This simple shortcode plugin allows you to list posts as a bulleted list linking to the full article. You can limit the list to posts from a specific category and you can select the number of posts to show. The order and orderby options lets you sort the list too.
Usage is simple. Create a page or post and use the code [showposts category="2" num="4"] – this will show all 4 posts from category 2.
Another example [showposts category="1" num="-1" orderby="date" order="DESC"] shows all the posts from category 1 ordered by the date (newest post first).