AuthorEvelyn Waugh
NarratorNathaniel Parker
Duration4h 42m
CategoriesAdult Fiction, Novels, LGBTQ+ Literature
PublisherCSA Word
VersionAbridged
Evelyn Waugh's acidly funny and daring satire, Vile Bodies reveals the darkness and vulnerability that lurks beneath the glittering surface of the high life. In the years following the First World War a new generation emerges, wistful and vulnerable beneath the glitter. The Bright Young Things of twenties' Mayfair, with their paradoxical mix of innocence and sophistication, exercise their inventive minds and vile bodies in every kind of escapade - whether promiscuity, dancing, cocktail parties or sports cars. In a quest for treasure, a favourite party occupation, a vivid assortment of characters, among them the struggling writer Adam Fenwick-Symes and the glamorous, aristocratic Nina Blount, hunt fast and furiously for ever greater sensations and the fulfilment of unconscious desires.
Author: F Scott Fitzgerald
Author F Scott Fitzgerald
Narrator Laurel Lefkow
SeriesBright Young Things, Book 3
Duration 13m
And now the second of our stories celebrating the riotous, cocktail-swilling, 'Bright Young Things' of the interwar years. Laurel Lefkow reads F Scott Fitzgerald's classic Jazz Age tale set in 1920s California, Bernice Bobs her Hair, in which revenge comes in the shape of a daring new hairstyle. F. Scott Fitzgerald, author of The Beautiful and the...
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Author: Evelyn Waugh
Author Evelyn Waugh
Narrator Jonathan Keeble
Duration 6h 20m
Sent down from Oxford for indecent behaviour, Paul Pennyfeather is oddly unsurprised to find himself qualifying for the position of schoolmaster at Llanabba Castle. His colleagues are an assortment of misfits, rascals, and fools, including Prendy and Captain Grimes, who is always in the soup (or just plain drunk). Then Sports Day arrives, and with...
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Author: Evelyn Waugh
Author Evelyn Waugh
Narrator Michael Cochrane
Duration 5h
A sharply comic novel with shades of Waugh's own experiences, 'The Ordeal of Gilbert Penfold - A Conversation Piece', recounts a period of mental confusion and breakdown in the life of Gilbert Penfold, an established novelist of mature years. Prone to moments of paranoia and memory-loss, he attempts to cure himself with a tropical cruise. But his a...
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Author: Anna Godbersen
Author Anna Godbersen
Narrator Caitlin Davies
SeriesBright Young Things, Book 2
Duration 8h 58m
For the bright young things of 1929, the beautiful days seem endless, filled with romance and heartbreak, adventure and intrigue, friendship and rivalry. After a month in New York, Cordelia Grey and Letty Larkspur are small-town girls no longer. They spend their afternoons with Astrid Donal at the Greys' lush Long Island estate and their nights in...
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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: 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: 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: 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 fiance, Al. When La...
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Author: Evelyn Waugh
Author Evelyn Waugh
Narrator Jeremy Northam
Duration 5h 16m
The inspiration for a major film releasing 2008 starring Emma Thompson and Michael Gambon. A study of faith and disillusionment in a glamorous upper-class world, Waugh's most famous novel is partly autobiographical and is a gripping multi-character-study of aristocratic life behind closed doors. Charles Ryder meets Sebastian, a member of the aristo...
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Author: Evelyn Waugh
Author Evelyn Waugh
Narrator Rik Mayall
Duration 2h
The gloriously farcical story of Paul Pennyfeather, sent down from Oxford in outrageous circumstances, who finds himself a position as a schoolteacher at Llanabba Castle alongside a cast of oddballs, rascals and criminals. Then Sports Day arrives, and with it the delectable Margot Beste-Chetwynde, a parent of staggering glamour and truly suspect mo...
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