The New Yorker: Fiction

There's nothing quite like being read to by a great writer, and that's exactly what this podcast delivers. Each month, fiction editor Deborah Treisman invites a contemporary author to pick a short story from The New Yorker's vast archive, read it aloud, and then talk about why it matters to them. The result is something between a literary salon and a masterclass in close reading. The guest list reads like a who's who of modern fiction. You'll hear writers like Jhumpa Lahiri selecting a Mavis Gallant story, or George Saunders choosing a piece by Donald Barthelme. The readings themselves are intimate -- these aren't audiobook narrators, they're fellow writers who chose these stories because something about them stuck. The conversations afterward with Treisman are substantive and occasionally surprising, touching on craft, influence, and the weird ways certain sentences lodge in your memory. Episodes run about 60 to 75 minutes, and with 228 episodes stretching back to 2007, the archive is a remarkable survey of short fiction. The show holds a 4.4-star rating from over 3,200 reviews. Fair warning: it's marked explicit, and the monthly release schedule means you're waiting a while between episodes. But that pacing actually works. Each installment feels like an event rather than another item in your feed. For anyone who cares about short stories -- or just wants to hear brilliant writers geek out about prose -- this is essential listening.