Deb­bie Ja­cob

All right, sec­ondary school stu­dents, let's com­pro­mise. I know I keep harp­ing on the im­por­tance of read­ing to build the skills you need for aca­d­e­m­ic suc­cess and life. Many of you keep say­ing you don't have time in your busy sched­ules to squeeze in the half hour a day for ex­tra read­ing that ed­u­ca­tors say is cru­cial for your aca­d­e­m­ic and per­son­al de­vel­op­ment. But what if there was a way to build those skills ten times faster than read­ing a nov­el?

That's ex­act­ly what you could do if you tack­le short sto­ries as op­posed to nov­els. Read­ing a book with ten short sto­ries will give you ten times the prac­tice in build­ing those lit­er­ary and an­a­lyt­i­cal skills you need, and there are some great col­lec­tions out there. You can of­ten find short sto­ries on­line to read. That's the case with most of the sites list­ed be­low.

One of my favourite on­line sites is 50 Best Short Sto­ries of All Time (http://www.on­lineclass­es.org/2011/01/20/the-50-best-short-sto­ries-of-all-time/). This site cat­e­goris­es col­lec­tions of short sto­ries in­to Sad and Shock­ing Tales, Col­lec­tions, Pop Cul­ture Clas­sics, Well Known Au­thors, Mod­ern Writ­ers and End­ings with a Twist. In­clud­ed on this list are sto­ries like "Signs and Sym­bols" by Vladimir Nabokov: a sad sto­ry about an el­der­ly cou­ple cop­ing with their men­tal­ly ill son.

You can't find a wilder read than the sto­ries by Flan­nery O'Con­nor, a writer from the south­ern US who suf­fered from de­bil­i­tat­ing lu­pus. "A Good Man is Hard to Find" is O'Con­nor's sto­ry of an an­noy­ing grand­moth­er's shock­ing pre­dic­tion. A word­smith like Ernest Hem­ing­way can teach you a lot about writ­ing and ex­pres­sion in the most suc­cinct form. "The Snows of Kil­i­man­jaro" by Hem­ing­way cap­tures the re­flec­tions of a man par­tic­i­pat­ing in a sa­fari and the tragedy of his very short life.

You'll find the strange writ­ing of Franz Kaf­ka to be a riv­et­ing read. This site in­cludes Kaf­ka's "In the Pe­nal Colony," a hor­rif­ic sto­ry about a prison. Avid read­ers who need a chal­lenge can tack­le short sto­ries in The Dublin­ers by James Joyce. Joyce por­trays Irish so­ci­ety with the same fine nu­ances as Trinida­di­an writer Earl Lovelace por­trays Trinidad so­ci­ety. Build your vo­cab­u­lary with Edgar Al­lan Poe sto­ries like "The Tell­tale Heart" in this col­lec­tion. This is a short mas­ter­piece in the study of guilt.

"The Very Old Man with Enor­mous Wings" by Gabriel Gar­cia Mar­quez is a clas­sic mag­i­cal re­al­ist tale about a poor cou­ple who finds a scruffy an­gel in the front yard. It's hard to de­ny that Russ­ian au­thor An­ton Chekhov is the mas­ter of the short sto­ry, and that's why his "The Look­ing Glass" is in­clud­ed in this col­lec­tion. This is the sto­ry of a woman who sees her fu­ture un­fold in much the same way you see your­self in the mir­ror.

"The Neck­lace" by Guy de Mau­pas­sant is pop­u­lar for its end­ing which hits you like a slap in the face. This has al­ways been one of my favourite short sto­ries. My on­ly com­plaint about this site is that I don't find the de­scrip­tions of the sto­ries al­ways cap­ture the main theme. Still, it's a good place to dis­cov­er the art form of the short sto­ry.

Try this site as well: Ten Free Short Sto­ries to Read On­line (http://www.fla­vor­wire.com/272890/10-won­der­ful-short-sto­ries-to-read-for-free-on­line#2). I love the vi­su­al im­pact of this site that pro­vides a bold black and white pic­ture of each au­thor. You'll find au­thors from Ray Brad­bury and Al­ice Munro to Vladimir Nabokov and Niko­lai Gogol-a great com­bi­na­tion of mod­ern writ­ers and mas­ters. The writ­ers on this list have one thing in com­mon: their very cool short sto­ries that tran­scend time.

If you like to live in the present-or some­thing close to it-check out this Web site for the best short sto­ries of 2011. These sto­ries were cho­sen by the UK-based Guardian. There's an an­no­tat­ed bib­li­og­ra­phy for the sto­ries in­clud­ed at this Web­site (http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2011/dec/28/2011-best-short-sto­ries). You'll have to or­der these short sto­ries on­line, but at least you can get an idea of what's fair­ly new and cur­rent and read a lit­tle about the au­thors and their sto­ries.

A site called Twen­ty Great Amer­i­can Sto­ries (http://www.amer­i­can­lit­er­a­ture.com/ss/ssindx.html) in­cludes sto­ries by Edgar Allen Poe, Her­man Melville, James Fen­ni­more Coop­er and more. You can read these clas­sic Amer­i­can tales on­line at the site. The font is read­er friend­ly and you'll find pic­tures of the au­thors.

There's a cool site ded­i­cat­ed to the sto­ries of Jack Lon­don, an Amer­i­can writer who wrote The Call of the Wild and oth­er hair-rais­ing, thought-pro­vok­ing, man-vs-na­ture sto­ries. The site (http://www.jack­lon­dons.net/in­tro.html) pro­vides short sto­ries for your pe­rusal, a bi­og­ra­phy of the au­thor and oth­er links to in­for­ma­tion re­lat­ed to the au­thor. It's an easy-to-nav­i­gate Web site with lay­ers of cool links em­bed­ded in the home page.

If you want to do bet­ter in your Eng­lish class­es, pre­pare for all your ex­ams, en­gage in schol­ar­ship hunt­ing to US uni­ver­si­ties, sharp­en your com­pre­hen­sion and an­a­lyt­i­cal skills for life, check out short sto­ries. Read­ing a short sto­ry is a great way to re­lax and es­cape from the world for a while. So surf the net for some short sto­ries to read and check out these Web sites be­fore you be­gin a new school year.