
The Best Short Stories 2024
The O. Henry Prize Winners
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About this listen
“A diverse and glorious selection . . . a gift of imagination, wit, and wonder. The collection is filled with miniature masterpieces. . . . This must-have anthology is a treasure trove not to be missed.” —Library Journal (starred review)
The prestigious annual story anthology, featuring prize-winning stories by Kate DiCamillo, Jess Walter, Dave Eggers, Allegra Goodman, Jai Chakrabarti, Francisco Gonzalez, and more.
Continuing a century-long tradition of cutting-edge literary excellence, this year's edition contains twenty prizewinning stories chosen from the thousands published in magazines over the previous year. Guest editor Amor Towles has brought his own refreshing perspective to the prize, selecting stories by an engaging mix of celebrated names and emerging voices. The winning stories are accompanied by an introduction by Towles, observations from the winning writers on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines that publish short fiction.
THE WINNING STORIES
“Roy,” Emma Binder
“The Soccer Balls of Mr. Kurz,” Michele Mari (translated from the Italian by Brian Robert Moore)
“Orphans,” Brad Felver
“The Home Visit,” Morris Collins
“The Import,” Jai Chakrabarti
“Didi,” Amber Caron
“Serranos,” Francisco González
“Hiding Spot,” Caroline Kim
“Junior,” Katherine D. Stutzman
“My Good Friend,” Juliana Leite (translated from the Portuguese by Zoë Perry)
"The Castle of Rose Tellin,” Kate DiCamillo
"Rain,” Colin Barrett
“Marital Problems,” Robin Romm
“The Last Grownup,” Allegra Goodman
“The Honor of Your Presence,” Dave Eggers
“The Paper Artist,” E. K. Ota
“The Room-Service Waiter,” Tom Crewe
“Seeing Through Maps,” Madeline ffitch
“The Dark,” Jess Walter
“Mobilization,” Allegra Hyde
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- Length: 1 hr and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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When Sam’s wife first tells him about Vitek, a twenty-first-century fertility lab, he sees it as the natural next step in trying to help their future child get a “leg up” in a competitive world. But the more Sam considers the lives that his child could lead, the more he begins to question his own relationships and the choices he has made in his life.
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Excellent
- By RueRue on 10-19-19
By: Amor Towles
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The Best American Short Stories 2019
- By: Anthony Doerr, Heidi Pitlor
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff, Heidi Pitlor, Scott Shepherd, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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#1 New York Times best-selling, Pulitzer Prize–winning author Anthony Doerr brings his“stunning sense of physical detail and gorgeous metaphors” (San Francisco Chronicle) to selecting The Best American Short Stories 2019. Doerr and the series editor, Heidi Pitlor, winnow down twenty stories out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.
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Another great year of Shorts
- By Michael on 01-19-24
By: Anthony Doerr, and others
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The Short Story Collection
- Classic Short Stories
- By: Stephen Crane, O. Henry, Anton Chekov
- Narrated by: Frank Muller, George Guidall
- Length: 1 hr and 47 mins
- Unabridged
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This group of four classic stories from the 19th century includes works that appear in many collections of European literature. Offering tantalizing revelations and unforgettable characters, these tales have delighted readers ever since they were first published. These classic short stories are narrated by two of the most critically-acclaimed readers in the audiobook field: George Guidall and Frank Muller. Their performances bring fresh emotional nuances to the tales while highlighting the wonderful strands of irony.
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The classic old time stories, and lovely narrations.
- By Anonymous User on 02-15-25
By: Stephen Crane, and others
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The World's Best Classic Short Stories
- By: O. Henry, Edgar Allan Poe, Oscar Wilde, and others
- Narrated by: Cathy Dobson
- Length: 20 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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A glittering collection of some of the world's finest short stories.
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I just can't listen to this narrator
- By Jennifer Greenberg on 09-04-16
By: O. Henry, and others
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O. Henry: Complete Short Stories Collection
- By: O. Henry, William Sydney Porter
- Narrated by: Bob Thomley
- Length: 14 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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O. Henry's short stories are well known for their wit, wordplay, warm characterization, and clever twist endings. This collection includes "The Last Leaf", "The Love Philter of Ikey Schoenstein", "The Caliph", "Cupid and the Clock", "The Brief Debut of Tildy", "The Higher Abdication", "The Ransom of Red Chief", "One Dollar’s Worth", "Cupid a la Carte", "Girl", "Springtime a la Carte", "The Ethics of Pig", "The Social Triangle", "Witches Loaves", "The Romace of the Buys Broker", and more.
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Mis-named: This is not a complete collection
- By Loren on 03-20-13
By: O. Henry, and others
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The Best Short Stories 2021
- The O. Henry Prize Winners
- By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - editor, Jenny Minton Quigley - editor
- Narrated by: Feodor Chin, Frankie Corzo, Gary Furlong, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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Now entering its second century, the prestigious annual story anthology has a new title, a new look, and a new guest editor. Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie has brought her own refreshing perspective to the prize, selecting stories by an engaging mix of celebrated names and young emerging voices. The winning stories are accompanied by an introduction by Adichie, observations from the winning writers on what inspired them, and an extensive resource list of magazines that publish short fiction.
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Don't Waste Your Money
- By Eric Meyer on 12-15-21
By: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie - editor, and others
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The Best American Essays 2024
- By: Wesley Morris, Kim Dana Kupperman
- Narrated by: Emily Rankin, Cary Hite, Jeanette Illidge, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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“Imparting some piece of yourself—any part—is arduous and warrants some kind of commendation,” writes guest editor Wesley Morris in his introduction. Both personal and personable, the essayists in this volume use their own vulnerability to guide listeners on excursions that unfold on uncomfortable edges. From contemplating the nuances of memory to exploring the complexities of family, romance, gender identity, illness, and death, Morris’s selection of essays presents a roundup of the thinkers who masterfully grapple with the issues of our time.
By: Wesley Morris, and others
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The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year: 2024
- By: Otto Penzler - editor foreword, Anthony Horowitz - editor introduction
- Narrated by: Kim Niemi, BJ Harrison
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Anthony Horowitz selects and introduces the best mystery stories from the past year, under the auspices of the world's oldest mystery fiction specialty bookshop.
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Enough stumbling and phone won’t work
- By deepdvr_ca on 03-02-25
By: Otto Penzler - editor foreword, and others
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The Best American Essays 2023
- Best American
- By: Vivian Gornick, Robert Atwan
- Narrated by: Will Tulin, Marie Hoffman, Elena Rey, and others
- Length: 11 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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In her introduction to this year’s The Best American Essays, guest editor Vivian Gornick states that her selections “contribute materially to the long and honorable history of the personal essay by way of the value they place on lived experience.” Provocative, daring, and honest at a time when many writers are deliberately silencing themselves in the face of authoritarian and populist censorship movements, the twenty-one essays collected here reflect their authors’ unapologetic observations of the world around them.
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Loved It
- By Marcel on 10-24-23
By: Vivian Gornick, and others
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Short Story Classics
- From the Great Storywriters of the World
- By: Edgar Allan Poe, George Eliot, Kate Chopin, and others
- Narrated by: Cathy Dobson
- Length: 10 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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A vintage collection of some of the greatest short stories ever written: "The Purloined Letter", by Edgar Allan Poe; "The Nose", by Nikolai Gogol; "The Story of an Hour", by Kate Chopin; "The Gift of the Magi", by O. Henry; "The Apparition of Mrs. Veal", by Daniel Defoe; "The Lifted Veil", by George Eliot; "Life of Ma Parker", by Katherine Mansfield; "The Baron", by Katherine Mansfield; "The Cask of Amontillado", by Edgar Allan Poe; "The Seventh Pullet", by Saki; and more.
By: Edgar Allan Poe, and others
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The Best American Mystery and Suspense 2024
- By: S.A. Cosby, Steph Cha
- Narrated by: Stacy Gonzalez, Bill Andrew Quinn, John Pirhalla, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In his introduction, guest editor S. A. Cosby observes that writing short stories is “a special skill that combines brevity with wit and cleverness and the hint of the existential malaise that imbues crime fiction with its gravitas.” The stories in this collection overflow with gravitas in the most unexpected ways: a cryptic note left on a windshield, a murder for hire meets a game of Mouse Trap, a swipe right on a dating app goes horribly wrong.
By: S.A. Cosby, and others
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A Century of Fiction in The New Yorker
- 1925-2025
- By: New Yorker Magazine Inc, Deborah Treisman - editor
- Narrated by: Deborah Treisman, full cast
- Length: 46 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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There is simply no A-Z like the alphabet of fiction writers who have appeared in the pages of The New Yorker in the last hundred years. The book boasts inarguable classics like Salinger’s “A Perfect Day for Bananafish,” Annie Proulx’s “Brokeback Mountain,” and Shirley Jackson’s “The Lottery” alongside stunners to be rediscovered. Some stories defined a moment or a now-lost world (Isaac Bashevis Singer’s “The Cafeteria”); others showed us a whole new way fiction could sound and feel (“The Red Girl,” by Jamaica Kincaid).
By: New Yorker Magazine Inc, and others
What listeners say about The Best Short Stories 2024
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Andre
- 10-12-24
Superb!
This is a most enjoyable read. The short fiction quality and diversity entertains and delights. I will listen to it again to pick up anything I missed the first time. I highly recommend it.
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- Michael
- 02-25-25
A fine collection of short stories
I generally like the competing “The Best *American* Short Stories” a bit better than this series, but this is nevertheless a fine collection.
My favorite stories this year were: Orphans, The Dark, Seeing Through Maps, The Room Service Waiter, and Roy. Occasionally, the same story will appear in both collections as in this years Seeing Through Maps.
The narration varies but is overall is generally good to excellent
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- Otis Lake
- 04-07-25
First several are Bleak, downers
Stark realism pessimistic bend. Not poorly done.... but are you looking for sad tales that do a good job of pointing out the slings and arrows of life? Stories of despair, futility, of damaged individuals damaging others, damaging children. One painful story emphasizes the plight of a somehow damaged self destructive teen who tortures herself, her father then aunt and uncle with death spiral wild unrepentant acts.
Another about a deceitful moral compass-less father and husband and his family and Nanny whose been ripped away from her child in desperate poverty...hoping to provide. They are bleak and painful stories.
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- T. Banner
- 04-07-25
Disappointing
I am very dissatisfied with this title. It was a waste of a credit for sure. These stories are just plain boring and end out of nowhere. If this is the best short stories of last year these writers need to do better.
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