliff
The Hell Of Mirrors
The Twins
The Red Chamber
Two Crippled Men
The Traveler With The Pasted Rag Picture

Thanks for putting all this together Traveller!! For what it's worth, I voted for Chess Story but would also love to read the other Zweig volume, or either of the two Japanese volumes which both look extremely intriguing :)

BJ wrote: "Thanks for putting all this together Traveller!! For what it's worth, I voted for Chess Story but would also love to read the other Zweig volume, or either of the two Japanese volumes which both lo..."

FWIW, I wouldn't mind reading all of it, if I had the time. :P

Ok, let's see how the voting goes, and what we can wangle. The biggest problem with a group read is usually the availability of the proposed texts - to have all the members have the book in hand when the discussions take place, but if you can get hold of any of the 4 you mentioned for an extended period of time, we can perhaps squeeze in an additional buddy-read for one of them. :)

I wonder if we shouldn't do that for either Chess Story or the two Akutagawa stories "In a Grove" and "Spinning Gears", since those are rather sombre works for the group to be spending our December on. We could perhaps do either of those two choices as our "serious" December read, and then whatever else the group chooses. (Though of course the Kafka might also be rather sombre.) Oh boy...

Traveller, thank you so much for this. I placed my vote : )

I couldn't agree more with this line of yours ---> "I wouldn't mind reading all of it, if I had the time"

Nilanjana wrote: "Traveller, thank you so much for this. I placed my vote : )

I couldn't agree more with this line of yours ---> "I wouldn't mind reading all of it, if I had the time""

Thanks for voting, Nilanjana, and everyone else who have voted so far!
I must say I'm rather surprised at the turnout on the votes.

...which set me to thinking, and I was thinking that with the stories that are available on Gutenberg, we could always do something like a story per week next year - that should be manageable! ...and keep the rest on ice for when perhaps Amy might find time to facilitate a discussion. ...though I really would personally like to facilitate the Akutagawa stories if not now, then at some point in the future.

Hi everyone, Thanks for voting! So the winners are Chess Story and Rashomon. Since the votes are so close on those, I think we should try to fit both in. (Perhaps not the full collection of Rashomon, but the title story /In a Grove at the very least.)

If you people don't mind me making Chess Story slightly earlier, say - the 7th - it's a novella, so it shouldn't take too long to read, then we can perhaps bring Rashomon in by the 14th of December?

Traveller wrote: "Hi everyone, Thanks for voting! So the winners are Chess Story and Rashomon. Since the votes are so close on those, I think we should try to fit both in. (Perhaps not the full collection of Rashomo..."

Hi Traveller, good evening from India.

you are welcome.

I got caught up with things hence couldn't finish the Haruki's story "First Person Singular" I had been reading. However, I am back.

I loved the storyline of "Chess story." Have you begun reading it? I would really love to read it someday : )

take care, friend!