BBC National Short Story Award 2011 (5 Shortlisted Titles)
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BBC National Short Story Award 2011 (5 Shortlisted Titles)
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Narrated by:
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Lydia Wilson
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Mike Sengelow
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Tim Pigott-Smith
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Indira Varma
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Trevor White
About this listen
The 5 shortlisted titles for the BBC National Short Story Award 2011 administered in partnership with Booktrust, containing:
Rag Love by M. J. Hyland, read by Mike Sengelow
The Heart of Denis Noble by Alison MacLeod, read by Tim Pigott-Smith
Wires by Jon McGregor, read by Lydia Wilson
The Human Circadian Pacemaker by K. J. Orr, read by Indira Varma
The Dead Roads by D. W. Wilson, read by Trevor White
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-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 37
In his debut collection of short stories, Robert Sheehan disappears into characters, challenging the complacencies of everyday experience, often from entirely unexpected angles. Informed by the author’s peripatetic life, Disappearing Act reflects on the absurdity of human behaviour. Sheehan delves deep into his characters’ streams of self-talk and self-imposed delusions, exploring the dark impulses that lurk below the shiny surfaces of many outwardly normal lives.
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2 out of 5 stars
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as strange as he is
- By DEKEY on 04-08-24
By: Robert Sheehan
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Outside Looking In
- A Novel
- By: T. C. Boyle
- Narrated by: Johnathan McClain
- Length: 14 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 202
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 185
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Story4 out of 5 stars 183
In 1943, LSD is synthesized in Basel. Two decades later, a coterie of grad students at Harvard are gradually drawn into the inner circle of renowned psychologist and psychedelic drug enthusiast Timothy Leary. Fitzhugh Loney, a psychology PhD student, and his wife, Joanie, become entranced by the drug’s possibilities such that their “research” becomes less a matter of clinical trials and academic papers and instead turns into a freewheeling exploration of mind expansion, group dynamics, and communal living.
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5 out of 5 stars
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STORYTELLING AS CONSCIOUSNESS-RAISING
- By Christopher Meeks on 05-25-19
By: T. C. Boyle
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Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving
- By: Jonathan Evison
- Narrated by: Jeff Woodman
- Length: 9 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 212
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 184
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Story4 out of 5 stars 187
Benjamin Benjamin has lost virtually everything - his wife, his family, his home, his livelihood. With few options, Ben enrolls in a night class called The Fundamentals of Caregiving taught in the basement of a local church. There Ben is instructed in the art of inserting catheters and avoiding liability and how to keep physical and emotional distance between client and provider. But when Ben is assigned to 19-year-old Trev, he discovers that the endless mnemonics and service plan checklists have done little to prepare him.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Unlike!
- By Pamela Harvey on 01-02-13
By: Jonathan Evison
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Our Little Secret
- By: Roz Nay
- Narrated by: Erin Moon
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 103
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 95
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Story4 out of 5 stars 95
Angela is being held in a police interrogation room. Her ex's wife has gone missing, and Detective Novak is sure Angela knows something, despite her claim that she's not involved. At Novak's prodding, Angela tells a story going back 10 years, explaining how she met and fell in love with her high school friend HP. But as her past unfolds, she reveals a disconcerting love triangle and a dark, tangled web of betrayals. Is Angela a scorned ex-lover with criminal intent? Or a pawn in someone else's revenge scheme?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Amazing
- By lisa on 12-31-19
By: Roz Nay
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Zac and Mia
- By: A.J. Betts
- Narrated by: Kristin Condon, Nick Mondelli
- Length: 7 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 59
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 51
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 50
”When I was little I believed in Jesus and Santa, spontaneous combustion, and the Loch Ness Monster. Now I believe in science, statistics, and antibiotics.” So says 17-year-old Zac Meier during a long, grueling leukemia treatment in Perth, Australia. A loud blast of Lady Gaga alerts him to the presence of Mia, the angry, not-at-all-stoic cancer patient in the room next door. Once released, the two near-strangers can't forget each other, even as they desperately try to resume normal lives.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Cute story
- By Caitlin E. on 08-11-19
By: A.J. Betts
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Lionel Asbo
- State of England
- By: Martin Amis
- Narrated by: Alex Jennings
- Length: 9 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 130
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 115
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Story4 out of 5 stars 119
Lionel Asbo, a terrifying yet weirdly loyal thug (self-named after England's notorious "Anti-Social Behaviour Order"), has always looked out for his ward and nephew, the orphaned Desmond Pepperdine. He provides him with fatherly career advice (always carry a knife, for example) and is determined they should share the joys of pit bulls (fed with lots of Tabasco sauce), Internet porn, and all manner of more serious criminality. Des, on the other hand, desires nothing more than books to read and a girl to love .
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4 out of 5 stars
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Jēz...us! Just don't buy it for your Grans.
- By Darwin8u on 01-03-13
By: Martin Amis
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The Killer Next Door
- By: Alex Marwood
- Narrated by: Imogen Church
- Length: 12 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 4,651
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 4,285
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Story4 out of 5 stars 4,275
Everyone who lives at 23 Beulah Grove has a secret. If they didn't, they wouldn't be renting rooms in a dodgy old building for cash - no credit check, no lease. It's the kind of place you end up when you you've run out of other options.The six residents mostly keep to themselves, but one unbearably hot summer night, a terrible accident pushes them into an uneasy alliance. What they don't know is that one of them is a killer. He's already chosen his next victim, and he'll do anything to protect his secret.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Incredible--but not for the faint of heart
- By Lesley on 01-11-15
By: Alex Marwood
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Elmet
- By: Fiona Mozley
- Narrated by: Gareth Bennett Ryan
- Length: 7 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 538
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 500
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Story4 out of 5 stars 499
In this atmospheric and profoundly moving debut, Cathy and Daniel live with their father, John, in the remote woods of Yorkshire, in a house the three of them built themselves. John is a gentle brute of a man, a former enforcer who fights for money when he has to, but who otherwise just wants to be left alone to raise his children. When a local landowner shows up on their doorstep, their precarious existence is threatened, and a series of actions is set in motion that can only end in violence.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Strains credibility
- By DM on 01-06-18
By: Fiona Mozley
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The Best Horror of the Year, Volume 4
- By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, Stephen King, Peter Straub
- Narrated by: Meredith Mitchell, Rebecca Mitchell, Michael Healy, and others
- Length: 16 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 215
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 196
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Story3.5 out of 5 stars 195
With tales from Laird Barron, Stephen King, John Langan, Peter Straub, and many others, and featuring Datlow’s comprehensive overview of the year in horror, now, more than ever, The Best Horror of the Year provides the petrifying horror fiction readers have come to expect - and enjoy.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Only a few decent stories in this bunch.
- By Jerry on 12-06-14
By: Ellen Datlow - author/editor, and others
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Suspect
- By: Michael Robotham
- Narrated by: Simon Prebble
- Length: 11 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,462
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,115
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,103
After a woman is brutally slain, investigators bring psychiatrist Joe O'Loughlin in for expert consultation. Joe is shocked to discover the dead woman is a former patient of his who cried rape when he rebuffed her sexual advances. Citing doctor/patient confidentiality, Joe hides this information. But the truth emerges, and suddenly he is the prime suspect.
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4 out of 5 stars
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reviewers love it or hate it -- i loved it
- By Kelly on 03-23-14
By: Michael Robotham
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The Fireman
- A Novel
- By: Joe Hill
- Narrated by: Kate Mulgrew
- Length: 22 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 8,327
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 7,697
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Story4 out of 5 stars 7,676
No one knows exactly when it began or where it originated. A terrifying new plague is spreading like wildfire across the country, striking cities one by one: Boston, Detroit, Seattle. The doctors call it Draco Incendia Trychophyton. To everyone else it's Dragonscale, a highly contagious, deadly spore that marks its hosts with beautiful black and gold marks across their bodies - before causing them to burst into flames. Millions are infected; blazes erupt everywhere. There is no antidote. No one is safe.
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3 out of 5 stars
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GOD'S WAITING ROOM; AKA FLORIDA
- By Jim "The Impatient" on 04-25-17
By: Joe Hill
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The Bone Clocks
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: Jessica Ball, Leon Williams, Colin Mace, and others
- Length: 24 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 4,088
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,659
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Story4 out of 5 stars 3,667
Following a scalding row with her mother, 15-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: A sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as "the radio people," Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Not Short Listed, This Time
- By Mel on 09-23-14
By: David Mitchell
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Field of Blood
- By: Denise Mina
- Narrated by: Heather O'Neill
- Length: 6 hrs and 59 mins
- Abridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 205
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 110
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 109
Little Brian Wilcox's murder is the hottest story in Scotland. Every major newspaper crowds its pages with stories examining the crime from every angle. If only Paddy Meehan could get a scoop on the case. A nationally syndicated story would surely launch her fledgling journalism career out of the free local rag she's been working at.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Wrong Accent
- By Amazon Customer on 04-01-14
By: Denise Mina
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Resurrection Bay
- Caleb Zelic, Book 1
- By: Emma Viskic
- Narrated by: Lewis Fitzgerald
- Length: 7 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 98
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 90
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Story4 out of 5 stars 90
Profoundly deaf since early childhood, Caleb has always lived on the outside - watching and picking up tell-tale signs people hide in a smile, a cough or a kiss. When a childhood friend is murdered, a sense of guilt and a determination to prove his own innocence sends Caleb on a hunt for the killer. But he can’t do it alone....
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent book and great 1st book
- By William Michael Dunn on 01-27-17
By: Emma Viskic