Authors
- Dick Francis
- Felix Francis
Edition: abridged
Publication date: 2007-09-27
RRP: £12.99
Price: £8.67
Review Dead Heat / Penguin:
Publication date: 2006-08-10
RRP: £16.63
Price: £4.81
Review The Pilgrim of Hate / Hodder & Stoughton:
Creator: Martin Jarvis
Publication date: 2008-01-04
RRP: £14.99
Price: £6.52
Review Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less / Macmillan Digital Audio:
Authors
- Alphonse Daudet
- Jerome K. Jerome
Publication date: 2006-05-15
RRP: £12.99
Price: £8.92
Review Fry and Laurie Read Daudet and Jerome / CSA WORD:
Publication date: 2006-08-10
RRP: £39.13
Price: £7.94
Review Hearts in Atlantis / Hodder & Stoughton:Stephen King's collection of five stories about '60s kids reads like a novel. The best is "Low Men in Yellow Coats," about Bobby Garfield of Harwich, Connecticut, who craves a Schwinn for his 11th birthday. But his widowed mum is impoverished and so bitter that she barely loves him. King is as good as Spielberg or Steven Millhauser at depicting an enchanted kid's-eye view of the world, and his Harwich is realistically luminous to the tiniest detail: kids bashing caps with a smoke-blackened rock; a car grille "like the sneery mouth of a chrome catfish"; a Wild Mouse carnival ride that makes kids "simultaneously sure they were going to live forever and die immediately. " Bobby's mum takes in a lodger, Ted Brautigan, who turns the boy on to great books such as Lord of the Flies. Unfortunately, Ted is being hunted by yellow-jacketed men-monsters from King's Dark Tower novels who take over the shady part of town. They close in on Ted and Bobby, just as a gang of older kids menace Bobby and his girlfriend, Carol. This pointedly echoes the theme of Lord of the Flies (the one book King says he wishes he'd written): war is the human condition. Ted's mind-reading powers rub off a bit on Bobby, granting nightmare glimpses of his mum's assault by her rich, vile, jaunty boss. King packs plenty into 250 pages, using the same trick Bobby discerns in the film Village of the Damned: "The people seemed like real people, which made the make-believe parts scarier. [+]" Vietnam is the otherworldly horror that haunts the remaining four stories. In the title tale, set in 1966, University of Maine college kids play the card game Hearts so obsessively they risk flunking out and getting drafted. The kids discover sex, rock and politics, become war heroes and victims, and spend the '80s and '90s shell-shocked by change. The characters and stories are criss-crossed with connections that sometimes click and sometimes clunk. The most intense Hearts player, Ronnie Malenfant ("evil infant"), perpetrates a My Lai-like atrocity; a nice Harwich girl becomes a radical bomber. King's metaphor for lost '60s innocence is inspired by Donovan's "sweet and stupid" song about the sunken continent, and his stories hail the vanished Atlantis of his youth with deep sweetness and melancholy intelligence. -Tim Appelo.
Creator: Robert Powell
Edition: Abridged edition
Publication date: 2001-03-31
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £14.99
Price: £6.99
Review Warlock / Macmillan Audio Books:Wilbur Smith (a name synonymous with the massive blockbuster thriller) has recaptured the verve and impact of his earlier work in Warlock. This Egyptian epic thriller follows on from the equally accomplished River God and The Seventh Scroll and re-establishes Smith at the top echelons of thriller writing. The customary continent-spanning canvas is here, with a key new element in an adroitly handled supernatural aspect that gives the sequence the feel of fantasy whilst still retaining the plausibility that was always Smith's strongest asset. The reader is plunged into a vividly realised evocation of life in ancient Egypt but one presented with insights into the various characters that infuse a very contemporary feel. In the secluded deserts of North Africa, Taita has spent the years since the death of his adored Queen Lostris studying to become a Warlock, steeped in the arcane arts of the ancient Gods and a master practitioner of magic. Responding to an occult summons, Taita abandons the desert and returns to civilisation, only to find himself at the centre of a massive conflagration in which dark and sinister forces are undermining the throne of Egypt and attempting to destroy the young prince Nefer. Soon, his hard-won skills are tested to the limit. As in the previous books in the sequence, Smith knows that a strong and passionate agenda on the part of his protagonists will allow the reader to identify with them, despite the gap of centuries. Here, it is family ties: Taita is defending the young prince who is the grandson of his lost Queen, and we are quickly engaged in a narrative that rarely flags over its considerable length. The action set pieces are as impressive as one would expect: The instant he was within range the Cobra struck again, but Nefer caught the blow on the thick leather folds of the bag. [+]The beast's fangs snagged in the leather and held fast. As Nefer swung back the snake was dragged with him. It was hauled cleanly out of the nest, a writhing, seething ball of coils and polished scales. It thrashed against Nefer's legs, the heavy tail lashing him, hissing fearsomely, clouds of venom spraying from its gaping jaws and dribbling down the leather bag. So great was its weight that Nefer's whole body was shaken violently. -Barry Forshaw.
Authors
- Robert M. Pirsig and Michael Kramer
Publication date: 2008-08-25
RRP: £34.03
Price: £33.30
Review Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values / Entain8:
Publication date: 2004-07-19
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £12.99
Price: £8.12
Review A Caribbean Mystery: BBC Radio 4 Full-cast Dramatisation (BBC Radio Collection) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:
Publication date: 2005-02-04
Dewey code: 920
RRP: £13.00
Price: £2.88
Review Maggie: Her Fatal Legacy / Macmillan Audio Books:
Creator: Nigel Anthony
Publication date: 2001-11-30
RRP: £49.98
Price: £27.67
Review The Alexandria Quartet: "Justine", "Balthazar", "Mountolive", "Clea" (Modern classics) / Naxos AudioBooks:
Publication date: 2006-11-02
RRP: £29.35
Price: £6.50
Review Misery / Hodder & Stoughton:
Creator: Robert Hardy
Edition: Film tie-in edition
Publication date: 2003-10-06
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £14.99
Price: £5.94
Review The Far Side of the World / HarperCollins Audio:Captain Jack Aubrey sets sail for Cape Horn, determined to intercept an American frigate before it can wreak havoc on the British whaling trade. As always, he is accompanied by intelligence operative Stephen Maturin, and as always, Aubrey has no idea of what his companion is up to. Another impeccably written adventure, by the end of which you should be able to identify a mizzen topsail in your sleep.
Creator: Mary Stuart Masterson
Publication date: 2007-10-23
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.98
Review Book of the Dead / Time Warner AudioBooks:
Creator: Kevin Whately
Edition: Abridged edition
Publication date: 2002-11-22
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £10.99
Price: £7.25
Review The Service of All the Dead / Macmillan Audio Books:
Creator: Siobhan Redmond
Edition: Abridged edition
Publication date: 2007-04-12
RRP: £15.99
Price: £7.95
Review Tenderness of Wolves / Quercus Publishing Plc:
Creator: Juliet Stevenson
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 2006-08
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £53.46
Price: £32.99
Review Emma (Classic fiction) / Naxos AudioBooks:
Edition: Unabridged Audio Book
Publication date: 2008-07-01
RRP: £24.99
Price: £16.26
Review A Case Of Exploding Mangoes (unabridged audio book): Unabridged / Whole Story Audio Books:
Creator: Carole Boyd
Edition: Abridged edition
Publication date: 2006-02-13
RRP: £13.99
Price: £7.60
Review Journey's End / HarperCollins Audio:
Publication date: 2005-11-07
RRP: £16.63
Price: £3.86
Review The Shell Seekers / Hodder & Stoughton:
Edition: First
Publication date: 2007-08-01
RRP: £11.74
Price: £6.63
Review The Man Who Would Be King / Saland Publishing:
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Models & Brands:
Dead Heat, The Pilgrim of Hate, Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less, Fry and Laurie Read Daudet and Jerome, Hearts in Atlantis, Warlock, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values, A Caribbean Mystery: BBC Radio 4 Full-cast Dramatisation (BBC Radio Collection), Maggie: Her Fatal Legacy, The Alexandria Quartet: "Justine", "Balthazar", "Mountolive", "Clea" (Modern classics), Misery, The Far Side of the World, Book of the Dead, The Service of All the Dead, Tenderness of Wolves, Emma (Classic fiction), A Case Of Exploding Mangoes (unabridged audio book): Unabridged, Journey's End, The Shell Seekers, The Man Who Would Be King |
