The affair between Oscar Wilde and Lord Alfred Douglas, the son of the Marquess of Queensbury, led to a series of three trials in 1895, and Wilde's imprisonment for two years. He died three and a half years later in Paris at the age of 46. This recording recreates these sensational trials from the original transcripts.

Two aristocrats, formerly lovers, embark on a sophisticated game of seduction to bring some cruel amusement to their jaded lives. While the Marquise de Merteuil challenges the Vicomte de Valmont to seduce an innocent convent girl, the Vicomte is also occupied with the conquest of a virtuous married woman. But as their intrigues become more duplicitous and they find their human pawns responding in ways they could not have predicted, the consequences prove to be more serious, and deadly, than Merteuil and Valmont could have guessed.

London in the 18th century is a city as squalid and superstitious as it is elegant and enlightened, where a brilliant architect is commissioned to build several new churches. Two hundred and fifty years later in the sprawling metropolis of London the legacy of the past lives on, as CID Detective Hawksmoor investigates a series of murders that have occurred on the sites of 18th century churches.

This social history audiobook vividly describes the everyday activities and concerns of Londoners. Particular areas of interest include customs, food, drink, entertainment, sex, crime and punishment.

Shakespeare was born in Stratford on 23rd April 1564 and died in the same English country town on the same date in 1616. This audiobook is the first in a series of four and explores the birth and youth of Shakespeare, his family fortunes and misfortunes and his emergence onto the London theatre scene.

This audiobook follows the Thames river from source to sea. It covers history from prehistoric times to the present, the flora and fauna of the river, paintings and photographs inspired by the Thames, its geology, smells and colours, its literature, laws and landscape, its magic and myths, its architecture, trade and weather. We learn about the fish that swim in the river and the boats that ply on its surface, about floods and tides, hauntings and suicides, miasmas and sewers, locks, weirs and embankments.

Three years on from 'Little Women', the March girls and their friend Laurie are young adults with their futures ahead of them. Although they all face painful trials along the way - from Meg's sad lesson in housekeeping to Laurie's disappointment in love and a tragedy which touches them all - each of the girls finally finds happiness, if not always in the way they expect.

Beginning in a small village on the Chinese-Russian border in the final days of World War II, this audiobook tells the story of a mother and daughter separated by war. In a district of the city of Harbin, a haven for White Russian families since Russia's Communist revolution, Alina Kozlova must make a heartbreaking decision if her only child, Anya, is to live. The story sweeps across cultures and continents, from the glamorous nightclubs of Shanghai to the harshness of Cold War Soviet Russia in the 1960s, from a desolate island in the Pacific Ocean to a new life in post-war Australia. Both mother and daughter must make sacrifices, but is the price of survival too high? Most importantly of all, will they ever find each other again?

Simone Fleurier is wrenched from her home on a Provencal lavender farm at the age of fourteen after the accidental death of her father. Forced to become a maid at the boarding house of her Aunt Augustine in Marseilles, Simone's life is hard and impoverished. But one of her aunt's boarders, the beautiful Camille Casal - a star at the local music hall - gives Simone a dream ... that one day she too will be a famous singer and dancer. Years later, the famous Simone Fleurier, toast of Paris, watches Nazi troops occupy the city. Suddenly, her world is turned upside down, and Simone must make new and dangerous choices.

With his brilliant theory of the Long Tail (a powerful new economic force in a world where the internet allows access to almost unlimited choice), Chris Anderson has identified an important truth about our economy and culture. In a Long Tail world, the future does not lie in hits - the high-volume end of a traditional demand curve - but in what used to be regarded as misses, the curve's endlessly Long Tail.

As daughter of the blacksmith in her tiny Irish village, fifteen-year-old Kitty Doyle knows little of the ways of the world, but she has to grow up fast when her widowed father re-marries and she has no choice but to leave the family home. Luckily, there's work to be found over the water in 1920s Liverpool and soon Kitty has a job in a grocer's job, where she also catches the eye of the owner. With Kitty's input the business is soon thriving - but tragedy lies ahead, and she must endure many trials and tribulations before she can find true happiness.

The Anglo-Saxon epic Beowulf was completed in England in the eighth century, although the poem is set in the sixth century in what is now known as Denmark and southwestern Sweden. Against a background of feuding and feasting, the young warrior Beowulf kills Grendel, a huge man-like ogre who has been terrorising Hrothgar, King of the Danes. In retaliation Grendel's mother steals one of the Danes, and Beowulf follows him into the monster's lair... Seamus Heaney's new translation provides an easily accessible version of this early English classic. Winner of the Whitbread Award.

This audiobook brings to life that period in history when Henry VIII found a match in the beautiful Anne Boleyn. He, with his handsome looks and dominating personality, and she, whose courage, pride and indomitable passion were to win her a crown and cost her her life...

What on earth is Postmodernism? Here is an audio guide to the maddeningly enigmatic concept that has been used to describe our cultural condition of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. It explains the essentials of structuralism, semiotics and deconstruction as developed by Foucault, Levi-Strauss, Barthes, Derrida, Lacan, Lytard and others.

Spanning seven turbulent decades, this audiobook traces the fabulous rise of poor but ambitious Charlie Trumper, a man who becomes embroiled in one family's battle to build London's greatest department store against overwhelming odds whilst undermining their enemies.

The first collection of poetry from an award winning poet. This audiobook features `It ain't what you do it's what it does to you' and other poems included for study at GCSE. CONTAINS SOME STRONG LANGUAGE.

All that is known about Buddha comes from a collection of ancient writings that combine history, biography and myth. This audiobook provides a clear introduction to the main events of Buddha's life and the key ideas of Buddhism.

This audiobook can be used at any time, whether you need a refresher before a trip or if you are a complete beginner. It will teach you the French you will need to speak and understand without getting bogged down with grammar.

Cambridge is sweltering during an unusually hot summer. To Jackson Brodie, former police inspector turned private investigator, the world consists of one accounting sheet - Lost on the left, Found on the right - and the two never seem to balance. Jackson has never felt at home in Cambridge, and has a failed marriage to prove it. He is at that dangerous age when men suddenly notice that they're going to die eventually, inevitably, and there isn't a thing they can do about it. Surrounded by death, intrigue and misfortune, his own life is brought sharply into focus. CONTAINS ADULT THEMES AND STRONG LANGUAGE.

At the age of 26, David Attenborough applied for a job at the BBC - which then meant radio - and was turned down. It was suggested that he tried television, and fifty years later he is still one of British television's most well-loved figures. This audiobook covers both his hectic half-century in television, as well as expeditions to some very wild parts of the world.

A decade and a half has passed since Grace was locked up, at the age of 16, for the cold-blooded murders of her employer and his lover. Her alleged accomplice was hanged in 1843. Sixteen years on, Grace claims to have no memory of the event. Dr Simon Jordan attempts to uncover the truth.

This novel moves beyond the futuristic fantasy of 'The Handmaid's Tale' to an even more dystopian world, a world where language has almost entirely vanished. Snowman seems to be the last man on earth, the only survivor of an unnamed apocalypse. Gradually the reasons behind the disaster begin to unfold as Snowman undertakes a perilous journey to the remains of the bubble-dome complex where the sinister Paradise Project collapsed and near-global devastation began. CONTAINS ADULT THEMES.

A young divorcee returns to the remote island of her childhood in Northern Canada to investigate the mysterious disappearance of her father. Flooded with memories, she is gradually drawn back into her past as the wild island exerts its elemental hold.

At the end of her life, Iris Griffen takes up her pen to record the secret history of her family; the romantic melodrama of its decline and fall between the two World Wars. The central enigma of Iris's tale is whether the death of her sister, Laura Chase, was suicide or an accident. This multidimensional 'novel-within-a-novel' weaves strands of pulp science fiction with sketches of Iris's present-day life, by way of newspaper clippings, letters and extracts from a book, 'The Blind Assassin' by her sister Laura, which details a clandestine love affair between a privileged young woman and a radical 'agitator'. CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE AND ADULT THEMES.

John Aubrey's eccentric portraits of the great figures of 17th-century England rank alongside Pepys's diaries for their vivid evocation of the period. Born in 1626, the son of a Wiltshire squire; at the age of 26 Aubrey inherited a family estate encumbered with debt, and finally went bankrupt in the 1670s. At his death in 1697 he left a mass of notes on the likes of Shakespeare, Sir Walter Raleigh and Thomas Hobbes, which became 'Brief Lives'.

The recently-widowed Lady Susan Vernon, intelligent but highly manipulative, is intent on gaining financially secure relationships for both herself and her wayward but shy teenage daughter Frederica. The first of Austen's novels to be completed.

Emma Woodhouse is clever, rich, with a comfortable home and a happy disposition. She's also always convinced that she's right. She learns the hard way that pride comes before a fall, but the brotherly figure of Mr Knightley takes it upon himself to help her correct the flaws in her character.

At the age of ten, shy, vulnerable Fanny Price leaves behind her impoverished family in Portsmouth to go and live with her rich relatives at Mansfield Park. Growing up with her cousins she is aware that she is different from them and that her place in society cannot be taken for granted. When Mary Crawford and her brother Henry arrive at Mansfield Park, they succeed in dazzling everyone but Fanny. She sees through their shallow veneer and through the dramatic events that follow it is Fanny who is able to bring back some stability to the ruptured lives of those around her.

At the age of ten, shy, vulnerable Fanny Price leaves behind her impoverished family in Portsmouth to go and live with her rich relatives at Mansfield Park. Growing up with her cousins she is aware that she is different from them and that her place in society cannot be taken for granted. When Mary Crawford and her brother Henry arrive at Mansfield Park, they succeed in dazzling everyone but Fanny. She sees through their shallow veneer and through the dramatic events that follow it is Fanny who is able to bring back some stability to the ruptured lives of those around her.

Austen's hilarious anti-gothic novel sees the sweet, impressionable Catherine falling hopelessly in love with Henry Tilney. Will his good sense cure her romantic illusions?

A classic love story tinged with the heartache of missed opportunities. At 19, Anne Eliot is persuaded to jilt her suitor - Captain Frederick Wentworth - because he has neither rank nor fortune. When they encounter one another eight years later will she make the same mistake again?

Elizabeth Bennet is a spirited young woman with four sisters and a mother obsessed with getting them all married off. When she first meets Mr Darcy she thinks he's arrogant and conceited, and he is completely indifferent to her charms. Will she ever see past the prejudices of her first impressions?

Elizabeth Bennet is a spirited young woman with four sisters and a mother obsessed with getting them all married off. When she first meets Fitzwilliam Darcy she thinks he's arrogant and conceited, and he is completely indifferent to her charms. Will they ever see past the prejudices of their first impressions?

Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warnings that her impulsive behaviour will leave her open to gossip and innuendo.

For Lucy Evans, life is perfect. An unrepentant tomboy, she lives with her best mate, Ollie, in a great flat, has her dream job reviewing computer games and just enough cash for a few pints and a takeaway. But life takes a turn for the worst when not only Ollie's girlfriend, Annoying Victoria, proposes and wants Lucy out of the flat but, soon afterwards, Lucy gets fired. The only place that'll hire Lucy wants an English rose as a receptionist, so out goes rugby, DMs and Heavy Metal; in comes Laura Ashley, high heels and Chardonnay. Can Lucy pull it off and save Ollie in the process?

In this audiobook Beryl Bainbridge retells the tragic tale of Captain Scott and his companions as they searched for the South Pole. Five first-person narratives give different perspectives on the voyage: Petty Officer Taff Evans; the ship's scholar, medic, and biologist Dr. Edward Wilson; Robert Falcon Scott; Lieutenant Henry Bowers; and Captain Lawrence Oates each give their account of the hardships, the problems, and finally the failure of their endeavour.

Arthur and George grew up worlds apart in late 19th-century Britain: Arthur in shabby-genteel Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village. Arthur becomes a doctor then a writer; George a solicitor in Birmingham. Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age, while George remains in hard-working obscurity. But as the new century begins, they are brought together by a sequence of events which made sensational headlines at the time.This novel brings to life a long forgotten case that featured Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of the world's greatest detective. CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE AND ADULT THEMES.

Dramatic events of Maya's disappearance leads to her very first encounter with 'Missa' Mangoose' during the terrifying ordeal. A lasting bond of friendship is formed with the family, leading to many more adventures. This audiobook is written and read in the Caribbean Patwa language.

The author's vivid recollections and images of the past have been translated into poems which reminisce on her early life in the Caribbean. They are all written in the Caribbean dialect 'Patwa' and express the poetical humour and rhythmical flavour of the language.

It is the year of the Queen's Coronation and Joanna, Kate and Poll are living in a London suburb with their mother and stepfather, Boyd, the local doctor. Accepting unquestioningly his unstinting love, they are not curious about their vanished natural father - but the safety of their lives is tenuous. The past arrives to upset the present in the person of Aunt Hat, a gossipy old friend who brings news from a different world of chaos and drama.

The last thing Tom Jones had expected was to run into Portia on holiday. His wife Amy knows he had an affair some four years ago, but she had never met 'the other woman'. What a curious twist of fate that she is on the same flight as them - and staying at the same hotel. Philip Mann, also staying at the Hotel Parthenon, is in Greece to make sense of the suicide of Matilda. Everywhere he goes he sees her face, runs over in his mind the events leading up to her death and plays back the memories.

This story is narrated by a painter, who specialises as a copyist. All around him, the women with whom he is in love leave signs which alter emotional details: Clio, his child-bride, is destructive in her pliancy; his first wife, Helen, betrays him; and Maisie, his forthright East End mother has her own secrets. And the two central figures - the painter's schizophrenic son and his neglected stepson - become the focus for a startling conclusion.

On the 10th May 2002, author Nina Bawden and her husband, Austen Kark, boarded the 12.45 train from King's Cross en route to Cambridge for a friend's birthday party. A few minutes later the train derailed. Nina was gravely injured and Austen was killed instantly, along with seven others. In this powerful and poignant letter to her husband, Nina uses her considerable writing skills to try and make sense of it all, and explains how she found herself becoming a spokesperson for the survivors of the crash.

This demystifying and enthusiastic Very Short Introduction to Classics links a haunting temple on a lonely mountainside to the glory of ancient Greece and the grandeur of Rome, and to Classics within modern culture - from Jefferson and Byron to Asterix and Ben-Hur.

These four works - all for solo voices - show Samuel Beckett at his most penetrating. All express Beckett's trademark concerns of introspection, memory and hopelessness in different ways - yet always with sympathy for the human condition.

The play opens on a country road, where two tramp-like figures, Vladimir and Estragon, exchange words. They pull off their boots and munch root vegetables as two other curious characters and a boy enter the scene. Time passes. Samuel Beckett's strange yet familiar masterpiece casts a powerful spell and is considered by many to be one of the most outstanding plays of the 20th century.

Stalingrad marked not only the psychological turning-point of the Second World War, but was the first major modern battle fought in a city, with thousands of helpless civilians caught up in its horrors. In the epic struggle between Stalin and Hitler for the eastern front, soldiers were driven beyond the limits of mental and physical endurance. This unforgettable story, written as a narrative, concentrates on the experiences of the soldiers from both sides. CONTAINS ADULT THEMES.

A much-loved classic for children and adults alike, this collection of poems is a truly unforgettable book of moral instruction. Take heed from the lessons learnt by Matilda, who told lies and was burned to death, Jim, who ran away from his nurse and was eaten by a lion, and Rebecca, who slammed doors for fun and perished miserably...

Tony Benn brings his unmistakable presence to the stage. His only props: a flask of tea, some rubbed tobacco and his trademark pipe. This audiobook is a mix of politics, opinion and debate as he explores the issues of today spiced with memories of the past.

When Tony Benn left Parliament after 51 years he quoted his wife Caroline's remark that now he would have 'more time for politics'. And so this has proved: in the first seven years of this century he has helped reinvigorate national debate through public meetings, mass campaigns and appearances in the media, passionately bringing moral and political issues to wide audiences. And throughout, as ever, he has been keeping his diaries.

The 'Uncommon Reader' of the title is none other than H M the Queen who drifts accidentally into reading when her corgis stray into a mobile library parked at Buckingham Palace. She reads widely (J R Ackerley, Jean Genet, Ivy Compton Burnett, and the classics) and intelligently. Her reading naturally changes her world view and her relationship with people such as the Prime Minister and his repellent advisers. She comes to question the prescribed order of the world, and loses patience with much that she has to do.

For seven decades, actress Katharine Hepburn played a leading role in the popular culture of the 20th century. She also remained one of the most private figures of her time. In 1982, at the age of 75, she shared for the first time details of her life, including her famous relationships with Spencer Tracy and Howard Hughes, her family and extraordinary career in Hollywood and on Broadway.

When the murdered body of a local boy is found in the woods, suspicions transform young Marsha's once-secure neighbourhood. Marsha begins to watch her neighbours and when Mr Green, the shy bachelor from next-door, takes an interest in her mother, Marsha is drawn into a cruel chain of events. Winner of the Orange Prize.

A middle-aged divorcee inherits a house in the Welsh village where she grew up and decides to start afresh and rebuild her life. She begins to renew old friendships, make new ones and re-examine her relationships with her mother and daughter.

This audiobook contains the best known and most important sections from the New Testament. It includes selections from the Gospels, using Matthew as the main text, the Epistles of Paul, the Acts of the Apostles and Revelations.The feature music is by Byrd, Tallis and Schuetz.

This title encompasses the most familiar passages covering the main characters of the Old Testament, from Adam and Eve to King Solomon, including the Psalms and Proverbs. An extended essay looks at links with Western art, literature and music. The music includes Tallis's 'Lamentations'.

The 150 Psalms contain some of the most inspiring lines in the Old Testament. Presented here in all their variety, they are accompanied by English choral music from the 16th and 17th centuries.

Evacuated from Blitz-battered London, genteel Elizabeth White is sent to stay with the Irish O'Connors. It is the beginning of a bond between Elizabeth and Aisling O'Connor which will survive twenty turbulent years.

Four strangers, with nothing in common but a need to escape, meet in a Greek taverna high above the small village of Aghia Anna. From Ireland, America, Germany and England, they have each left their homes and their old lives, when a shocking tragedy throws them unexpectedly together. Fiona is a young nurse, trying to make her family understand her need to follow her own path. Thomas desperately misses his young son. Elsa abruptly left her career as a television presenter, but someone from her past refuses to let her go. And shy, quiet David is determined to make a stand against his overbearing father. With Andreas, the taverna owner and the help of Vonni, a middle-aged Irishwoman who lives in the village, they find solutions - though not necessarily the ones they anticipated...

Every table at Quentins Restaurant has a story to tell: tales of love, betrayal and revenge. The staff who come and go have stories of their own, and the restaurant itself has had times when it looked fair for success and others when it seemed doomed to failure. Ella Brady wants to make a documentary about the renowned Dublin restaurant that has captured the spirit of a generation, but, as she is forced to confront the most devastating dilemma in her own life, Ella wonders if some stories are too sacred to be told...

A novel which follows the fortunes of eight children who carve their names on the copper beech behind the local school and looks at the drama behind the apparently quiet life of a small Irish community.

The town of Rossmore is a special place, full of character charm. Nestled beside the Whitethorn Woods, the town has grown since the days when it was small and friendly and everyone knew everyone else; now it has chain stories and traffic problems and housing estates. But still, there are the woods, full of spiky bushes and criss-crossed with paths; and there's St Ann's Well, where generations have come to pray or make wishes or just to look back at the pretty little town. Which is why there is going to be such a fuss about the plans for the new motorway. It's going to by-pass Rossmore, cutting through Whitethorn Woods and endangering the well itself. The new road will bring jobs and relieve traffic in the town; for others, it will destroy businesses and leave the town a backwater. The people of Rossmore are divided. There is a lot of land standing in the way of the great road of progress. Quite by accident the decision rests on Neddy Nolan - the most honest man in Rossmore.

'Out of Africa' is a celebration of Karen Blixen's life in Kenya, and the story of her struggles and triumphs in managing a coffee plantation there. Her friendship with the people of the area, her sympathetic response to the landscape and animals and deep love for Africa is portrayed with warmth and clarity in this classic autobiography.

Sixteen tales from one of the great works of the Middle Ages. Ten young people have fled the terrible effects of the Black Death in Florence and, in an idyllic setting, they escape from their troubles for a while by entertaining each other with a series of brilliant stories, by turns humorous, bawdy, tragic and provocative.

Boswell's biography of his friend and hero Samuel Johnson is an acknowledged classic, full of humorous anecdotes and rich characterisation. Johnson's depression, intellectual brilliance and rough humour is set wthin a vivid portrayal of 18th century London peopled by personalities of the time such as Sir Joshua Reynolds, John Wilkes, Oliver Goldsmith and David Garrick.

Dodging minefields in Cambodia, diving into the icy waters outside a Russian bath, Chef Bourdain travels the world over in search of the ultimate meal. The adventures include Japan, where he eats traditional Fugu, a poisonous blowfish which can be prepared only by specially licensed chefs, and Saigon, where he's treated to a sustaining meal of live Cobra heart before moving on to savour a snack with the Viet Cong in the Mecong Delta. Further west, 'Kitchen Confidential' fans will recognize the Gironde of Tony's youth, the first stop on his European itinerary. And from France, it's on to Portugal, where an entire village has been fattening a pig for months in anticipation of his arrival. And we're only halfway around the globe...

After 25 years of 'sex, drugs, bad behaviour and haute cuisine', chef and novelist Anthony Bourdain has decided to tell all. From his first oyster in the Gironde to his lowly position as a dishwasher in a honky-tonk fish restaurant in Provincetown; from the kitchen of the Rainbow Room atop the Rockefeller Center to drug dealers in the East Village; from Tokyo to Paris and back to New York again, Bourdain's tales of the kitchen are as passionate as they are unpredictable, shocking and funny. CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE AND ADULT THEMES.

Human relationships are the dominant theme in this collection of short stories taken from the book 'On the Yankee Station'. The stories include: 'Love Hurts'; 'Killing Lizards'; 'My Girl in Skin-Tight Jeans'; 'Histoire Vache'; 'Hardly Ever'; 'Bizarre Situations' and 'Long Story Short'.

Nine year old Bruno knows nothing of the Final Solution or the Holocaust. When he moves house he meets Shumel, a boy who lives a strange parallel existence on the other side of the adjoining wire fence and who, like the other people there, wears a uniform of striped pyjamas. Features an exclusive interview with the author.

When young Lucy Graham marries Sir Michael Audley, all seems well and good. Sir Michael is thoroughly devoted to his new bride and Lady Audley takes great pride in her privileged position at Audley Court. But Sir Michael's daughter, Alicia, is frustrated and uncomfortable with her new stepmother's girlish ways. Shortly afterwards, Sir Michael's nephew, the attractive but lazy barrister Robert Audley, welcomes back to England an old friend of his, George Talboys. The pair visit the Court for some sport, where George disappears in mysterious circumstances. Robert Audley is spurred into action, taking up the case with a new-found passion and energy. Like the best detective novels, and with some wonderful melodrama thrown in for good measure, the plot unravels at great pace until the truth is revealed about Lady Audley's secret.

When we think of great events in the history of the world, we tend to think of war, revolution, political upheaval or natural catastrophe. But throughtout history there have been moments of vital importance that have taken place not on the battlefield, but between the pages of a book. Here Melvyn Bragg explores a wide and controversial selection of British books and their huge impact on history.

When Sam Richardson returns from the Second World War to Wigton in Cumbria, he finds little has changed, as far as his own limited prospects go. In his absence, though, his young family has changed immensely, and Sam struggles to adjust to life in peacetime.

The new tenant of Thrushcross Grange, on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before, the intense passion between Heathcliff and Catherine Earnshaw, and her betrayal of him. A classic tale of obsessive love.

Modest, reliable and decorous throughout his life, George Bland faces retirement with uncertainty and solitude, made worse by the early death of his friend Putnam. Into his life comes the invasive and mercurial Katy Gibb, with designs on George that are unquestionably financial. To George however she represents a last chance to abandon discretion and responsibility.

Sofka Dorn, matriarch of a prosperous German family living in England, rules her four children with a strong hand. Frederick, the eldest son, is a 'disgracefully charming' ladies' man, adored and indulged by his mother, as is his flirtatious sister Betty. Alfred and Mimi, steady and solitary, are a disappointment, for their mother values boldness and strength. As the story unfolds, it becomes clear that the struggle to escape the family will prove a test for all four children separately.

This novel tells the story of an innocent idealist, whose gentle rearing by his widowed mother causes him to take too gallant a view of women. Tracing the path of the young man's life, first as a scholar, and then through years of change into someone more mature and knowing, this novel uses the sweep of time to show its characters in shifting perspectives as their habits, behaviour and, ultimately, their lives change.

In 1666, The Great Plague scorched London whilst the north of England remained untouched until, in a small community of leadminers and hill farmers, a bolt of cloth arrived from the capital. The tailor who cut the cloth had no way of knowing that the damp fabric carried with it bubonic infection. So begins the 'Year of Wonders', based on real-life events, in which a small Pennine village confronts a scourge beyond remedy or understanding. Desperate, the villagers turn to sorcery, herb lore, and murderous witch-hunting. Then, led by a young and charismatic preacher, they bravely elect to isolate themselves to limit the contagion. The story is told through the eyes of Anna Frith who, at only 18, must contend with the death of her family, the disintegration of her society, and the lure of a dangerous and illicit attraction.

Christy Brown was born with Cerebral Palsy. This is the remarkable story of his childhood struggle to learn how to read, write, paint, and finally type, with the toe of his left foot. In this manner he wrote the bestselling novel 'Down all the Days' (catalogue number 7488).

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. Solving the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci - clues visible for all to see and yet ingeniously disguised by the painter.

Drawing on studies of social class, crime and deviance, work in bureaucracies, and changes in religious and political organisations, this 'Very Short Introduction' explores the tension between the individual's role in society and society's role in shaping the individual.

Bill Bryson's quest to understand everything that has transpired from the Big Bang to the rise of civilisation. His challenge is to take subjects like geology, chemistry, astronomy and particle physics and to render them comprehensible to people who thought they could never be interested in science. In the company of some extraordinary scientists, the world is revealed in a way most of us have never seen before.

Though 'The Arabian Nights' are generally known as stories for children, they were originally tales for adults. This selection of tales certainly inspired the imagination of Sir Richard Burton, the nineteenth-century explorer, linguist and erotologist who brought all his worldly experience and an expressive prose style to bear on the tales of Sinbad the Seaman and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves.

Edited by novelist A.S. Byatt, this collection of thirty-seven stories has been selected from the 19th and 20th centuries, from 'The Haunted House' by Charles Dickens to 'Solid Geometry' by Ian McEwan. Other authors included range from Trollope, Hardy and D. H. Lawrence to P. G. Wodehouse, J. G. Ballard and Angela Carter.

One of the most flamboyant women of the late 18th century, Mary Robinson's life was marked by reversals of fortune. After being raised by a middle-class father, Mary was married, age 14, to Thomas Robinson. His dissipated lifestyle landed the couple and their baby in debtor's prison, where Mary wrote her first book of poetry and met lifelong friend Georgina, Duchess of Devonshire. On her release, Mary quickly became one of the most popular actresses of the day, famously playing Perdita in 'The Winter's Tale' for a rapt audience that included the Prince of Wales, who fell madly in love with her.

Taken from Alastair Campbell's daily diaries, these audio extracts chart the rise of New Labour and the tumultuous years of Tony Blair's leadership. Here are recorded an insider's perspectives on the defining events of contemporary politics. Here is Tony Blair, up close and personal. As Blair's press secretary, strategist and trusted confidant, Alastair Campbell's diaries take the listener right to the heart of Labour government.

Caught up in a confrontation between the hated Guild magicians and the angry youth of the slums, to her dismay Sonea discovers that she possesses the same powers as the reviled magicians. To avoid capture, she must seek protection from the city's feared underworld, The Thieves. In return she must use her powers for them, but her magic never seems to do quite what she intends it to.

The protagonist of this novel is Sophie, a woman aerialist with wings. The setting is turn of the century London, St. Petersburg and Siberia. An American journalist, Jack Walser, has been sent to interview Sophie, known as Fevvers to her friends, and is so intrigued by her account of her childhood that he joins the circus as a clown.

Born in 1725 to Italian and Spanish parents, Giacomo Casanova was a scholar and adventurer, not to mention a notorious seducer of women, who lived a long and exciting life. This first volume of his memoirs charts his childhood and life as a young man in Venice and Italy.

The first European novel, and one of the greatest, is a marvelously comic study of delusion and its consequences: Don Quixote, the old gentleman of La Mancha, takes to the road in search of adventure and remains undaunted in the face of repeated disaster.

Here are 12 stories, from the brightly comic to the overtly tragic. Each full of the sharpest observations of personality and situation, and with implications beyond their brief form: a dying actor, children playing a game, a tragic cabman, an orator's mistake and, perhaps most richly of all, a family laid bare in 'In The Ravine'.

A group of anarchists are under surveillance by Scotland Yard in Chesterton's metaphysical thriller. The Supreme Anarchists Council is dedicated to overthrowing the world order. To keep their identities a secret, each of them has been named a day of the week. Gabriel Syme, an eccentric poet, is recruited by Scotland Yard to infiltrate the group. He tracks down the six men and manages to win a place on the council. But in a bizarre and surreal twist of events, Syme realises that five of the six members are not at all what they seem...

The first collection of stories featuring Father Brown, a small, round-faced and innocent Roman Catholic priest from East Anglia - who also happens to be a top-hole detective. The stories include 'The Blue Cross', 'The Secret Garden', 'The Queer Feet', 'The Flying Stars', 'The Invisible Man', 'The Honour of Israel', 'The Wrong Shape', 'The Sins of Prince Saradine', 'The Hammer of God', 'The Eye of Apollo', 'The Sign of the Broken Sword', and 'The Three Tools of Death'.

London 1792. The Kellaways move from familiar rural Dorset to the tumult of a cramped, unforgiving city. They are leaving behind a terrible loss, a blow that only a completely new life may soften. Against the backdrop of a city jittery over the increasingly bloody French Revolution, a surprising bond forms between Jem, the youngest Kellaway boy, and streetwise Londoner, Maggie Butterfield. Their friendship takes a dramatic turn when they become entangled in the life of their neighbour, the printer, poet and radical, William Blake. He is a guiding spirit as Jem and Maggie navigate the unpredictable, exhilarating passage from innocence to experience. Their journey inspires one of Blake's most entrancing works.

A historical novel on the corruption of innocence, using the famous painting by Vermeer as an inspiration. Griet, the young daughter of a tilemaker in 17th century Holland, obtains her first job as a servant in Vermeer's household. Tracy Chevalier shows us, through Griet's eyes, the complicated family, the society of the small town of Delft, and life with an obsessive genius. Griet loves being drawn into his artistic life, and leaving her former drudgery, but the cost to her own survival may be high.

Meet Ella Turner and Isabelle du Moulin, two women born centuries apart, yet bound by a fateful family legacy. When Ella and her husband move to a small town in France, Ella hopes to brush up on her French, qualify to practice as a midwife, and start a family of her own. Village life turns out to be less idyllic than she expected, however, and a peculiar dream about the colour blue propels her on a quest to uncover her family's French ancestry. As the novel unfolds, alternating between Ella's story and that of Isabelle du Moulin four hundred years earlier, a common thread emerges that unexpectedly links the two women.

In spite of good prospects in the Foreign Office, sardonic civil servant Carruthers is finding it hard to endure the emptiness and boredom of his life in London. He accepts an invitation to join a friend on a sailing holiday in the Baltic, where they discover a sinister German plot. A classic tale of espionage and intrigue set in the late 1890s.

The moving and powerful story of Edna Pontellier, a beautiful young wife and mother who discovers her true feelings and identity through her love for Robert Lebrun, and in doing so challenges the bourgeois assumptions of her day.

Ten strangers, apparently with little in common, are lured to an island mansion off the coast of Devon. One of the party is found murdered, and tension mounts as the survivors realise that not only is the killer among them, but that they are likely to kill again...

In this novelisation of a playscript, the formula for a powerful explosive is stolen. Locking his guests in the library, Sir Claud switches off the lights to let the thief replace it, no questions asked. When the lights come on, Sir Claud is dead and Hercule Poirot must act quickly to prevent a global catastrophe. (Adapted by Charles Osborne).

An unpopular games mistress is found, shot through the heart from point blank range. The school is thrown into chaos when the murderer strikes again and schoolgirl Julia Upjohn knows that without Hercule Poirot's help, she will be the next victim.

Hercule Poirot stood on the cliff-top. Here, a tragic accident had been followed by the grisly discovery of two more bodies - a husband and wife - shot dead. Was it a suicide pact? A crime of passion? Or cold-blooded murder? Poirot delves back into the past and discovers that 'old sins leave long shadows'.

It is World War II, and while the RAF struggles to keep the Luftwaffe at bay, Britain faces an even more sinister threat from 'the enemy within' - Nazis posing as ordinary citizens. With pressure mounting, the Intelligence service appoints two unlikely spies, Tommy and Tuppence Beresford. Their mission: to seek out a man and a woman from among the colourful guests at Sans Souci, a seaside hotel. But this assignment is no stroll along the promenade. After all, N and M have just murdered Britain's finest agent...

A history of Britain by one of its its finest statesmen, a man who had himself crucially shaped events during one of the greatest crisis of modern times. Churchill's resonant prose brings to life the political, constitutional and military landmarks of our history: his purpose, to show that a sense of how man may live decently and democratically grew from the heritage of these islands.

This history of the Second World War is the definitive work. It is remarkable for its breadth and sweep and for its sense of personal involvement. This edition is Churchill's own abridgement of his original six volume history.

When Kay Lansing marries wealthy widower Peter Carrington, she is well aware of the rumours surrounding the mysterious death of Peter's first wife Grace, who was found floating in the family pool ten years ago, pregnant at the time. Kay also discovers that Peter is a chronic sleepwalker who suffers from periodic nightmares. When the police arrive at her doorstep with a warrant for Peter's arrest in connection with another murder - that of a woman Peter had escorted to a high school senior prom twenty-two years ago - Kay begins to fear that she has married a sleepwalking murderer, and she resolves to find out the truth behind the puzzling deaths. But are the two deaths linked? And why does a melody that Kay cannot identify keep playing in her head every time she approaches the family chapel?

The year is 1806, England is beleaguered by the long war with Napoleon, and it is hundreds of years since practical magic faded into the nation's past. But scholars of this glorious history suddenly discover that one practising magician still remains: the reclusive Mr Norrell of Hurtfew Abbey. Challenged to demonstrate his powers, Norrell proceeds to London, where he raises a beautiful young woman from the dead and summons an army of ghostly ships to terrify the French. Yet Norrell is soon challenged by the emergence of another magician: the brilliant novice Jonathan Strange. Young, handsome and daring, Strange is the very opposite of the cautious, fussy Norrell, who nevertheless agrees to take Strange as a pupil. But when Strange becomes obsessed with the founder of English magic, the Raven King, he risks sacrificing not only his partnership with Norrell, but everything else he holds dear in his reckless pursuit of the wildest, most perilous forms of magic.

'Fanny Hill', one of the most popular novels of the 18th century, turned the prevailing moralism of the times on its head as it traced the rise of its heroine from prostitution to middle-class respectability. CONTAINS ADULT THEMES.

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 can know that their lives are about to implode.

After an impulsive affair with his student sours, David Lurie retreats disgraced to his daughter Lucy's isolated smallholding. For a time, his daughter's influence and the natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power is shifting in South Africa. He and Lucy become victims of a disturbing attack which brings into relief all their fault-lines. Winner of the Booker Prize.

This audiobook can be used at any time, whether you need a refresher before a trip or if you are a complete beginner. It will teach you the German you will need to speak and understand without getting bogged down with grammar.

When Freddie Jackson gets out of prison, he thinks he owns the underworld. He's done his time, made the right connections and now he's ready to use them. His wife Jackie just wants her husband home, but she's forgotten the rows, the violence and the girls Freddie can't leave alone. Increasingly unstable, Jackie watches her life crumble while her little sister Maggie's star rises. CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE AND ADULT THEMES.

The Pier Ballroom in Swansea on a Saturday night is the place to be for Lily, an evacuee unclaimed by her family at the end of the war; for Judy, taught independence by her war widow mother; for Katie, the product of a marriage between a drunken, violent father and a cowed, beaten mother; and for spoiled, wilful Helen. It is an evening that fuels jealousies and sows the seeds for friendships and romance.

In the Swansea of the fifties, there is only one thing for a boy to do when he gets a girl 'into trouble' and that is to marry her - and quickly. Blighted by an unhappy childhood, passionately in love for the first time in his life, Jack can't wait to do 'the right thing'. A happy family of his own is all he ever wanted but not even in his wildest dreams did he envisage a wife like Helen. Beautiful, intelligent and loving, Helen is headstrong enough to defy her family and convention for Jack and, when her father gives them his blessing, their future beckons assured and glittering - until tragedy strikes and tears them apart.

Pontypridd 1930. At eighteen Edyth is the 'plain, intelligent' one of Harry and Sali Evans' five daughters. Until a chance meeting with handsome curate Peter Slater throws her life into turmoil. Head over heels in love, she sacrifices her own ambitions of a college education and career, and defies her parents' opposition so she can help Peter realise his dream of running his own parish. The church sends Peter to Butetown, a multi-racial dockland area of Cardiff, commonly known as Tiger Bay. There Edyth and Peter encounter rich cultures from all corners of the world that flourish even in the depression ridden conditions of desperate poverty. It is a society where creed, language and the colour of a family's skin doesn't matter - as long as the borders that separate Tiger Bay from the city aren't crossed. And there Edyth discovers exactly why her parents were so opposed to her marriage. Peter has a dark secret that has not only blighted his life but also hers.

Drawing upon a six year research project, Collins and Porras took eighteen truly exceptional and long-lasting companies and studied each company in direct comparison to one of its top competitors. They examined the companies from their very beginnings to the present day - as start ups, midsize and as large corporations. Throughout the authors ask 'What makes the truly exceptional companies different from other companies?'

The last of a manufacturing dynasty in a dying industrial town, Bill lives alone in the family mansion and works for 'The Truth', the moribund local paper. Then old man Lawton goes missing and suspicion fixes on his son, Ronny, the local bad boy. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize.

The Moonstone, a large, beautiful yellow diamond, stolen from an Indian shrine, is given to Rachel Verinder on her 18th birthday and, that same night, stolen again. Sergeant Cuff is employed to find the precious stone and has no shortage of suspects. As each character describes their version of events, layer upon layer of drama and suspense builds to the final and astonishing denoument.

Two novellas: In 'Youth', the seaman Marlow tells the story of a young man's coming of age on his first voyage to the East. 'Heart of Darkness' describes the slide into corruption of an idealistic trader - Kurtz - in the Belgian Congo. The accompanying music is by Schreker, Szymanowski and Tanneyev.

This collection of poems draws on many themes familiar to the listeners of Catherine Cookson's novels: love, work, class and the beauty of nature. She also shares more personal thoughts, reflections on her own writing, marriage to her beloved Tom and life in the north of England. From the earliest poem included here, written in 1925 aged nineteen, to those written just before her death in 1998, this anthology spans her life and work. She remains one of the nation's favourite storytellers, completing an astonishing 104 works in her lifetime. This audiobook is her final work to be published and shows Cookson at her most intimate and inspirational.