AuthorJonathan Coe
NarratorRory Kinnear
Duration14h 11m
CategoriesAdult Fiction, Novels
PublisherPenguin Books Ltd
VersionUnabridged
Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Middle England by Jonathan Coe, read by Rory Kinnear. 'It was tempting to think, at times like this, that some bizarre hysteria had gripped the British people' Beginning eight years ago on the outskirts of Birmingham, where car factories have been replaced by Poundland, and London, where frenzied riots give way to Olympic fever, Middle England follows a brilliantly vivid cast of characters through a time of immense change. There are newlyweds Ian and Sophie, who disagree about the future of the country and, possibly, the future of their relationship; Doug, the political commentator who writes impassioned columns about austerity from his Chelsea townhouse, and his radical teenage daughter who will stop at nothing in her quest for social justice; Benjamin Trotter, who embarks on an apparently doomed new career in middle age, and his father Colin, whose last wish is to vote in the European referendum. And within all these lives is the story of modern England: a story of nostalgia and delusion; of bewilderment and barely-suppressed rage. Following in the footsteps of The Rotters' Club and The Closed Circle, Jonathan Coe's new novel is the novel for our strange new times.
Author: Tsitsi Dangarembga
Author Tsitsi Dangarembga
Narrator Adenrele Ojo
Duration 11h 32m
Anxious about her prospects after leaving a stagnant job, Tambudzai finds herself living in a run-down youth hostel in downtown Harare. For reasons that include her grim financial prospects and her age, she moves to a widow's boarding house and eventually finds work as a biology teacher. But at every turn in her attempt to make a life for herself,...
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Author: Celeste Ng
Author Celeste Ng
Narrator Cassandra Campbell
Duration 10h 8m
Lydia is the favourite child of Marilyn and James Lee; a girl who inherited her mother's bright blue eyes and her father's jet-black hair. When Lydia's body is found in the local lake, James is consumed by guilt, and Marilyn, devastated and vengeful, is determined to hold someone accountable. But it's the youngest in the family - Hannah - who may b...
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Author: Jonathan Coe
Author Jonathan Coe
Narrator Jenny Agutter
Duration 7h 11m
This is the story of three generations of one family riven by tragedy. When Rosamond, a reluctant bearer of family secrets, dies suddenly, a mystery is left for her niece Gill to unravel. Some photograph albums and tapes point towards a blind girl named Imogen whom no one has seen in twenty years. The search for Imogen and the truth of her inherita...
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Author: Jane Fallon
Author Jane Fallon
Narrator Jo Joyner
Duration 10h 8m
Brought to you by Penguin. Welcome to The Close - a beautiful street of mansions, where gorgeous Stella is the indisputable Queen Bee . . . It is here that Laura, seeking peace and privacy after her marriage falls apart, rents a tiny studio. Unfortunately, her arrival upsets suspicious Stella - who fears Laura has designs on her fianc‚, Al. W...
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Summer At the Comfort Food Cafe
Author: Debbie Johnson
Author Debbie Johnson
Narrator Dawn Murphy
Duration 9h 50m
The Comfort Food Cafe is perched on a windswept clifftop at what feels like the edge of the world, serving up the most delicious cream teas, beautifully baked breads and carefully crafted cupcakes. For tourists and locals alike, the ramshackle cafe overlooking the beach is a beacon of laughter, companionship and security - a place like no other, a...
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Author: Jonathan Coe
Author Jonathan Coe
Narrator Colin Buchanan
Duration 13h 13m
The sequel to 'The Rotter's Club'. On Millennium night, 31 December 1999, Benjamin Trotter finds himself watching the celebrations on his parents' TV in the same Birmingham house in which he grew up. Watching, in fact, his younger brother Paul, now a bright young New Labour MP who has bought wholeheartedly into the Blairite dream. Neither of them c...
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Author: Jonathan Coe
Author Jonathan Coe
Narrator Nicholas Burns
Duration 12h 43m
Brought to you by Penguin. Unforgettably funny and painfully honest, Jonathan Coe's tale of Benjamin Trotter and his friends' coming of age during the 1970s is a heartfelt celebration of the joys and agonies of growing up. Featuring, among other things, IRA bombs, prog rock, punk rock, bad poetry, first love, love on the side, prefects, detention,...
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Author: Douglas Stuart
Author Douglas Stuart
Narrator Angus King
Duration 17h 41m
This is the unforgettable story of young Hugh "Shuggie" Bain, a sweet and lonely boy who spends his 1980s childhood in run-down public housing in Glasgow, Scotland. Thatcher's policies have put husbands and sons out of work, and the city's notorious drugs epidemic is waiting in the wings. Shuggie's mother Agnes walks a wayward path: she is Shuggie'...
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Author: Brandon Taylor
Author Brandon Taylor
Narrator Kevin R. Free
Duration 9h 25m
Almost everything about Wallace is at odds with the Midwestern university town where he is working uneasily toward a biochem degree. An introverted young man from Alabama, black and queer, he has left behind his family without escaping the long shadows of his childhood. For reasons of self-preservation, Wallace has enforced a wary distance even wit...
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Author: Jonathan Coe
Author Jonathan Coe
Narrator Kinnear Rory
Duration 11h 46m
This is a novel about the hundreds of tiny connections between the public and private worlds and how they affect us all. It's about the legacy of war and the end of innocence. It's about how comedy and politics are battling it out and comedy might have won. It's about how 140 characters can make fools of us all. It's about living in a city where ba...
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