Guardian Short Storie

Zadie Smith shares why she loves this almost ‘anti-Italian’ story from Giuseppe Pontiggia, then reads the story, as part of our seasonal series of short stories selected by leading novelists

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie shares why she admires the ‘old-fashioned social realism’ of the Ghanaian writer’s No Sweetness Here, then reads the story, as part of our seasonal series of short stories selected by leading novelists

Neil Gaiman introduces Rudyard Kipling’s The Gardener, a melancholy tale from 1925, as part of our seasonal series of short stories selected by leading novelists. Afterwards, the story is read by actor Marion Bailey

You’ll never sleep in a twin bedroom again after hearing this classic Edwardian ghost story, selected by Penelope Lively and read by Simon Callow as part of our seasonal series of short stories selected by leading novelists

Jonathan Safran Foer explains why he loves this tale about the Bosnian author’s father, which is then read by Chris Moran

Cloud Atlas author David Mitchell introduces one of the great, early 20th century horror stories: WW Jacobs’s spine-tingling The Monkey’s Paw

A small boy’s rebellion takes a sinister turn in Saki’s classic tale – a story loved by Stephen Fry, who explains why

In this instalment of our seasonal short story special, we have Neil Gaiman share why he loves Kipling’s melancholy story, which is then read by actor Marion Bailey

You’ll never sleep in a twin bedroom again after hearing this classic Edwardian ghost story, selected by Penelope Lively read by Simon Callow

José Saramago tackles the conflict between mind and body in ‘The Centaur’, says Nadine Gordimer

Charles Dickens celebrated Christmas throughout his writing life. His autobiographical story ‘A Christmas Tree’ is ‘almost Proustian’, says Simon Callow

Ruth Rendell doesn’t believe in ghosts, of course, but MR James’s stories, like ‘Canon Alberic’s Scrapbook’, frighten her nonetheless

Despite their restraint, Raymond Carver’s ‘early-period’ stories, such as The Student’s Wife, are full to the brim, says Richard Ford

Zadie Smith launches our winter series of short stories with an almost ‘anti-Italian’ story from Giuseppe Pontiggia, ‘Umberto Buti’

In the last of our 12 tales for Christmas, Helen Simpson reads Angela Carter’s ‘triumphant comedy’, ‘The Kitchen Child’ For more podcasts, including Philip Pullman reading Chekhov and Helen Dunmore reading Frank O’Connor, visit the Guardian short stories podcast page. To nominate your own favourite short story, join the discussion on our open thread

Ali Smith reads a ‘breathtaking, breathgiving’ look at an argument between an elderly father and his writer daughterIn the original version of this podcast, Ali Smith’s reading was cut short. The version below has been corrected with the full-length reading

Tessa Hadley reads a story from one of her ‘writing family’, Elizabeth Bowen’s ‘The Jungle’

Margaret Drabble reads Katherine Mansfield’s ‘memorable, painful’ The Doll’s House – the first adult short story she ever read For more podcasts, including Philip Pullman reading Chekhov and William Boyd reading JG Ballard, visit the Guardian short stories podcast page. To nominate your own favourite short story, join the discussion on our open thread

Colm Tóibín delights in the hidden landscapes and hidden lives revealed in Eugene McCabe’s Music at Annahullian For more podcasts, including Philip Pullman reading Chekhov and William Boyd reading JG Ballard, visit the Guardian short stories podcast page. To nominate your own favourite short story, join the discussion on our open thread

Philip Pullman opens our podcast series of authors reading their favourite short stories with Chekhov’s ‘masterpiece of minimalism’, ‘The Beauties’

Lisa Allardice introduces the Guardian’s forthcoming series of short stories podcasts

James Salter, the veteran American novelist and short story writer, reads a story by Lydia Davis, winner of the 2013 Man Booker International prize

Jorge Luis Borges’s combination of the anecdotal, philosophical and the literary showed Will Self how to achieve the ‘truly veridical’. He gets his coordinates from ‘On Exactitude in Science’

Nathan Englander finds Jewish history, corruption and man’s inhumanity to man and pigeons in Isaac Babel’s ‘The Story Of My Dovecote’

Forty years after he first read it, Sebastian Barry returns to James Joyce’s short story Eveline

Rabindranath Tagore returned again and again to the voiceless women of Bengal, as in his short story The Postmaster, says Anita Desai

Lucy Wood builds a story from glimpses and suggestions in ‘Notes from the House Spirits’, says Jon McGregor

Yiyun Li reads William Trevor’s ‘Three People’, a short story which moved her to write a story in reply, ‘Gold Boy, Emerald Girl’

Penelope Fitzgerald looks at the world anew in her short story ‘At Hiruharama’, says AS Byatt

Franz Kafka’s story of a man who starves himself for entertainment, The Hunger Artist, is ‘absurb, moving and timely’, says Hanif Kureishi

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie admires the ‘old-fashioned social realism’ of Ama Ata Aidoo’s ‘No Sweetness Here’