AuthorGeorge Orwell
NarratorRichard E Grant
Duration9h 1m
CategoriesAdult Fiction, Classics
PublisherCSA Word
VersionUnabridged
Orwell's darkly comic novel centres around the life of Gordon Comstock, onetime advertising copywriter turned bookshop employee and struggling poet. Gordon's disdain for money and artistic compromise preclude his earning enough of a living to escape constant public embarrassment. On top of this, it gives him terrible trouble holding on to his girlfriend. Unwilling to dilute his stubborn stance on capitalistic pursuits, he constantly obsesses "money, money, money, all is money". Gordon's problems mount while his only published volume, Mice, gathers dust on a shelf, and his attempts at a new collection stagnate. Written during Orwell's time living in Notting Hill and set in London during "the year of blight, 1934", the novel is a fine example of Orwell's wit, and a masterpiece of fiction. It also hints towards themes about power and relationships that would colour his later works Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm.
Author: George Orwell
Author George Orwell
Narrator Andrew Wincott
Duration 12h 20m
1984 is the year in which it happens. The world is divided into three great powers: Oceania, Eurasia and Eastasia. Throughout Oceania 'The Party' rules by the agency of four ministries whose power is absolute. In The Ministry of Truth, which deals in propaganda, Winston Smith's job is to edit the past. Over time, the impulse to escape the machine t...
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Author: Jonathan Swift
Author Jonathan Swift
Narrator Jasper Britton
Duration 35h 15m
Lemuel Gulliver, a slightly staid ship's doctor, relates the tales of his astonishing travels. He encounters the tiny, warring Lilliputians; the giant, sceptical Brobdingnagians; the ludicrously intellectual Laputans; and the idealistic - if rather stolid - Houyhnhnms and their bestial servants, the Yahoos. An immediate best-seller when it was firs...
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Author: Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Author Antoine de Saint-Exupery
Narrator Richard E. Grant
Duration 2h 12m
He is the Little Prince, the mysterious, innocent and beautiful boy who appears to a pilot stranded in the desert and makes an extraordinary request. He has captured the hearts of millions of readers around the world since his story first appeared in 1943, written down by an aristocratic French aviator who soon after disappeared during a flight acr...
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Author: George Orwell
Author George Orwell
Narrator Jeremy Northam
Duration 8h 54m
Homage to Catalonia is George Orwell's account of his experiences fighting in the Spanish Civil War, and a portrait of disillusionment with his early politics. Orwell's experiences include being shot in the neck by a sniper, and being forced into hiding as factions of the Left battled on the streets of Barcelona. Orwell entered Spain intending to g...
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Author: Jerome K Jerome
Author Jerome K Jerome
Narrator Blake Morrison
Duration 7h 33m
Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Blake Harrison, star of The Inbetweeners, also known for his role on screen in A Very English Scandal and Todd Margaret, as well as on London's West End in Waitress. This definitive recording includes an Introduction by David Carroll. Martyrs to hypochondria and general seediness, J. a...
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Author: Charlotte Bronte
Author Charlotte Bronte
Narrator Charlotte Ritchie
Duration 21h 29m
Brought to you by Penguin. This Penguin Classic is performed by Charlotte Ritchie, best known for her roles as Oregon in Channel 4's Fresh Meat, Hannah in the BBC Three comedy Siblings, and as Barbara Gilbert in BBC drama Call the Midwife. With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding sch...
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Author: George Orwell
Author George Orwell
Narrator Simon Callow
Duration 3h 11m
The animals in the farmyard decide that working for humans is doing them no favours, so under the leadership of Napoleon, the only Berkshire Boar on the farm, and the other pigs, they drive out the farmer and his cohorts and set about structuring their own society. Based on a list of supposedly animal-friendly rules such as "four legs good, two leg...
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Author: George Orwell
Author George Orwell
Narrator Philip Glenister
Duration 5h 52m
Nineteen Eighty-Four is a classic dystopian novel by English author George Orwell. Published in 1949, it is set in the eponymous year and focuses on a repressive, totalitarian regime. The story follows the life of one seemingly insignificant man, Winston Smith, a civil servant assigned the task of falsifying records and political literature, thus e...
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Down and Out In Paris and London
Author: George Orwell
Author George Orwell
Narrator Jeremy Northam
Duration 6h 54m
Orwell was arguably one of the first 'gonzo' journalists. In this unabridged, enlightening and often shocking expose of life on the streets of two of Europe's most romanticised and celebrated cities, Orwell describes in detail the day-to-day life of a 'down-and-out', which involves hunger, filth, derision and often prejudice and violence. Alcohol i...
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Author: Kenneth Grahame
Author Kenneth Grahame
Narrator Alan Bennett
Duration 1h 17m
When the Water Rat invites the unassuming Mole to spend his first day ever in a boat on the river, and wise Badger comes along for the ride as well, so begins a marvellous season of adventure for the three friends. Mr Toad (he of Toad Hall) completes a happy foursome, but his tendency to get into hot water leads him into some rather hair-raising sc...
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