This audiobook presents Karl Marx as a man of both brilliance and frailty: as a poverty-stricken Prussian emigre who became a middle-class English gentleman; as an angry agitator; as a gregarious and convivial host; as a devoted family man; and as a deeply earnest philosopher who loved drink and cigars.

Grace's life starts to change the day she catches a glimpse through a telescope of a ghostly-looking knight, but her search for the knight seems impossible. Over-protected by her family, she can't go off the estate alone. The only answer is to break the rules and in doing so she finds herself on a quest that will lead her to a guardian angel, a ban...

Nick is a bit of an outsider and worried that he's a failure. On his way home after losing yet another battle with the school bully, he meets the mysterious Moe Nagic. Moe is selling a puzzle made from a watercolour painting called `The Trokeville Way'. What makes this puzzle unusual is that you can actually go into it, to step into another world....

The human voices of the story are those of the BBC in the first years of the Second World War when the Concert Hall was turned into a dormitory for both sexes. The whole building became a target for enemy bombers, and in the BBC as elsewhere, some had to fail and some had to die.

Set in Russia 1913, Frank Reid arrives home from work on a day just like any other to find that his wife has left him. How should he cope? 'The Beginning of Spring' tells the story of how the family copes with this unexpected event, set against a turbulent political backdrop.

Harry Silver has it all. A successful job in TV, a gorgeous wife, a lovely child. And in one moment of madness, he chucks it all away. This is the story of how he comes to terms with his mistakes and achieves a degree of self-respect whilst bringing up his son alone. CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE.

Get ready to walk the streets of Shakespeare's England. By recreating his life in vivid audio the listener can imagine the influences that moulded him. The tape covers themes such as love and romance, authority and justice and provides excellent background information for study at KS3 and 4.

This guide takes the listener through the plot of Macbeth and gets to grips with the language, imagery, themes and social and historical settings. The play is presented as a full cast drama with simultaneous guided interpretation and analysis.

Through drama, commentary and debate this tape unravels the plot and questions the motivation of the characters from 'A Kestrel for a Knave' by Barry Hines. It also tells the listener about the aims of the examiner and gives sample essay questions.

Travel back to Hardy's 19th Century Wessex. This audiobook analyses the society, characters and themes of the novel. It also suggests essay questions and useful quotations to help you through your coursework and exam.

A cast of actors bring Victorian London to life. A running commentary discusses themes, characterisation and the structure of the novel. The tape also points out the aims of the examiners, sets exercises and recommends quotations to use.

Set in the summer of 1939 on the day of the annual village pageant at Pointz Hall, the novel weaves together the musings of several disparate characters and their reactions to the imminence of the Second World War, which provides the novel with its dark undercurrent. Before the book was published in the spring of 1941, Virginia Woolf had taken her...

Jacob's Room is Virginia Woolf's first truly experimental novel. It is a portrait of a young man, who is both representative and victim of the social values which led Edwardian society into war. Jacob Flanders first appears as a child playing by the seaside. The novel follows his progress to school, Cambridge, London, Paris, Italy, Greece and to hi...

A retelling of John Bunyan's classic story that is filled with drama, excitement and adventure. On his journey of a life-time to the City of Gold, Christian meets an extraordinary cast of characters, such as the terrible Giant Despair and the monster Apollyon. Together with Hopeful, his steadfast companion, he survives the snipers and mantraps, the...

In one of the most extraordinary memoirs of recent years, Lorna Sage brings alive her experience of growing up in the 1940s and 50s. From her early childhood - dominated by her grandfather, a boozing, womanising vicar - to finding herself pregnant without even realising she has lost her virginity, this portrait of a young girl is unsurpassed.

'The Waves', more than any of Virginia Woolf's other novels, conveys the complexities of human experience. Tracing the lives of a group of friends, 'The Waves' follows their development from childhood to youth and middle age. The novel is most remarkable for the rich poetic language that conveys the aspirations, triumphs and regrets of her characte...

Colin is in many ways an ideal citizen. A responsible job for the council, visits to his aged mother Norah, and cooking and shopping for her. But no-one knows about his other - much more secret - life that involves a garden shed, a circus acrobat, and a much-adored three-year-old charmer.

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.

Jade is so used to being with and agreeing with Vicky, her best friend, that when a tragic accident occurs, she can hardly believe that Vicky's no longer there. But Vicky is not going to let a little thing like being dead stop her from enjoying life to the full. Wherever Jade is, Vicky makes her presence felt.

Michael's baby sister is ill, and the whole house is sick with her. While his parents spend time at the hospital, he explores their new home. In the old, derelict garage he finds something sinister: a strange creature, part owl, part angel. Is it something good? Or something evil? Winner of the Carnegie Medal and the Whitbread Children's Book of th...

Tracy Beaker thought things would be perfect with her new foster-mum Cam. But it's hardly fair that Cam refuses to buy her designer clothes and give her loads of money, now is it? So Tracy bunks off school and hides out in her secret place to avoid being teased by the other pupils and to stop herself from strangling Vomity Bagley, the English teach...