Short Fiction Read Aloud

[Jason Bakker]

Not sure whether it's okay to start a new topic for this, but I listen (and re-listen) to The New Yorker Fiction Podcast. Every month a writer comes on and picks a short story from the New Yorker archives to read and then discuss with the host.

This structure means that you're getting the cream of the crop of the New Yorker short stories that have been published over the last century, and they're being read to you by authors that have an intimate relationship with that story, read it wonderfully, and usually have some interesting insights to add after the piece.

If you're interested or want to be convinced, these are a few of my favourites:

• T. Coraghessan Boyle reads Tobias Wolff’s “Bullet in the Brain.”
• Aleksandar Hemon reads Bernard Malamud’s “A Summer’s Reading.”
• Tobias Wolff reads Stephanie Vaughn’s “Dog Heaven.”
• Joshua Ferris reads George Saunders’s “Adams."
• Cynthia Ozick reads Steven Millhauser’s “In the Reign of Harad IV."

Agh - I'd better stop there, even though there're heaps more that I'd like to recommend!

If you already listen to it, or start after reading this we could potentially discuss the short stories read here. I haven't caught up to the most recent few yet, but will have done so soon.

[Chris]

I totally forgot about this podcast! I listened to it regularly when I lived in Boston, and somehow it got lost in the shuffle when I moved back to San Francisco. I'll have to resubscribe.

[Jason Bakker]

Glad my post was useful! This morning I heard David Seradis reading Miranda July's "Roy Spivey", which somehow managed to both crack me up and be really affecting.

[brkl]

This sounds amazing, I'll check it out.

[Jason Bakker]

I keep forgetting to jump on here and mention it, but a lot of the discussion around Sim City really reminded me of Donald Antrim's reading of Donald Barthelme's "I Bought a Little City", the second (I think) episode in the podcast. Whenever someone on Thumbs or 3MA would say something like "I created my city" or "I just had to keep bulldozing suburbs" it'd jump into my mind.

 

I'd love to play a game that dealt with city management in the way it's treated in Barthelme's story.

[Jason Bakker]

After seeing electricblue mention the podcast Selected Shorts in the Cosmicomics Book Club thread, I thought I'd change this topic to be about audible short fiction in general. Does anyone have any other recommendations?

 

The Selected Shorts podcast:

iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/selected-shorts/id253191824?mt=2

XML: http://selectedshortspri.pri.libsynpro.com/rss

[Max Ernst]

In this podcast, someone read an Alice Munro story and did a pretty wonderful analysis of it. It was pretty great to listen to, and completely enriched my understanding of the text. 

 

This podcast is the best thing if you have to spend two hours of your day commuting like I do.

[seamus2389]

There are alot of SFF online magazines that release their stories as audio books.

 

Clarkes world and Strange horizons are my two favourites mostly cause they publish stories that aren't your bog standard SFF - Fade to white, Mantis wives, Immersion and Anarchist wasp and cartographers bees in particular are really good as audio stories.

 

There is also Beneath ceaseless skies, Lightspeed (which has both SF and F), Nightmare (horror) and Podacstle (fantasy), escapeepod (sci-fi) and pseudopod (horror) the 3 of which are meant to be pretty good although I have yet to listen to them. Starship sofa is another one.

[Tanukitsune]

I'm a big fan of Podcastle, Pseudopod and Escapepod, I really love short fiction, but I think I've reached my "podcast limit", if I had another podcast I'll have to delete another one or I won't have time to listen to them all.

 

But... I will still give The New Yorker Fiction Fiction a shot. (Damn, I even have a backlog of podcasts!)

[Stephen]

This is kind've a stupid post for being a little bit around the actual topic itself, but my girlfriend and I like to pick a short story collection off the shelf and read aloud to each other before bed some nights. You should definitely read short stories out loud from time to time. If a writer is good enough there is such a specific sound to the way they write that it can be almost shocking how much you can dig up in an old story when you're reading it again with your voice rather than your thoughts exclusively.

 

It's actually a revelation almost similar to rewriting the story verbatim by hand. You learn a little bit more about how it was constructed.

[Patrick R]

For those who listened to the last episode of the Idle Book Club, the latest episode of the New Yorker: Fiction podcast features a story from Cosmicomics , albeit I believe one that wasn't featured in the edition Chris and Sean read (it's mentioned it's only on "The Complete Cosmicomics" edition, which I think the Thumbs mentioned they did not read). Good stuff.

[Wastrel]

Oh! Short story podcasts are how I dealt with chronic insomnia, so I've a disgusting number of recommendations if anyone wants 'em. Here are some favorites, grouped then ordered by time spent thinking about:

The Guardian Short Stories Podcast
>The Story of my Dovecot
>Giuseppe Pontiggia
>No Sweetness Here
>Notes from the House Spirits
>Extra

Miette's Bedtime Story Podcast:
>The Dark Lantern
>The Bound Man
>Some of Us Have Been Threatening Our Dear Friend Colby

>Lawyer Kraykowski's Dancer

New Yorker Fiction Podcast
>The Reverse Bug
>Figures in the Distance
>A Village After Dark
>The Swimmer
>Paper Lantern

 

Read by Author

>A Good Man is Hard to Find
>Consider the Lobster

Selected Shorts (paid if after air-date):
>Lieland & Fatso (free) & Good Intentions

>My Flamboyant Grandson
>Your Mother and I (free)
>Flight
>The Life You Save May Be Your Own

The Collagist:
>Defunct Girl Gangs of North American Drive-Ins

Drabblecast:
>Followed (starts at 17:22)

Podcastle:

>Some Zombie Contingency Plans

Clarkesworld:

>Non-Zero Probabilities 

While not quite framed as traditional short stories, I'd strongly recommend Joe Frank's Dreamers & Thief and Love+Radio's Get Me Away From Here as well.