Einstein the Talking Parrot.

I grew up in a household that had every Galaxy and Astounding from the 50s and quite a few Astounding from the 40s. I had the privilege of reading Asimov's stories in their original format. Recommendations from 1945 to today: Asimov's collection of short stories originally published as Nightfall and Other Stories, Heinlein's Have Spacesuit, Will Travel and Card's Speaker for the Dead.

Anything by those three are good, many are great. These are just my favorites.

I have to agree with your choices 100%. I would like to add two of my old favorite short stories. The first is "For A Breath I Tarry" by Roger Zelazny. That one got a bit of press because of its influence on the film Wall-E. The other is "5,271,009" by Alfred Bester. I used to have copies I would loan to people who were curious about science fiction.

I recently read Lucifer's Hammer by Jerry Pournelle and Larry Niven. It's pretty good.

I've always had a weakness for Asimov's story "The Last Question." I saw it produced as a planetarium show when I was small and just the memory of it still gives me chills.

All of Shmitz's books, and the "Witch series" written by Eric Flint. McCaffrey, Norton, Marion Zimmer Bradley, just to name a few.

Dan Simmons' 'Endymion'.