My favorites:
• Nevsky Prospect
• The Portrait
• The Overcoat
• Viy

Gogol's usual brilliance, coupled with an excellent translation where you're actually getting the jokes.

Nikolai Gogol is perhaps the greatest storyteller a person could be, without being a great writer. His tales aren’t deep, they don’t describe life, nor are they particularly aesthetic, and yet it carries you from the beginning to the end. In the end, you don’t read Gogol for his plots, not even when they involve a missing nose, you read him because his voice is alive and animated. You can read Gogol most clearly in the beginning and end of his stories, and any interjection by the narrator.

My favourite story of Gogol is The Story of how Ivan Ivanovich Quarreled with Ivan Nikiforovich, although other parts, such as the setting of the scene in Nevsky Prospect can also be as great. I am conflicted about The Portrait and The Overcoat. They are good stories, but there are digressions and splits, which I did not like. They are worth reading though.

I can see some influence that Gogol has had on Dostoyevsky, and I would even call some of his stories a precursor. In particular, The Diary of a Madman is very pre-Dostoyevsky and I think it can be directly linked to Notes From the Underground. Gogol also influenced Krzhizhanovsky’s The Runaway Fingers with his story The Nose.

Perhaps since Gogol has been so influential, I’m not giving him the credit he deserves as a writer. However, I do believe that Gogol is a master story teller and I think that is worthy, in and of itself.