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