Simon Schama's sweeping history of Britain breathes life into our past centuries, vividly depicting exactly what life was like for our ancestors and how their experiences have shaped modern British culture and identity. An informative and entertaining mixture of anecdote and analysis, Schama's work offers a...

First broadcast in 1968, this dramatization of Tolkien's fantasy is the story of Bilbo Baggins, an unambitious, comfort-loving hobbit who finds himself swept up by Gandalf and a band of dwarves in a raid on the treasure hoard of Smaug the Magnificent, a large and dangerous dragon.

Enid Blyton's stories about the Faraway Tree have enchanted children for generations. Now these delightful tales featuring Silky, Moon-Face and Saucepan Man can be enjoyed by the whole family in an exclusive audiobook collection read by kate Winslet. Join Joe, Beth and Frannie as they discover new lands at...

Mightier than the Sword opens with an IRA bomb exploding during the MV Buckingham's maiden voyage across the Atlantic - but how many passengers lose their lives?

The poignant odyssey of a tenacious young girl who braves the dangers of the Texas frontier to avenge her mother's death. Early one morning in the remote hill country of Texas, a panther savagely attacks a family of homesteaders, mauling a young girl named Samantha and killing her mother, whose final act is to save her daughter's life. Samantha and her half brother, Benjamin, survive, but she is left traumatized, her...

The fictional world of Will Self is unlike any other. In The Quantity Theory of Insanity, we learn, amongst other things, the dark and terrible secret of Ward 9, why you are right to think that London is full of dead people and that each and every human being is caught up in a colossal balancing act between the sane and the insane.... The Quantity Theory of Insanity is acerbic, satirical, hilarious and, most of all, utterly...

Shiva Mukti is a hardworking and conscientious psychiatrist, who, in the inauspicious surroundings of St Mungo's - a central London hospital of more than average decrepitude - does his level best to staunch the flow of mental illness. But Mukti is not a happy man; beset by thwarted ambition and sexual frustration, he now finds himself in thrall to the more successful and urbane Dr Zack Busner, consultant psychiatrist...

Will's mother's hokey homily, Waste not, want not... hisses in his ears as he oscillates furiously on the spot, havering on the threshold between the bedroom and the dying one...all the while cradling the plastic leech of the syringe in the crook of his arm. Oscillating furiously, and, as he'd presses the plunger home a touch more...and more, he hears it again and again: Waaaste nooot, waaant nooot! whooshing into and out of...

Hunting Fear:Lucas Jordan, a key agent and profiler in Noah Bishop’s Special Crimes Unit, has an extraordinary skill: he locates missing people. Now Jordan has come to Clayton County, North Carolina, where the latest in a string of kidnapping victims has turned up dead. Complicating the situation is the presence - and predictions - of someone who’s even more of an outsider than Jordan himself: carnival psychic...

Immerse yourself in a world where the wonderful Stephen Fry reads some of the more memorable short stories of our time. A brilliant combination of reader and writer come together in these seven short stories available on digital download only. Immerse yourself in a world where the wonderful Stephen Fry reads some of the more memorable short stories of our time. Stephen's voice takes you into a different kind of...

In Paris, January 1943, 230 French women resisters were rounded up and sent on a train to Auschwitz - the only train, in the four years of the German occupation, to take women of the resistance to a death camp. The youngest was a schoolgirl of 15, the eldest a farmer’s wife of 68; there were among them teachers, biochemists, sales girls, secretaries, housewives and university lecturers. The women turned to one another...

The sequel to AN ACT OF TREACHERY From bestselling author Ann Widdecombe, a moving tale of families broken apart by war, and one boy's quest to come to terms with his history. Klaus-Pierre is the love-child of a young Frenchwoman and a senior, married German officer. Klaus-Pierre never knew his father, who was killed before he was born, and his mother was rejected by her family of patriots and resistance workers.

Number of accidental deaths per year. By suffocation: 3,300. By poisoning: 8,600. Staged by professionals: you have no idea. Ex-cop Charlie Hardie's latest job is guarding an isolated mansion in LA's Hollywood Hills. But it comes with an unwanted guest a D-list actress who says she's being hunted by professional hitman. Charlie thinks she's just high and paranoid. But he's wrong. The killers are real. They've tracked her to...

A classic novel of desire and jealousy. Ann Prentice falls in love with Richard Cauldfield and hopes for new happiness. Her only child, Sarah, cannot contemplate the idea of her mother marrying again and wrecks any chance of her remarriage. Resentment and jealousy corrode their relationship as each seeks relief in different directions. Are mother and daughter destined to be enemies for life or will their underlying love...

This is an electric crime novel from one of Hollywood’s top screenwriters. THE COMPANY: Troubled former cop Frank Behr is working for an exclusive Indianapolis investigation company, when he finds himself on a protection detail for Bernard "Bernie Cool" Kolodnik. THE CLIENT: Bernard "Bernie Cool" Kolodnik is a hard driving business mogul on the verge of making a move into big-time politics.

When an old university friend plummets to his death through a skylight window it's just the start of Angel's troubles, as he gets his arm twisted by the police to help them with their enquiries into a group of animal rights activists, who might just have something rather more deadly on their minds than a bit of foxhunt sabotage.

Someone's getting married. Someone's getting murdered. In a dark, dark wood Nora hasn't seen Clare for 10 years. Not since Nora walked out of school one day and never went back. There was a dark, dark house Until, out of the blue, an invitation to Clare’s hen do arrives. Is this a chance for Nora to finally put her past behind her? And in the dark, dark house, there was a dark, dark room But something goes wrong.

In Titus Awakes the 77th Earl of Groan leaves the crumbling castle of Gormenghast and finds the larger world even stranger than his birthplace. Confronted by elemental and human threats—snowstorms, shipwrecks and attempts on his life—Titus’ bravery is tested and he must fight to free himself from the claims of his past. Peake began this fourth and final volume of the Gormenghast stories but died having...

The bus from Dublin to Limerick has never meant much to the inhabitants of Kilbrody, until a woman steps off it, marches into the pub, and drinks herself into oblivion. When she finally wakes up, several days later, it is to discover that Charlie Finn (who put her to bed), the local garda, and indeed the whole village are talking about her. Who is the woman on the bus? The question is, will she tell them?

This is an astonishing story about one of the great scandals of our time, and one man's epic efforts to put things right, and take a journey through the darker regions of the oldest, richest, most powerful religious institution on Earth: the Roman Catholic Church. Louisiana, 1984: a promising young Catholic lawyer named Renon Chattelrault agrees to defend the first-ever priest to be charged with committing sex crimes...

Chuck Korr and Marvin Close's More Than Just a Game tells the timeless true story of how political prisoners under apartheid found hope and dignity through soccer. In the hell that was Robben Island, inmates united courageously in an act of protest. Beginning in 1964, they requested the right to play soccer during their exercise periods. Denied repeatedly, they risked beatings and food deprivation by repeating their...

The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is the ultimate study of mans psyche and the terrifying realms of human impulse. A nineteenth-century classic, it is suspenseful storytelling at its best, and perfectly realised in this unabridged recording. Dr Jekylls creation of a dangerous alter ego, with the intention of freeing himself from his own conscience, continues to compel readers to this day. As our narrator,

T. E. Lawrence began his lifelong affair with the Middle East while still a student at Oxford, taking a four-month walking tour of Syria to study the Crusaders' castles. He later returned to the area as an archaeologist and, at the outbreak of World War I, was attached to British Army Intelligence in Egypt. In 1916 he set out on his greatest adventure: with no backing, Lawrence joined Arab forces facing almost insurmountable...

As well as "Death by Drowning", there are "The Thumbmark of St Peter", "The Herb of Death" and "The Affair at the Bungalow".

In the grotesque bell-ringer Quasimodo, Victor Hugo created one of the most vivid characters in classic fiction. Quasimodo's doomed love for the beautiful gypsy girl Esmeralda is an example of the traditional love theme of beauty and the beast.

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...

The acknowledged 'Queen of Crime', P. D. James, was a past master of the short story, weaving together motifs of the Golden Age of crime-writing with deep psychological insight to create gripping, suspenseful tales. The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories contained four of these perfectly formed stories, and this companion volume contains a further six, published here together for the first...

Julie Walters has been described as the nation's most popular actress and comedienne. She has been delighting us on screen and on stage for over 25 years and we have taken her to our hearts. Now she tells us her own story, in her own words.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisation of Robert Graves' brilliant account of the madness and debauchery of ancient Rome, starring Tom Goodman Hill as Claudius and Derek Jacobi as Augustus. The wickedly entertaining inside story of the lives and deaths of the Imperial dynasty from Augustus to Caligula...

The Clifton Chronicles is Jeffrey Archer’s most ambitious work in four decades as an international bestselling author. The epic tale of Harry Clifton’s life begins in 1920, with the chilling words, ‘I was told that my father was killed in the war’.

‘Laws are silent in times of war.’ Cicero There was a time when Cicero held Caesar’s life in the palm of his hand. But now Caesar is the dominant figure and Cicero’s life is in ruins. Exiled, separated from his wife and children, his possessions confiscated, his life constantly in danger, Cicero is tormented by the...

Four old university friends, Dora, Penny, Nell and Moira, reunite to relive that first hippy-dippy trip together to a beautiful, unspoilt, romantic Greek island looking for sun, sand and sea. But it’s not just about going back to when they were young. Maybe they do have dreams like Shirley Valentine because ultimately they’re all looking for something to help them through some difficult times in their...

Harry Belltree’s obsessive pursuit of justice has cost him everything—his job in homicide, his marriage and his newborn child. He has nothing left to lose, or so he thinks. Then his estranged wife disappears, leaving their baby daughter behind. The police think Jenny has murdered a man. Harry thinks she’s in danger. When severed limbs are found dangling from the branches of trees in a suburban park, Harry’s former...

A road trip around Australia, discovering towns and communities outside the mainstream - and the colourful inhabitants whose grit and humour will uplift and inspire you. Discover the resilient and inspiring people who live outside the big Australian cities - indeed off the beaten track altogether. Defined by their strength and humility, these are characters whose grit and good humour will uplift and inspire.

The modern conception of sacrifice is at once cast as a victory of self-discipline over desire and condescended to as destructive and archaic abnegation. But even in the Old Testament, the dual natures of sacrifice, embodying both ritual slaughter and moral rectitude, were at odds. In this analysis, Terry Eagleton makes a compelling argument that the idea of sacrifice has long been misunderstood. Pursuing the complex...

Arson, accident or murder? After a fire rips through a North London tower block, two bodies are found locked in an 11th floor flat. But it's the third victim that ensures the presence of detective Maeve Kerrigan and the murder squad. It appears that controversial MP Geoff Armstrong, trapped by the fire, chose to jump to his death rather than wait for rescue. But what was such a right-wing politician doing in the...

Help your employees help themselves. As a manager in today’s business world, you can’t just tell your direct reports what to do: You need to help them make their own decisions, enable them to solve tough problems, and actively develop their skills on the job. Whether you have a star on your team who’s eager to advance, an underperformer who’s dragging the group down, or a steady contributor who feels bored...

Margot detests shopping malls. Any distraction is welcome, and the woman, who has chained herself to the escalator, shouting about the perils of consumerism, is certainly that. She recognises Dot immediately  from their time campaigning for women’s rights, and further back still, to the heyday of the Sydney Push. Dot is in despair at the abandonment of the sisterhood, at the idea of pole dancing as empowerment...

Luke gets a puppy for his birthday, a naughty puppy called Lulu. Luke takes Lulu to puppy school, but it seems that Lulu's still not ready to behave!

Ten-year-old Darcy Burdock is one of life's noticers. She sees the extraordinary in the everyday, and the wonder in the world around her. This is Darcy's fourth story, and the Burdock family are facing a series of disasters. Mum and Dad are having serious money worries. Darcy's granny (the one she doesn't like as much as her main, most important grandma) has come to stay, and is snapping at everyone.

Nathan and the Ice RocketsHardly anyone notices Nathan, the new boy. Except the school bully. But when the Ice Rocket competition begins, people get to know Nathan for what he really is …Frank and the Emergency JokeFrank, the class clown, can’t laugh any more. Has the wind really put a No Laughing Curse on him? Frank and the Secret ClubWhen Lewis is given a spy kit for his birthday, he and his best friend...

It was with this play that Harold Pinter had his first major success, and its production history since it was first performed in 1960 has established the work as a landmark in twentieth-century drama.

The obsessive caretaker, Davies, whose papers are in Sidcup, is a classic comic creation, and his uneasy relationship with the enigmatic Aston and Mick established the author's individuality with an international audience.

Shane ‘Shakey’ Byrne knows what it is like to live on the edge. The most successful rider in British Superbike history, he is the only person to have won the championship six times. Shakey is a living motorbike legend, with legions of fans across the country. For the first time Shakey tells his life story, from being abandoned as a newborn baby in a London hospital, to multiple brushes with the law and working night shifts...

In 2018, Captain Louis Rudd, MBE, walked into the history books when he finished a solo, unsupported crossing of Antarctica, pulling a 130kg-sledge laden with his supplies for more than 900 miles. Louis’ skills had been honed in the SAS, on operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, but now - in the most hostile environment on Earth - they would be tested like never before. Alone on the ice, Louis battled through whiteouts...

Written with a searing honesty and published for the 10th anniversary of Amy Winehouse's death, My Amy is an evocative portrait of unbreakable lifelong friendship - and a devastating study into fame, addiction and self-sabotage. Only one person knows what really happened to Amy, other than Amy herself. He is Tyler James, Amy’s best friend from the age of 13. They met at stage school as two insecure outsiders...

Anthony Powell's universally acclaimed epic encompasses a four-volume panorama of twentieth century London. Hailed by Time as "brilliant literary comedy as well as a brilliant sketch of the times," A Dance to the Music of Time opens just after World War I. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, Nick Jenkins and his friends confront sex, society, business, and art. In the second volume they move...

Performed by the author and five of Britain's leading actresses, Alan Bennett's tales are full of quirky, insightful detail that bring the characters vividly to life. From Julie Walters' portrayal of an actress seeking fame to Anna Massey's alcoholic vicar's wife, these individuals are linked by their self-delusion desperation and vulnerability. In these compelling pieces, Bennett displays the wry observation, knowing irony and...

Following the sad death of Alistair Cooke after 58 years in broadcasting, this impressive collection features both volumes 1 and 2 of Cooke's Letter From America as well as a third volume. The political and social landmarks of the last 50 years are reported on and examined in Cooke's uniquely wise style. Also included is Alistair Cooke at the BBC, a selection of archive recordings, including radio and television interviews in...

The remarkable story of the world's richest literary resource, the story telling, poetry, the growth of the novel and the greatest histories and essays, which have informed the language and the imagination wherever English is spoken.

Clarence, ninth Earl of Emsworth, sank back in his chair looking like the good old man in a Victorian melodrama whose mortgage the villain had just foreclosed. He felt the absence of that gentle glow which customarily accompanied the departure of one of his sisters. Lord Emsworth needed...

Adopted into the household of her uncle, Sir Thomas Bertram, Fanny Price grows up a meek outsider among her cousins in the unaccustomed elegance of Mansfield Park. Soon after Sir Thomas absents himself on estate business in Antigua (the family's investment in slavery and sugar is considered in the Introduction in a new, post-colonial light), Mary Crawford and her brother Henry arrive at Mansfield, bringing with them...

A Genius Performance by Ian Carmichael!

Can Lord Peter Wimsey prove that Harriet Vane is not guilty of murder--or find the real poisoner in time to save her from the gallows? Impossible, it seems. The Crown's case is watertight. The police are adamant that the right person is on trial.

The Scandal of Father Brown was G.K. Chesterton's final set of Father Brown short stories. Also included in this collection is the short story The Mask of Midas. The enigmatic and diminutive priest continues to fathom the deepest of mysteries in a set of 11 fascinating stories which are set in such diverse locations as a Mexican Hotel, an English Seaside Pier, and an Oxford University Garden. Chesterton presents his...

One of Britain's most distinguished biographers turns her focus on one of the most vilified women of the twentieth century. Historian Anne Sebba has written the first full biography by a woman of Wallis Simpson, Duchess of Windsor. That woman', as she was referred to by the Queen Mother, became a hate figure for ensnaring a British king and destabilising the monarchy. Neither beautiful nor brilliant, she nevertheless...

Winner of the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2011 - Tony Webster and his clique first met Adrian Finn at school. Sex-hungry and book-hungry, they would navigate the girl-less sixth form together, trading in affectations, in-jokes, rumour and wit. Maybe Adrian was a little more serious than the others, certainly...

A History of Modern Britain confronts head-on the victory of shopping over politics. It tells the story of how the great political visions of New Jerusalem or a second Elizabethan Age, rival idealisms, came to be defeated by a culture of consumerism, celebrity and self-gratification. In each decade political leaders think they know what they are doing but...

A Genius Performance by Andrew Sachs! On a cold Venetian night shortly before Christmas, a man is killed in a scuffle in Campo San Stefano. The dead man was working as a v- cumpr-, one of the many Black Africans selling goods on the street without a work permit. At first glance, Commissario Brunetti is at a loss to understand why anyone would kill an illegal immigrant. As Brunetti starts to investigate the murky...

A Genius Performance by Stephen Fry! 2nd book in the Series! The Dursleys were so mean that hideous that summer that all Harry Potter wanted was to get back to the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry. But just as he's packing his bags, Harry receives a warning from a strange, impish...

Johnnie Walker is an inspiration. One of the best-known and most beloved broadcasters in Britain, the charismatic BBC Radio 2 Drivetime DJ has achieved legendary status with a hugely loyal following thanks to his tireless pioneering of new music, his warm and passionate personality and his soothing voice. Having thrown away the rule book as a...

Just as Amy Leatheran is about to return to England, she is hired by celebrated archaeologist Dr Leidner to work as a nurse/companion for his wife, who is subject to fits of nervous terrors. As they travel to an ancient site in the Iraqi desert, Amy finds herself in a situation stranger than she could ever have imagined, whilst Mrs Leidner proves to...

When Sylvester, the Duke of Salford, first meets Phoebe Marlow, he finds her dull and insipid. She finds him insufferably arrogant. But when a series of unforeseen events leads them to be stranded together in a lonely country inn, they are both forced to reassess their hastily formed opinions, and begin a new-found liking and respect for each other. Sylvester calls to mind the satirical genius of a Jane Austen novel and...

By the author of "Feersum Endjinn". The Excession has returned but the only person who is aware of its potential is living out her death in the immense Sleeper Service ship. The Excession is something the culture must understand better - before it falls into less understanding hands.

A wonderful dramatisation of this classic story. Discover the meanness of Scrooge, a man unable to participate in the joy of Christmas, his cruelty to Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim, and his eventual redemption after the ghosts of Marley, Christmas Past, Present and Future visit him.

Alice was a hopeful young graduate student when, on a beautiful August night, her body was found in the woods. She'll always remember the night she was murdered. And she still suffers the grief and rage that destroyed her family. But what Alice regrets most is the last fight she had with her boyfriend, Enrico - and the fact that she never had the...

Lockheart Flawse exposes the suburban foibles of his tennants in Sandicott Close. Terrified out of their wits, one by one they beat a hasty retreat and Lockheart's dream of escaping hated East Pursley, and his 12 rent-controlled houses comes a step closer.

Foreword by Bill Bryson. The powerful and moving memoir by a scientist and mother of three of how she learned to live again after a sudden severe infection caused her to die but then revive with 'locked-in syndrome' - able only to blink an eye. At the age of 38, Rikke Schmidt Kjærgaard, a Danish scientist, wife and mother of three, is...

From the best-selling author of the Sweeney Sisters series comes the much-awaited sequel to Magnolia Nights, a novel of fate, discovery, and determination. All is right in Ellie Pringle Hagood’s world. Recently married to the man of her dreams and in anticipation of the big family she’s always wanted, she focuses...

From the author of Tess of the D'Urbervilles comes a story of great psychological insight into a man who was at once violent and selfish but also magnanimous and humble. Michael Henchard gets drunk at a fair and sells his wife and child for five guineas to a sailor. By the time he has realized his...

The breaking of the Enigma machine is one of the most heroic stories of the Second World War and highlights the crucial work of the codebreakers of Bletchley Park, which prevented Britain's certain defeat in 1941. But there was another German cipher machine, used by Hitler himself to convey messages...

A panic-stricken woman runs in the dead of night, battered and bloodied, desperate to find help…. When Detective Nick Fourcade enters the home of Genevieve Gauthier outside the sleepy town of Bayou Breaux, Louisiana, the bloody crime scene that awaits him is both the most brutal and the most confusing he’s ever seen. Genevieve’s...

When humanity reaches for the stars, our probes are destroyed. They crash into an incredibly advanced piece of technology: a massive force-field. Unknown beings have placed a barrier around our star and planets, enclosing us within. We're locked inside a Great Sphere. Was this invisible obstacle built to imprison us - or to protect us? No one knows...

Written at the start of the Great War, when his son Borys was at the Western Front, The Shadow-Line is Conrad's supreme effort to open man's eyes to the meaning of war through the stimulus of art. In many ways an autobiographical narrative, this masterpiece of his final period relates the story of a young and inexperienced sea captain whose first command finds him with a ship becalmed in tropical seas and a...

Penniless Elinor is rather surprised at the carriage that meets her from the stage, and more so at the decayed grandeur of the house to which she's transported. Realising that there has been a case of mistaken identity she agrees to an audacious plan.

One of the greatest American novels ever written. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird. A lawyer's advice to his children as he defends the real mockingbird of Harper Lee's classic novel - a black man falsely charged with the rape of a white girl.

Rosamunde Pilcher's stories transport the listener into a delightful world of surprises, the warmth of human nature and the wonderful details of life, and the three audiobooks in this classic collection are no exception. Now on CD for the very first time, these stories are the work of a master storyteller at her very best.

A Genius Performance by Stephen Fry! 4th book in the Series! It is the summer holidays and soon Harry Potter will be starting his fourth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Harry is counting the days: there are new spells to be learnt, more Quidditch to be played, and Hogwarts castle to continue exploring. But Harry needs to be careful - there are unexpected dangers lurking. J.K. Rowling continues...

A riveting exploration of how microbes are transforming the way we see nature and ourselves - and could revolutionize agriculture and medicine. Prepare to set aside what you think you know about yourself and microbes. Good health - for people and for plants - depends on Earth's smallest creatures.

Winner of the Sheridan Morley Prize for Theatre Biography 2011 Drawing on a lifetime of writing about theatre and film, Callow takes us behind the curtain and behind the camera to introduce us to the performers and performances that have shaped him as an actor and as a public persona. They include giants like Orson Welles, Charles Dickens...

One cannot turn on the news today without a report on an extreme-weather event or the latest update on Antarctica. But while our politicians argue, the truth is that climate change is already here. Nobody knows this better than Indigenous peoples, who, having developed an intimate relationship with...

Frankie Sicari is roused from sleep late one night by a key rattling in the front door lock. It’s her ex-husband, Charley Blackwell, a man she hasn’t seen for nearly a quarter of a century. What’s baffling is that Charley seems to think they are still married and has no recollection of his current wife, Hannah. When medical tests reveal shocking findings, Frankie finds herself reluctantly caring for the man...

From one of the most acclaimed and profound writers in the world of comics comes a thrilling and provocative exploration of humankind's great modern myth: the superhero. The first superhero comic ever published, Action Comics #1 in 1938, introduced the world to something both unprecedented and...

THE SHANNARA CHRONICLES IS NOW A MAJOR TV SERIES Terry's place is at the head of the fantasy world' Philip Pullman Five hundred years have passed since the devastating demon-led war that almost exterminated humankind. Those who escaped the carnage were led to sanctuary by the boy saviour...

George Orwell's 1945 satire on the perils of Stalinism has proved magnificently long-lived as a parable about totalitarianism anywhere and has given the world at least one immortal phrase: "Everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others."

There have been many biographies of Stalin, but the court that surrounded him is untravelled ground. Simon Sebag Montefiore has unearthed the vast underpinning that sustained Stalin. Not only ministers such as Molotov or secret service chiefs such as Beria, but men and women whose loyalty he trusted only until the next purge.

1222 metres above sea level, train 601 from Oslo to Bergen careens of iced rails as the worst snowstorm in Norwegian history gathers force around it. Marooned in the high mountains with night falling and the temperature plummeting, its 269 passengers are forced to abandon their snowbound train and decamp to a centuries-old mountain hotel.

Plantaganet Palliser, Prime Minister of England - a man of power and prestige, with all the breeding and inherited wealth that goes with it - is appalled at the inexorable rise of Ferdinand Lopez. An exotic impostor, seemingly from nowhere, Lopez has society at his feet, while well-connected ladies vie with each...

In the fourth of the Palliser stories, Trollope follows Phineas Finn's return to the dangerous world of Westminster politics after the death of his wife, Mary. His career takes a turn for the worse when his political rival is murdered. With all the circumstantial evidence pointing at Phineas, he is thrown under suspicion...

Before Sir Florian Eustace dies, he gives his beloved wife Lizzie a beautiful and expensive diamond necklace valued over £10,000. Dispute soon rages between the Eustace family and the manipulative and conniving Lizzie: it's claimed that the diamonds are a precious family heirloom, but Lizzie argues they were a gift.

Anthony TROLLOPE (1815-1882), was born in London. His father, a fellow of New College, Oxford, failed both as a lawyer and as a farmer. The family´s poverty made Trollope miserable at school, and when financial difficulties became acute, the family moved to Belgium, where Trollope´s father died.

In Phineas Finn, the second of the Palliser series, Trollope balances the rival demands of public and private life, entangling political ambitions with the experiences of love. Phineas Finn, an irresistible but penniless young Irish barrister enters Parliament and comes to London leaving behind him an Irish...

These readings by Kenneth Williams from his autobiography were first broadcast on Radio 4 in 1985. They incorporate his 1930s childhood in London, barrack-room life in Singapore during the last months of World War II, his stage career in the 1950s and 1960s, and radio and cinema fame.

Ensign Richard Sharpe, newly made an officer, wishes he had stayed a sergeant after he is put in terrible danger by Sergeant Obadiah Hakeswill at the impregnable Gawilghur's ravine. To regain his confidence and his authority, Sharpe will fight as he has never fought before. Soldier, hero, rogue - Sharpe is...

Former prime minister John Major takes a remarkable journey into his own unconventional family past to tell the richly colourful story of the British music hall Music hall was one of the glories of Victorian England. Sentimental, vulgar, class-conscious, but always patriotic and on the side of the underdog, it held...

The King James Bible is both the standard scriptural text and, for centuries, the bestselling book in the English-speaking world. Melvyn Bragg reveals the political, linguistic, and religious influences the Bible has had throughout the centuries.

Sarah Hussain was not popular in the community of Kingsmarkham. She was born of mixed parents - a white Irishwoman and an immigrant Indian Hindu. She was also the Reverend of St Peter's church. But it came as a profound shock to everyone when she was found strangled in the vicarage. A garrulous...

Untold Stories', Alan Bennett's first major collection of prose since his bestselling 'Writing Home', brings together the finest and funniest of his writing over the last ten years. Following on from 'Untold Stories: Part 1: Stories' and 'Part 2: The Diaries', 'Part 3: Written on the Body' is both a reflection on...

A brilliant reading of his own life story by Fiery Fred Truman! In Fred's wonderful tones, we hear how he rose from his ordinary Yorkshire street to the very top of the professional game. Full of clear opinions and fascinating insights. A VERY rare item for any cricket fan!