Sign In Join Now
User Accessibility
  • Increase Font

  • Invert Colours

Search for a Book Browse Books Menu
Learning To Talk Cover Play Sample

Sample may contain unsuitable content.

Stream / Download

Audiobook streaming provided by:

OverDrive Logo

Share this book:

Learning To Talk

AuthorHilary Mantel

NarratorAnna Bentinck

Duration3h 6m

CategoriesAdult Fiction, Short Stories

PublisherW.F. Howes

VersionUnabridged

  Save to Wish List
  Add to Favourites List

The collection begins in the 1950s in an insular northern village 'scoured by bitter winds and rough gossip tongues.' For the child narrator, the only way to survive is to get up, get on, get out. The title story sees our narrator ironing out her northern vowels with the help of an ex-actress with one lung and a Manchester accent. In Third Floor Rising, she watches, dazzled, as her mother carves out a stylish new identity. With a deceptively light touch, Mantel locates the transforming moments of a haunted childhood.

0 (0 Reviews)
0
0
0
0
0

Related Titles

Father Brown Series 2 Episode 1: The Absence of Mr Glass Cover

Father Brown Series 2 Episode 1: The Absence of Mr Glass

Author: G K Chesterton

Father Brown Series 2 Episode 1: The Absence of Mr Glass

Author G K Chesterton

Narrator Andrew Sachs

SeriesThe Wisdom of Father Brown, Book 1

Duration 29m

Andrew Sachs stars as the famous clerical sleuth in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation. With his black hat, huge umbrella, unwordly simplicity and 'beaming but breathless geniality', Father Brown is one of fiction's best-loved amateur detectives. Short and tatty, but with the wisdom and insight to unravel the most wayward of criminal minds, h...

View Book
Giving Up the Ghost Cover

Giving Up the Ghost

Author: Hilary Mantel

Giving Up the Ghost

Author Hilary Mantel

Narrator Jane Wymark

Duration 6h 51m

This is award-winning novelist Hilary Mantel's uniquely unusual five-part autobiography. Opening with 'A Second Home', in which Mantel describes the death of her stepfather, Giving Up the Ghosts is a wry, shocking and beautifully-written memoir of childhood, ghosts (real and metaphorical), illness and family. Finally, at the memoir's conclusion, Ma...

View Book
Penguin Sleep Tales Cover

Penguin Sleep Tales

Author: Various

Penguin Sleep Tales

Author Various

Narrator Sally Scott

Duration 2h 30m

Brought to you by Penguin. How often do you think about your bedtime routine? Almost half of people in Britain say they're kept awake at night due to worry and stress - so making time to switch off in the hour before bed is more important than ever. Penguin Sleep Tales are ten specially designed descriptive audio tales to help you wind down and rel...

View Book
After Dark Classics Cover

After Dark Classics

Author: Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Wilkie Collins, Various

After Dark Classics

Author Edgar Allan Poe, Bram Stoker, Wilkie Collins, Various

Narrator Various

Duration 6h 17m

This collection comprises the best of classic horror writing, with the atmospheric genius of Edgar Allen Poe, the invention and eeriness of Bram Stoker, and the suspense of Wilkie Collins amongst the terrifying gems contained. A veritable schooling in the origins of modern-day horror and fantasy, some of the best minds in the history of English lit...

View Book
The Mirror and the Light Cover

The Mirror and the Light

Author: Hilary Mantel

The Mirror and the Light

Author Hilary Mantel

Narrator Ben Miles

Duration 37h 55m

The long-awaited sequel to Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies, the stunning conclusion to Hilary Mantel's Man Booker Prize-winning Thomas Cromwell trilogy. 'If you cannot speak truth at a beheading, when can you speak it?' England, May 1536. Anne Boleyn is dead, decapitated in the space of a heartbeat by a hired French executioner. As her remains ar...

View Book
Kabu Kabu Cover

Kabu Kabu

Author: Nnedi Okorafor

Kabu Kabu

Author Nnedi Okorafor

Narrator Yetide Badaki

Duration 10h 55m

Kabu kabu-unregistered illegal Nigerian taxis-generally get you where you need to go. Nnedi Okorafor's Kabu Kabu, however, takes the listener to exciting, fantastic, magical, occasionally dangerous, and always imaginative locations you didn't know you needed. This debut short story collection by an award-winning author includes notable previously p...

View Book
Bring Up the Bodies Cover

Bring Up the Bodies

Author: Hilary Mantel

Bring Up the Bodies

Author Hilary Mantel

Narrator Simon Vance

SeriesThomas Cromwell Trilogy, Book 2

Duration 14h 30m

Continuing what began in the Man Booker Prize-winning WOLF HALL, we return to the court of Henry VIII, to witness the irresistible rise of Thomas Cromwell as he contrives the destruction of Anne Boleyn. By 1535 Cromwell is Chief Minister to Henry, his fortunes having risen with those of Anne Boleyn. But the split from the Catholic Church has left E...

View Book
Katina Cover

Katina

Author: Roald Dahl

Katina

Author Roald Dahl

Narrator Murphy Cillian

Duration 55m

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Katina by Roald Dahl, read by Cillian Murphy. In Katina, Roald Dahl tells of a young Greek girl fascinated by the British planes and airbase that have come to her village. Katina is taken from the short story collection Over to You, which includes nine other dramatic and terrifying tales of life as a wartim...

View Book
Grand Union Cover

Grand Union

Author: Zadie Smith

Grand Union

Author Zadie Smith

Narrator Zadie Smith

Duration 6h 5m

In the summer of 1959, an Antiguan immigrant in north west London lives the last day of his life, unknowingly caught in someone else's story of hate and division, resistance and revolt. A mother looks back on her early forays into matters of the human heart - and other parts of the human body - considering the ways in which desire is always an act...

View Book
The Black Cat Cover

The Black Cat

Author: Edgar Allan Poe

The Black Cat

Author Edgar Allan Poe

Narrator Richard Griffiths

Duration 25m

Be cruel to animals at your peril - this story extols the virtues of being kind to all creatures to achieve happiness in life, a lesson that our unhappy protagonist is far from learning, whether in regards to human or animal life. A shocking story told with a dry dark humor, this tale is to be heard to be believed and is a true classic from the mas...

View Book