Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Stories for your ears

One of the podcasts I am into is the New Yorker magazine Fiction Podcast. Each week an author reads one of their favourite short stories by another author, living or dead. It was here that I first heard the amazing story The Lottery by Shirley Jackson - a brilliant piece of writing. Apparently it has long been a standard in English Lit classes in the US but I had never heard of it.

I am prompted to mention it here by the latest story, Adams by George Saunders. I had never heard of him either, but I am now going to seek out what I can and read it.

After each reading, the reader and the fiction editor of the New Yorker chat about the story. My reaction is always "bloody hell - I didn't realise THAT was going on in there". Suffice to say Adams is a near-anagram of Saddam, and the narrator of the story ends up breaking into Adams' house and taking away all his pool chemicals.

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