Short Stories Audiobooks | Literature

Acquired Taste: Chilling Stories Audiobook

"They’re feeding on you too. A father returns from serving in Vietnam with a strange and terrifying addiction; a man removes something horrifying from his fireplace, and becomes desperate to return it; and a right-wing news channel has its hooks in people in more ways than one. From department store Santas to ghost boyfriends and salamander-worshipping nuns, from the claustrophobia of the COVID-19 pandemic to small-town Chesapeake USA, Clay McLeod Chapman takes universal fears of parenthood, addiction and political divisions and makes them uniquely his own. Packed full of humanity, humour and, above all, relentless creeping dread, Acquired Taste is a timely descent into the mind of one of modern horror’s finest authors."

Clay McLeod Chapman (Author), James Patrick Cronin (Narrator)

Audiobook

Quickly, While They Still Have Horses

"Brought to you by Penguin. In sixteen sparkling stories, Jan Carson introduces us to worlds and characters that feel real enough to touch. All of life is here: the thrill of growing up, the grief when youth is over; first love, mature love, parenthood and loss - all shot through with profound compassion, warm wit, and boundless imagination. In 'A Certain Degree of Ownership', a distracted couple on a beach fail to notice their baby crawl perilously towards the sea. In 'Troubling the Water', a rumour spreads at a public swimming pool and chaos ensues. In 'Fair Play' a dishevelled father loses his two sons in an adventure park. Every so often, an irresistible suggestion of the other world will surprise and delight, reaffirming Carson as a thrillingly original and audacious talent, and making Quickly, While They Still Have Horses the perfect introduction for readers new to her work. ‘Jan Carson is a born storyteller: her work is so imaginative, whimsical, mischievous and brave, but tender and curious too — you never know where she's going to take you next, so reading her is always an adventure. Exactly how it should be.’ LISA MCINERNEY, author of THE GLORIOUS HERESIES 'Pure magic, funny, sharp, heartbreaking, the short form at its absolute best. Jan Carson is a unique and very special writer, one of the greatest of the modern fabulists. - DONAL RYAN author of HEART BE AT PEACE © Jan Carson 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025"

Jan Carson (Author), Maeve Smyth, Simon Slater (Narrator)

Audiobook

Good and Evil and Other Stories: from the three-time International Booker nominated author of Fever

"Brilliantly read by a multi-cast of narrators. The International Bestseller 'Just stellar - extreme, uncanny and beautifully controlled' - Anne Enright, Booker Prize winning author of The Wren, The Wren 'These stories are perfect for the times we dwell inside' - Colum McCann, author of Apeirogon The strange and explosive new collection from the incomparable imagination of Samanta Schweblin, a master of the short story. A gripping blend of the raw, the astonishing and the tragic, every story is as perfectly unexpected as a snare: tightly, exquisitely wound, ready to snap at a touch. Here, a young father is haunted by the consequences of a moment of distraction; tragedy is complicated by the inexplicable appearance of an injured horse; an attempted poisoning leads two writers to startling conclusions; a lonely woman's charity is rewarded with home-invasion. And in the shocking opening story, a mother surfaces from the depths of the lake behind her house, where she saw something awful yet alluring. Guilt, grief and relationships severed permeate this mesmerizing collection - but so do unspeakable bonds of family, love and longing, each sinister and beautiful. Step by step these unnerving stories lure us into the shadows to confront the monsters of everyday life - ourselves. 'No one writes like Samanta Schweblin' - Lorrie Moore, author of I Am Homeless if This Is Not My Home"

Samanta Schweblin (Author), Alma Cuervo, Annette Amelia Oliveira, Frankie Corzo, Ina Barron, Jamie K. Brown, Victoria Villarreal (Narrator)

Audiobook

I Don't Care

"Brought to you by Penguin. I don’t care: it’s not even pretty. The song is sad, and old, so old. I Don't Care presents the best short fiction by the Hungarian master Ágota Kristóf, selected by the author herself and available in English for the first time. Written immediately before her acclaimed Notebook trilogy, the works here oscillate between parables, surrealist anecdotes, and stories animated by a realism stripped to the bone. By turns harrowing and whimsical, cruel and sharply funny, Kristóf’s world shifts our gaze to a shared reality, past and present. Here exile and existential alienation are undeniable – as is the force of every sentence, making for extraordinary and essential reading. Translated from French by Chris Andrews © Ágota Kristóf 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025"

Ágota Kristóf (Author), Kate Lock (Narrator)

Audiobook

Stacy Aumonier: A BBC Radio Collection: Eleven Dramatisations and Readings

"A BBC radio anthology of the very best short stories by Stacy Aumonier Stacy Aumonier was an author, stage performer, 'society entertainer', World War One private and draughtsman, who gained an unrivalled reputation for his short fiction in the 1920s. John Galsworthy described him as ‘one of the best short-story writers of all time’, and several of his tales were adapted for television by Alfred Hitchcock. Full of wit, warmth and empathy, the eleven stories in this collection offer beautifully constructed insights into the various absurdities of human behaviour. In ‘The Baby Grand’, starring Trevor Peacock and Oona Beeson, a young girl struggles to study the piano amidst her family’s hostility. Aumonier’s World, first broadcast in 1993, comprises the four dramas: ‘Where Was Wych Street?’, ‘A Source of Irritation’, ‘Freddie Finds Himself’ and ‘Funeral March’. Starring John Baddeley as Aumonier, with Oona Beeson, Colin Pinney, Julian Rhind-Tutt and Fiona Fullerton, they centre around a pub argument that brings the world to a crisis, life in the First World War trenches, a young man’s discovery of his true vocation and the mysterious allure of the rich Mme Vieninoff. Initially aired on Radio 4 in 2011, Extremely Entertaining Short Stories contains two stories read by Mark Heap and Mathew Horne respectively. ‘The Brown Wallet’ features a man facing financial ruin who discovers a wallet containing £2000 in the back of a taxi, while in ‘The Room’, a bedsit dweller dreams of escape – then his landlady knocks on his door… Also included are four stories read by John Baddeley – ‘Dark Red Roses’, in which the titular flowers spell doom rather than romance, ‘Miss Bracegirdle Does Her Duty’, about a middle-aged spinster on her first trip abroad, ‘One Sunday Morning’, which sees a peaceful Sunday spoiled, and ‘An Adventure in Bed’, in which George’s lazy life is transformed by the beautiful Maisie... First published 1918 (‘A Source of Irritation’), 1921 (‘Where Was Wych Street?’, ‘An Adventure in Bed’), 1923 (‘The Brown Wallet’, ‘Miss Bracegirdle Does Her Duty’), 1924 (‘Freddie Finds Himself’), 1926 (‘The Baby Grand’, ‘Funeral March’, ‘The Room’), 1929 (‘Dark Red Roses’, ‘One Sunday Morning’) © 2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd. (P) 2025 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd"

Stacy Aumonier (Author), Fiona Fullerton, Full Cast, John Baddeley, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Mark Heap, Mathew Horne, Oona Beeson, Trevor Peacock (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Toynbee Convector

"From "one of science fiction's grand masters" (Library Journal), a new reissue of Ray Bradbury's The Toynbee Convector: a collection of twenty-two stories, including the continuing saga of H.G. Well's time traveler and his Toynbee Convector, a ghost on the Orient Express, and a bored man who creates his own genuine Egyptian mummy. The world's only time traveler finally reveals his secret. An old man's memory of World War I conjures ghostly parachutists. An Egyptian mummy turns up in an Illinois cornfield. A lonely Martian prepares to face his doom. From the iconic author of Fahrenheit 451, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The Martian Chronicles, and The Illustrated Man, The Toynbee Convector is a true cause for celebration. The twenty-two classic tales in this special Ray Bradbury collection begin in the familiar rooms and landscapes of our lives, in common thoughts and memories, and then take off into the farthest reaches of the imagination. "The fiction creates the truth in this lovely exercise in utopian dreaming" (Publishers Weekly)—stunning stories that could only come from the brilliant mind of Ray Bradbury."

Ray Bradbury (Author), Ali Andre Ali, Corey Brill, Danielle Cohen, Gary Furlong, Suehyla El-Attar Young (Narrator)

Audiobook

Duel Duet: Selected Stories

"Brought to you by Penguin. Graham Greene, known for his iconic novels, also wrote exceptional short stories. Here some of the best have been arranged into pairs - to be read as a duel or duet - by novelist and Greene aficionado, Yiyun Li. Twenty-two of Greene’s very best stories are collected here, each of them bearing the hallmark themes that characterise his great novels: innocence and vengeance, love and hate, pity and violence. Writer and Greene aficionado, Yiyun Li, has arranged the stories into pairs, to be read together in contrast or in harmony – as a duel or a duet. In doing so Li draws out the extraordinary power in Greene’s work, creating an ingenious new perspective on a writer we thought we knew. Unexpected, surprising and wide-ranging, this is the short fiction of one of the twentieth century’s greatest and most adored storytellers, revealing his brilliance as never before. ‘No twentieth-century writer had a subtler mind for human comparison’ Zadie Smith ‘Greene had wit and grace and character and story and a transcendent universal compassion that places him for all time in the ranks of world literature’ John le Carré 'One of the most important British writers of the twentieth century' Daily Telegraph ‘A superb storyteller’ New York Times ‘One of the finest writers of any language’ Washington Post ‘One of our greatest authors’ Independent SELECTED AND INTRODUCED BY YIYUN LI © Graham Greene 2025 (P) Penguin Audio 2025"

Graham Greene (Author), Emma Gregory, Nigel Pilkington (Narrator)

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[Spanish] - El extraño caso del doctor Jekyll y el señor Hyde

"Edición especial de la gran fábula sobre la doble personalidad que fascinó a la Inglaterra victoriana y no ha dejado de interpelarnos desde entonces. En esta historia ambientada en una Londres cubierta de niebla, Robert Louis Stevenson estudia el vínculo entre el respetable doctor Jekyll y una enigmática figura llamada Edward Hyde, mientras explora las bajezas de la naturaleza humana y acaba tejiendo una fascinante trama de misterio en torno a la búsqueda de un asesino. El extraño caso del doctor Jekyll y el señor Hyde dio carta de naturaleza a la idea de la doble personalidad, y creó uno de los grandes mitos de la literatura victoriana, que resuena como nunca en español en la estupenda traducción de Miguel Temprano García. Sobre la obra: «Una historia breve, rápida y concentrada, que es una verdadera obra maestra de concisión». Henry James «Su libros más maravilloso». Vladimir Nabokov"

Robert Louis Stevenson (Author), Octavi Pujades (Narrator)

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[Spanish] - Soñarán en el jardín

"«La Guardiana vio cumplido el anhelo de Las Argüenderas cuando las madres y los padres, y lashermanas y hermanos, y sus amistades, las veían dentro del jardín, vivas, sonrientes. Sentían esa dicha que la justicia no les había podido dar.» Se dice a menudo que «el futuro está escrito» como si eso robara toda la esperanza, pero es en la escritura donde se juega la imaginación subversiva de lo posible y la memoria indómita de lo que está al borde del olvido. ¿Y si, para los seres que el presente desprecia y mengua, el porvenir fuera el tiempo de la rebeldía y la comunidad? En los doce cuentos que componen Soñarán en el jardín, Gabriela Damián Miravete despoja la fantasía, el horror y la ficción especulativa del manto fúnebre de lo irreversible en una serie de ventanas a lo inesperado y asombroso. Y lo hace con una inteligencia insubordinada y un oficio artesano del arte de contar. Sus narradoras son, como ella, mujeres autónomas que confabulan para ingeniar máquinas y conjuros de libertad de cara a los páramos de la catástrofe. Las flores y los gatos, el agua y la montaña, deshacen con palabras indóciles la promesa de apocalipsis que intenta conquistar nuestro mañana y ocupan el lugar de los congéneres, en un mundo compartido y horizontal en el que los seres humanos no son la cumbre de ninguna evolución"

Gabriela Damián Miravete (Author), Kerygma Flores (Narrator)

Audiobook

Heart Lamp: Selected Stories

"Winner of the 2025 International Booker Prize Winner of a PEN Translates Award A monumental first collection in English from Banu Mushtaq: lawyer, activist, champion of Muslim women, and winner of India’s highest literary honors. In the twelve stories of Heart Lamp, Banu Mushtaq exquisitely captures the everyday lives of women and girls in Muslim communities in southern India. Published originally in the Kannada language between 1990 and 2023, praised for their dry and gentle humor, these portraits of family and community tensions testify to Mushtaq’s years as a journalist and lawyer, in which she tirelessly championed women’s rights and protested all forms of caste and religious oppression. Written in a style at once witty, vivid, colloquial, moving, and excoriating, it’s in her characters—the sparky children, the audacious grandmothers, the buffoonish maulvis and thug brothers, the oft-hapless husbands, and the mothers above all, surviving their feelings at great cost—that Mushtaq emerges as an astonishing writer and observer of human nature, building disconcerting emotional heights out of a rich spoken style. Her opus has garnered both censure from conservative quarters as well India’s most prestigious literary awards; this is a collection sure to be read for years to come."

Banu Mushtaq, Deepa Bhasthi (Author), Deepti Gupta, Vikas Adam (Narrator)

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[Russian] - Фея Хлебных Крошек

"Сборник составили очаровательные литературные сказки Шарля Нодье, французского библиофила, публициста и писателя, известного своим вкладом в становление романтического стиля в классической французской литературе. В произведениях Нодье безудержная фантазия сочетается с социальной критикой, а сентиментальные рассуждения соседствуют с острыми, почти язвительными описаниями реалий начала XIХ века. Причудливые персонажи напоминают о мире Эрнста Т. А. Гофмана, а сюжеты варьируются от мрачных историй о привидениях до шаловливых фантасмагорий. Богатый литературный язык, замечательно переданный прославленными переводчиками, делает новеллы Нодье восхитительным чтением, щедро сдобренным авторским обаянием и приправленным особым французским шармом."

Шарль Нодье (Author), Станислав Федорчук (Narrator)

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[Russian] - Дерево на крыше

"'…Приятно из грязного делать чистое, из темного — светлое, из немой горсти продуктов — благоуханный обед. Все садятся и радуются. И лица светятся. И желудки наполняются, и вырабатываются гормоны удовольствия. И еще неизвестно, что нужнее человеку — песня или обед'. В. Токарева"

Виктория Токарева (Author), Алла Човжик (Narrator)

Audiobook

Short Stories Audiobooks in Literature