The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories
From Hans Christian Andersen to Angela Carter
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Narrated by:
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Shaniqua Okwok
About this listen
Brought to you by Penguin.
Truman Capote makes whisky-soaked fruitcake in Alabama; Laurie Lee slides across a frozen pond in Gloucestershire; and Shirley Jackson is outwitted by a wily Santa Claus at the bank. Ghosts haunt the Christmases of Muriel Spark and Elizabeth Bowen, while Dostoyevsky, Daphne du Maurier and Italo Calvino take a cynical view of the season and Selma Lagerlof and Angela Carter celebrate its miracles. Ranging from Cork to Lagos to the Wild West and from Paris to San Paolo to outer space, this is Christmas as imagined by some of the greatest short-story writers of all time.
©2020 Jessica Harrison (P)2020 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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Hailed as one of the Great American Novels, The Great Gatsby delves into the dark corners of the Jazz Age to tell a tragic tale of obsession, love, and the gritty underbelly of the American dream. Through the eyes of unassuming narrator Nick Carraway, the story follows the enigmatic Jay Gatsby as he chases the object of his hopeless desire, the beautiful Daisy Buchanan.
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The great American novel!
- By Karen Creeden on 11-12-22
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Maggie-Now
- A Novel
- By: Betty Smith
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 13 hrs and 23 mins
- Unabridged
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In Brooklyn's unforgiving urban jungle, Maggie Moore is torn between answering her own needs and catering to the desirous men who dominate her life. Confronted by her quarrelsome Irish immigrant father, the feckless lover who may become her husband, and others, Maggie must learn to navigate a cycle of loss, separation, and hope as she forges her own path toward happiness.
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no unabridged
- By sally on 08-03-21
By: Betty Smith
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Sons and Lovers
- By: D. H. Lawrence
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 16 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence's first major novel, was also the first in the English language to explore ordinary working-class life from the inside. No writer before or since has written so well about the intimacies enforced by a tightly knit mining community and by a family where feelings are never hidden for long. When the marriage between Walter Morel and his sensitive, high-minded wife begins to break down, the bitterness of their frustration seeps into their children's lives.
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Momma's Boy (The Dangers of Overbearing Parenting)
- By W Perry Hall on 02-01-14
By: D. H. Lawrence
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The Phantom Coach
- A Connoisseur's Collection of the Best Victorian Ghost Stories
- By: Michael Sims
- Narrated by: Matthew Waterson
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Ghost stories date back centuries, but those written in the Victorian era have a unique atmosphere and dark beauty. Michael Sims, whose previous Victorian collections Dracula’s Guest (vampires) and The Dead Witness (detectives) have been widely praised, has gathered twelve of the best stories about humanity’s oldest supernatural obsession. The Phantom Coach includes tales by a surprising and often legendary cast, including Charles Dickens, Margaret Oliphant, Henry James, Rudyard Kipling, and Arthur Conan Doyle, as well as lost gems by forgotten masters such as Mary E. Wilkins Freeman and W. F. Harvey. Amelia B. Edwards’s chilling story gives the collection its title, while Ambrose Bierce ("The Moonlit Road"), Elizabeth Gaskell ("The Old Nurse’s Story"), and W. W. Jacobs ("The Monkey’s Paw") will turn you white as a sheet. With a skillful introduction to the genre and notes on each story by Sims, The Phantom Coach is a spectacular collection of ghostly Victorian thrills.
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Excellent Narration and Great Selection of Stories
- By Robert on 05-03-15
By: Michael Sims
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Cocaine Blues
- By: Kerry Greenwood
- Narrated by: Stephanie Daniel
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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It's the end of the roaring twenties, and the exuberant and Honourable Phryne Fisher is dancing and gaming with gay abandon. But she becomes bored with London and the endless round of parties. In search of excitement, she sets her sights on a spot of detective work in Melbourne, Australia. And so mystery and the beautiful Russian dancer, Sasha de Lisse, appear in her life. From then on it's all cocaine and communism until her adventure reaches its steamy end in the Turkish baths of Little Lonsdale Street.
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A series that just gets better
- By Barbara Kindle Customer on 02-01-11
By: Kerry Greenwood
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Pale Horse, Pale Rider
- Three Short Novels
- By: Katherine Anne Porter
- Narrated by: Chelsea Stephens
- Length: 6 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The classic 1939 collection of three novellas by the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award-winning author and journalist, including the famous title story set during the influenza epidemic of 1918.
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Some of the most brilliant prose ever written
- By Anonymous User on 03-21-23
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Main Street (Annotated): 100th Anniversary Edition
- By: Sinclair Lewis
- Narrated by: Kitty Hendrix
- Length: 19 hrs and 15 mins
- Unabridged
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A biting satire that countered the American myth of wholesome small-town life with a depiction of narrow-minded provincialism, it was to some degree based on Lewis's own experience of growing on Sauk Centre, Minnesota. Set in mid-1910s, it depicts the struggles of Carol Kennicott, a city girl, as she tries to adapt to small town life, having left her librarian job and St. Paul, Minnesota to marry Dr. Will Kennicott of Gopher Prairie. Dismayed by the town’s drabness and the conforming, petty inhabitants, Carol optimistically sets out to improve the town.
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What Are Your Assumptions About Yourself & Others
- By Benny Fife on 02-06-20
By: Sinclair Lewis
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The Bookshop of the Broken Hearted
- By: Robert Hillman
- Narrated by: Daniel Lapaine
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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It is 1968 in rural Australia and lonely Tom Hope can't make heads or tails of Hannah Babel. Newly arrived from Hungary, Hannah is unlike anyone he's ever met - she's passionate, artistic, and fiercely determined to open sleepy Hometown's first bookshop. Despite the fact that Tom has only read only one book in his life, the two soon discover an astonishing spark. Recently abandoned by an unfaithful wife - and still missing her sweet son, Peter - Tom dares to believe that he might make Hannah happy.
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Listener beware
- By Little old lady from Iowa on 06-11-23
By: Robert Hillman
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The Story Girl
- By: L. M. Montgomery
- Narrated by: Anna Lea
- Length: 8 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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The story girl of the title is the 14-year-old Sara Stanley who weaves spellbinding tales that enchant her audience that comes from near and far. These 32 stories range from the humorous and satirical to exotic romances, Scottish folk tales, retellings of Greek myths and poems by Tennyson, to ghost stories. They include the scary "Tale of the Family Ghost", and the bittersweet "The Blue Chest of Rachel Ward".
By: L. M. Montgomery
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Save Me the Waltz
- By: Zelda Fitzgerald
- Narrated by: Jennifer Van Dyck
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Save Me the Waltz is the first and only novel by the wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald. During the years when Fitzgerald was working on Tender Is the Night, Zelda Fitzgerald was preparing her own story, which parallels the narrative of her husband, throwing a fascinating light on F. Scott Fitzgerald’s life and work. In its own right, it is a vivid and moving story: the confessions of a famous, slightly doomed glamour girl of the affluent 1920s, which captures the spirit of an era.
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Audio is a great platform for Zelda's writing--
- By Renee LaBonte-Jones on 10-30-16
By: Zelda Fitzgerald
What listeners say about The Penguin Book of Christmas Stories
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Kindle Customer
- 12-05-20
Unsure of the intended audience
The collection of stories is lovely to get you into the festive mood but the reader just wasn’t the right fit fit me personally. I found her delivery very child-like, or rather as though she was reading for children. Obviously that would work for some of the stories here but I don’t know how many children are interested in Truman Capote. Just a little odd to me but very subjective. Someone else I’m sure could find it very soothing or good for sleep.
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