In 1913 an orphan girl is delivered to The Hall of Eternal Splendour, seemingly destined to live out her life as a prostitute in its smoky backrooms. Yet one day hope appears in the unlikely form of a customs inspector, a modest man who will take Pan Yuliang as his concubine and introduce her to a glamorous new life in 1920s' Shanghai: a life of lo...

Michael Rosen keeps bumping into a chatty old lady who tells him wildly unlikely stories - like there being man eating fleas on the London tube. In addition there are grizzly bears roaming the streets of London, killer wasps and all sorts of tall tales.

A hilarious, touching and extraordinary new fable from David Walliams, number one bestseller and fastest growing children's author in the country. Joe has a lot of reasons to be happy. About a billion of them, in fact. You see, Joe's rich. Really, really rich. Joe's got his own bowling alley, his own cinema, even his own butler who is also an orang...

An international bestseller and the novel of the year, 'Freedom' is an epic of contemporary love and marriage. This is the story of the Berglunds, their son Joey, their daughter Jessica and their friend Richard Katz. It is about how we use and abuse our freedom; about the beginning and ending of love; teenage lust; the unexpectedness of adult life;...

When Alan left school at fifteen little was expected of him. An 'O' level in art is not the most obvious passport to success, but in the ancient greenhouses of the local nursery, Mrs T's little lad found his spiritual home, learning his trade and the strange ways of human nature. But the comfort and familiarity of his home in the Yorkshire Dales wo...

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation starring June Whitfield as Miss Marple, the sharp-witted spinster sleuth. In the sleepy little English country village of St Mary Mead, all is not as it seems. Under a seemingly peaceful exterior lurks intrigue, guilt, deception - and murder. Colonel Protheroe, local magistrate and overbearing landowner, is the...

In the insightful narrative tradition of Oliver Sacks, Monkey Mind is an uplifting, smart, and very funny memoir of life with anxiety-America's most common psychological complaint. We all think we know what being anxious feels like-it is the instinct that made us run from wolves in the prehistoric age and pushes us to perform in the modern one-but...

Every summer Sam spends a few precious months being human, until the cold causes him to shift to a wolf once again. Discover what happens when he meets Grace in this chilling romance.

Summer, 1942. For the people of Malta, suffering daily bombing raids, the British are the last line of defence against the Nazis. And it is Max Chadwick's job as the information officer to ensure the news the islanders receive maintains morale. So when Max is given proof suggesting a British officer is murdering local women, he knows the consequenc...

When award-winning film maker Justine Nolan returns to her beautiful childhood home, she is intrigued by an envelope she finds in her absent mother's post. If genuine it will change everything she believes about her family's recent history, her mother and her adored grandmother, Gabriele. Resolving to uncover the truth, she must travel to Istanbul...

Barbara Taylor Bradford introduced the illustrious Harte family in her blockbuster A Woman of Substance. Now she has created an unforgettable new dynasty: the Deravenels. On a bitterly cold day in 1904, the Deravenel family's future changes forever. When Cecily Deravenel tells her eighteen-year-old son Edward of the death of his father, brother, un...

Abi, a recently-ordained priest of the Church of England, is appointed to the parish of the charismatic but fundamentalist Kier. He objects to her mysticism, her practice of healing in particular. When she sees a vision, Kier accuses her of witchcraft, but Abi soon sees more visions; an entire Roman family history, dark with betrayal and a promise...

Bereft of the three people she has held most dear - her mother, her husband and her daughter - Celia is on the verge of suicide. Then one night on an exotic island she meets Larraby, a successful portrait painter, and through a long night of talk reveals how she is afraid to commit herself to a second chance of happiness with another person, yet is...

A poignantly funny retrospective of the genteel wit of broadcaster, comedienne, poet and entertainer, Joyce Grenfell, superbly performed by Maureen Lipman and heard on BBC Radio 3. Together with the creative team that produced the stage show, ReJoyce, Maureen perfectly recreates the much-loved material of the late, great Joyce Grenfell. Featuring m...

A guided tour of Roman Britain with historian Guy de la B‚doyŠre, as heard on BBC Radio 4. In 55 BC, Julius Caesar invaded Britain, which was then on the edge of the known world. But he was unable to conquer it. Where Caesar failed the Emperor Claudius, in AD 43, succeeded and the mighty Roman Empire came to stretch from Cairo to Carli...

Compo, Foggy and Clegg wreak havoc in four vintage episodes from the world's longest-running comedy series. Only a man with a ferret down his trousers could love Nora Batty. So lock up your ferrets (and Nora Batty!), here come Yorkshire's hilarious adventurers - three pensioners in four classic capers from the BBC television series which kept the n...

In today's Britain, more and more people spend longer at an office than ever before. It dominates lives. It's made more people middle class, transformed the lot of women, raised standards in education and been the reason for many technological advances. But the office itself seems to have no history and people accept without question the way they w...

The patent system in the USA is so distorted it's now more lucrative for companies known as 'patent trolls' to sue manufacturers rather than actually make anything. The problems so serious that President Obama has got involved - and British companies are targeted if they do business in the US. Rory Cellan-Jones investigates and finds one of the wor...

Ron Donachie stars in this two-part dramatisation of Ian Rankin's crime thriller set in Edinburgh and the Highlands in 1992. Inspector Rebus is investigating the death of an MP's wife when an Edinburgh man confesses to the murder of two women. Rebus, however, is not convinced. Much to his superior's dismay, Rebus ignores the confession and disappea...

Materialising in a forest, the Doctor and friends find themselves 12 kilometres from Paris. It is the 18th century, and France is the scene of an ongoing battle between royalists and revolutionaries. Following a blaze at a farmhouse, Ian, Barbara and Susan are separated from the Doctor and arrested as traitors. Ian receives information about James...

Annie has learned quite a bit about her new friend Gemma: she's from Bristol, she used to work in a pharmacy, and she's never forgiven herself for the suicide of her teenage son. She also died ten years ago and doesn't know why she's come back through that door. Perhaps it has something to do with the new road they're building through the rundown p...