
The Best American Short Stories 2024
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About this listen
A collection of the year’s best short stories, selected by celebrated bestselling author Lauren Groff, author of Matrix and The Vaster Wilds, and series editor Heidi Pitlor.
“There have never been as many exquisitely built stories in existence than there are now,” proclaims guest editor Lauren Groff in her introduction. This abundance led to a volume of robust stories with the nerve to push against narrative expectations. The Best American Short Stories 2024 boasts a collection of twenty stories that “buzz with their own strange logic.” A man becomes a tourist in his own hometown. An unemployed jeweler sails in an antique slave ship. A therapist decides to call an ex-patient years after their last session. Daring and resonant, the stories in this volume invite in Groff “a feeling that both the author and I were simultaneously discovering something together.”
The Best American Short Stories 2024 includes JAMEL BRINKLEY • ALEXANDRA CHANG • LAURIE COLWIN • MOLLY DEKTAR • TAISIA KITAISKAIA • DANIEL MASON • JIM SHEPARD • AZAREEN VAN DER VLIET OLOOMI • PAUL YOON • and others
©2024 Lauren Groff and Heidi Pitlor (P)2024 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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The Best American Short Stories 2022
- Best American
- By: Andrew Sean Greer - editor, Heidi Pitlor - series editor
- Narrated by: Andrew Sean Greer, Reynaldo Piniella, Shawn K. Jain, and others
- Length: 13 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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A collection of the year’s best short stories, selected by Pulitzer Prize winner Andrew Sean Greer and series editor Heidi Pitlor.
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So depressing
- By pj on 02-21-23
By: Andrew Sean Greer - editor, 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).
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A thoroughly satisfying anthology of short stories to savor
- By Patti Sprouse on 05-01-25
By: New Yorker Magazine Inc, 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.
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Well written but Sad stories
- By Geoffrey on 04-28-25
By: S.A. Cosby, and others
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The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024
- By: Bill McKibben, Jaime Green
- Narrated by: Eileen Stevens, Stephen Graybill, Lee Osorio, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning environmentalist, author, and journalist Bill McKibben selects twenty science and nature essays that represent the best examples of the form published in the previous year. ” The selections in The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2024 reveal a trying year for our planet—from the Lahaina wildfire tragedy to the lush Amazon jungle slowly turning to savanna—while also celebrating the earth’s beautiful and mysterious ways—from the largest beaver dam on earth to the heroic innovation to prevent birds from crashing into Chicago’s expanse of glass buildings.
By: Bill McKibben, and others
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The Best Short Stories 2025
- The O. Henry Prize Winners
- By: Edward P. Jones - editor, Jenny Minton Quigley
- Length: 14 hrs
- Unabridged
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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 Edward P. Jones has brought his own refreshing perspective to the prize, selecting stories by an engaging mix of celebrated names and emerging voices.
By: Edward P. Jones - editor, and others
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The Mysterious Bookshop Presents the Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2023
- By: Amor Towles - editor, Otto Penzler - editor
- Narrated by: Keith Sellon-Wright, Christina Delaine, Terrence Kidd
- Length: 21 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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Amor Towles selects the best mystery short stories of the year, including tales by Andrew Child, Jeffrey Deaver, and T. C. Boyle. Under the auspices of New York City's legendary mystery fiction specialty bookstore, The Mysterious Bookshop, and aided by Edgar Award-winning anthologist Otto Penzler, New York Times bestseller Amor Towles has selected the twenty most puzzling, most thrilling, and most mysterious short stories from the past year, collected now in one entertaining volume.
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Not For Me
- By 3POnR2 on 03-12-24
By: Amor Towles - editor, and others
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Birds of America
- Stories
- By: Lorrie Moore
- Narrated by: Natasha Soudek
- Length: 10 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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From the opening story, "Willing" - about a second-rate movie actress in her 30s who has moved back to Chicago, where she makes a seedy motel room her home and becomes involved with a mechanic who has not the least idea of who she is as a human being - Birds of America unfolds a startlingly brilliant series of portraits of the unhinged, the lost, the unsettled of our America. Lorrie Moore explores the personal and the universal, the idiosyncratic and the mundane, with all the wit, brio, and verve that have made her one of the best storytellers of our time.
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Provocative author, One Note Narration
- By Shana R Harvey on 11-16-22
By: Lorrie Moore
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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 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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Only 4 stories included
- By Orange Monkey on 04-27-25
By: Stephen Crane, and others
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The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024
- By: Hugh Howey, John Joseph Adams
- Narrated by: Charlie Thurston, Frankie Corzo, David Lee Huynh, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
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“These are dangerous stories. The kind that warp reality and threaten to change the world” warns guest editor Hugh Howey in his introduction. The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2024 promises a treasure trove of audacious characters, daring worldbuilding, and twisted realties. A sibling duo of supernatural hitmen. A traveling spellbreaker and his trusty alligator mount. Superheroes registering for work. Sentient spaceships with an AI-human interface grow up together with their human pilots.
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The treasures in here are worth the ticket price.
- By Anonymous User on 03-01-25
By: Hugh Howey, and others
Best of the Best
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RANT: This is a curated collection of American shorts. It is not really a “Best of” collection because diversity and inclusion appear to be an important editorial factor. Inclusive curated collections are great, but are a different thing from a true “best of” collection.
My favorite stories this year were: Mall of America, A Case Study, P’s Parties, Seeing Through Maps, Dorchester, and Evensong.
The narration varies but is overall is generally good to excellent.
Another great collection of short stories
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Magnificent Collection
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