THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES OF THE CENTURY (2000)

Editor: John Updike

(22 unabridged short stories)
Read by . . : John Updike, Tim O'Brien, Rosellen Brown, Lorrie Moore, George Pli
mpton, others
Publisher . : Houghton Mifflin (2000) #6-98125 (also Mariner Books)
ISBN . . . .: ISBN-10 0618093206 ISBN-13: 9780618093205
Format . . .: MP3. 30 tracks, 490 MB
Bitrate . . : ~85 kbps (iTunes 9, VBR, Mono, 44.1 kHz)
Source . . .: 10 CDs (12.7 hours)
Genre . . . : Fiction, Short stories, Literary Collections
Unabridged .: Unabridged
John Updike has selected enduring stories from the eighty-four annual volumes of
THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES, and the result is "a spectacular tapestry of f
ictional achievement". This extraordinary collection features a wide variety of
contemporary writers reading classics of the genre, along with authors reading f
rom their own work. Containing twenty-two unabridged stories in all, the expande
d CD audio edition includes a new story from THE BEST AMERICAN SHORT STORIES 199
9 to round out the century.
Author Title Reader
Sherwood Anderson "The Other Woman" John Updike
Catherine Ann Porter "Theft" Jill McCorkle
F. Scott Fitzgerald "Crazy Sunday" George Plimpton
James Alan McPherson "Gold Coast" -the author
Jean Stafford "The Interior Castle" Mary Gordon
Bernard Malamud "The German Refugee" Alan Cheuse
Cynthia Ozick "The Shawl" -the author
Roseleen Brown "How to Win" -the author
Thom Jones "I Want to Live!" -the author
Gish Jen "Birthmates" -the author
Grace Stone Coates "Wild Plumbs" Ashley Warlick
Dorothy Parker "Here We Are" Meg Wolitzer
Robert Penn Warren "Christmas Gift" Christopher Tilg
hman
Eudora Welty "The Hitch-Hikers" Jill McCorkle
E. B. White "The Second Tree from the Corner" Donald Hall
John Updike "Gesturing" -the author
Donald Barthelme "A City of Churches" Rick Moody
Tim O'Brian "The Things They Carried" -the author
Raymond Carver "Where I'm Calling From" Charles Baxter
Lorrie Moore "You're Ugly Too" -the author
Carolyn Ferrell "Proper Library" -the author
Pam Houston "The Best Girlfriend You Never Had" -the author
Nicely tagged and labeled, original CD tracks, cover scan included.
Thanks for sharing & caring.
Cheers, FerraBit
January 2010
Links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Best_American_Short_Stories
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Updike
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherwood_Anderson
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katherine_Anne_Porter
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F_Scott_Fitzgerald
etc
Originally posted:
http://thepiratebay.org/user/FerraBit
http://www.demonoid.com/users/FerraBit
Taken the time to read this? Take some more and leave me a nice note of encourag
ement there.
_____________________________________________________
From AudioFile
Each year a guest editor carefully selects the best stories from the nation's li
terary magazines to be published together in The Best American Short Stories. On
e does not envy John Updike the agonizing task of choosing the best of the best-
-the most enduring stories from the 84 annual volumes published through 1999. Ha
ppily, he ably fielded the challenge, selecting the work of authors running the
gamut from F. Scott Fitzgerald and Sherwood Anderson to Tim O'Brien and Lorrie M
oore. Late authors are read by other writers; living authors read their own work
s.
Cynthia Ozick's 2,000-word masterpiece of the Holocaust, "The Shawl," combines s
tark brutality with story elements that border on magical realism. Ozick's flat,
unrelenting reading, in a tone that echoes the very experience of physical and
spiritual starvation, sears this story into one's soul.
Rosellen Brown, who often writes of love and dysfunction in family life, reads "
How to Win," a mother's perspective on her clinically hyperactive child. (Anyone
thinking of becoming a new parent should either avoid this story--or listen to
it right away.) Brown reads with the intensity of one trying to bridge the unfat
homable distance among us all--even mother and child.
-AudioFile 2001