Inspired by the real-life memoirs of a Victorian Inspector in Scotland, James McLevy prowls the dark streets of 1860s Edinburgh bringing criminals to justice, with the assistance of Constable Mulholland.
Dr Julius No is a man with a mysterious past. Nobody knows what secrets are hidden on his Caribbean island, and all those who have attempted to investigate further have disappeared.
A Genius Performance by Simon Callow, Edward Petherbridge and Prunella Scales! These wonderful BBC Radio 4 productions are of exceptional quality. Includes 2 plays - An Englishman Abroad and A Question of Attribution. Brilliant work by all of the actors!
"A rich, complex and beautifully crafted novel." P. D. James "Compulsively readable a carefully devised plot unfolded with the most cunning art. Wilkie Collins and Dickens would have admired it." Sunday Times Like most families they had their secrets and they hid them under a genteelly respectable veneer. No onlooker would guess that prim Vera Hillyard and her beautiful, adored younger sister, Eden, were locked in a dark...
By the writer of the Wexford novels and read by George Baker
Someone must have had good reason to murder Mrs Elizabeth Nightingale on a dark September night. And as Detective Chief Inspector Wexford investigates, he discovers sinister undercurrents and dramatic secrets beneath the placid surface of the Nightingales' lives…
How to Overcome Series Completion Anxiety
or What Next?
For anyone who has been dedicated to the fabulous works of one of our Genius Authors or Genius Performers there is always the looming issue, not so easily deferred, of what to listen to after the final available book has been consumed.
On the first occasion, for myself, this was made slightly more difficult by the underlying fact of the author's demise.
I first came to audiobooks via the radio, which included Shakespeare plays, poetry readings and the fantastically imaginative works of Douglas Adams. Though my first contact with Douglas Adam's work was via the radio performances of The Hitch-Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy, it was the author's own readings of his brilliant comedic prose that started to reveal the potential of this media.
In fact it is the recordings of Douglas Adams' works that bring into sharp relief a central issue when selecting audiobooks. The performance is as defining a factor as the words that constitute the book. In addition it is a rare moment when an author, having trained for many years as a wordsmith, turns her or his hand to performance. No doubt there are great audio performances from some authors, Douglas Adams being an excellent example, but, not surprisingly, the skill of the trained performer shines through and can bring to life a text that might otherwise lay flat on the page. There are many examples of this including Stephen Fry's Harry Potter readings, very much NOT just for children, and one of our favourite performers Tony Britton reading the Dick Francis novels.
One audiobook that stands out both for the quality of it's text and the audio performance is Perfume. This book that won widespread praise when published in 1985, initially in German and then translated into English in 1986, has since been made into a successful feature film. In 1996 it was published by Penguin in audio book form. The extraordinary good fortune of selecting Sean Barrett for this text is to be gleaned by all who take the opportunity to listen to the novel. With a combination of horror and fascination you can find yourself drawn into the nefarious world of scent. There are two desperately sad things about this book. Firstly, it has to end and secondly Patrick Suskind's further novels do not appear to have scaled the same heights as his first. The great positive feeling you may encounter as you finish listening to this work is .... the deep set desire to listen to more Sean Barrett performances. If you choose this path you will not be disappointed!
(UPDATE - We at Brainfood Audiobooks - have just been made aware of a review of Perfume that appeared on the web a few years ago - http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/perfume-the-story-of-a-murderer-2007 This well respected film reviewer's phrase - "the best audio performance I have ever heard" supports our belief that this book is among the very best of the genre.)
While you take a closer look at Sean Barrett's performances you may wish to benefit from our many years of listening experience and peruse our selection of the best of the best. What we like to call......
The Stamp of Genius
We at Brainfood Audiobooks have been listening to audiobooks for well over 30 years. In our experience the greatest audiobooks are those that we come back to again and again. So, if you're looking for something different or just a view of what we at Brainfood Audiobooks consider to be the very best audiobooks we have ever encountered these are they.
These are audiobooks that break through the barriers of the genre and, through the audio format, show the stamp of genius.
We at Brainfood Audiobooks are constantly listening to a wide variety of titles, on all media types, and it has become clear, over the many years we have been listening, that a few titles stand out as possessing that extraordinary quality - a great story/text, a great performance and wide appeal!
Below we have a selection of these titles - which will, occasionally, grow as we listen to more titles but will definitely reduce as the books are purchased.
If anyone has a suggestion for this list please send us a message via the form on the left of this page.
If you are interested in an atmospheric thriller of an extraordinary order - this is probably the Best Audiobook you will ever hear. A great book is transformed, by Sean Barrett, into a production of Genius! If you haven't heard it yet then you have an amazing journey before you......
This wonderful book is read by 2 of the very best audiobook readers bar none! Sean Barrett's Chapter 1 is pure genius! Writing of this quality combined with the reading of Mr Barrett and Teresa Gallagher is an absolute must! This one is a life-long keeper!! Naxos
A Genius Performance by Ian Holm, Robert Stephens, John Le Mesurier and Peter Woodthorpe! A true breakthrough for Tolkien and the BBC! Brian Sibley's dramatisation of the fantasy epic in 1981 is an essential listen for any audiobook listener.
A Genius Performance by Ian Holm, Robert Stephens, Dame Peggy Ashcroft, Jeremy Brett, Michael York, Cyril Cusak and Nigel Davenport! This production of Shakespeare's classic tragedy is the best we have heard! In very short supply and only just in front of the Naxos - Kenneth Branagh production
This is a perfect example of why Brainfood Audiobooks exists! William (Willie) Rushton brings all of his comedic talent to bear on this wonderful tale. This audio set comes with a complimentary Audio CD version of this book.
Whether you listen to this on a dark winter's night of a sunny summer morning Leonard Rossiter's performance will take you on a journey. This is a perfect combination of text and performer. Leonard Rossiter makes this text his own and with such a quality of delivery that, if you close your eyes, you are there!
Includes The Hitch-hiker's Guide, The Resaurant at the End of the Universe, Life, The Universe and Everything, So Long and Thanks for All the Fish and Mostly Harmless! All read by the Master Himself!
This is a perfect example of why Brainfood Audiobooks exists! William (Willie) Rushton brings all of his comedic talent to bear on this wonderful tale. This audio set comes with a complimentary Audio CD version of this book.
This is a selection of readings from Shakespeare. Selected by HRH Prince of Wales, the cast includes Robert Stephens, Richard Briers, John Gielgud, Juliet Stevenson, Glenda Jackson, William Hurt and John Sessions. Brilliant performances by these wonderful actors!
** We currently have 2 of these in stock. They BOTH come with a FREE copy of this wonderful recording on Audio CD. The Acceptable copy has been graded due to a 30 sec dropout after 15 mins of side 1. Rest assured that in the Audio CD copy, that comes FREE with this title, the audio plays perfectly **
Under the influence of their charismatic classics professor, a group of clever, eccentric misfits at an elite New England college discover a way of thinking and living that is a world away from the humdrum existence of their contemporaries. Performed with exceptional color by Robert Sean Leonard!
These are masterly readings, by renowned thespian Paul Scofield, of two substantial works of poetry by T.S. Eliot. They form the core of Eliot's later work and, with Scofield's wonderful interpretation have been a regular visitor to the Brainfood Audiobooks cassette player over the last 20 years!
Richmal Compton's Williams Stories read by Kenneth Williams on two cassettes. Side 1 The Show, Side 2 William the Invisible, Side 3 A Witch in Time, Side 4 William's Day Off. Sometimes people are made to perform certain works - this combination is exceptional!
A live recording from the Vaudeville Theatre in London where Simon Callow recreates the reading performances of Charles Dickens. Over the last 12 years of his life, Dickens gave nearly 500 performances to huge audiences all over Britain and America.
One of Our Stamp of Genius audibooks! For years actor and author Brian Blessed had an impossible dream - to follow in the footsteps of his childhood hero, George Leigh Mallory, who disappeared near the summit of Mount Everest in 1924. Finally in 1990, aged 53, Brian Blessed...
Terry Jones, Joan Greenwood, Michael Hordern, Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren and Tim Rice read of a collection of original fairy tales for 8 to 11-year-olds, written by master storyteller Terry Jones, introducing such bizarre creatures as the fly-by-night, the rainbow cat, and the wonderful cake-horse.
Ethan Coen makes his long-awaited fiction debut with a series of stories that mix the same offbeat humour, brutal irony, and razor-sharp wit of his films. Gates of Eden features characters struggling to comprehend their place in the world, and trying to understand the situations fate has placed in front of them.
An account of the relationship between Simon Callow and the play agent, Peggy Ramsay. Despite an age difference of over 40 years, Peggy and Callow enjoyed an 11-year relationship conducted in meetings and passionately unbridled letters until Peggy's
In clinical trials, it's called the placebo effect. But patients treated with placebos don't just feel better. It's not just 'in their heads'. They can heal their bodies by healing their thoughts. For years, pioneers in the medical community have been extolling the virtues of the mind's power to heal the body.
‘What we have lost with Laurence Olivier is glory.’ My Father Laurence Olivier is a touching account of a son’s idolisation of his father -- one of the greatest actors ever to have graced both the British stage and Hollywood’s screens.
From her office in the University of Minnesota's Health and Eating Lab, professor Traci Mann researches self-control and dieting. And what she has discovered is groundbreaking. Not only do diets not work; they often result in weight gain. Americans are losing the battle of the bulge because our bodies and brains...
A Genius Performance by Simon Callow, Edward Petherbridge and Prunella Scales! These wonderful BBC Radio 4 productions are of exceptional quality. Includes 2 plays - An Englishman Abroad and A Question of Attribution. Brilliant work by all of the actors!
A Genius Performance by Edward Petherbridge! In this autobiographical work Edward Petherbridge recounts his time at the National Theatre and his life as a jobbing actor. Wonderfully whitty and full of real life insights, this book will take you back to the great days of The Master (Olivier) ....
Barbara Jefford, Robert Stephens and Alec McCowen lead a distinguished company in this haunting performance of Webster’s powerful tragedy of murder, revenge and thwarted love.
The award-winning author of A Stone Boat offers a deeply personal look at depression in which he draws on his own battle with the illness and interviews with fellow sufferers, researchers, doctors, and others to assess the vast complexities of the disease, its causes and symptoms, available therapies ..
Nobel Prize winner Dr Elizabeth Blackburn and leading health psychologist Dr Elissa Epel have discovered biological markers called telomeres, which can help us to understand how healthy our cells are and what we can do to improve them. The Telomere Effect looks at ideas including how biological age is not...
He says he loves you. So...why does he do that? You've asked yourself this question again and again. Now you have the chance to see inside the minds of angry and controlling men-and to change your life. In this groundbreaking book, a counselor who specializes in working with abusive men shows you...
An exciting historical adventure from War Horse author and former Children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo. Gracie and her friend Daniel have always been warned to stay away from the Birdman and his side of the island. But then they find a message in the sand and discover the Birdman is not who they...
With a record five-and-a-half million listeners and thirty years as BBC Radio 2's top presenter, Sir Jimmy Young left the BBC at Christmas 2002. It was a controversial departure behind which lies a story he is only now prepared to reveal. In an extraordinary career which first brought him fame ...
C. S. Lewis was one of the twentieth century’s best-known authors. The Narnia Chronicles, The Screwtape Letters and Mere Christianity are among his most loved works. Shadowlands tells the unique story of Lewis’s tragic love. In Joy Davidman he truly found love and was drawn out of his shell.
In this unabridged reading by Paul Panting, fourteen-year-old Matt Freeman thinks his days of battling evil are over after his experiences at Raven's Gate. But soon he is pulled into another horrifying adventure when he discovers a second gate exists.
Actors Prunella Scales and Samuel West read the works of author Charles Dickens, with music of Dickens' time played on Victorian musical boxes and cylinder pianos alternates between the spoken work passages. It contains extracts from "Oliver Twist" (1839), "David Copperfield" (1850), "Little Dorrit" (1857), and the climax, three marvelous scenes from "Great Expectations" (1861).
It was the night of May 16th, 1943. Nineteen specially adapted Lancaster bombers take off from RAF Scampton in Lincolnshire, each with a huge nine thousand pound cylindrical bomb strapped underneath them.
"Enthralling and suspenseful, EVERNEATH is pure indulgent escapism!" - Becca Fitzpatrick, NYT Bestselling Author of Hush, Hush Last spring, Nikki Beckett vanished, sucked into an underworld known as the Everneath, where immortals Feed on the emotions of despairing humans. Now she's returned- to her old life, her family, her friends- before being banished back to the underworld... this time forever. She has six months before the Everneath comes to claim her...
When a young trooper is shot in the head at the Regiment’s renowned Killing House, Nick Stone is perfectly qualified to investigate the mysterious circumstances more deeply. He has just returned from Moscow – still trying to come to terms with the fact that his girlfriend and baby son are safer there without him – so combines an unrivalled understanding of the Special Forces landscape with a detachment that should allow him to remain in cover. But less than forty-eight...
Joanna Trollope’s much-anticipated contemporary reworking of Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility will launch The Austen Project and be one of the most talked about books of 2013. Two sisters could hardly be more different. Elinor Dashwood, an architecture student, values discretion above all. Her impulsive sister Marianne displays her creativity everywhere as she dreams of going to art school. But when the family finds itself forced out of Norland Park, their beloved...
Best-selling, National Book Award-winning author Ha Jin displays his impressive storytelling gifts in this richly textured examination of contemporary China and the civil unrest at Tiananmen Square in 1989. Professor Yang, a respected literature scholar, suffers a stroke and is confined to a hospital bed. Now Jian Wan, Yang’s brightest student and future son-in-law, must suspend his rigorous studies to care for his mentor. Jian dutifully keeps watch as Yang begins raving...
As a novelist, essayist, critic and playwright, Graham Green was one of the leading English literary figures of the 20th century. This CD provides an overview pf Greene's life and achievements in his own words. The recordings are drawn from rarely heard BBC broadcasts together with extracts from the longest private interview he gave.
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