Though it's best known as a source of political journalism and public essays, there are few publishers of short fiction that can compete with The New Yorker's legacy. For over eighty years, the magazine has published some of the best writers and stories you're likely to find. And on their website they've decided to share some of their treasures for free.
The list of stories up right now includes works by Vladimir Nabokov, Tobias Wolff, T.C. Boyle, and Alice Munro, among others. There's also an impressive selection of poems from the magazine's past.
My personal favorite of the jewels on offer, though, is their fiction podcast. Each week, The New Yorker's fiction editor, Deborah Treisman, sits down with a contemporary master of the form and asks him or her to read and discuss a favorite story from the archives. The end result is essentially story time for grown ups.
It's easy to forget, unless you frequently buy audiobooks or attend readings, how good a well-written story can sound, and how enjoyable it can be to have something read to you. Add to that the insights of writers like Jhumpa Lahiri and Junot Diaz, and the promise of obscure finds like Stephanie Vaughn's "Dog Heaven," and you have a podcast for which you might reasonably skip your morning jogging music.
You can listen to the podcast on The New Yorker's website here, or download it for free through iTunes or XML.
Subscribers to The New Yorker also get the chance to go through the entire archive online for free, but of course, as it's an American magazine, getting a subscription sent here is a bit pricey (112 dollars a year). The better option, if you don't mind reading on a computer screen, is their new digital subscription for 40 dollars a year, which gives you the same access to the archives and the new issues online.
(image from The New Yorker fiction podcast)
