Showing results by publisher "Penguin Audio" in Short Stories

From the incomparable Tessa Hadley, a masterful collection of stories that plumb the depths of everyday life to reveal the shifting tides and hidden undercurrents of ordinary relationships. In each of the twelve stories in After the Funeral, small events have huge consequences. As psychologically astute as they are emotionally dense, these stories illuminate the enduring conflicts between responsibility and freedom, power and desire, convention and subversion, reality and dreams.

Step into the unsettling world of Shirley Jackson this autumn with a collection of her finest, darkest short stories, revealing the queen of American Gothic at her mesmerising best. In the haunting world of Shirley Jackson, nothing is as it seems and nowhere is safe, from the city streets to the country manor and from the small-town apartment to the dark, dark woods.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The Largesse of the Sea Maiden by Denis Johnson, read by Nick Offerman, Michael Shannon, Dermot Mulroney, Will Patton, and Liev Schreiber. The Largesse of the Sea Maiden is the long-awaited new story collection from Denis Johnson, author of the groundbreaking, highly acclaimed Jesus' Son.

The unabridged, digital audiobook edition of "Katina", a short, gripping story of life in wartime from Roald Dahl, the master of the shocking tale, read by the actor Cillian Murphy. In "Katina", Roald Dahl, one of the world’s favourite authors, tells of a young Greek girl fascinated by the British planes and airbase that have come to her village. Katina is taken from the short story collection Over to You, which includes nine other dramatic and terrifying tales of life as a wartime fighter pilot.

Prepare to be terrified with C. J. Tudor's first collection of short stories, featuring eleven twisted tales of the macabre, including: The Lion at the Gate in which a strange piece of graffiti leads to a terrifying encounter for four school friends; Butterfly Island which tells the story of a group of survivors who wash up on a deserted island and make a horrifying discovery; Gloria where a cold-hearted killer encounters a strange young girl at a motorway service station with unexpected consequences.

Winter 218 BC: In Cisalpine Gaul, a Carthaginian patrol is moving stealthily through thick woodland. It’s led by Hanno, one of Hannibal’s young officers, and his second-in-command, Mutt. Famished and cold, they are making for a town full of the grain that they desperately need. But the local Gauls cannot be trusted; and although defeated, the Romans still have patrols in the area. With peril on every side and a deadly ambush ahead, there is no certainty that either Hanno or Mutt will survive....

Seven stories to span the Christmas holidays: 'A Faraway Smell of Lemon': The school term has ended. It is almost Christmas, but Binny, out last-minute shopping, couldn't feel less like wishing glad tidings to all men. Ducking out of the rain, she finds herself in the sort of shop she would never normally visit. 'The Marriage Manual': Christmas Eve. Two parents endeavour to construct their son's Christmas present from a DIY kit and in the process find themselves deconstructing their marriage.

Fair warning: Raised in Captivity does not slot into a smooth preexisting groove. If Saul Steinberg and Italo Calvino had adopted a child from a Romanian orphanage and raised him on Gary Larsen and Thomas Bernhard, he would still be nothing like Chuck Klosterman. They might be good company, though. Funny, wise and weird in equal measure, Raised in Captivity bids fair to be one of the most original and exciting story collections in recent memory, a fever graph of our deepest unvoiced hopes, fears and preoccupations.

A brand-new audiobook by the number one best-selling author Katie Fforde containing never before published Christmas short stories. Perfect for anyone who loves romance, humour and happy-ever-after endings.

Suburban friends fall out after a racist encounter at a birthday party is caught on video and posted on Facebook; an illustrious Manhattan film crew is victim of its own snobbery when its members underestimate a pre-school teacher from the Mid-West; and a group of young writers fight about love and narrative style as they compete for a prestigious bursary.

Not the End of the World is Kate Atkinson's first collection of short stories. Playful and profound, they explore the world we think we know whilst offering a vision of another world which lurks just beneath the surface of our consciousness, a world where the myths we have banished from our lives are startlingly present and where imagination has the power to transform reality.

This magnificent collection takes us to Glanbeigh, a small town in rural Ireland - a town in which the youth have the run of the place. Boy racers speed down the back lanes, couples haunt the midnight woods, young skins huddle in the cold once The Peacock has closed its doors. Here the young live hard and wear the scars. It matters whose sister you were seen with. If you are in the wrong place at the wrong time, it matters a very great deal.

Something between a tale and a polemic, these 'fables of reason' are feats of narrative compression and contain much of Voltaire's best and funniest writing. From ribald tales of adultery to conversations between cosmic travellers, the stories in this collection pose moral, philosophical and social questions. Listener and protagonist alike find their assumptions challenged as Voltaire mingles rationality and fantasy.

This classic collection of short stories serves as the ideal introduction to Steinbeck's work. Set in the idyllic Salinas Valley in California, where simple people farm the land and struggle to find a place for themselves in the world, these stories reflect many of the concerns key to Steinbeck as a writer: the tensions between town and city, labourers and owners, past and present. Included here are the celebrated tales 'The Murderer' and 'The Chrysanthemums'.

An expedition to Mars goes terribly wrong. A seaside pier collapses. A 30-stone man is confined to his living room. One woman is abandoned on a tiny island in the middle of the ocean. Another woman is saved from drowning. Two boys discover a gun in a shoebox. A group of explorers find a cave of unimaginable size deep in the Amazon jungle. A man shoots a stranger in the chest on Christmas Eve.

Goodbye, Columbus is the story of Neil Klugman and pretty, spirited Brenda Patimkin, he of poor Newark, she of suburban Short Hills, who meet one summer and fall into an affair that is as much about social class and suspicion as it is about love. The novella is accompanied by five short stories - sometimes iconoclastic, sometimes elegiac - that crackle with irreverent originality and display Roth's blazing early talent.

In Japan's recent past, Miyako suspects her mother-in-law is a murderer. She uses her secret skills as an ex-spy to investigate her, while trying to maintain a peaceful home life. And in Japan's not-too-distant future, a courier named Mito finds himself embroiled in the death of the developer of a sinister AI surveillance system.

The unabridged, digital audiobook edition of 'The Landlady', a brilliant gem of a short story from Roald Dahl, the master of the sting in the tail, read by the actress Tamsin Greig. In "The Landlady", Roald Dahl, one of the world’s favourite authors, tells a sinister story about the darker side of human nature. Here, a young man in need of room meets a most accommodating landlady.... 'The Landlady' is taken from the short story collection Kiss Kiss, which includes 10 other devious and shocking stories.

Now available for the first time in audio as a digital download, a selection of stories from Grace Paley: Whether writing about relationships, little girls, loving and bickering couples, angry suburbanites, frustrated job-seekers, or Jewish children performing a Christmas play, Grace Paley captured the loneliness, poignancy, and humor of the human experience with matchless style. This audio collection is an abridgement of the full volume of Grace Paley's short story work.

For the past few years Roddy Doyle has been writing stories for Metro Eireann, a newspaper started by, and aimed at, immigrants to Ireland. Each of the stories took a new slant on the immigrant experience, something of increasing relevance and importance in today’s Ireland.