Until the time of her death in 2003, actress Thora Hird worked regularly with the playwright Alan Bennett. In this audiobook, Bennett recalls his work and friendship with Thora, and introduces three examples of their collaboration.

While in Paris on business, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon receives an urgent late-night phone call: the elderly curator of the Louvre has been murdered inside the museum. Near the body, police have found a baffling cipher. Solving the enigmatic riddle, Langdon is stunned to discover it leads to a trail of clues hidden in the works of Da Vinci...

After an impulsive affair with his student sours, David Lurie retreats disgraced to his daughter Lucy's isolated smallholding. For a time, his daughter's influence and the natural rhythms of the farm promise to harmonise his discordant life. But the balance of power is shifting in South Africa. He and Lucy become victims of a disturbing attack whic...

Where else to enjoy the last days of summer than on the beautiful Bay of Naples? All along the coast, the Roman Empire's richest citizens are relaxing in their luxurious villas. The world's largest navy lies peacefully at anchor. Only one man is worried. The engineer Marcus Attilius has just taken charge of the Aqua Augusta, the enormous aqueduct t...

This is the complete first series from BBC Radio 4, including the pilot episode, which won the Sony Award. The audiobook includes the creations Daffyd, the only gay in the village; Emily 'I'm a lady!'; incoherant young offender Vicky Pollard; and Marjorie Dawes from FatFighters. CONTAINS STRONG LANGUAGE AND ADULT THEMES.

This is the Radio 4 series that inspired the bestselling book 'Eats, Shoots & Leaves'. Over five programmes Lynne Truss explores changing fashions in punctuation; for example, she accompanies the founder of the Apostrophe Protection Society through Berwick Street Market on the hunt for the 'greengrocer's apostrophe'!

Henry Chester, a Victorian artist, is in search of the perfect model. In nine-year-old Effie he finds her. Ten years later, lovely, childlike and sedated, Effie seems the ideal wife. But something inside her is about to awaken.

When Eragon finds a polished blue stone in the forest, he soon realises he has stumbled upon a legacy nearly as old as the Empire itself when the stone brings forth a dragon hatchling. Overnight his simple life is shattered, and he is thrust into a perilous new world of destiny, magic and power. With only an ancient sword and the advice of an old s...

VIMS - the Virtual Interactive Mobile System - is the creation of Dominic's scientist mum. And it's amazing. An artificial intelligence masterpiece controlled by a single glove and a special pair of glasses, it can disarm a car bomb, search through underground pipes - even hold a baby. But when VIMS attacks violently and without warning, Dominic re...

Arthur and George grew up worlds apart in late 19th-century Britain: Arthur in shabby-genteel Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village. Arthur becomes a doctor then a writer; George a solicitor in Birmingham. Arthur is to become one of the most famous men of his age, while George remains in hard-working obscurity. But as t...

This audiobook is the story of Clare and Henry, who have known each other since Clare was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-two and Henry thirty. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds himself pul...

Peel away the layers of J. B. Priestley's complex drama (book number 8120) to appreciate this powerful play, wrapped up in the genre of a gripping detective story, to truly understand that 'We don't live alone, we are members of one body.' This audiobook contains comprehensive analysis, commentary, historical and social background, study and exam s...

Donald Cameron, a young Scotsman, is commissioned to write a book on the outsider's view of the English. During his investigation into the foibles of English social life he encounters civil servants, newspaper editors, minor poets and a glamorous film star in such classically English situations as the country house weekend and one of the most famou...

An elegantly observed journal of a year in the life of the musical play 'By Jeeves', written and directed by two theatre geniuses, Alan Ayckbourn and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Beginning in January 2001, the production travels from Pittsburgh to Toronto - but will it make it to Broadway?

Eventually becoming the 1960s film that made Michael Caine a star, 'Alfie' is the tale of a free-wheeling young man, who, thanks to his hedonistic lifestyle and numerous sexual escapades, cannot find true happiness and peace of mind.

In 1666, The Great Plague scorched London whilst the north of England remained untouched until, in a small community of leadminers and hill farmers, a bolt of cloth arrived from the capital. The tailor who cut the cloth had no way of knowing that the damp fabric carried with it bubonic infection. So begins the 'Year of Wonders', based on real-life...

A collection featuring a series of short stories, anecdotes, musings, essays and fables by Alphonse Daudet and extracts from the magazine 'The Idler' amongst others, written by the author of 'Three Men in a Boat', Jerome K. Jerome.

A collection of love stories including: 'The Sphinx Without a Secret' by Oscar Wilde; 'For Better or Worse' by W.W Jacobs; 'Angela' by W.S Gilbert; 'Mr & Mrs Dove' by Katherine Mansfield'; 'Georgie Porgie' by Rudyard Kipling; 'Genefer' by Sabine Baring-Gould; 'The Singing Lesson' by Katherine Mansfield; 'The Patch on the Quilt' by Sapper; 'The...

No more chocolate! The government has closed down all the burger bars and chip shops in the country and is striving to build a happier and healthier population. But have they gone too far? Huntly and his friend Smudge think so, and together with local shopkeeper Mrs Bubby, the boys devise a cunning plan to restore freedom, justice and chocolate for...

William George Bunter - Billy to his friends (and enemies) - is up to his usual pranks, falling asleep in class, stealing jam and cake from other boys' lockers, chalking rude things on the blackboard and failing to turn up for cricket. When finally threatened with expulsion, will he be redeemed by his final adventure?

Peter Fleming, brother of the author Ian, tells the story of his journey from England via the Trans-Siberian Express to China, and his subsequent attempts to become the first Westerner to reach the anti-communist front.