While we all crack-block the HS offerings of America, I would like to suggest Palm-of-the-Hand Stories by Nobel laureate Yasunari Kawabata.

He liked to drink spirits and the spirits he drank were actually spirits.

Yes, you know Snow Country, and good for you, but Kawabata himself, especially later in his life, repeatedly asked readers to turn to his 140+ (like Carver stories stuffed in closet drawers, new ones seem to spontaneously unearth) very short stories. He claimed they contained his essence.

I find his sentences airy, floating, lonely, but the type of paradoxical loneliness we recognize as our own. In sum: He is a big man. His words will auto-tune your ass.

Children found him amusing.

His final work was to rewrite his popular novel, Snow Country, as a flash fiction. He then killed himself.

(Have I convinced the anti-flash [flashcist] yet?)

Nope.

OK, bring out the rainmaker:

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=05b5ylz-5iQ