It is summer 1939 and the social event of the year is about to take place: Rose Birkett, a flighty beauty with a penchant for breaking engagements and hearts, is finally getting married, and the whole village - especially her parents - breathes a sigh of relief. By autumn, however, summer weddings seem a distant memory as war reaches Barsetshire. W...

Jack Middleton likes to imagine himself a country squire. At weekends he retires to Laverings Estate with his wife, Catherine. He may be pompous, and they may seem ill-matched, but the couple are devoted to each other. When Jack's widowed sister, Lilian, and her two stepchildren arrive to spend the summer in the neighbouring house, he dreads the in...

Samuel Beckett, one of the great avant-garde Irish dramatists and writers of the second half of the twentieth century, was born on 13 April 1906. He died in 1989. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1969. His centenary will be celebrated throughout 2006 with performances of his major plays, but the most popular of them all will be, without dou...

Four of Thornton Wilder's most acclaimed works, adapted for BBC Radio - plus bonus material exploring his life and careerThornton Wilder is one of America's most important literary figures. He won the Pulitzer Prize three times - for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and the plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth - and is the only person to be...

Nine classic plays from the award-winning American dramatist, plus a selection of his poetryEugene O'Neill's revolutionary 20th century dramas changed the direction of American theatre, introducing European realism and experimental techniques to the US stage. He wrote more than 50 plays, portraying characters on the margins of society and tackling...

Nora has everything a young housewife could want: beautiful children, an adoring husband, and a bright future. But when a carelessly buried secret rises from the past, Nora's well-calibrated domestic ideal starts to crumble. Blackmail and innocence, love and hypocrisy, collide in one of the most celebrated plays in theatre history. Translated by Ro...

In The Canterbury Tales Chaucer created one of the great touchstones of English literature, a masterly collection of chivalric romances, moral allegories and low farce. A story-telling competition between a group of pilgrims from all walks of life is the occasion for a series of tales that range from the Knight's account of courtly love and the ebu...

Riding on that horse you would need nothing, no cloak even. She dropped it on the edge of the marshland. Nothing. You could travel light. Halla is the daughter of a king, cast out as a baby into a world of danger and enchantment. She is raised by bears, lives amongst dragons, converses with Valkyries and avoids warmongering heroes. But times are ch...

The lark rose in the brilliant air, higher, higher on its spun-glass spiral of song, knowing nothing of peace or war, accepting joyously the bounty of another day. A hot summer's day in 1946. The village of Wealding is no longer troubled by distant sirens, yet the rusting coils of barbed wire are a reminder that something, some quality of life, has...

Thomas Hardy's novel of seduction and abandonment introduced his most memorable tragic heroine, the unworldly maiden Tess. On her morning journey to earn money for her impoverished family, Tess' horse has an accident, forcing her to seek assistance from some newly rich relatives. There, she is vigorously pursued by Alec, who corners her in a field...

Download eight timeless audio tales from a magical storytellerThis enchanting collection, retold by writer and critic Naomi Lewis, contains eight of Hans Christian Andersen's magnificent fairy tales. It includes Thumbelina, a little girl no more than a thumb-joint high, The Emperor's New Clothes, the tale of a man who cares only for his appearance...

Ken Kesey's bracing, inslightful novel about the meaning of madness and the value of self-reliance, and the inspiration for the new Netflix original series Ratched A mordant, wickedly subversive parable set in a mental ward, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest chronicles the head-on collision between its hell-raising, life-affirming hero Ran...

A stunningly designed new collectible edition of Hemingway's enduring classic Long considered one of the best American novels of our time, A Farewell to Arms is the unforgettable tale of an American ambulance driver and his passionate affair with a beautiful English nurse. Set against the backdrop of World War I, this gripping, semi-autobiographic...

Brought to you by Penguin.'One of the best books I've ever read' Richard OsmanA damaged survivor of the First World War, Tom Birkin finds refuge in the quiet village church of Oxgodby where he is to spend the summer uncovering a huge medieval wall-painting. Immersed in the peace and beauty of the countryside and the unchanging rhythms of village li...

They joined for their country. They fought for each other. When war breaks out in 1914, Mark Fenner and his Sheffield friends immediately flock to Kitchener's call. Amid waving flags and boozy celebration, the three men - Fen, his best friend Locky and self-assured Frank, rival for the woman Fen loves - enlist as volunteers to take on the Germans a...

Brought to you by Puffin.Soar into this modern Japanese classic about a young witch and her clever cat with this new translation by Emily Balistrieri which will delight fans of the beloved Studio Ghibli animated movie as well as new readers.Kiki is a trainee witch. On her thirteenth birthday she must follow tradition and leave home to find a new vi...

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Dogger by Shirley Hughes, read by Olivia Colman.When Dave loses his favourite toy, Dogger, he is very sad. But when Dogger turns up on a stall at the garden fete, everything seems all right - until someone else buys him before Dave can get the money!Voted the public's favourite CILIP Kate Greenaway Med...

A collection of seminal dramatised pieces by the great German polymathJohann Wolfgang Goethe was a colossus of German literature and a true Renaissance man. A novelist, dramatist, poet, humanist, scientist and philosopher, he wrote the first international bestseller, The Sorrows of Young Werther, and his epic masterpiece Faust is one of the most fa...

Secret agent Mr. Adolph Verloc operates from a seedy Soho shop, where he deals in pornography and espionage. Idle, treacherous, and self-righteous, he makes the life of his wife, Winnie, one of silent misery. When Verloc is assigned to plant a bomb at Greenwich Observatory, his plans go terribly awry, and his family has to deal with the tragic repe...

Bloomsbury presents One Christmas Wish by Katherine Rundell, read by Jamie Parker.Go on an adventure with Katherine Rundell ..._______________NOMINATED FOR THE CILIP CARNEGIE MEDAL NOMINATED FOR THE CILIP GREENAWAY MEDAL From the winner of the Costa Children's Book Award_______________It's Christmas Eve and Theo – left at home with a babysitt...

After escaping a Confederate prison during the Civil War, a group of unlikely survivors is swept away to a mysterious, uncharted island. Stranded with nothing but their wits and resourcefulness, they must overcome natural dangers, build a new life, and unlock the island's hidden secrets. But as they discover strange clues and unexpected inventions,...