The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Only This, a short, gripping story of life in wartime from Roald Dahl, the master of the shocking tale. Read by the actress Sophie Okonedo. In Only This, Roald Dahl, one of the world's favourite authors, tells of a mother restlessly waiting for her bomber crewman son to return form a raid...

A collection of short stories from the Archives read for Radio 4, by bestselling author Maeve Binchy. Stories included are: The Garden Party read by Niamh Cusack - Helen looked down at Mrs Kennedy's garden. It was cheerfully coloured yet ordered like Mrs Kennedy. But first impressions are not always reliable. The Special Sale read by Dervla Kirwan...

Stories are like Russian dolls; open them up, and in each one you'll find another story.' Conjured from a wickedly imaginative pen, here is a new collection of short stories that showcases Joanne Harris's exceptional storytelling art.Sensuous, wicked, mischievous, uproarious and wry, here are tales that combine the everyday with the unexpected;wil...

Recently rediscovered in the archives of the New York Public Library, these short stories provide an unparalleled look at Truman Capote writing in his teens and early twenties, before he penned such classics as Other Voices, Other Rooms, Breakfast at Tiffany's, and In Cold Blood. This collection of more than a dozen pieces showcases the young Capot...

John Updike reads six stories he has selected from the hundred-odd he has published. "A&P", recounting a moral crisis on the checkout counter, is his most anthologized story. "Pigeon Feathers," the longest story included, tells of a fourteen-year-old boy's fear of death and the answer he finds. "The Family Meadow" describes a piece of America, a...

A collection of short stories by an award-winning master of horror and suspense. In The Poppet a faceless wooden doll holds the secret to a chilling curse . In Hell in the Cathedral, a bunch of tourists are marooned at the mercy of a voracious sea-beast . In The Baleful Dead an ageing heavy metal band reunite at a lonely mansion, unaware of the blo...

Touchy Subjects is about things that make people wince: taboos, controversies, secrets and lies. Some of the events that characters crash into are grand, tragic ones: miscarriage, overdose, missing persons. Other topics, like religion and money, are not inherently taboo, but they can cause acute discomfort because people disagree so vehemently. The...

Moments of change, chance encounters, twists of fate that create a new way of thinking or being: the stories in Dear Life build to form a radiant, indelible portrait of just how dangerous and strange ordinary life can be. The collection includes four powerful pieces, 'Autobiographical in Feeling', set during the time of Munro's own childhood, in th...

The collection begins in the 1950s in an insular northern village 'scoured by bitter winds and rough gossip tongues.' For the child narrator, the only way to survive is to get up, get on, get out. The title story sees our narrator ironing out her northern vowels with the help of an ex-actress with one lung and a Manchester accent. In Third Floor Ri...

Two sisters, Edith and Maud, are both in love with Saumarez. They have "a strong likeness between them in look and voice", and it is only a matter of time before they are mistaken for each other by the unlucky man. This was one of Rudyard Kipling's earlier tales, and made its first appearance in 'Plain Tales From the Hills', one of his celebrated c...

The Kipling story Kidnapped was first published in the Civil and Military Gazette on March 21st 1887, in the first Indian edition of Plain Tales from the Hills in 1888, and in subsequent editions of that collection.

A short and dark story about three men, a father and two brothers, who make their living by poaching and other such illegal activities and are 'hard drinkers and quick fighters'. When tragedy strikes, the reaction of their community is not necessarily what they may have expected. An intense and brief study of a moody setting and unsettling characte...

The Largesse of the Sea Maiden is the long-awaited new story collection from Denis Johnson, author of the groundbreaking, highly acclaimed Jesus' Son. Written in the same luminous prose, this collection finds Johnson in new territory, contemplating mortality, the ghosts of the past, and the elusive and unexpected ways the mysteries of the universe...

This collection is Jamaica Kincaid's earliest published writings: her inspired, lyrical short stories.These stories plunge the listener gently into another way of perceiving both the physical world and its elusive inhabitants. Her narrative is, by turns, na‹vely whimsical and biblical in its assurance, and it speaks of what is partially remembered,...

Read by two-time Oscar winner Tom Hanks. A collection of seventeen wonderful short stories showing that Tom Hanks is as talented a writer as he is an actor. A gentle Eastern European immigrant arrives in New York City after his family and his life have been torn apart by his country's civil war. A man who loves to bowl rolls a perfect game - and t...

Here are four stories by the most popular mystery writer of all time; stories told by Miss Marple and her friends and solved by that elderly white-haired lady with the faded blue eyes and quiet nature. They are read by Joan Hickson, who played Miss Marple in the television series based on the works of Agatha Christie. In The Thumbmark of St Peter M...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Last Stories by William Trevor, read by Niamh Cusack, Stephen Hogan and Tara Fitzgerald. In this final collection of ten exquisite, perceptive and profound stories, William Trevor probes into the depths of the human spirit. Here we encounter a tutor and his pupil, whose lives are thrown into turmoil when th...

In a sublime story cycle, Kazuo Ishiguro explores ideas of love, music and the passing of time. From the piazzas of Italy to the Malvern Hills, a London flat to the hush-hush floor of an exclusive Hollywood hotel, the characters we encounter range from young dreamers to cafe musicians to faded stars, all of them at some moment of reckoning. Gentle,...

In this addictive short story collection, twenty-four very different women reach a pivotal moment in their lives. A widow is liberated by a new job, but keeps it secret from her family. A date in suburbia has dramatic results. A seamstress takes revenge on an unsuspecting customer, while in France, a mother is promised 'fantastic news' - and lets h...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Galloping Foxley by Roald Dahl, read by Richard Griffiths. In Galloping Foxley, Roald Dahl tells a sinister story about the darker side of human nature. Here, a commuter is disturbed by an encounter with a man he vividly remembers from school . . . Galloping Foxley is taken from the short story collection S...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Katina by Roald Dahl, read by Cillian Murphy. In Katina, Roald Dahl 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 wartim...