Publication date: 1994-10-03
Dewey code: 920
Price: £10.99
Review The Lady in the Van/My Uncle Clarence (BBC Radio Collection) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:Life imitates art in The Lady in the Van, the story of the itinerant Miss Shepherd, who lived in a van in Alan Bennett's driveway from the early1970s until her death in 1989. It is doubtful that Bennett could have made up the eccentric Miss Shepherd if he tried, but his poignant, funny but unsentimental account of their strange relationship is akin to his best fictional screen writing. Bennett concedes that "One seldom was able to do her a good turn without some thoughts of strangulation", but as the plastic bags build up, the years pass by and Miss Shepherd moves into Bennett's driveway, a relationship is established which defines a certain moment in late 20th-century London life which has probably gone forever. The dissenting, liberal, middle-class world of Bennett and his peers comes into hilarious but also telling collision with the world of Miss Shepherd: "there was a gap between our social position and our social obligations. It was in this gap that Miss Shepherd (in her van) was able to live". Bennett recounts Miss Shepherd's bizarre escapades in his inimitable style, from her letter to the Argentinean Embassy at the height of the Falklands War, to her attempts to stand for Parliament and wangle an electric wheelchair out of the Social Services. Beautifully observed, The Lady in the Van is as notable for Bennett's attempts to uncover the enigmatic history of Miss Shepherd, as it is for its amusing account of her eccentric escapades. -Jerry Brotton.
Publication date: 2003-09-04
RRP: £9.00
Price: £9.97
Review The More the Merrier / Cover to Cover Cassettes Ltd:
Publication date: 2004-09-20
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £10.00
Price: £9.97
Review Only Dad / Simon & Schuster Audio:
Creator: Nigel Anthony
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 1988-04-01
RRP: £8.99
Price: £20.18
Review Magnus Powermouse: Complete & Unabridged (Cover to Cover) / Cover to Cover Cassettes Ltd:
Creator: David Rintoul
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 2000-02
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £48.12
Price: £50.11
Review Dust on the Sea: Complete & Unabridged / Chivers Audio Books:
Creator: Jan Francis
Edition: Abridged Ed
Publication date: 1996-03-28
RRP: £8.99
Price: £6.88
Review The Brimstone Wedding (Penguin Audiobooks) / Penguin Audiobooks:
Creator: Simon Callow
Edition: Abridged Ed
Publication date: 2000-08-31
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £9.99
Price: £6.28
Review Very Good, Jeeves / Penguin Audiobooks:Beginning with a mysterious message and a visit to the dreaded Aunt Agatha, Very Good, Jeeves once again sees Bertie Wooster beset by difficulties that can only be untangled by his faithful butler. Indeed, by the time of this entry in the Jeeves cycle, written in 1930, everyone is seeking the butler's advice-he is universally recognised as the man to get you out of a spot of bother. When he becomes attached to an unsuitable young woman, Bertie is asked-much to his indignation-"You don't believe for a moment Jeeves will sanction the match?" Even if Bertie refuses to acknowledge his butler's influence, it does not escape the attention of those around him. As always, Wodehouse perfectly captures (and exposes to ridicule) the trivial concerns of the idle rich. Poor Bertie finds it impossible to refuse to help a friend-"We Woosters have our code"-and always finds that the solution to the muddle results in his own embarrassment, generally engineered by the discretely manipulative Jeeves. Read by Simon Callow, this audio abridgement offers a lively reading of the source material, which will both enchant Wodehouse's many fans, and convince newcomers to explore the rest of the author's extensive oeuvre. -John Oates.
Creator: Tim Piggot-Smith
Publication date: 2001-06-04
Dewey code: 813
Price: £13.99
Review Harlequin (The Grail Quest) / HarperCollins Audio:Following the phenomenal success of the Sharpe novels set in the Napoleonic Wars, Bernard Cornwell has turned his storytelling talents to another great moment in English history, the Hundred Years War between England and France throughout the 14th century. Harlequin is the first book in Cornwell's Grail Quest series, which chronicles the adventures of young Thomas of Hookton, "a big, bony, black-haired country boy". Thomas rejects the church in favour of the life of an archer in France after his village is brutally sacked by the French. The young Thomas fights back against the French with his bow, and "in that one instant, as the first arrow slid into the sky, he knew he wanted nothing more from life". He vows to seek revenge on the plains of France, and recover the holy relic of St. George stolen from his village by the sinister "harlequin" with whose destiny Thomas finds himself inextricably entwined. The rest of the action moves at a hectic pace across the violent and bloody battlefields of northern France, as Thomas falls for a beautiful French widow nicknamed "the Blackbird", makes a mortal enemy of the "poor, bitter and ambitious" Sir Simon Jekyll, and follows the ensign of King Edward III and his heroic son, the Black Prince. Harlequin is a fast-paced and graphic recreation of the Hundred Years War, despite a rather gratuitous fixation on rape and pillage. The action comes thick and fast, although it remains to be seen if Thomas of Hookton has the wit and flair of Cornwell's other great heroic creation, Richard Sharpe. -Jerry Brotton.
Creator: Clare Higgins
Publication date: 2007-02-15
RRP: £13.99
Price: £5.72
Review Thrush Green (Tape) (Thrush Green 1) / Orion:
Creator: Juliet Stevenson
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 1996-10
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £48.12
Price: £40.00
Review The Brimstone Wedding: Complete & Unabridged / Chivers Audio Books:
Creator: Stephen Fry
Edition: Abridged edition
Publication date: 2001-08-30
RRP: £4.99
Price: £1.18
Review The Enormous Crocodile: Unabridged (Puffin audiobooks) / Puffin:
Creator: et al
Publication date: 1994-12
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £48.12
Price: £50.11
Review No Night Is Too Long: Complete & Unabridged / Chivers Audio Books:
Authors
- Chris Miller
- P.G. Wodehouse
Edition: Abridged Ed
Publication date: 1999-04-06
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £10.99
Price: £5.96
Review The Inimitable Jeeves: A BBC Radio 4 Full-cast Dramatisation (BBC Radio Collection) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:With a cast of characters that includes bearded revolutionaries, practical-joking twins, incognito authors, and a pair of confidence tricksters, The Inimitable Jeeves finds our upper-class hero Bertie Wooster in all kinds of hot water. Of particular concern in this collection of short stories-sensitively abridged by Penguin and read by Simon Callow-is Bertie's friend Bingo Little, who falls in love so often that it is impossible to keep track of his romantic entanglements, and who always falls for the most unsuitable women. Unable to refuse to help a friend, Bertie is placed in one difficult situation after another, always under the watchful eye of his butler. Jeeves constantly works in the background, undermining Bertie's autonomy and moving the narrative in unexpected directions. He often fails to let his employer in on his plots, and a large proportion of his schemes turn out to expose Bertie to ridicule. Yet Jeeves also ensures that Bertie's life runs smoothly, steering him through the pitfalls which face a rich young man with too much time on his hands. When in one story Bertie overhears Jeeves describing his employer as "not intelligent", he sets out to disprove the butler's assessment. If it is predictable that things do not go according to plan, then it is Wodehouse's brilliant grasp of comedy which makes the manner in which things go wrong so constantly surprising. And, of course, by the end of the tale Jeeves has proved himself both inimitable and indispensable. -John Oates.
Creator: Tony Robinson
Edition: Abridged
Publication date: 1997-09-04
RRP: £9.99
Price: £6.09
Review The Carpet People / Random House Children's Books:
Authors
- Raymond Briggs
- William Puttock
Publication date: 1992-08-13
RRP: £4.99
Price: £24.99
Review The Man / Random House Children's Books:
Creator: Rufus Sewell
Edition: Abridged Ed
Publication date: 2002-04-04
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £8.99
Price: £31.98
Review Moonraker / Penguin Audiobooks:
Edition: Library edition
Publication date: 1995-09-30
RRP: £9.00
Price: £9.71
Review Fudge-a-mania: Complete & Unabridged (Cavalcade story cassettes) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:
Publication date: 2000-10-01
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £10.99
Price: £5.15
Review The Truth (Discworld Novel) / Corgi Audio:The Truth is Terry Pratchett's 25th novel about Discworld in general and the dirt-encrusted metropolis of Ankh-Morpork in particular-home of the sinister Patrician, the Unseen University of magicians and guilds for everything from Assassins to Thieves, taking in Clowns (but not mimes) along the way. Ankh-Morpork has weathered several influxes of technology in its time-a demon-inspired invention of the movies, the brief fad for Music with Rocks in it-and now it has acquired a free press, dedicated newshounds, dwarf printers with not especially nasty tempers (for dwarves), and people who want to see their amusing vegetables in the "On a Lighter Note" section. The business of politics (attempts by the old aristocracy to unseat the Patrician) is ratcheted up a notch and Vimes, of the City Watch, is in a worse temper than usual. William de Worde, editor, reporter and investigator, is another attractive Pratchett hero, captured for us in the middle of wonderfully parodied routines from old movies and fiction that he, in his world, is doing for the first time. This is inventive farce with touches of high seriousness and ethical good sense, and two of the nastiest doomed hitmen outside Tarantino. -Roz Kaveney.
Creator: Gwen Watford
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 1987-06
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £36.37
Price: £75.99
Review Battles at Thrush Green: Complete & Unabridged / Chivers Audio Books:
Creator: Bernard Cribbins
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 2000-06-01
RRP: £3.99
Price: £3.99
Review Sophie in the Saddle!: Abridged (Cover to Cover) / Cover to Cover Cassettes Ltd:
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Models & Brands:
The Lady in the Van/My Uncle Clarence (BBC Radio Collection), The More the Merrier, Only Dad, Magnus Powermouse: Complete & Unabridged (Cover to Cover), Dust on the Sea: Complete & Unabridged, The Brimstone Wedding (Penguin Audiobooks), Very Good, Jeeves, Harlequin (The Grail Quest), Thrush Green (Tape) (Thrush Green 1), The Brimstone Wedding: Complete & Unabridged, The Enormous Crocodile: Unabridged (Puffin audiobooks), No Night Is Too Long: Complete & Unabridged, The Inimitable Jeeves: A BBC Radio 4 Full-cast Dramatisation (BBC Radio Collection), The Carpet People, The Man, Moonraker, Fudge-a-mania: Complete & Unabridged (Cavalcade story cassettes), The Truth (Discworld Novel), Battles at Thrush Green: Complete & Unabridged, Sophie in the Saddle!: Abridged (Cover to Cover) |
