
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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Performance
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The Agatha Christie Collection is a collection of 11 classic detective novels from the queen of crime fiction. We accompany Hecule Poirot on his first 6 adventures, as well as embark on a journey into the beginning of the Tommy & Tuppence Mysteries and Colonel Race series.
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Wonderful book!
- By Anonymous User on 02-07-25
By: Agatha Christie
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The World in Books
- 52 Works of Great Short Nonfiction
- By: Kenneth C. Davis
- Narrated by: Adenrele Ojo, Leon Nixon, Kenneth C. Davis
- Length: 15 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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A bestselling historian takes listeners on an intellectual and cultural adventure, offering a carefully curated guide to great, short nonfiction works by some of the world’s most influential writers—from Plato to Toni Morrison, Ernest Hemingway to bell hooks, and Marcus Aurelius to Joan Didion. A delightful roadmap to a year’s worth of reading briefly, plus biographies, fascinating facts, and idea-rich insights into the lives of the thinkers, historians, and literary giants who have shaped our world.
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An enticing, concise overview.
- By Sean Faircloth on 11-10-24
By: Kenneth C. Davis
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The Best American Short Stories 2023
- By: Min Jin Lee, Heidi Pitlor
- Narrated by: Laura Copland, Jeena Yi, Pascale Armand, and others
- Length: 14 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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“Without stories, we cannot live well,” shares guest editor Min Jin Lee, describing how storytelling affects and nurtures readers. The Best American Short Stories 2023 features twenty pieces of short fiction that reflect a world full of fractured relationships, but also wondrous hope. A lifelong friendship may become a casualty of the Russia-Ukraine war. Rejected by his lover, a man seeks to reconcile with his family. Twitter users miraculously muster enough empathy to help a lost cat find a forever home.
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Another Great Year of Shorts
- By Michael on 01-18-24
By: Min Jin Lee, and others
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The People We Keep
- By: Allison Larkin
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 11 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Little River, New York, 1994: April Sawicki is living in a motorless motorhome that her father won in a poker game. Failing out of school, picking up shifts at a local diner, she’s left fending for herself in a town where she’s never quite felt at home. When she “borrows” her neighbor’s car to perform at an open mic night, she realizes her life could be much bigger than where she came from. After a fight with her dad, April packs her stuff and leaves for good, setting off on a journey to find a life that’s all hers.
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Absolutely loved this book!
- By chatteycathi on 08-09-21
By: Allison Larkin
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Tell Me How Long the Train's Been Gone
- Vintage International
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly
- Length: 14 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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At the height of his theatrical career, the actor Leo Proudhammer is nearly felled by a heart attack. As he hovers between life and death, Baldwin shows the choices that have made him enviably famous and terrifyingly vulnerable. For between Leo's childhood on the streets of Harlem and his arrival into the intoxicating world of the theater lies a wilderness of desire and loss, shame and rage. An adored older brother vanishes into prison. There are love affairs with a white woman and a younger black man, each of whom will make irresistible claims on Leo's loyalty.
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Long story
- By A. Baulkman on 08-01-24
By: James Baldwin
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The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
- By: Junot Díaz
- Narrated by: Lin-Manuel Miranda, Karen Olivo
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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Things have never been easy for Oscar, a sweet but disastrously overweight, lovesick Dominican ghetto nerd. From his home in New Jersey, where he lives with his old-world mother and rebellious sister, Oscar dreams of becoming the Dominican J. R. R. Tolkien and, most of all, of finding love. But he may never get what he wants, thanks to the Fuku: the curse that has haunted Oscar's family for generations, dooming them to prison, torture, tragic accidents, and, above all, ill-starred love. Oscar, still waiting for his first kiss, is just its most recent victim.
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Lin-Manuel Miranda's performance is perfect
- By Alison on 02-27-18
By: Junot Díaz
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White Noise
- By: Don DeLillo
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 12 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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When an industrial accident unleashes an "airborne toxic event", a lethal black chemical cloud floats over the Gladneys' lives. The menacing cloud is a more urgent and visible version of the "white noise" engulfing the Gladneys - radio transmissions, sirens, microwaves, ultrasonic appliances, and TV murmurings - pulsing with life yet suggesting something ominous.
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Designed to be analyzed by an English class
- By RI in Canada on 10-15-16
By: Don DeLillo
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Song of Solomon
- A Novel
- By: Toni Morrison
- Narrated by: Toni Morrison
- Length: 15 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Milkman Dead was born shortly after a neighborhood eccentric hurled himself off a rooftop in a vain attempt at flight. For the rest of his life he, too, will be trying to fly. As Morrison follows Milkman from his rustbelt city to the place of his family’s origins, she introduces an entire cast of strivers and seeresses, liars and assassins, the inhabitants of a fully realized Black world.
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Maybe a beautiful story, This author should never narrate
- By Student on 01-02-20
By: Toni Morrison
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The Seven Wonders of the Ancient World
- A Journey Through History's Greatest Treasures
- By: Bettany Hughes
- Narrated by: Bettany Hughes
- Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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For millennia, the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World have been known for their aesthetic sublimity, ingenious engineering, and sheer, audacious magnitude: The Great Pyramids of Giza, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Temple of Artemis, the Statue of Zeus, the Mausoleum of Halikarnassos, the Colossus of Rhodes, and the Lighthouse at Alexandria. Echoing down time, each of these persists in our imagination as an emblem of the glory of antiquity, but beneath the familiar images is a surprising, revelatory history.
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Great overview with lots of additional history
- By McFitz on 03-26-25
By: Bettany Hughes
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On the Road: The Original Scroll
- By: Jack Kerouac
- Narrated by: John Ventimiglia
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Though Jack Kerouac began thinking about the novel that was to become On the Road as early as 1947, it was not until three weeks in April 1951, in an apartment on West 20th Street in Manhattan, that he wrote the first full draft that was satisfactory to him.
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A Classic Brought to Life
- By Sil A. on 11-25-16
By: Jack Kerouac
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The Water Dancer (Oprah’s Book Club)
- A Novel
- By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
- Narrated by: Joe Morton
- Length: 14 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Young Hiram Walker was born into bondage. When his mother was sold away, Hiram was robbed of all memory of her - but was gifted with a mysterious power. Years later, when Hiram almost drowns in a river, that same power saves his life. This brush with death births an urgency in Hiram and a daring scheme: to escape from the only home he’s ever known. So begins an unexpected journey that takes Hiram from the corrupt grandeur of Virginia’s proud plantations to desperate guerrilla cells in the wilderness, from the coffin of the South to dangerously idealistic movements in the North.
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We Must Always Remember
- By Cammie on 09-28-19
By: Ta-Nehisi Coates
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The House of the Spirits
- A Novel
- By: Isabel Allende
- Narrated by: Thom Rivera, Marisol Ramirez
- Length: 18 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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The House of the Spirits brings to life the triumphs and tragedies of three generations of the Trueba family. The patriarch Esteban is a volatile, proud man whose voracious pursuit of political power is tempered only by his love for his delicate wife, Clara, a woman with a mystical connection to the spirit world. When their daughter, Blanca, embarks on a forbidden love affair in defiance of her implacable father, the result is an unexpected gift to Esteban.
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Narrators spoil it
- By Cookie on 09-27-16
By: Isabel Allende
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A People's Future of the United States
- Speculative Fiction from 25 Extraordinary Writers
- By: Victor LaValle - editor, John Joseph Adams - editor
- Narrated by: Vikas Adam, Darrell Dennis, William DeMeritt, and others
- Length: 15 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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A glittering landscape of twenty-five speculative stories that challenge oppression and envision new futures for America - from N. K. Jemisin, Charles Yu, Jamie Ford, G. Willow Wilson, Charlie Jane Anders, Hugh Howey, and more.
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A bit brilliant, a little reactionary.
- By Thomas J Lee on 04-16-23
By: Victor LaValle - editor, and others
Superb!
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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
A fine collection of short stories
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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.
First several are Bleak, downers
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Disappointing
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