In the fourth of our series of bird guides, Brett Westwood is joined by keen birdwatcher Stephen Moss on the north coast of Devon, and with the help of wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson they offer a practical and entertaining guide to identifying many of the birds you’re likely to see and hear around Britain’s coastline. Each programme focuses on...
In the fifth of our series of bird guides, Brett Westwood is joined once again by enthusiastic birdwatcher Stephen Moss, and with the help of recordings made by wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson they present this knowledgeable and entertaining guide to the songs, calls and cries of the birds you may see and hear around Britain's farmlands.
Most of us can tell the difference between a Blue Tit and a Blackbird or a Robin and a Wren, but what happens if you close your eyes – can you still tell which bird is which simply by listening to their song? If the answer is no, then this practical audio guide to the songs of British garden birds is the easy way to get to know the songs of some of our..
In the third of our series of bird guides, Brett Westwood is joined by birdwatcher Stephen Moss and wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson in an accessible, informative and entertaining guide to some of our best known water-loving birds. Recorded in springtime on the Somerset Levels, each of the programmes focuses on a different group of...
In the sixth of our series of bird guides, recorded on location on The Long Mynd in Shropshire, Brett Westwood and Stephen Moss are assisted by wildlife sound recordist Chris Watson as they present a guide to the appearance, behaviour, songs and calls of the birds you may find around Britain's mountains and moorlands.
Living off crumbs in a dreary attic, Sara Crewe comforts herself with wondrous stories of adventure and fortune, and in the end the stories become true.
Maroney's British accent perfectly accents this classic as she gently leads listeners deeper and deeper into a story of heartbreak, sadness, love, and hope.
Two seventeen-year-olds are killed by an ex-Army loner who has gone off the rails. The mystery takes Rebus into the heart of a shattered community. Ex-Army himself, Rebus becomes fascinated by the killer, and finds he is not alone. Army investigators are on the scene, and won't be shaken off. The killer had friends and enemies to spare and...
High on the cliffs of the west coast of Ireland, overlooking the windswept Atlantic ocean, is Stone House. Once falling into disrepair, it is now a beautiful hotel specialising in winter holidays. With a big, warm kitchen, log fires and understated, elegant bedrooms, it provides a welcome few can resist, whatever their...
You want to know what the worst thing is? It's not the embarrassment, or the looks on people's faces when I tell them what happened. It isn't the pain of him not being there - loneliness is manageable. The worst thing is not knowing why. When Justin walks out on Alice on their honeymoon, with no explanation apart from a cryptic note, Alice is left...
A man is found hanging in the wood, and DCI Alan Banks must delve into the superficially straightforward death to discover a murder that has its roots in post-war Berlin...
All animals are equal. But some animals are more equal than others.' Animal Farm - the history of a revolution that went wrong - is George Orwell's brilliant satire on the corrupting influence of power. Mr Jones of Manor Farm is so lazy and drunken that one day he forgets to feed his livestock. The ensuing rebellion, under the leadership...
ANIMAL FARM is one of the greatest modern political fables. Having got rid of their human master, the animals of Manor Farm look forward to a life of freedom and plenty. But as a clever ruthless elite among them takes control, the other animals find themselves hopelessly ensnared in the old way.
First published in 1908, “Anne of Green Gables” is Lucy Maud Montgomery’s enduring children’s classic which chronicles the coming of age of a young orphan girl, from the fictional community of Bolingbroke, Nova Scotia. The story begins with her arrival at the Prince Edward Island farm of Miss Marilla Cuthbert and Mr. Matthew...
Random House presents the unabridged audiobook edition of Ask an Astronaut by Tim Peake, read by Robin Ince with an introduction by the author. How does it feel to orbit the earth ten times faster than a speeding bullet? What’s it like to eat, sleep and go to the toilet in space? And where to next – the Moon...
When Juliet Doyle discovers a gun in her daughter's bedroom, she turns to old friend DCI Alan Banks for advice. But Banks is taking a much-needed holiday, and it's left to DI Annie Cabbot to deal with the removal of the firearm. No one could have foreseen the operation's disastrous consequences, or that the...
When Sylvia and her old nurse Nana agree to keep house for Gum, they know they will be looking after his fossil collection while his away on his travels. But imagine their surprise when one day he brings them something else - three baby girls whose names all being with 'P'! Pauline, Petrova and Posy Fossil are not really sisters...
Cat O' Nine Tales is the sixth collection of irresistible short stories from the master storyteller,illustrated by the internationally acclaimed artist, Ronald Searle, creator of Molesworth. These twelve yarns are satisfying and ingeniously plotted, featuring richly drawn characters and Jeffrey Archer's ...
Laurie Lee's evocative account of childhood in the sleepy Gloucestershire village of Slad retains its atmosphere of innocence in this BBC Radio 4 full-cast production, dramatised on radio for the first time. Recorded on location in Gloucestershire, it stars Niamh Cusack as Laurie s mother and Tim McInnerney...
"A thrilling journey inwards as much as outwards.... A must-read." (Freida Pinto) "How fortunate a thing it is, when life alters you without warning." Lisa Ray is one of India's first supermodels. She's also an actor, a cancer survivor, a mother of twins through surrogacy. She is a woman who has lived many lives. And this is her story. Close to the Bone is...
Five full-cast BBC Radio dramatisations of short stories by GK Chesterton, starring Leslie French as Father Brown and Willie Rushton as Chesterton. Short, shabby and unassuming, Roman Catholic priest Father Brown is an unlikely investigator. But his keen mind and understanding of human nature enable him to solve cases featuring a...
A gorgeous, moving memoir of how one of America's most innovative and respected journalists found his voice by coming to terms with a painful past New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow mines the compelling poetry of the out-of-time African-American Louisiana town where he grew up a place...
The fifteenth Inspector Rebus novel from the No.1 bestselling author of A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES It's another Rebus novel you can't put down, and Rankin at his most powerful' CHOICE Rankin is superb' DAILY MAIL An illegal immigrant is found murdered in an Edinburgh housing scheme. Rebus is drawn...
Go Set a Watchman is set during the mid-1950s and features many of the characters from To Kill a Mockingbird some twenty years later. Scout (Jean Louise Finch) has returned to Maycomb from New York to visit her father Atticus.
When Heidi, a lively orphan girl, goes to live with her grandfather in a little hut high in the Alps she soon learns to live in perfect harmony with her surroundings, leading a carefree life with her constant companion, Peter, a young goatherd. But her happiness is short-lived when she is sent to stay with a rich city family as a companion...
It's That Man Again is a giant in the history of radio comedy. As Mat Coward's book Classic Radio Comedy says, "Surely the most written-about radio series in history, it was successful to an extent which is hard to imagine today. Its international audience was measured in the tens of millions. Its star, Tommy Handley, was undoubtedly the most...
Written in 1819 but set in 12th-century England, Ivanhoe is a tale of love struggling to survive against a violent backdrop of politics and war. Wilfred of Ivanhoe was thrown out of his father's home when he fell in love with his father Cedric's ward, Lady Rowena. Ivanhoe later returns from fighting in the Crusades and is wounded in a jousting...
Amanda Hale and Tom Burke star in a brand new BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Charlotte Brontë's most beloved novel, adapted by Rachel Joyce. Orphan Jane learns at an early age that self-control is the surest means of retaining self-respect in adversity. It is a lesson that serves her well in the years...
The novel was first published in 1862 in serial form. This production marks the first audio release of one of Victorian England's most sensational reads. Dealing with bigamy, murder and madness it begs the question: can women and men ever really depend on one another, even within marriage...?
The move from New York to his ancestral castle comes as a shock to both Cedric and his new-found relatives, and while he comes to terms with aristocratic ways, they become more aware of compassion and social justice.
Mansfield Park is the story of Fanny Price: the earnest, gentle girl of humble origins sent to live with Sir Thomas Bertram and his family in Mansfield Park. There she discovers a world of flirtation, betrayal and prejudice; her quiet, serious nature hides a loyal and loving heart, and her patient devotion is ultimately rewarded.
June Whitfield returns as the deceptively mild spinster sleuth in three full-cast BBC Radio 4 dramatisations. Specially broadcast to mark the 125th anniversary of Agatha Christie's birth, these brand new dramas are based on three of her best short stories. Tape-Measure Murder: When Mrs Spenlow is murdered in...
The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, who was Born in Newgate, and during a Life of continue'd Variety for Three-score Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own Brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia at last grew Rich, liv'd Honest, and...
When fifteen-year-old John Trenchard discovers a secret passage into the vault of the powerful Mohune family, his peaceful life in the Dorset village of Moonfleet is at an end. It is said that Captain Mohune, the notorious Blackbeard, haunts the place with wild and bloodcurdling cries, forever seeking his...
It is August in Edinburgh and the Festival is in full swing. A brutally tortured body is discovered in one of the city's ancient subterranean streets and marks on the corpse cause Rebus to suspect the involvement of sectarian activists. The prospect of a terrorist atrocity in a city heaving with tourists is almost unthinkable. When the victim turns out to...
Twelve-year-old Lucy Desberg believes in taking fate into her own hands. When the local homecoming queen shows up at her familys drugstore with a beauty disaster that Lucy helps to fix, word gets out, and suddenly Lucy has a line of makeover customers for every school dance and bat mitzvah in Connecticut. But it'll take more than...
A Genius Performance by Anton Lesser! Paradise Lost is the greatest epic poem in the English language. In words remarkable for their richness of rhythm and imagery, Milton tells the story of Man's creation, fall and redemption - to "justify the ways of God to men". Milton produced characters which have become embedded in the consciousness of...
When Peter Pan flies into the night nursery of Wendy, John and Michael Darling, he takes them on the journey - and the adventure - of a lifetime. Mermaids, wolves and Indians weave their spell in the magical Never Never Land - where also lurks the wicked Captain Hook...Toyah Willcox stars as Peter Pan, with Ron Moody as Captain...
Rebecca is widely regarded as Daphne du Maurier's finest novel. It tells the story of Manderley - an exquisite house with gardens down to the sea, its owner Max de Winter and his new young wife...and of course Rebecca.
Robinson Crusoe is Daniel Defoe's classic novel of shipwreck and survival, now nearly 300 years old. The story is a fictional autobiography of the title character, an English castaway who spends 28 years on a remote tropical island, encountering Native Americans, captives, and mutineers. This is the tale of an ordinary man struggling to survive in...
Here is a BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of one of the most famous adventure stories of all time, starring Roy Marsden as Robinson Crusoe. Young Robinson Crusoe has a burning ambition to be a sailor. Paying no attention to his parent's warnings, he runs away to sea to embark on an extraordinary series of adventures: struggles...
This is a selection of readings from "Saki", the pseudonym for Hector Hugh Munro, who was known for his eccentric wit and his short stories, both humorous and macabre. The readers are Dirk Bogarde, Tim Pigott-Smith, Zoe Wanamaker and Barbara Leigh Hunt.
The history of crime detection has produced no more famous name than that of Sexton Blake.' William Franklyn stars as paperback hero Sexton Blake, with David Gregory as his assistant Tinker, in three original BBC Radio dramatisations from 1967. Lost from the BBC archives for over 40 years, these rediscovered episodes are presented on CD for the...
The history of crime detection has produced no more famous name than that of Sexton Blake'. William Franklyn stars as paperback hero Sexton Blake, with David Gregory as his assistant Tinker, in four original BBC Radio dramatisations from 1967. Lost from the BBC archives for over 40 years, these rediscovered episodes are presented on CD for the...
The history of crime detection has produced no more famous name than that of Sexton Blake. William Franklyn stars as paperback hero Sexton Blake, with David Gregory as his assistant Tinker, in three original BBC Radio dramatisations from 1967. Lost from the BBC archives for over 40 years, these rediscovered episodes are presented on CD for the...
A Genius Performance by Michael Jayston! The young woman of Nightingale House are there to learn to nurse and comfort the suffering. But when one of the students plays patient in a demonstration of nursing skills, she is horribly, brutally killed. Another student dies equally mysteriously and it is up to Adam...
Bethany “Mouse” Hobbes spent her entire life waiting, especially for the love of Bo O'Malley. But for the first time in her life, she is ready to start living, with or without him. She has found her dream, restoring a rustic farmhouse on the outskirts of town. Trev McNamara left Deer Run a high school hero and has returned, his football career in ruins.
Part odyssey, part pilgrimage, this epic personal narrative follows the author's exploration of coasts, islands, reefs, and the sea's abyssal depths. Scientist and fisherman Carl Safina takes readers on a global journey of discovery, probing for truth about the world's changing seas, deftly weaving adventure, science, and political analysis.
Gregor Jack, MP, well-liked, young, married to the fiery Elizabeth - to the outside world a very public success story. But Jack's carefully nurtured career plans take a tumble after a 'mistake' during a police raid on a notorious Edinburgh brothel. Then Elizabeth disappears, a couple of bodies float into view where they shouldn't, and a lunatic speaks from...
For more than three decades Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City has blazed its own trail through popular culture...from a groundbreaking newspaper serial, to a classic novel, to a television event that entranced millions around the world. The first of six novels about the denizens of the mythic apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane, Tales of the...
First-hand accounts featuring the RAF pilots who took part in the Battle of Britain - one of the chief turning points of World War II. ‘Never in the field of human conflict was so much owed by so many to so few’ - Winston Churchill. The ‘Few’ were the nearly 3,000 RAF pilots who fought against the Luftwaffe in the Battle of Britain, which raged in the...
Framed in the doorway of Poirot's bedroom stood an uninvited guest, coated from head to foot in dust. The man's gaunt face stared for a moment, then he swayed and fell. Who was he? Was he suffering from shock or just exhaustion? Above all, what was the significance of the figure four...
, scribbled over and over again on a sheet of paper? Poirot finds himself plunged into a world of international intrigue, risking his life to uncover the truth about Number Four.
** The first 1 min of disk 5 of this set has poor audio quality - we have included a backup copy of this disk with perfect audio ** Philip Wardman had more than just the ordinary squeamishness where death was concerned. Yet he could hardly avoid the suspicious disappearance of his sister's .....
A gripping, evocative thriller about a disgraced Sikh Indian Army captain who works as the caretaker for a U.S. Senator's Martha's Vineyard estate, and becomes ensnared in the Senator's shadowy world Ranjit Singh, a former Indian Army Captain trying to escape a shameful past, now lives on Martha's Vineyard, and works as a caretaker for the...
In his Four Just Men series, Edgar Wallace comes up with something different: the villains are not necessarily bad people, and the pursuers of justice, the Four Just Men, as they call themselves, are acting outside the law. They argue that their actions are for the public good, and dispassionately eke the ultimate revenge death on their victims.
The Count of Monte Cristo is an adventure novel by Alexandre Dumas. It is often considered to be, along with The Three Musketeers, Dumas' most popular work. The writing of the The Count of Monte Cristo was completed in 1844. Like many of his novels, it was expanded from plot outlines suggested by collaborators.
The award-winning author of The Music of the Primes explores the future of creativity and how machine learning will disrupt, enrich, and transform our understanding of what it means to be human. Can a well-programmed machine do anything a human can-only better? Complex algorithms are buying our groceries, picking our partners, and driving...
A student has gone missing in Edinburgh. She's not just any student, though, but the daughter of well-to-do and influential bankers. There's almost nothing to go on until DI John Rebus gets an unmistakable gut feeling that there's more to this than just another runaway spaced out on unaccustomed freedom.
A Genius Performance by John Gielgud! This is one of the great recordings of a great play. John Gielgud stars as Earnest and Edith Evans gives her indomitable performance as Lady Bracknell in this classic radio recording from 1951. Performance styles may have changed, but this is an unmatched production bearing all the hallmarks of outstanding...
On the brink of a life-changing decision, Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her mother's past. But Sofia has never spoken of it. All she admits to is growing up in a small Cretan village before moving to London. When Alexis decides to visit Crete, however, Sofia gives her daughter a letter to take to an old friend, and promises that through her...
This is a full-cast dramatisation of Kipling's classic animal adventure starring Eartha Kitt. Rudyard Kipling's famous tale tells the story of Mowgli, the 'man-cub' rescued from the tiger Shere Khan and adopted by a wolf pack.
The Kill List: a top-secret catalogue of names held at the highest level of the US government. On it, those men and women who would threaten the world's security. And at the top of it, The Preacher, a radical Islamic cleric whose sermons inspire his followers to kill high-profile Western targets in the name of God ...
As a boy, Daniel Rooke was always an outsider. At school he learned to hide his clever thoughts from his cruel peers; at home his parents were bemused by their bookish son. Daniel could only hope - against all the evidence - that he would one day find his place in life. By 1788, Daniel has become Lieutenant Rooke, astronomer with the First Fleet as...
When Bet is first asked to go into the meadow to read aloud - apparently to no one - she wonders why. To her surprise, her audience is a little mole. But no ordinary mole. This is a mole who can speak, is over 300 years old, and has an incredible tale to tell. So begins an enchanting tale of deep secrets...
This is a brand new BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of a classic Raymond Chandler mystery featuring private eye, Philip Marlowe. Her name is Orfamay Quest and she's come all the way from Manhattan, Kansas, to find her missing brother Orrin.
A generation after the events of The Long Earth, mankind has spread across the new worlds opened up by Stepping. Where Joshua and Lobsang once pioneered, now fleets of airships link the stepwise Americas with trade and culture. Mankind is shaping the Long Earth – but in turn the Long Earth is ...
The Man in the Iron Mask, the final installment in the Musketeer series, takes place in 1600s France. The musketeers, D'Artagnan, Aramis, Porthos, and Athos, reconnect through greed, power, and family, in an attempt to overthrow the current King of France, Louis the XIV. Aramis, now a Bishop, visits the Bastille where a prisoner named...
The Moonstone, a priceless Indian diamond which had been brought to England as spoils of war, is given to Rachel Verrinder on her eighteenth birthday. That very night, the stone is stolen. Suspicion then falls on a hunchbacked housemaid, on Rachel's cousin Franklin Blake, on a troupe of mysterious Indian jugglers, and on Rachel herself.
Pongo lives happily with his human pets Mr and Mrs Dearly in a large house in Regent's Park. When his wife Missis produces a litter of fifteen beautiful pups, life seems wonderfully complete.
Here are 60 of the finest and most entertaining poems for younger listeners. There are nonsense poems, classic animal poems, stories of adventure and Robert Browning's classic tale of adults getting their come-uppance - The Pied Piper of Hamlin.
Paul Copley and Timothy Bateson star in a BBC Radio full-cast dramatisation of E. Nesbit's enchanting and unforgettable classic. Roberta, Peter and Phyllis lead an ordinary suburban life with Mother and Father, enjoying trips to the zoo and the pantomime. But when Father is mysteriously taken away one night, everything changes.
A Genius Performance by Anton Lesser! From the author of The Wind in the Willows comes this story of a boy who befriends a lazy, but quite pleasant dragon that takes up residence nearby. When the townspeople call in St. George, the eminent dragon-slayer, to do battle, it's up to the boy to sort things out .....
The fifth in the new Naxos Audiobooks series In a Nutshell, The Renaissance is a short and accessible introduction to the era that gave us Leonardo da Vinci, Michelangelo and Palestrina. The Renaissance swept across Europe between the 14th and 17th centuries, heralding intellectual revolutions in science, art, philosophy and politics, and marking a...
After the death of her parents, Mary Lennox is sent back from India to live in her uncle's huge, gloomy house on the English moors. Mary is lonely and miserable until she stumbles upon her disabled cousin Colin, hidden away from the world by his troubled father. Together they discover the door to a secret garden, and open up a world of...
When the dashing young D'Artagnon arrives in Paris from Gascony, he becomes embroiled in duels with the three musketeers Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. But when he proves himself by fighting with, not against, the three Musketeers, they form a quick and lasting friendship.
Listeners can follow the fortunes of the dashing young swordsman D'Artagnan and his daredevil companions, Athos, Aramis and Porthos. The reading is supplemented by music from Raff, Bruch and Nielsen.
Josef K, 30, lives in a large town in an unspecified country. He is summonsed to answer a charge and appears in the court room for his trial. Franz Kafka evokes all the reality of trial without any of the specifics in a society that seems to have degraded into chaos: squalid environment, rats, yellow...
No poet is more closely identified with the First World War than Wilfred Owen. His striking body of work, grim to the point of brutality yet, at the same time, majestic and awe-inspiring, defines the war for us. It is in each of these famous poems that Owen reflects on the four terrible months that he lived through; he conveys the...
From the winner of the Pulitzer Prize, this is one of the great untold stories of American history: the migration of Black citizens who fled the south and went north in search of a better life. From 1915 to 1970, an exodus of almost six million people would change the face of America. With stunning historical detail, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Isabel...
Dorothy thinks she is lost forever when a terrifying tornado crashes through Kansas and whisks her and her dog, Toto, far away to the magical land of Oz. To get home Dorothy must follow the yellow brick road to Emerald City and find the wonderfully mysterious Wizard of Oz. Together with her companions the Tin Woodman, the Scarecrow and the...
Maureen Lipman and Patrick Barlow star in a full-cast dramatisation of the classic children's tale. When Dorothy and her dog, Toto, are whisked away from Kansas by a cyclone, they arrive in the strange land of the Munchkins. Setting off on a magical journey, they are befriended by the Tinman, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion, all...
Winner of a record three National Book Awards: Non-Fiction Book of the Year, New Writer of the Year and Zoe Ball Book Club Book of the Year. The million copy best seller. Welcome to the life of a junior doctor: 97-hour weeks, life and death decisions, a constant tsunami of bodily fluids, and the hospital parking...
This was conceived and written by Friedrich Nietzsche during the years 1881-1885; the first three Parts were published in 1883 and 1884. The book formed part of his 'campaign against morality', in which Nietzsche explored the ethical consequences of the 'death of God'.
When his brother catches measles, Tom is sent away for the summer to stay with his uncle and aunt and is thoroughly fed up about it. What a boring summer it's going to be. But then, lying in bed one night, he hears the old grandfather clock in the hall strike the very strange hour of 13 o'clock. What can it mean? As Tom creeps...
Two hundred years ago, Napoleon Bonaparte dominated Europe and threatened Britain with invasion. Against him stood the Royal Navy and the already legendary Admiral Horatio Nelson. On 21 October 1805, a massive naval battle off the coast of Spain decided mastery of the seas. Then, over the following...
When young Jim Hawkins comes into possession of a treasure map, he and his companions find themselves in a dangerous race against a crew of ruthless pirates to find the treasure.
No one can fail to be captivated by the swashbuckling piracy of "Treasure Island". Having outwitted a band of pirates to obtain a map disclosing the whereabouts of Captain Flint's treasure, Young Jim sets sail for Treasure Island.
Her carefully constructed life thrown into turmoil by the appearance of an 18-year-old girl with ties to her past, New York City television producer Marian Caldwell is swept up in a maelstrom of personal discovery that changes both of their perceptions about family.
Born in the wilds of the freezing cold Yukon, White Fang – half-dog, half-wolf – is the only animal in the litter to survive. He soon learns the harsh laws of nature, yet buried deep inside him are the distant memories of affection and love. Will this fiercely independent creature of the wild learn to trust man again?
Lockwood, the new tenant of Thrushcross Grange on the bleak Yorkshire moors, is forced to seek shelter one night at Wuthering Heights, the home of his landlord. There he discovers the history of the tempestuous events that took place years before: of the intense passion between the foundling Heathcliff...
"My greatest thought in living is Heathcliff. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be... Nelly, I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure... but as my own being." Wuthering Heights is the only novel of Emily Bronte, who died a year after its publication at the age of thirty. A brooding Yorkshire tale of a...