Download Top 100 Full Audiobooks in Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

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Title: The Love Object

Subtitle: Selected Stories

Author: Edna O'Brien, John Banville - introduction

Narrator: Catherine McGoohan, Julian Sands, Elle Newlands, Moira Quirk, Jennifer Taylor Lawrence, Cerris Morgan Moyer, Katy Townsend

Format: Unabridged

Length: 19 hrs and 58 mins

Language: English

Release date: 05-05-15

Publisher: Hachette Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 12 votes

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

Collected here for the first time are stories spanning five decades of writing by the "short story master" (Harold Bloom).

As John Banville writes in his introduction to The Love Object, Edna O'Brien "is, simply, one of the finest writers of our time." The 31 stories collected in this volume provide, among other things, a cumulative portrait of Ireland, seen from within and without.

Coming of age, the impact of class, and familial and romantic love are the prevalent motifs, along with the instinct toward escape and subsequent nostalgia for home. Some of the stories are linked, and some carry O'Brien's distinct sense of the comical. In "A Rose in the Heart of New York", the single-mindedness of love dramatically derails the relationship between a girl and her mother while in "Sister Imelda" and "The Creature", the strong ties between teacher and student and mother and son are ultimately broken. "The Love Object" recounts a passionate affair between the narrator and her older lover.

The magnificent, midcareer story "Lantern Slides" portrays a Dublin dinner party that takes on the lives and loves of all the guests. More recent stories include "Shovel Kings" - "a masterpiece of compression, distilling the pain of a lost, exiled generation" (Sunday Times) - and "Old Wounds", which follows the revival and demise of the friendship between two elderly cousins.

In 2011 Edna O'Brien's gifts were acknowledged with the most prestigious international award for the story, the Frank O'Connor Short Story Award. The Love Object illustrates a career's worth of shimmering, potent prose from a writer of great courage, vision, and heart.

"The most striking aspect of Edna O'Brien's short stories, aside from the consistent mastery with which they are executed, is their diversity" (John Banville).

Members Reviews:

wow

wonderful writing and narration. truly moving. could listen to it again and again. Edna O'Brian is incredible.

Painting the Inside: Love's "Reality"

You should read the trailblazing Irish writer Edna O'Brien, if you haven't. She was a pioneer in writing the uncensored and ungilded lives and inner thoughts of women, and, as such, a revolutionary in her native Ireland.

Educated as a pharmacist, she married a writer and moved to London. It was then, ironically, that she read James Joyce's A PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST AS A YOUNG MAN, and decided she wanted to write. She came out of the gate, but good, at the age of 30 with the 1960 publication of THE COUNTRY GIRLS, the first of what's now known as The Country Girls Trilogy (1960-64). These books were banned, and even burned, in Ireland due to their vivid depiction of the sensual lives and thoughts of women (especially single ones).

Most of the tales in this volume of selected stories portray the inner thoughts and sensuousness of women, their strengths and flaws, primarily in relationships with men but also to other women.

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Title: The Strange Library

Author: Haruki Murakami

Narrator: Kirby Heyborne

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 2 mins

Language: English

Release date: 04-06-15

Publisher: Whole Story AudioBooks

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 4 votes

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

On his way home from school, the young narrator of The Strange Library pops into the library, wondering how taxes were collected in the Ottoman Empire. This is his first mistake. Led to a special 'reading room' under the library by a strange old man, he finds himself imprisoned. His mother will be worrying why he hasn't returned, and the old man seems to have an appetite for eating small boys' brains. How will he escape?

Critic Reviews:

"The best novelist on the planet." (Observer)

Members Reviews:

Very disappointing

a story that goes nowhere of interest, as though he has reduced or removed all his characteristic wit and charm for younger readers... but why?

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Title: Stone Mattress

Subtitle: Nine Tales

Author: Margaret Atwood

Narrator: Emily Rankin, Lorna Raver, Margaret Atwood, Bernadette Dunne, Rob Delaney, Arthur Morey, Mark Bramhall

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 5 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-24-15

Publisher: Audible Studios for Bloomsbury

Ratings: 5 of 5 out of 1 votes

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

A collection of highly imaginative short pieces that speak to our times with deadly accuracy. Vintage Atwood creativity, intelligence, and humor: think Alias Grace. Margaret Atwood turns to short fiction for the first time since her 2006 collection, Moral Disorder, with nine tales of acute psychological insight and turbulent relationships bringing to mind her award-winning 1996 novel, Alias Grace. A recently widowed fantasy writer is guided through a stormy winter evening by the voice of her late husband in Alphinland, the first of three loosely linked stories about the romantic geometries of a group of writers and artists. In The Freeze-Dried Bridegroom, a man who bids on an auctioned storage space has a surprise. In Lusus Naturae, a woman born with a genetic abnormality is mistaken for a vampire. In Torching the Dusties, an elderly lady with Charles Bonnet syndrome comes to terms with the little people she keeps seeing, while a newly formed populist group gathers to burn down her retirement residence. And in Stone Mattress, a long-ago crime is avenged in the Arctic via a 1.9 billion-year-old stromatolite. In these nine tales, Margaret Atwood is at the top of her darkly humorous and seriously playful game.

This audiobook edition includes a Reading Group Guide.

Members Reviews:

Bitter, bitter old age tales that sting

I love Margaret Atwood's work but lately she is putting out some tales that are so full of disappointment in the human condition it is hard to like them.

Three of the stories are connected through characters and the rest in despair and reflections on life from the view of older bitter people, the magical tale is not so magic All the sex is tainted in use and abuse and so is therefore the love we get to see, even brotherly or asexual love are presented as a form of resignation.

Perhaps is me, but I find that she confuses bitterness with satire. And when it is spread so thickly it distorts everything into bleakness.

The writing is good and the plots are interesting, but the negativity gives no place to enjoy even the revenges or the past memories of the characters that feel cheated and used by their past loves making all an exercise in desperation for older character that discover or are very aware of their mortal coil.

It is good reading if you like Margaret Atwood but with the caveat that it is not happy reading or life affirming.

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Title: Don't Look Now

Subtitle: And Other Stories

Author: Daphne du Maurier

Narrator: Michael Sinclair, Katherine Kellgren, James Langton

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10 hrs and 25 mins

Language: English

Release date: 02-06-15

Publisher: Hachette Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 29 votes

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

A married couple on holiday in Venice are caught up in a sinister series of events. A lonely schoolmaster is impelled to investigate a mysterious American couple. A young woman loses her cool when she confronts her father's old friend on a lonely island. A party of British pilgrims meet strange phenomena and possible disaster in the Holy Land. A scientist abandons his scruples while trying to tap the energy of the dying mind.

Collecting five stories of mystery and slow, creeping horror, Daphne Du Maurier's Don't Look Now and Other Stories showcases her unique blend of sympathy and spine-tingling suspense.

Critic Reviews:

"Daphne du Maurier is in a class by herself." (New York Times)

Members Reviews:

Good collection with moments of brilliance

The one thing that all these stories have in common is that Dame Daphne does not hesitate to put her characters right in the midst of hell.

DON'T LOOK NOW is well known thanks to the Donald Sutherland - Julie Christie movie adaptation. Set in Venice, a couple looking for peace find anything but that in this tale of the paranormal, violence, and mystery.

NOT AFTER MIDNIGHT is, I think, the most creative story here. A school teacher and amateur painter looks forward to a vacation in Crete. He's working toward an exhibition and wants nothing more than to paint in solitude, but a loud-mouthed, swearing, drunken "ugly American" puts paid to that ambition. I absolutely loved this one. It has so many elements I love to see in a story.

A BORDERLINE CASE was disappointing. It is the lame story of a girl named Sheila who gets involved with something quite beyond her. Unlikely plot, unappealing characters.

THE WAY OF THE CROSS is an excellent satire. A group of Church of England pilgrims to the Holy Land are the focus of du Maurier's jaded eye. A wonderful mix of types and situations.

THE BREAKTHROUGH is an old school technological story that seems quaint today. An electronics electronics engineer finds himself in the midst of his most unusual work assignment to date when he is sent to an experimental group at a former radar station.

Recommended to du Maurier fans.

Thrilling - worth the listen

While there were audio issue (two recordings from 1989) it's worth a listen. Not scary but gives you the chills. The frights are all left unspoken.

Some terrific stories and some not so terrific

This author has quickly become one of my all-time favorites. Her character development - even in these short stories - is wonderful. The first story was spine chilling and I absolutely loved, same with the second and the last. The middle two stories I could have done without, but that's what you get with a compilation

of shorts. I would still recommend - some of the stories haunted me for days after!

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Title: Kissing the Witch

Subtitle: Old Tales in New Skins

Author: Emma Donoghue

Narrator: Maggie Mash

Format: Unabridged

Length: 4 hrs and 30 mins

Language: English

Release date: 01-23-15

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 33 votes

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

Thirteen tales are unspun from the deeply familiar and woven anew into a collection of fairy tales that wind back through time.

Emma Donoghue reveals heroines young and old in unexpected alliances--sometimes treacherous, sometimes erotic, but always courageous. Told with luminous voices that shimmer with sensuality and truth, these age-old characters shed their antiquated cloaks to travel a seductive new landscape, radiantly transformed.

Cinderella forsakes the handsome prince and runs off with the fairy godmother; Beauty discovers the Beast behind the mask is not so very different from the face she sees in the mirror; Snow White is awakened from slumber by the bittersweet fruit of an unnamed desire.

Critic Reviews:

"Stunning. " (The Boston Globe)

"Sophisticated, provocative, and bracing. " (The New York Times Book Review)

"A masterful, gorgeous, and wickedly well written book." (Francesca Lia Block, author of Dangerous Angels: The Weetzie Bat Books)

"These tales are revolutionary." (The San Francisco Examiner & Chronicle)

Members Reviews:

Phenomenal story

It is a wonderful patch work of Stories. With a sweetly poetic flow. Great read/listen!

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Title: A Very Merry Hockey Holiday

Subtitle: Assassins Series, Book 6.5

Author: Toni Aleo

Narrator: Lucy Malone

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3 hrs and 16 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-31-14

Publisher: Tantor Audio

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 53 votes

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

Join Lucas and Fallon along with Tate and Audrey, as they await life-changing gifts; Erik and Piper, and Phillip and Reece, who have decisions to make that could lead to exciting developments in their lives; and Claire, as she makes a Christmas wish and choices for her future. Spend Christmas morning with the Adler family, and see what the New Year has in store for Karson and Lacey, as well as Kacey King. The King family faces significant changes and resolutions that will leave listeners alternately cheering and maybe a little heavy-hearted.... all wrapped up in a big bow.

Members Reviews:

Love it.

I really enjoyed catching up on all the couples and meeting ones I will read. Well woth the credit.

Happy Assassin holiday!

Its not often you get to catch up on the lives of the couples from previous books. I loved catching up with the players and their wives during the holiday season. I can't wait for the next Assassin story! Lucy Malone is a great narrator who puts a lot of feeling and emotion into the story. Great job Toni and Lucy!

Loved it and love the series!

I loved the story and the continuation of all the characters! Can't wait for more in the series. The narrator was perfect as always!

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Title: Disconnected

Author: Jennifer Weiner

Narrator: Jess Weixler

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 15 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-02-14

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Audio

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 84 votes

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

From number-one best-selling author Jennifer Weiner comes a haunting tale of addiction and obligation, secrets and redemption.

Shannon Will is nearing thirty and has already made six trips to rehab (not that anyone's counting). But this time, she swears, will be different. She'll clean up her act, go to meetings, find a sponsor, and make a clean break with her past - starting with a new phone number.

But old ties aren't so easy to sever. When Shannon's new phone starts getting messages she was never meant to see, Shannon has to decide whether to risk getting involved, or stay safely disconnected.

Gripping, suspenseful, and smart, Disconnected is a riveting tale of addiction and obligation, secrets and redemption.

Members Reviews:

Depressing Drone

It's heavy material and the flat tone with which it is read only makes it overwhelmingly dreary to the point where I didn't want to waste any more life minutes on this. The whole is less than the sum of the parts in this instance.

Jennifer, Why have you disconnected?

Narrator was great,,, pronounced Grody as Grahdy. (Highlight.)

Jennifer, what's going on? I enjoy reading your books but I have to say you've been going down a dark place. Read "All Fall Down" and didn't love it and now a very similar monotonous journey in Disconnected,.

Please return to your old self which I read to relax and enjoy the characters and storyline.

By the way, this is my first review ever but I really feel strongly about this. Another popping pills, drugging and epiphany (not even sure about Disconnected) and you'll lose a loyal reader.

Exception all short story

Exception all short story. Well presented. Will recommend for reading and as an audible book.

Great short story

Very good short story!! It had a surprise ending and it is very well written. Would definitely read it again!

Hard to listen to, but well written

Gritty, sad and difficult to listen to. The sadness I felt during the story for people I've known that have lost their lives to drug addiction. Well written - everything I read by Jennifer Weiner has been well written and I try to make sure to read all her books.

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Title: The Heroin Chronicles

Author: Jerry Stahl (editor), Eric Bogosian, Lydia Lunch, Nathan Larson, Ava Stander, Antonia Crane, Gary Phillips, Jervey Tervalon

Narrator: Erin Moon

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-25-14

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 28 votes

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

Inspired by the ongoing international success of the city-based Akashic Noir Series (Brooklyn Noir, Boston Noir, Paris Noir, etc.), last year Akashic created the new Drug Chronicles series. On the heels of The Speed Chronicles (Sherman Alexie, William T. Vollmann, Megan Abbott, James Franco, Beth Lisick, etc.) and The Cocaine Chronicles (Lee Child, Laura Lippman, etc.) comes The Heroin Chronicles, a volume sure to frighten and delight. The literary styles are varied, as are the moral quandaries herein.

Heroin has long been understood as the most "literary" of narcotics, and this collection will, for better and worse, have tremendous pop cultural appeal.

Featuring brand-new stories by: Eric Bogosian, Lydia Lunch, Jerry Stahl, Nathan Larson, Ava Stander, Antonia Crane, Gary Phillips, Jervey Tervalon, John Albert, Michael Albo, Sophia Langdon, Tony O'Neill, and L.Z. Hansen.

Members Reviews:

Interesting Insight

This was an enlightening book as I'm learning how the addict struggles. I'm always thinking why don't they just quit. Now I have a greater understanding and sympathy for those caught in the terrible web of addiction.

Some good some just ok

Some stories were better than others. First 2 were good. Some were hard to follow or boring.

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Title: Boot Points

Subtitle: A Short Story from the Deadwood Humorous Mystery Series, Deadwood Shorts, Book 2

Author: Ann Charles

Narrator: Lisa Larsen

Format: Unabridged

Length: 1 hr and 11 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-25-14

Publisher: Ann Charles

Ratings: 4.5 of 5 out of 35 votes

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

It's not really about the boots or is it? Boot Points is a set of short tales about Violet Parker's purple boots. It is set in the story time between the third and fourth books in the Deadwood Mystery series. Each tale not only explains more of Violet's history, but also shows the role each character plays in Violet's life. In addition to this short story, there is a deleted scene from Nearly Departed in Deadwood, the first book in the Deadwood Mystery Series. Also, there are three short stories called "Dancing with Dialogue," "Rainstorms," and "Metro Madness" pulled from Ann's short story vault.

Members Reviews:

Selling practice work

This included a couple of scenes with Violet and a few writing exercises the author had done before she was published. While the first vignette with Doc and Violet was cute, nothing else was and the work certainly wasn't worth six dollars. In fact, I have trouble calling it work. It seems like a bunch of practice pieces. And while I might be interested in the practice pieces of J.R.R. Tolkien, the deadwood series has not quite reached the level of the Lord of the Rings yet. This material reminds me of material other authors offer for free on their websites - and on audible. Actually, the free stories other authors offer on audible are far superior to Boot Points - with complete plots and satisfying endings! (See the Chronicles of St Mary's shorts or the Riyria shorts as examples.) While I enjoy the deadwood series, this book of shorts, as well as her other book of shorts, did not give any new information or flesh out the characters any more fully. it is irritating and seems disrespectful to fans that this quality of material was gathered and sold under the auspices of enhancing the deadwood series. So, well I enjoyed the series I am now a bit turned off by the author.

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Title: Dallas Noir

Author: David Hale Smith

Narrator: Scott Brick, Jennifer Van Dyck, John McLain, Gabra Zackman, Vikas Adam, Stephen Hoye

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9 hrs and 49 mins

Language: English

Release date: 11-25-14

Publisher: Audible Studios

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 7 votes

Genres: Fiction, Short Stories & Anthologies

Publisher's Summary:

Featuring brand-new stories by: Kathleen Kent, Ben Fountain, James Hime, Harry Hunsicker, Matt Bondurant, Merritt Tierce, Daniel J. Hale, Emma Rathbone, Jonathan Woods, Oscar C. Pea, Clay Reynolds, Lauren Davis, Fran Hillyer, Catherine Cuellar, David Haynes, and J. Suzanne Frank.

From the introduction by David Hale Smith: My favorite line in my favorite song about Dallas goes like this: Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes / A steel and concrete soul in a warm heart and love disguise... The narrator of Jimmie Dale Gilmore's perfect tune "Dallas" is coming to town as a broke dreamer with the bright lights of the big city on his mind. He's just seen the Dallas cityscape through the window of his seat on a DC-9 at night. Is he just beginning his quest? Or is he on his way home, flying out of Love Field, reminiscing after seeing the woman who stepped on him when he was down? In a country with so many interesting cities, Dallas is often overlooked except on November 22 every year. The heartbreaking anniversary keeps coming back around in a nightmare loop, for all of us. On that day in 1963, Dallas became American noir. A permanent black scar on its history that will never be erased, no matter how many happy business stories and hit television shows arise from here. In a stark ongoing counterweight to the JFK tragedy are those two iterations of the TV show. Dallas is not a TV show. It's a real city... For the past 40 years, my capacity to be surprised by it has not diminished one bit. I hope the stories in this collection will surprise you too.

Members Reviews:

Gripping read for a dark stormy night

Bear in mind that this is noir literature, so at points, it is a bit graphic and contains illicit drug use, strong language, and some sexually explicit content. As a Dallas native who has also lived in other cities, I found it to be an all at once accurate, yet disturbing picture of the city. If you're a fan of dystopian literature or if you like to read lots of different perspectives on a place, you will like this book. Personally, I found it so intriguing that I read the whole thing in one sitting even though it was an assignment for a college class and I was only required to read a couple of stories.

Good series

Good stories

Wow!

Starts off perfect and zooms from there. Sometimes you forget how much there is going on right there in your own neighborhood.

Can't stop in the middle of these stories...

This is absolutely edge-of-my-subway-seat reading! I am very much enjoying this collection, and I would highly recommend it to others.

Great stories

Some great stories written top-notch writers. Jonathan Woods, James Hime, and Matt Bondurant to name a few. Check it out!