Short Stories audiobooks

Thirteen Hundred Rats

By: T. C. Boyle

Narrated by: T. C. Boyle

Length: 31 minutes

Abridged: No

This short story from the collection Wild Child was originally published in the New Yorker.When Gerald Loomis loses his wife, friends and neighbors try to rally him with food and suggestions for pets to keep him company. But Gerald has already picked a pet, a Burmese Python he's named Siddhartha. During a cold snap, Gerald ventures out to the... Read more

Ash Monday

By: T. C. Boyle

Narrated by: T. C. Boyle

Length: 40 minutes

Abridged: No

This short story from the collection Wild Child was originally published in the New Yorker.Thirteen-year-old Dill has a tendency to get in trouble, to act out, and perhaps it is due to his mother's latest boyfriend, Grady, leaving them behind. Meanwhile Sanjuro Ichyguro and his wife have moved from Japan to the United States and are having... Read more

Bulletproof

By: T. C. Boyle

Narrated by: T. C. Boyle

Length: 46 minutes

Abridged: No

This short story from the collection Wild Child was originally published in Best Life.Smithstown is a divided community, and Cal is right in the middle. He believes, like his best friend Dave, that evolution is scientific fact. But he's drawn to Lynnese, a devout Christian who believes in intelligent design and whose daughter, Mary-Louise, has... Read more

Moti Guj - Mutineer

By: Rudyard Kipling

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 16 minutes

Abridged: No

"When Deesa the mahout wants to go on a drinking spree for ten days, he entrusts his beloved elephant Moti Guj to another mahout for the period. The elephant is well aware of the number of days that he is to serve under his temporary master.

When Deesa loses track of time and fails to show up on the eleventh morning, Moti Guj enacts his own very... Read more

The Unlucky Mother of Aquiles Maldonado

By: T. C. Boyle

Narrated by: T. C. Boyle

Length: 41 minutes

Abridged: No

This short story from the collection Wild Child was originally published in Playboy.Marita Vallalba is revered in her Venezuelan village, and not just because her son, Aquiles Maldonado, is a big league baseball player in the United States. In fact, it is because of her son and his multimillion-dollar contract that has been splashed across the... Read more

The Lie

By: T. C. Boyle

Narrated by: T. C. Boyle

Length: 33 minutes

Abridged: No

This short story from the collection Wild Child was originally published in the New Yorker.Lonnie is tired. He's tired of his job, the monotony of it, and tired of the predictability of his home life now that he's a father. It's a day like every other day, and he can't face the inevitability of it all. So he lies. It's a small lie, but he knows... Read more

Hands On

By: T. C. Boyle

Narrated by: T. C. Boyle

Length: 19 minutes

Abridged: No

This short story from the collection Wild Child was originally published in the Kenyon Review.A divorc├®e disturbed by her upcoming thirty-fifth birthday decides to get a Botox treatment. But then she develops a crush on the plastic surgeon, whose secretary looks like a walking advertisement for the whole industry. When he spurns her advances,... Read more

La Conchita

By: T. C. Boyle

Narrated by: T. C. Boyle

Length: 29 minutes

Abridged: No

This short story from the collection Wild Child was originally published in the New Yorker.Gordon is a delivery driver with a predilection toward road rage, and he's on the most important delivery of his life. In Santa Barbara there's a mother of three on life support waiting for Gordon, waiting for the liver he's transporting from Los Angeles.... Read more

No One Writes to the Colonel, and Other Stories

By: Gabriel García Márquez

Narrated by: Armando Durán, Roxanne Hernandez, Marcelo Tuber...

Length: 5 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

From the Nobel Prize–winning author of One Hundred Years of Solitude, a series of short stories told in "spare, unpretentious…picturesque prose" (Library Journal)Written with compassionate realism and wit, the stories in this mesmerizing collection depict the disparities of town and village life in South America, of the frightfully poor and... Read more

Question 62

By: T. C. Boyle

Narrated by: T. C. Boyle

Length: 43 minutes

Abridged: No

This short story from the collection Wild Child was originally published in Harper's.Mae is in her southern California garden early one morning when a tiger shows up at the edge of her yard. Meanwhile Mae's sister, Anita, is in Wisconsin grieving her dead husband, dealing with a pack of feral cats under her trailer, and trying to start a... Read more

Sin Dolor

By: T. C. Boyle

Narrated by: T. C. Boyle

Length: 44 minutes

Abridged: No

This short story from the collection Wild Child was originally published in the New Yorker.Dámaso Funes is a medical miracle. He didn't make a sound when he was born, and as the years go by it's found that he doesn't feel pain. Not when he picks up hot coals with his bare hands or when he breaks his leg. To his father he is a sideshow freak, a... Read more

A Permanent Member of the Family

By: Russell Banks

Narrated by: Danny Campbell, Andrus Nichols & Robin Miles

Length: 5 hours 58 minutes

Abridged: No

Suffused with Russell Banks’s trademark lyricism and reckless humor, the twelve stories in A Permanent Member of the Family examine the myriad ways we try—and sometimes fail—to connect with one another, as we seek a home in the world.In the title story, a father looks back on the legend of the cherished family dog whose divided loyalties... Read more

The Angel on the Roof

By: Russell Banks

Narrated by: Robert Fass

Length: 17 hours 53 minutes

Abridged: No

""At his shattering best. . . Banks offers answers that are tough, honest, and inevitable without being simple. . . . A book that is not to be missed."" —New York TimesWith The Angel on the Roof, acclaimed author Russell Banks offers readers an astonishing collection of thirty years of his short fiction, revised especially for this volume and... Read more

A Queer Night in Paris

By: Guy de Maupassant

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 20 minutes

Abridged: No

"M. Savalle, a small-town notary and amateur operatic singer with pretensions, travels to Paris to visit the opera and takes the opportunity to rub shoulders with famous artists in the cafés of Montmartre.

He is unexpectedly invited to a housewarming party by a notable painter...but things do not go at all as he expected. His host vanishes... Read more

The Parrot

By: Guy de Maupassant

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 14 minutes

Abridged: No

Desiree is married to a wealthy but violent captain of a fishing trawler. For ten years of marriage he terrorizes her, until one night his boat is wrecked at sea and he is never seen alive again.

Four years later, Desiree buys an ill-tempered and foul-mouthed parrot in an auction, and a new nightmare begins. Read more

Found on a Drowned Man

By: Guy de Maupassant

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 14 minutes

Abridged: No

Guy de Maupassant's powerful and poignant story of a brief moment of mysterious passion in a young man's life, related in a letter found on his drowned corpse. Read more

My Uncle Jules

By: Guy de Maupassant

Narrated by: Cathy Dobson

Length: 16 minutes

Abridged: No

"An impoverished French family awaits the prodigal return of their long vanished Uncle Jules from his travels in America.

From his letters it would appear that he has made his fortune and when he returns the family hopes their fortunes will change too.

A boat trip to Jersey provides the opporunity for a reunion...but nobody could anticipate the... Read more

The Hunter and Other Stories

By: Dashiell Hammett

Narrated by: Ray Chase, Brian Holsopple, Donna Postel & Step...

Length: 10 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

Dashiell Hammett is best known as both pioneer and master of American hard-boiled detective fiction, but these dozen and a half stories both affirm that reputation and present him in a different light. Along with the full-length screen treatments On the Make (which became the movie Mr. Dynamite, 1935) and The Kiss-Off (the basis for City... Read more

Catch and Release

By: Lawrence Block

Narrated by: Lynne Block & Lawrence Block

Length: 10 hours 11 minutes

Abridged: No

One of the most highly acclaimed novelists in the crime genre, Lawrence Block is also a master of the short story. The sixteen stories (and one stage play!) collected here feature appearances by some of Block s most famous characters, including burglar Bernie Rhodenbarr and private detective Matt Scudder, as well as glimpses into the minds of a... Read more

A Christmas Carol

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Timothy Ackroyd

Length: 2 hours 27 minutes

Abridged: No

Dicken's classic morality tale which lead the way with its themes of nostalgia and festive redemption. Read by celebrated British Actor Sir Timothy Ackroyd Read more

Snowflakes in a Clear Night Sky

By: Jamie Sutliff

Narrated by: Jamie Sutliff

Length: 11 hours 50 minutes

Abridged: No

This short-story collection contains ten tales based on a diverse range of subjects, from true crime to historical fiction and fantasy. The title story, "Snowflakes in a Clear Night Sky," is based on Native American folklore. "A Dark Quiet Place" is based on a true-crime incident involving a troubled boy and gun violence. In "Adirondak Mountains... Read more

Christmas Stories

By: Charles Dickens

Narrated by: Bart Wolffe & Timothy Ackroyd

Length: 5 hours 1 minute

Abridged: No

An entertaining selection of festive stories by Charles Dickens. Read more

The Prussian Officer and Other Stories

By: D. H. Lawrence

Narrated by: Bart Wolffe

Length: 3 hours 23 minutes

Abridged: No

A collection of short stories by D. H. Lawrence. Read more

Short Stories

By: Leo Tolstoy

Narrated by: Bart Wolffe

Length: 2 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: No

A selection of short stories by Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy, considered to be one of the greatest writers of the genre his stories are often guided by his moralistic views. Read more