Creator: Robert Powell
Publication date: 1997-04-24
RRP: £8.99
Price: £16.95
Review Officers and Gentlemen (Penguin Audiobooks) / Penguin Audiobooks:
Creator: Jenny Agutter
Publication date: 2001-10-25
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £12.99
Price: £1.99
Review Precious Time (Tape) / Orion:The heroine of Erica James' seventh novel, Precious Time, is determined to make some changes in her life. Single mum Clara Costello has a secure job, a nifty sports car, a lovely house and a beguiling four-year-old son, called Ned. Ned is due to start school, but before he does Clara is determined to spend some "precious time" with him. So, feeling like an "intrepid explorer" she resigns from her job, buys a camper van and heads off on a tour of England to "show Ned what an exciting world he lived in, so that he would grow up knowing that there were endless possibilities out there for him. " Clara's wonderful tour doesn't go quite to plan. A mere 250 miles from their starting point they arrive in Beaconsfield in the Peak District and get "caught up in the lives of a handful of folk". Erica James' novel really comes into its own here. The characters are engaging, infuriating, their individual stories involving. There's Gabriel Liberty a 79-year-old cantankerous tyrant who's walled up with grief in the huge decaying Mermaid house. There's his son, schoolteacher Jonah, with his "fine boned face and disarming smile" and his difficult twin brother and sister Casper and Damson. [+]Archie Merryman also lives in the village, a gentle soul who's caring for his mother and trying to come to terms with the failure of his marriage to stroppy Stella. Erica James deftly weaves these disparate characters together, revealing the secrets and regrets of their emotional lives, while keeping the plot moving at a sprightly pace. This is a deft and entertaining read from this popular author. -Eithne Farry.
Price: £8.99
Review Claudius the God / Argo:
Creator: Jenny Agutter
Publication date: 2000-01-20
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £9.99
Price: £3.57
Review Airs and Graces (Tape): Abridged / Orion:
Creator: David Rintoul
Publication date: 1995-06
RRP: £36.37
Price: £38.36
Review A Twist in the Tale: Complete & Unabridged / Chivers Audio Books:
Creator: Carole Boyd
Publication date: 1995-04-27
RRP: £9.99
Price: £12.99
Review The Moonstone (Penguin Audiobooks) / Penguin Audiobooks:
Creator: Stephen Thorne
Publication date: 1995-06
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £36.37
Price: £38.36
Review The Potter's Field: The Seventeenth Chronicle of Brother Cadfael: Complete & Unabridged / Chivers Audio Books:
Creator: Hugh Fraser
Publication date: 2002-11-18
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £14.99
Price: £7.49
Review Third Girl: Complete & Unabridged / HarperCollins Audio:
Creator: Simon Callow
Publication date: 1998-04-02
RRP: £9.99
Price: £29.99
Review Valley of Bones (Dance to the Music of Time) / Hodder & Stoughton Audio Books:
Creator: Leonie Mellinger
Publication date: 1997-01
RRP: £48.12
Price: £50.11
Review Half Hidden: Complete & Unabridged / Chivers Audio Books:
Creator: Alec McCowen
Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 2006-10-20
RRP: £14.99
Price: £8.86
Review Twelve Red Herrings / Macmillan Audio Books:
Creator: Carol Brown Janeway
Edition: Abridged edition
Publication date: 2002-05-30
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £13.00
Price: £10.40
Review Embers: Unabridged / Penguin Audiobooks:In Sándor Márai's Embers, two old men, once the best of friends, meet after a 41-year break in their relationship. They dine together, taking the same places at the table that they had assumed on the last meal they shared, then sit beside each other in front of a dying fire, one of them near-silent, the other one, his host, slowly and deliberately tracing the course of their dead friendship. This sensitive, long-considered elaboration of one man's lifelong grievance is as gripping as any adventure story, and explains why Maáai's forgotten 1942 masterpiece is being compared with the work of Thomas Mann. In some ways, M´rai's work is more modern than Mann's. His simplicity and succinct, unadorned lyricism may call to mind Latin American novelists like Gabriel García Márquez, or even Italo Calvino. It is the tone of magical realism, although Márai's work is only magical in the sense that he completely engages his reader, spinning a web of words as his wounded central character describes his betrayal and abandonment at the hands of his closest friend. Even the setting, an old castle, evokes dark fairy tales. The story of the rediscovery of Embers is as fascinating as the novel itself. A celebrated Hungarian novelist of the 1930s, Márai survived the war but was persecuted by the Communists after they came to power. His books were suppressed, even destroyed, and he was forced to flee his country in 1948. [+]He died in San Diego in 1989, one year before the neglected Embers was finally reprinted in his native land. This reprint was discovered by the Italian writer and publisher Roberto Calasso, and the subsequent editions have become international bestsellers. All of his novels are now slated for American publication. -Regina Marler.
Creator: Julian Glover
Edition: Unabridged
Publication date: 1994-04
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £43.42
Price: £45.41
Review The Children of Men: Complete & Unabridged / Chivers Audio Books:
Creator: Carole Boyd
Publication date: 2004-03
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £10.99
Price: £7.89
Review The Tenant of Wildfell Hall / CSA WORD:
Creator: Robert Powell
Publication date: 1997-02-27
RRP: £8.99
Price: £19.97
Review Men at Arms (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) / Penguin Audiobooks:
Creator: Robert Hardy
Edition: Abridged Ed
Publication date: 1997-04-21
Dewey code: 813
Price: £10.99
Review H.M.S. "Surprise" / HarperCollins Audio:
Creator: Peter Firth
Publication date: 1996-01
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £53.99
Price: £94.99
Review Birdsong / Chivers Audio Books:Readers who are entranced by sweeping historical sagas will devour Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks' drama set during the first world war. There's even a little high-toned erotica thrown into the mix to convince the doubtful. The book's hero, a 20-year-old Englishman named Stephen Wraysford, finds his true love on a trip to Amiens in 1910. Unfortunately, she's already married, the wife of a wealthy textile baron. Wrayford convinces her to leave a life of passionless comfort to be at his side, but things do not turn out according to plan. Wraysford is haunted by this doomed affair and carries it with him into the trenches of the war. Birdsong derives most of its power from its descriptions of mud and blood, and Wraysford's attempt to retain a scrap of humanity while surrounded by it. There is a simultaneous description of his present-day granddaughter's quest to read his diaries, which is designed to give some sense of perspective; this device is only somewhat successful. Nevertheless, Birdsong is a rewarding read, an unflinching war story and a touching romance.
Creator: Simon Callow
Publication date: 1998-04-02
RRP: £9.99
Price: £10.00
Review Dance to the Music of Time: Kindly Ones (Dance to the Music of Time) / Hodder & Stoughton Audio Books:
Publication date: 2003-08-04
RRP: £8.99
Price: £8.94
Review Jessica's Girl / Headline:
Creator: Michael Kitchen
Publication date: 1994-07-28
Price: £8.99
Review Wide Sargasso Sea (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) / Penguin Audiobooks:
| Browse Fiction:
Models & Brands:
Officers and Gentlemen (Penguin Audiobooks), Precious Time (Tape), Claudius the God, Airs and Graces (Tape): Abridged, A Twist in the Tale: Complete & Unabridged, The Moonstone (Penguin Audiobooks), The Potter's Field: The Seventeenth Chronicle of Brother Cadfael: Complete & Unabridged, Third Girl: Complete & Unabridged, Valley of Bones (Dance to the Music of Time), Half Hidden: Complete & Unabridged, Twelve Red Herrings, Embers: Unabridged, The Children of Men: Complete & Unabridged, The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Men at Arms (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics), H.M.S. "Surprise", Birdsong, Dance to the Music of Time: Kindly Ones (Dance to the Music of Time), Jessica's Girl, Wide Sargasso Sea (Penguin Twentieth Century Classics) |
