Selected Shorts: Even More Laughs

By: T. C. Boyle, Jonathan Lethem, Miranda July, Julia Slavin, Harry Mathews, Thomas Meehan, Philip Roth

Narrated by: Jerry Zaks, Alec Baldwin, Christine Baranski, Marian Seldes, Parker Posey, Robert Sean Leonard, Stephen Colbert

From silly chuckles to rueful ironic glee to deep cosmic laughter, this new volume of humorous tales samples the best of recent seasons of the popular public radio series Selected Shorts.

©2010 Symphony Space (P)2010 Symphony Space

it was good

had an old flavor to it but was entertaining at its core to see how humor was back then

Even more laughs than what?

I am a very big fan of short stories and have listened to the Selected Shorts program for over 20 years. I have heard many really funny stories over the years. These are mostly humorous, but not really among the funniest. Indeed check out the American Classics volume for some really funny (and touching and creepy) stories. Several of these stories were really trying to be funny, but did not work for me.

First time laughing on a book

Really enjoable, 6 out of 8 are excellent and acted out really great, the other two are pretencious and not ironic at all

Wide Range of Humor

I love the Selected Series - I find I learn about authors that I have never heard of before and end up enjoying.

3.5 - "The Lie" by TC Boyle read by Stephen Colbert
4.5 - "The Swim Team" by Miranda July and read by Parker Posey
4.0 - "The Schartz-Metterklume Method" by Saki, was read by Marian Seldes
3..0 -"Country Cooking from Central France: Roast Boned Rolled Stuffed Shoulder of Lamb (Farce Double)" by Harry Matthews
and read by Isaiah Sheffer
4.5 - "YMA Dream" by Thomas Mathews and read by Christine Baranski (who does an incredible job with this story)
4.0 -"Covered" by Julia Slavin and read by Alec Baldwin
4.0 -"The Conversation of Jews" by Philip Roth read by Jerry Zachs

Smiling more than laughing

Ironically the best story from this compilation was the once that was given away for free. My main problem with this audiobook is that a lot of the stories aren't that funny. Yes, I probably smiled a little during each of them but really didn't laugh all that much.