Short Story Audiobooks - Quick & Easy Reads!

Robert E. Howard, renowned creator of Conan the barbarian, was also a master at conjuring tales of hair-raising horror. In a career spanning only twelve years, Howard wrote more than a hundred stories, with his most celebrated work appearing in Weird Tales, the preeminent pulp magazine of the era.

In this collection of Howard's greatest horror tales, some of the author's best-known characters—Solomon Kane, Bran Mak Morn, and sailor Steve Costigan among them—roam the forbidding locales of Howard's fevered imagination, from the swamps and bayous of the Deep South to the fiend-haunted woods outside Paris to remote jungles in Africa.

Included in this collection is Howard's masterpiece "Pigeons from Hell," a tale of two travelers who stumble upon the ruins of a Southern plantation—and into the maw of its fatal secret. In "Black Canaan," even the best warrior has little chance of taking down the evil voodoo man with unholy powers—and none at all against his wily mistress, the diabolical High Priestess of Damballah. Also included is the classic revenge nightmare "Worms of the Earth" as well as "The Cairn on the Headland."

“I have always had faith that the best writers will rise to the top, like cream, sooner or later, and will become exactly as well-known as they should be—their work talked about, quoted, taught, performed, filmed, set to music, anthologized. Perhaps, with the present collection, Lucia Berlin will begin to gain the attention she deserves.”—Lydia Davis, from the foreword

A Manual for Cleaning Women compiles the best work of the legendary short-story writer Lucia Berlin. With the grit of Raymond Carver, the humor of Grace Paley, and a blend of wit and melancholy all her own, Berlin crafts miracles from the everyday, uncovering moments of grace in the laundromats and halfway houses of the American Southwest, in the homes of the Bay Area upper class, among switchboard operators and struggling mothers, hitchhikers, and bad Christians.

Listeners will revel in this remarkable collection from a master of the form and wonder how they’d ever overlooked her in the first place.

In the stories that make up Oblivion, David Foster Wallace joins the rawest, most naked humanity with the infinite involutions of self-consciousness -- a combination that is dazzlingly, uniquely his.

These are worlds undreamt of by any other mind. Only David Foster Wallace could convey a father's desperate loneliness by way of his son's daydreaming through a teacher's homicidal breakdown (The Soul Is Not a Smithy). Or could explore the deepest and most hilarious aspects of creativity by delineating the office politics surrounding a magazine profile of an artist who produces miniature sculptures in an anatomically inconceivable way (The Suffering Channel). Or capture the ache of love's breakdown in the painfully polite apologies of a man who believes his wife is hallucinating the sound of his snoring (Oblivion).

Each of these stories is a complete world, as fully imagined as most entire novels, at once preposterously surreal and painfully immediate.

Mark Twain was known as a great American short-story writer as well as novelist and humorist. This collection of eighteen of his best short stories, from the well known to the lesser known, displays his mastery of Western humor and frontier realism. The stories also show how Twain earned his place in American letters as a master writer in the authentic native idiom. He was exuberant and irreverent, but underlying the humor was a vigorous desire for social justice and equality.

Beginning the collection is Twain’s comic version of an old folk tale, “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog,” first published in 1865 in the New York Saturday Press. It became the title story of The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaveras County and Other Sketches, the work that established him as a leading American humorist.

Stories include:

1. “Jim Smiley and His Jumping Frog”

2. “The Story of the Bad Little Boy Who Didn’t Come to Grief”

3. “Cannibalism in the Cars”

4. “Journalism in Tennessee”

5. “The Story of the Good Little Boy Who Did Not Prosper”

6. “How I Edited an Agricultural Paper Once”

7. “Political Economy”

8. “A True Story, Repeated Word for Word as I Heard It”

9. “The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime in Connecticut”

10. “Punch, Brothers, Punch!”

11. “Jim Baker’s Blue-Jay Yarn”

12. “The Stolen White Elephant”

13. “The McWilliamses and the Burglar Alarm”

14. “The Private History of a Campaign That Failed”

15. “Extracts from Adam’s Diary”

16. “The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg”

17. “The $30,000 Bequest”

18. “Eve’s Diary”

From the #1 New York Times bestselling author Stephen King, four “disturbing, fascinating” (The Washington Post) novellas—including the story “1922,” a Netflix original film—that explore the dark side of human nature.

“The pages practically turn themselves” (USA TODAY) in Full Dark, No Stars, an unforgettable collection centered around the theme of retribution.

In “1922,” a violence awakens inside a man when his wife proposes selling off the family homestead, setting in motion a grisly train of murder and madness.

In “Big Driver”, a mystery writer is brutally assaulted by a stranger along a Massachusetts back road and plots a revenge that will bring her face-to-face with another stranger: the one inside herself.

In “Fair Extension,” making a deal with the devil not only saves a man from terminal illness but also provides rich recompense for a lifetime of resentment.

In “A Good Marriage,” the trust forged by more than twenty years of matrimony is irrevocably shattered when a woman makes a chance discovery leading to the horrifying implications of just who her husband really is.

Like Different Seasons and Four Past Midnight, which generated such enduring hit films as The Shawshank Redemption and Stand by Me, King’s Full Dark, No Stars is a “page-turner” (The New York Times) “as gripping as his epic novels” (St. Louis Post-Dispatch), and “an extraordinary collection, thrillingly merciless, and a career high point” (The Telegraph, UK).

Here are two exciting stories featuring Lance Kilkenny by beloved Western writer Louis L'Amour

In "A Man Called Trent," nester Dick Moffitt lies dead, killed by King Bill Hale's riders. His son Jack and adopted daughter Sally, who witnessed the murder, go for safety to a cabin owned by a man called "Trent"—an alias for Kilkenny, who is seeking to escape his reputation as a gunfighter.

In "The Rider of Lost Creek," Lance Kilkenny is the fastest gun in the West, but once the gunfight is over, he disappears. Some time back, Mort Davis saved Kilkenny's life. Now Davis needs Kilkenny's help with a pair of feuding ranchers taking over his property.

LAPD Detective Harry Bosch as we've never seen him before, in three never-before-collected stories.

In "Suicide Run," the apparent suicide of a beautiful young starlet turns out to be much more sinister than it seems. In "Cielo Azul," Bosch is haunted by a long-ago closed case -- the murder of a teenage girl who was never identified. As her killer sits on death row, Bosch tries one last time to get the answers he has sought for years. In "One Dollar Jackpot," Bosch works the murder of a professional poker player whose skills have made her more than one enemy.

Whether investigating a cold case or fresh blood, Bosch relentlessly pursues his quarry, always on the lookout for the "tell." In this first collection of Harry Bosch stories, Michael Connelly once again demonstrates that he is the master of "fast-paced, brilliantly plotted crime fiction.... Harry Bosch is back on the case, and not a moment too soon" (Chicago Sun Times).

THE MAN IN THE BLACK SUIT FOUR UNABRIDGED DARK TALES FROM STEPHEN KING

"...the face of the man in the black suit grows ever clearer, ever closer, and I remember every word he said. I don't want to think of him, but I can't help it, and sometimes at night my old heart beats so hard and so fast I think it will tear itself right clear of my chest."

A haunting recollection of a mysterious boyhood event, The Man in Black Suit read by John Cullum leads off this masterful collection from Stephen King.

Other dark tales include: All That You Love Will Be Carried Away read by Peter Gerety, in which a man checks into a Lincoln, Nebraska Motel 6 to find the meaning in his life; That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French read by Becky Ann Baker presents the ultimate case of d├®ej├áa vu; and The Death of Jack Hamilton read by Arliss Howard -- a blistering tale of Depression-era outlaws on the run.

Whether writing about encounters with the dead, the near dead, or about the mundane dreads of life, Stephen King's The Man In The Black Suit: Four Dark Tales is intense, eerie and instantly compelling.

This collection of stories from Pushcart Prize-winning author Nam Le has been shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, is a New York Times Editors' Pick, and earned a starred review from Publishers Weekly. The seven stories' protagonists range from a Colombian teenage assassin to an elderly painter with health problems. "Powerful ... Lyrical ... Devastating ... A harsh and master ful effort, each tale a clean shot through the heart, the aim true."-Miami Herald

SOLVING CRIMES FROM COAST TO COAST!

Alvirah Meehan, the ever-resourceful former cleaning lady who struck it rich in the lottery, won the hearts of millions of readers and listeners when she narrowly survived a stalking killer in the #1 bestseller Weep No More My Lady. Now she returns with her occasionally befuddled mate Willy in this dazzling collection of interconnected stories.

From the glittering streets of New York City to the shores of both California and Cape Cod, Alvirah and Willy come to the aid of a vacationer accused of murder in "Death on the Cape," assist a fellow lottery winner in distress in "A Clean Sweep," return to the Cypress Point Spa to solve a brutal slaying among the rich and beautiful in "The Lottery 'Winner," and track down a kidnapper at Christmas time in "Bye, Baby Bunting."

Written with Mary Higgins Clark's trademark wit, romance, and keen eye for thrilling detection, and presented here in unabridged recordings, these Alvirah and Willy stories are destined to become perennial favorites.

Acclaimed humorist David Sedaris's beloved holiday collection is a perennial favorite. This updated edition includes six additional pieces, including a never-before-published story.

David Sedaris's beloved holiday collection is new again with six more pieces, including a never before published story. Along with such favoritesas the diaries of a Macy's elf and the annals of two very competitive families, are Sedaris's tales of tardy trick-or-treaters ("Us and Them"); the difficulties of explaining the Easter Bunny to the French ("Jesus Shaves"); what to do when you've been locked out in a snowstorm ("Let It Snow"); the puzzling Christmas traditions of other nations ("Six to Eight Black Men"); what Halloween at the medical examiner's looks like ("The Monster Mash"); and a barnyard secret Santa scheme gone awry ("Cow and Turkey").

No matter what your favorite holiday, you won't want to miss celebrating it with the author who has been called "one of the funniest writers alive" (Economist).

New to Pocket Books’ Stephen King backlist—the short story collection containing the story "Dolan’s Cadillac," soon to be released as a feature film starring Christian Slater and Wes Bentley.

With numerous unforgettable movies based on his short stories—including Shawshank Redemption, 1408, and The Green Mile—readers will be delighted to rediscover this classic collection, also released as a television mini-series and on DVD. Featuring twenty short horror stories, a television script, an essay, and a poem, Nightmares and Dreamscapes contains unique and chilling plots including everything from dead rock star zombies to evil toys seeking murderous revenge. It will be treasured by King fans new and old.