The twelve short stories of Christmas

What joy! Twelve classic short stories introduced and read by some of my favourite writers, and all for free. There's one a day and so far, nestling in my iPod, I have Colm Toibin reading Eugene McCabe's 'Music at Annahullian', William Boyd reading JG Ballard's 'My Dream of Flying to Wake Island', Philip Pullman and Chekhov's 'The Beauties', Margaret Drabble and 'The Doll's House' by Katherine Mansfield, Anne Enright reading Carver's 'Fat', and Rose Tremain reading 'Extra' by Yiyun Li.


To my shame, and pleasure, almost all of these stories are new to me - the only one I know for sure that I've read before is Yiyun Li's, and she's such a lovely writer that I'm more than happy to enjoy it again. And given my sieve-like memory it's quite possible I'll recognise several more when I settle down to listen.

I'm planning Christmas already - each day, before anyone else gets up, I'll make a cup of tea, light the stove in my office and plump the cushion in my rocking chair. Then I'll plug in to half an hour or so of luxury. Heaven!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/series/short-stories-podcast