AuthorGeorge Orwell
NarratorPhilip Glenister
Duration5h 52m
CategoriesAdult Fiction, Novels, Science Fiction and Fantasy, Young Adult and Teen Fiction
Key StageA Level
PublisherCSA Word
VersionAbridged
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 effectively perpetuating propaganda, who grows disillusioned with his meagre existence and so begins an ultimately futile rebellion against the system. The novel has become famous for its portrayal of surveillance and society's increasing encroachment on the rights of the individual. Since its publication the terms Big Brother and Orwellian have entered the popular vernacular. Read fittingly by on-screen renegade Philip Glenister of 'Ashes to Ashes' and 'Life on Mars' fame.
Author: George Orwell
Author George Orwell
Narrator Jeremy Northam
Duration 7h 41m
A searing account of George Orwell's observations of working-class life in the bleak industrial heartlands of Yorkshire and Lancashire in the 1930s. Graphically unforgettable descriptions of social injustice, cramped slum housing, dangerous mining conditions, hunger and unemployment are written with unblinking honesty, fury and great humanity. It c...
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Author: Dawn O'Porter
Author Dawn O'Porter
Narrator Dawn O'Porter
Duration 9h 19m
Is anyone's life.... Beth shows that women really can have it all. Ruby lives life by her own rules. And then there's Lauren, living the dream. As perfect as it looks? Beth hasn't had sex in a year. Ruby feels like she's failing. Lauren's happiness is fake news. And it just takes one shocking event to make the truth come tumbling out...
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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: George Orwell
Author George Orwell
Narrator Richard E Grant
Duration 9h 1m
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 girlf...
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Author: Cecelia Ahern
Author Cecelia Ahern
Narrator Amy Huberman
Duration 9h 52m
When Holly Kennedy is approached by a group calling themselves the PS, I Love You Club, her safe existence is turned on its head. Inspired by hearing about her late husband Gerry's letters, the club wants Holly to help them with their own parting messages for their loved ones to discover after they're gone. Holly is sure of one thing: no way is she...
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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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Author: Curtis Sittenfield
Author Curtis Sittenfield
Narrator Carrington Macduffie
Duration 13h 58m
'Awfully opinionated for a girl' is what they call Hillary as she grows up in her Chicago suburb. Smart, diligent, and a bit plain, that's the general consensus. Then Hillary goes to college, and her star rises. At Yale Law School, she continues to be a leader- and catches the eye of driven, handsome and charismatic Bill. But when he asks her to ma...
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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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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: 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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