Twelve Tales of PodChristmast

December 10, 2010 9:39 PM

Twelve Tales of Christmas is a podcast just launched by The Guardian featuring notable modern authors, such as Jeanette Winterson, Ali Smith, Colm Toíbin and Julian Barnes, reading one of their favorite short stories, by authors including JG Ballard, Katherine Mansfield, Italo Calvino, Ernest Hemingway and Raymond Carver. A story will be posted daily for the next 12 days. The first author and story is Philip Pullman reading The Beauties by Anton Chekhov (mp3). [rss, iTunes]
posted by Kattullus (8 comments total)

Cheers! I've subscribed.

I've always been a big believer in short stories, and podcasts are great for them - to point where these days, when I've almost no time to sit down and read, podcast have become my primary medium for experiencing them.
posted by Artw at 12:11 AM on December 11, 2010

Philip Pullman is not only one of my favorite authors but one of my favorite readers, too. Thank you for sharing this.
posted by NoraReed at 12:32 AM on December 11, 2010

Oooh! This sounds great. Thanks!
posted by brundlefly at 12:52 AM on December 11, 2010

One can always use more Russian literature and Philip Pullman. Thanks, Kattullus!
posted by Devika at 3:12 AM on December 11, 2010

A JG Ballard Christmas tale! GATHER ROUND, CHILDREN.
posted by everichon at 8:12 AM on December 11, 2010 [1 favorite]

Lovely, very evocative, and a lovely reading. I like the bit of analysis at the end too.
posted by Artw at 9:11 AM on December 11, 2010

The first two stories make for an oddly congruous pair, different strands in them harmonizing together in odd ways. The narrator traveling in Chekhov's story becomes a kind of ideal for the protagonist in Ballard's, his intense and fleeting appreciation of the two 'beauties' inverting the astronaut's shallow and lengthy relationship with the dentist aviatrix. Both are very concerned with nature, but if I hadn't heard them one after the other I don't think I would've picked up on it in either. Anyway... it makes for extra fun listening to have these other stories for comparison.
posted by Kattullus at 7:57 PM on December 12, 2010

I've fallen asleep two nights in a row now listening to Colm Toíbin read Music at Annahullian. That's not a fault of the story's nor of Toíbin's as a reader, but rather that his voice is too soft and pleasant so I just drift off while listening to it.
posted by Kattullus at 7:20 AM on December 16, 2010