-
Can't and Won't
- Stories
- Narrated by: Janet Metzger
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Categories: Literature & Fiction, Anthologies & Short Stories
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Audible Premium Plus
$14.95 a month
Buy for $17.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
- Complete Collection
- By: Lydia Davis
- Narrated by: Mia Barron, Thérèse Plummer, Jonathan Davis
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 30
Lydia Davis is one of our most original and influential writers, a storyteller celebrated for her emotional acuity, her formal inventiveness, and her ability to capture the mind in overdrive. She has been called "an American virtuoso of the short story form" ( Salon.com ) and "one of the quiet giants... of American fiction" ( Los Angeles Times Book Review ). This volume contains all her stories to date, from the acclaimed "Break It Down" (1986) to the 2007 National Book Award nominee "Varieties of Disturbance".
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fascinating, quirky short stories
- By 4thace on 03-08-19
By: Lydia Davis
-
Tonight I'm Someone Else
- Essays
- By: Chelsea Hodson
- Narrated by: Chelsea Hodson
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 23
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 20
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 19
From graffiti gangs and Grand Theft Auto to sugar daddies, Schopenhauer, and a deadly game of Russian roulette, in these essays, Chelsea Hodson probes her own desires to examine where the physical and the proprietary collide. She asks what our privacy, our intimacy, and our own bodies are worth in the increasingly digital world of liking, linking, and sharing. Starting with Hodson’s own work experience, which ranges from the mundane to the bizarre - including modeling and working on a NASA Mars mission - Hodson expands outward, looking at the ways in which the human will submits, whether in the marketplace or in a relationship.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Chelsea Hodson Rocks!
- By Gordy on 06-04-19
By: Chelsea Hodson
-
Black Swans
- By: Eve Babitz
- Narrated by: Mia Barron
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 9
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 8
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 8
A collection of original short stories offers an intimate and dark portrait of life in the United States as they journey through California seeking answers to our changing world, dealing with such topics as jealousy, AIDS, sex, and Jim Morrison. A new reissue of Babitz’s collection of nine stories that look back on the 1980s and early 1990s - decades of dreams, drink, and glimpses of a changing world. Black Swans further celebrates the phenomenon of Eve Babitz, cementing her reputation as the voice of a generation.
By: Eve Babitz
-
So Sad Today
- Personal Essays
- By: Melissa Broder
- Narrated by: Melissa Broder
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 254
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 237
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 236
Melissa Broder always struggled with anxiety. In the fall of 2012, she went through a harrowing cycle of panic attacks and dread that wouldn't abate for months. So she began @sosadtoday, an anonymous Twitter feed that allowed her to express her darkest feelings and that quickly gained a dedicated following. In So Sad Today, Broder delves deeper into the existential themes she explores on Twitter.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
You don’t have to read this
- By Chris on 06-18-18
By: Melissa Broder
-
How to Cure a Ghost
- By: Fariha Róisín
- Narrated by: Fariha Roisin
- Length: 2 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 2
Following in the footsteps of such category killers as Milk and Honey and Whiskey Words & a Shovel I, Fariha Róisín's poetry book is a collection of her thoughts as a young, queer, Muslim femme navigating the difficulties of her intersectionality. Simultaneously, this compilation unpacks the contentious relationship that exists between Róisín and her mother, her platonic and romantic heartbreaks, and the cognitive dissonance felt as a result of being so divided among her broad spectrum of identities.
By: Fariha Róisín
-
The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington
- By: Leonora Carrington
- Narrated by: Justine Eyre
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 5
Surrealist writer and painter Leonora Carrington was a master of the macabre, of gorgeous tableaus, biting satire, roguish comedy, and brilliant, effortless flights of the imagination. Nowhere are these qualities more ingeniously brought together than in the works of short fiction she wrote throughout her life.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
I wanted to like this
- By Aldne Now on 09-21-20
-
The Collected Stories of Lydia Davis
- Complete Collection
- By: Lydia Davis
- Narrated by: Mia Barron, Thérèse Plummer, Jonathan Davis
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 38
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 29
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 30
Lydia Davis is one of our most original and influential writers, a storyteller celebrated for her emotional acuity, her formal inventiveness, and her ability to capture the mind in overdrive. She has been called "an American virtuoso of the short story form" ( Salon.com ) and "one of the quiet giants... of American fiction" ( Los Angeles Times Book Review ). This volume contains all her stories to date, from the acclaimed "Break It Down" (1986) to the 2007 National Book Award nominee "Varieties of Disturbance".
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Fascinating, quirky short stories
- By 4thace on 03-08-19
By: Lydia Davis
-
Tonight I'm Someone Else
- Essays
- By: Chelsea Hodson
- Narrated by: Chelsea Hodson
- Length: 5 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 23
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 20
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 19
From graffiti gangs and Grand Theft Auto to sugar daddies, Schopenhauer, and a deadly game of Russian roulette, in these essays, Chelsea Hodson probes her own desires to examine where the physical and the proprietary collide. She asks what our privacy, our intimacy, and our own bodies are worth in the increasingly digital world of liking, linking, and sharing. Starting with Hodson’s own work experience, which ranges from the mundane to the bizarre - including modeling and working on a NASA Mars mission - Hodson expands outward, looking at the ways in which the human will submits, whether in the marketplace or in a relationship.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Chelsea Hodson Rocks!
- By Gordy on 06-04-19
By: Chelsea Hodson
-
Black Swans
- By: Eve Babitz
- Narrated by: Mia Barron
- Length: 6 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 9
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 8
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 8
A collection of original short stories offers an intimate and dark portrait of life in the United States as they journey through California seeking answers to our changing world, dealing with such topics as jealousy, AIDS, sex, and Jim Morrison. A new reissue of Babitz’s collection of nine stories that look back on the 1980s and early 1990s - decades of dreams, drink, and glimpses of a changing world. Black Swans further celebrates the phenomenon of Eve Babitz, cementing her reputation as the voice of a generation.
By: Eve Babitz
-
So Sad Today
- Personal Essays
- By: Melissa Broder
- Narrated by: Melissa Broder
- Length: 5 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 254
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 237
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 236
Melissa Broder always struggled with anxiety. In the fall of 2012, she went through a harrowing cycle of panic attacks and dread that wouldn't abate for months. So she began @sosadtoday, an anonymous Twitter feed that allowed her to express her darkest feelings and that quickly gained a dedicated following. In So Sad Today, Broder delves deeper into the existential themes she explores on Twitter.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
You don’t have to read this
- By Chris on 06-18-18
By: Melissa Broder
-
How to Cure a Ghost
- By: Fariha Róisín
- Narrated by: Fariha Roisin
- Length: 2 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 2
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 2
Following in the footsteps of such category killers as Milk and Honey and Whiskey Words & a Shovel I, Fariha Róisín's poetry book is a collection of her thoughts as a young, queer, Muslim femme navigating the difficulties of her intersectionality. Simultaneously, this compilation unpacks the contentious relationship that exists between Róisín and her mother, her platonic and romantic heartbreaks, and the cognitive dissonance felt as a result of being so divided among her broad spectrum of identities.
By: Fariha Róisín
-
The Complete Stories of Leonora Carrington
- By: Leonora Carrington
- Narrated by: Justine Eyre
- Length: 4 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 5
Surrealist writer and painter Leonora Carrington was a master of the macabre, of gorgeous tableaus, biting satire, roguish comedy, and brilliant, effortless flights of the imagination. Nowhere are these qualities more ingeniously brought together than in the works of short fiction she wrote throughout her life.
-
1 out of 5 stars
-
I wanted to like this
- By Aldne Now on 09-21-20
-
Essays One
- By: Lydia Davis
- Narrated by: Janet Metzger
- Length: 14 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall0 out of 5 stars 0
-
Performance0 out of 5 stars 0
-
Story0 out of 5 stars 0
Lydia Davis is a writer whose originality, influence, and wit are beyond compare. Jonathan Franzen has called her "a magician of self-consciousness," while Rick Moody hails her as "the best prose stylist in America." And for Claire Messud, "Davis's signal gift is to make us feel alive." Best known for her masterful short stories and translations, Davis's gifts extend equally to her nonfiction. In Essays One, Davis has, for the first time, gathered a selection of essays, commentaries, and lectures composed over the past five decades.
By: Lydia Davis
-
No One Belongs Here More Than You
- Stories
- By: Miranda July
- Narrated by: Miranda July
- Length: 4 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 361
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 298
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 298
In a series of stories that are shocking, sexy, charming, and ultimately unforgettable, Miranda July explores the hearts and minds of characters who are desperate for human connection and yet don't know what to do when it actually happens.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
One of the best
- By Xavier on 01-25-08
By: Miranda July
-
Homesick for Another World
- Stories
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Alyssa Bresnahan, Richard Poe
- Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 197
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 185
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 186
There's something eerily unsettling about Ottessa Moshfegh's stories, something almost dangerous, while also being delightful and even laugh-out-loud funny. Her characters are all unsteady on their feet in one way or another; they all yearn for connection and betterment, though each in very different ways, but they are often tripped up by their own baser impulses and existential insecurities.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Funny, Dynamic Writing
- By Sofia Macht on 06-13-18
By: Ottessa Moshfegh
-
Literally Show Me a Healthy Person
- By: Darcie Wilder
- Narrated by: Darcie Wilder
- Length: 2 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 65
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 59
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 59
Darcie Wilder's Literally Show Me a Healthy Person is a careful confession soaking in saltwater, a size B control top jet black pantyhose dragged over a skinned knee and slipped into unlaced doc martens. Blurring the lines of the written word, Literally Show Me a Healthy Person is a portrait of a young girl, or woman, or something; grappling with the immediate and seemingly endless urge to document and describe herself and the world around her.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Darcie Wilder is brilliant!
- By Davey on 08-14-17
By: Darcie Wilder
-
CivilWarLand in Bad Decline
- Stories and a Novella
- By: George Saunders, Joshua Ferris - introduction
- Narrated by: George Saunders, Joshua Ferris
- Length: 5 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 81
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 73
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 71
Since its publication in 1996, George Saunders’ debut collection has grown in esteem from a cherished cult classic to a masterpiece of the form, inspiring an entire generation of writers along the way. In six stories and a novella, Saunders hatches an unforgettable cast of characters, each struggling to survive in an increasingly haywire world.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Gold
- By jdk on 09-13-19
By: George Saunders, and others
-
Daddy
- Stories
- By: Emma Cline
- Narrated by: Natasha Soudek
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 15
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 14
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 14
An absentee father collects his son from boarding school after a shocking act of violence. A nanny to a celebrity family hides out in Laurel Canyon in the aftermath of a tabloid scandal. A young woman sells her underwear to strangers. A notorious guest arrives at a placid, not-quite rehab in the Southwest. In 10 remarkable stories, Emma Cline portrays moments when the ordinary is disturbed, when daily life buckles, revealing the perversity and violence pulsing under the surface.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
BRILLIANT Writing, BRILLIANT narration
- By Annie Armstrong on 09-28-20
By: Emma Cline
-
Bluets
- By: Maggie Nelson
- Narrated by: Maggie Nelson
- Length: 2 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 77
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 63
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 64
Suppose I were to begin by saying that I had fallen in love with a color.... Since 2009, when it first published, to today, Bluets has drawn scores of readers and listeners with its surprising insights into the emotional depths that make us most human - via 240 short pieces, at once lyrical and philosophical, on the color blue. This new edition celebrates Maggie Nelson’s uncompromising vision, inviting longtime fans and newcomers alike to experience and share in an indispensable work that continues to disrupt the literary landscape.
-
3 out of 5 stars
-
Poignant yet undermined by hubris
- By Lori on 12-06-20
By: Maggie Nelson
-
Tenth of December
- Stories
- By: George Saunders
- Narrated by: George Saunders
- Length: 5 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 1,442
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 1,292
-
Story4 out of 5 stars 1,298
One of the most important and blazingly original writers of his generation, George Saunders is an undisputed master of the short story, and Tenth of December is his most honest, accessible, and moving collection yet. In the taut opener, "Victory Lap", a boy witnesses the attempted abduction of the girl next door and is faced with a harrowing choice: Does he ignore what he sees, or override years of smothering advice from his parents and act? In "Home", a combat-damaged soldier moves back in with his mother and struggles to reconcile the world he left with the one to which he has returned.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Be prepared for something different...but good!
- By Mr. D on 02-21-14
By: George Saunders
-
My Year of Rest and Relaxation
- By: Ottessa Moshfegh
- Narrated by: Julia Whelan
- Length: 7 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,622
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,402
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 2,401
Our narrator should be happy, shouldn't she? She's young, thin, pretty, a recent Columbia graduate; she works an easy job at a hip art gallery and lives in an apartment on the Upper East Side of Manhattan paid for, like the rest of her needs, by her inheritance. But there is a dark and vacuous hole in her heart, and it isn't just the loss of her parents, or the way her Wall Street boyfriend treats her, or her sadomasochistic relationship with her best friend, Reva. It's the year 2000 in a city aglitter with wealth and possibility; what could be so terribly wrong?
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
You haven't heard this story before.
- By Miss Lisa on 04-23-19
By: Ottessa Moshfegh
-
Her Body and Other Parties
- Stories
- By: Carmen Maria Machado
- Narrated by: Amy Landon
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 400
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 355
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 361
In Her Body and Other Parties, Carmen Maria Machado blithely demolishes the arbitrary borders between psychological realism and science fiction, comedy and horror, fantasy and fabulism. While her work has earned her comparisons to Karen Russell and Kelly Link, she has a voice that is all her own. In this electric and provocative debut, Machado bends genre to shape startling narratives that map the realities of women's lives and the violence visited upon their bodies.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Beautiful
- By Anonymous User on 11-17-17
-
The Argonauts
- By: Maggie Nelson
- Narrated by: Maggie Nelson
- Length: 4 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,003
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 888
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 890
Maggie Nelson's The Argonauts is a genre-bending memoir, a work of "autotheory" offering fresh, fierce, and timely thinking about desire, identity, and the limitations and possibilities of love and language. At its center is a romance: the story of the author's relationship with the artist Harry Dodge. This story, which includes Nelson's account of falling in love with Dodge, who is fluidly gendered, as well as her journey to and through a pregnancy, is an intimate portrayal of the complexities and joys of (queer) family making.
-
2 out of 5 stars
-
I couldn't finish this book!
- By Mandy on 10-10-17
By: Maggie Nelson
-
Outline
- By: Rachel Cusk
- Narrated by: Kate Reading
- Length: 6 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall3.5 out of 5 stars 373
-
Performance4 out of 5 stars 330
-
Story3.5 out of 5 stars 328
A luminous, powerful novel that establishes Rachel Cusk as one of the finest writers in the English language. A man and a woman are seated next to each other on a plane. They get to talking - about their destination, their careers, their families. Grievances are aired, family tragedies discussed, marriages and divorces analyzed. An intimacy is established as two strangers contrast their own fictions about their lives.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Deserves multiple listens or reads
- By JCH on 01-30-18
By: Rachel Cusk
Publisher's Summary
A new collection of short stories from the woman Rick Moody has called "the best prose stylist in America".
Her stories may be literal one-liners: the entirety of "Bloomington" reads, "Now that I have been here for a little while, I can say with confidence that I have never been here before." Or they may be lengthier investigations of the havoc wreaked by the most mundane disruptions to routine: in "A Small Story About a Small Box of Chocolates", a professor receives a gift of 32 small chocolates and is paralyzed by the multitude of options she imagines for their consumption. The stories may appear in the form of letters of complaint; they may be extracted from Flaubert's correspondence; or they may be inspired by the author's own dreams, or the dreams of friends.
What does not vary throughout Can't and Won't, Lydia Davis' fifth collection of stories, is the power of her finely honed prose. Davis is sharply observant; she is wry or witty or poignant. Above all, she is refreshing. Davis writes with bracing candor and sly humor about the quotidian, revealing the mysterious, the foreign, the alienating, and the pleasurable within the predictable patterns of daily life.