Short stories about food, glorious food This episode of "Selected Shorts" features three short stories about food with readers Shohreh Aghdashloo, Bradley Whitford, and John Shea.
by Isaiah Sheffer
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All three of the works on this program's "menu" are food focused. "The Long Way Home" is a lovely memoir of a mother's love and sense of place by Pulitzer Prize-winner Jhumpa Lahiri. It is read by Oscar nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo.
Anton Chekov's "Indigestion"—the title says it all—is read by West Wing alum Bradley Whitford.
The final item on the menu is a classic by the American comic master Damon Runyon. "A Piece of Pie" chronicles an epic eating contest and is read by John Shea.
Selected Shorts: A Celebration of the Short Story" presents some of the finest artists of the American theater and screen reading short fiction by classic, contemporary and bold new writers. Performances have featured distinguished works by classic masters such as Chekhov, Edith Wharton, de Maupassant, Ernest Hemingway and Isaac Bashevis Singer; stories by contemporary greats such as Alice Munro, John Updike, John Edgar Wideman, Grace Paley, William Trevor and Alice Walker; as well as the fresh, vivid and diverse works of a new generation of remarkable literary talents, from Pulitzer Prize-winning Jhumpa Lahiri, Academy of Rome Prize-winner Tom Bissell and celebrated Haitian-American writer Edwidge Danticat to promising newcomers like Rattawut Lapchararoensap, Yiyun Li and Etgar Keret.
There are currently a dozen "Selected Shorts" thematic CDs, which feature listeners' best-loved stories, including "Baseball!," "Timeless Classics," "Food Fictions," "Travel Tales," "Falling in Love," "Edith Wharton," and most recently, "Pets!," "Tales of Betrayal," "Family Matters" and "Wartime Lives."
