Edition: New Ed
Publication date: 1998-07-06
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £18.99
Price: £7.50
Review The Hobbit (BBC Radio Collection) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:
Creator: Stephen Fry
Edition: Adult Ed
Publication date: 1999-11-01
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £21.98
Price: £1.08
Review Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - Adult Edition (Unabridged 6 Audio Cassette Set) / Cover to Cover Cassettes Ltd:Say you've spent the first 10 years of your life sleeping under the stairs of a family who loathes you. Then, in an absurd, magical twist of fate you find yourself surrounded by wizards, a caged snowy owl, a phoenix-feather wand and jellybeans that come in every flavour, including strawberry, curry, grass and sardine. Not only that, but you discover that you are a wizard yourself! This is exactly what happens to young Harry Potter in J K Rowling's enchanting, funny debut novel, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone. In the non-magical human world-the world of "Muggles"-Harry is a nobody, treated like dirt by the aunt and uncle who begrudgingly inherited him when his parents were killed by the evil Voldemort. But in the world of wizards, small, skinny Harry is renowned as a survivor of the wizard who tried to kill him. He is left only with a lightning-bolt scar on his forehead, curiously refined sensibilities and a host of mysterious powers to remind him that he's quite, yes, altogether different from his aunt, uncle, and spoilt, pig-like cousin Dudley. A mysterious letter, delivered by the friendly giant Hagrid, wrenches Harry from his dreary, Muggle-ridden existence: "We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry". Of course, Uncle Vernon yells most unpleasantly, "I AM NOT PAYING FOR SOME CRACKPOT OLD FOOL TO TEACH HIM MAGIC TRICKS!" Soon enough, however, Harry finds himself at Hogwarts with his owl Hedwig. [+]and that's where the real adventure-humorous, haunting, and suspenseful-begins. This magical, gripping, brilliant book-a future classic to be sure-will leave children clamouring for a sequel. (Ages 8-13) -Karin Snelson Just when it seems that there cannot possibly be another twist to the Harry Potter tale, Stephen Fry dons his haughtiest and naughtiest tones to bring Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone to vibrant life on audio. Harry Potter has spent the first 10 years of his life at the mercy of the dreadful Dursleys-the aunt, uncle and fat, spoilt brat of a cousin who reluctantly gave him a home after the death of his mother and father. But on his 11th birthday Harry discovers that he is no ordinary boy, and despite the best efforts of his hideous relatives he escapes to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry to begin his new life as a trainee wizard. And the rest, as they say, is history. As Harry battles against the evils thrown in his path, Stephen Fry injects the proceedings with a wry, dry and extremely contagious humour that perfectly suits the tale, wringing out the best in Harry and his cohorts as they get to grips with their new lives at the sharp end of Hogwarts. Fry's innate upper-class drone is perfectly suited to the telling of this most magical tale, cracking into the high-pitched squawking of Hermione the swat, or the gentle tones of the firm but fair Dumbledore, or the evil sniping of slimey Snape at precisely the right moments, adding further atmosphere and intensity to the story Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a fine story and much has been written about its success but until you have heard Fry's cracking reading of this most magical of stories then you simply haven't lived. As with any audio book, this one is perfect for car journeys and an ideal way of introducing reluctant readers to the magic that is Harry Potter. (Age 9 and over) -Susan Harrison.
Creator: Tony Robinson
Edition: Abridged
Publication date: 1995-11-01
Dewey code: 813
Price: £10.99
Review Moving Pictures (Discworld) / Corgi Audio:
Creator: Geoffrey McGivern
Publication date: 1998-03-02
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £11.00
Price: £3.98
Review The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Primary Phase (BBC Radio Collection) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:
Authors
- J.R.R. Tolkien
- Brian Sibley
Publication date: 2002-02-04
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £19.00
Price: £4.75
Review The Two Towers (Audio cassette) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:
Edition: Abridged
Publication date: 1993-03
Dewey code: 813.54
Price: £5.90
Review Sphere / Random House US Audio:
Creator: Tony Robinson
Edition: Abridged
Publication date: 1993-11-01
Dewey code: 813
Price: £10.99
Review The Colour of Magic (Discworld) / Corgi Audio:The Colour of Magic is Terry Pratchett's maiden voyage through the bizarre land of Discworld. His entertaining and witty series has grown to more than 20 books, and this is where it all starts-with the tourist Twoflower and his hapless wizard guide, Rincewind ("All wizards get like that. it's the quicksilver fumes. Rots their brains. Mushrooms, too. "). Pratchett spoofs fantasy clichés-and everything else he can think of-while marshalling a profusion of characters through a madcap adventure. The Colour of Magic is followed by The Light Fantastic. [+]-Blaise Selby, Amazon. com.
Authors
- Brian Sibley
- J. R. R. Tolkien
Publication date: 2002-01-07
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £11.00
Price: £11.00
Review Tales from the Perilous Realm: Farmer Giles of Ham/Smith of Wootton Major/The Adventures of Tom Bombadil/Leaf by Niggle (BBC Radio Collection) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:
Edition: Adult Edn.
Publication date: 2005-08-22
RRP: £55.00
Price: £33.00
Review Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter 6): Adult audio cassette edition / Bloomsbury Publishing PLC:Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, the sixth book in J. K. Rowling's bestselling series, picks up shortly after we left Harry at the end of The Order of the Phoenix. Lord Voldemort is acting out in the open, continuing his reign of terror which was temporarily stopped almost 15 years beforehand. Harry is again at the Dursleys, where the events of the previous month continue to weigh on his mind, although not as much as the impending visit from his Headmaster, Albus Dumbledore. Given their last meeting, Harry is understandably confused as to why the old wizard would want to visit him at home. Rowling opens with a chapter she had wanted to use for the first book, of The Philosopher's Stone-Lord Voldemort has been creating chaos in the Wizard and Muggle communities alike, the war is in full swing and the Wizarding community now lives in fear. The press have been questioning the events at the Ministry which led to the admission of Voldemort's return, and of course Harry's name is mentioned a number of times. Harry's got his problems, but his anxiety is nothing compared to Hermione's when the OWL results are delivered. There's a new Defence Against The Dark Arts teacher, an assortment of new characters and creatures, and startling revelations about past characters and events. [+]Gone is the rage-filled Harry of The Order of the Phoenix-he's not being kept in the dark any more, his unjustified Quidditch ban has been lifted and he has matured considerably in his short time out of school. Half-Blood Prince follows Harry into the world of late-teens, and his realisation that nobody is infallible has made his growth that much easier. Accepting his destiny, Harry continues to behave as teenagers do, enjoying his time with his friends, developing his relationships outside of his usual circle, and learning more about how he must, eventually, do what he is destined to do. J. K. Rowling delivers another fantastic tale which will have the readers gasping for more, capturing the characters perfectly and continuing a tale which readers will enjoy over and over again. -Ziggy Morbi.
Publication date: 1995-11
Review Dark Empire Collector's Set (5 CDs) / Time Warner Audio Major:
Creator: Martin Shaw
Edition: Abridged Ed
Publication date: 1993-05-24
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £15.99
Price: £3.40
Review The Hobbit (Abridged) / HarperCollins Audio:
Publication date: 2002-03-04
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £19.00
Price: £4.50
Review Lord of the Rings, Volume 3: Return of the King (BBC Radio 4 Full-cast Dramatisation) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:
Edition: Abridged
Publication date: 1999-11-30
Dewey code: 813.54
RRP: £9.99
Price: £1.50
Review The Secret of Shambhala: In Search of the Eleventh Insight / Warner Books:The Celestine Prophesy was one of the most influential New Age books of the last couple of decades, easily outstripping earlier cult books such as Robert Persig's Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Carlos Castenada's Don Juan books. The nine Insights of James Redfield's first book were added to by a second book, Tenth Insight and now by an 11th in The Secret of Shambhala. Books of this type have often had a certain ambiguity: are they supposed to be taken as factual accounts or as allegorical novels? Redfield's publishers are describing this one as "the new novel", and (probably to the disappointment of the book's many thousands of fans) The Celestine Prophesy as his "first novel". Fiction they are, then, but the word "novel" is perhaps misleading; these books are allegorical tall tales teaching tenets of practical philosophy: look out for coincidences in your life because synchronicities are meaningful. The 11th Insight is about the power of prayer or positive thinking or affirmation; the book mentions recent studies which indicate that patients who are prayed for heal more rapidly than those who are not. If you think positive thoughts, these will affect people around you in a good way; if you are full of anger and fear, you will attract precisely those things you most dread. The hard-bitten and cynical will see this book as yet another example of New Age psychobabble but for Redfield's many followers the teachings in this book will make a great deal of sense-and in any case, having a positive, loving attitude can only bring good. -David V. Barrett.
Creator: Stephen Fry
Edition: Adult Ed
Publication date: 2000-09-25
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £27.00
Price: £7.98
Review Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3 - Unabridged 8 Audio Cassette Set - Adult Edition) / Cover to Cover Cassettes Ltd:Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban is the third, and possibly the best, book in the phenomenally successful, award-winning Harry Potter series by JK Rowling. After just about surviving yet another summer with the dreadful Dursleys, the arrival of Aunt Marge is the final straw and, in a fit of anger, Harry casts a spell on her, causing her to blow up like a balloon. He fully expects to be expelled from Hogwarts for his blatant flaunting of the rule not to use magic outside term time, but the arrival of the mysterious Knight Bus and a meeting with Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, result in Harry enjoying the rest of the holidays in the wonderful surroundings of the Leaky Cauldron. Meanwhile Sirius Black-one-time friend of Harry's parents, implicated in their murder and follower of "You-Know-Who"-escapes from Azkaban and this has serious implications for Harry. Back at Hogwarts, Harry's movements are restricted by the presence of the Dementors-guards from Azkaban on the look-out for Black. Stephen Fry's endearingly snooty vocal chords are a perfect match for Rowling's superb storytelling, and Fry manages to give even further depth to a complex and absorbing plot by adding an irreverent wit and a deep-rooted touch of class to a compelling and magical tale that, once heard, will never be forgotten. -Susan Harrison The worry, when faced with the follow-up to books as good as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (both winners of the Nestlé Smarties Prize Gold Award), is that it won't be as good. With J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban any concerns are banished from page one. [+]This, the third in the series, continues where the previous two left off and is a fantastic adventure of mystery, magic and mayhem combined with liberal doses of humour and plenty of suspense. Forced to do his homework in the dead of night and forbidden to refer to his magic skills or his life at Hogwarts school, Harry Potter is forced to endure the summer holidays with the dreaded Dursleys. The arrival of Aunt Marge is the final straw and, in a fit of anger, Harry breaks all the rules and casts a spell on her, causing her to blow up like a balloon. Running away from his dreaded relatives, Harry expects to be expelled from Hogwarts for his blatant flaunting of the rule not to use magic outside term time. However, the arrival of the mysterious Knight Bus and a meeting with Cornelius Fudge, the Minister of Magic, result in Harry enjoying the rest of the holidays in the wonderful surroundings of the Leaky Cauldron. The escape of Sirius Black-one time friend of Harry's parents, implicated in their murder and follower of "You- Know-Who"-from Azkaban, has serious implications for Harry for it would appear that Black is bent on revenge against Harry for thwarting "You-Know-Who". Back at Hogwarts, Harry's movements are restricted by the presence of the Dementors-guards from Azkaban on the look out for Black-however, this doesn't stop him throwing himself into the new Quidditch season and going about his normal business-or at least attempting to. Despite warnings Harry is determined to get to the bottom of the mystery surrounding Sirius Black-how could this one-time close friend of his parents become the cause of their deaths? And why does the presence of the Dementors have such a devastating effect on him, causing him to hear the last moments of his mother's life? With another four Harry Potter novels planned, Jo Rowling is creating a series of books which will become classics to rival C. S. Lewis'Chronicles of Narnia-books written for children but loved by adults too. (Ages 9 and up) -Philippa Reece.
Publication date: 1991-10-07
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £50.01
Price: £12.44
Review The Lord of the Rings (BBC Radio Collection) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:
Creator: Tony Robinson
Publication date: 2001-04-01
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £10.99
Price: £5.11
Review Thief of Time / Corgi Audio:Terry Pratchett's Thief of Time, confronts Discworld and a variety of its defenders with an insidious menace; never before has the phrase "The End of History" had quite so sinister a sound. In the great stinking metropolis of Ankh Morpork, an obsessed clockmaker receives an unusual commission from an excessively beautiful woman whose feet do not touch the ground; strict school-teacher Susan finds herself summoned by her grandfather Death, to do him a favour; the monks who manage the even distribution of Time find themselves with a recalcitrant novice; and dairyman Ronnie Soak muses on his glory days, when he was the Fifth Rider of the Apocalypse, the one who left before they got famous. As always, the sometimes startlingly surrealistically original, sometimes comfortingly groanworthy, jokes are underlain by some intensely complex ideas and tight plotting. Susan sto Helit makes a reappearance as one of Pratchett's more interesting heroines; the sinister Lady LeJean is one of Pratchett's most interesting villains, particularly once we learn the answer to the mystery about her. There is an attractive darkness to much of the humour here-Pratchett is often at his best when at his darkest. -Roz Kaveney.
Creator: Martin Shaw
Publication date: 1998-06-15
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £10.99
Price: £6.44
Review The Silmarillion Part 1: Audio Cassette / HarperCollins Audio:Although The Silmarillion takes place in the same imaginary world as J. J. R Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, and was originally published four years after the author's death and over two decades after the former book, it is set much earlier, in the First Age of the World. The tales and the book which reads as a fusion between a story collection and historical chronicle, are a matter of legend even to the characters of The Lord of the Rings: In the beginning Eru, the One, who in the Elvish tongue is named Ilúvatar, made the Ainur of his thought; and they made a great Music before himTolkien wrote the heart of this material very early in his career, and continued to work on it throughout his life. It fell to his son, Christopher Tolkien, to edit it into book form, and such proved the unquenchable public appetite that he subsequently oversaw 12 volumes of The History of Middle-Earth. This edition features 20 highly evocative colour plates by Ted Nasmith, themselves worth the price of admission, while reinforcing the sense of a historical work are genealogical tables, an extensive index, appendix and colour map. Far removed from the genial style of The Hobbit, this is Tolkien at his most formal, his prose austere, poetically beautiful, his storytelling capturing the epic scale, high drama and melancholy wonder of myth. These stories of elves and heroes and old gods are quite literally the foundation of the entire modern fantasy-publishing revival, and are therefore essential reading. -Gary S. Dalkin JRR Tolkien is best known for The Hobbit and The Lord Of The Rings but those who thought these two wonderful adventures marked the height of his imagination have many more delights to come. [+]The Silmarillion represents the source of Tolkien's later work and follows the events of the First Age of Middle Earth. For information, The Lord Of The Rings concerns the end of the Third Age. The Silmarillion is a gloriously realised story of rebellion, exile, war and the heroism of elves and men. But to gain an insight into the staggering complexity of Tolkien's world, however, the shorter works also included are must-reads. Dealing with the myth of creation, the nature of the Gods, the fall of Númenor and the Rings of Power, they paint a vivid picture not only of Middle Earth but also of the author's soaring imagination. Tolkien was born of English parents in Bloemfontein, South Africa, in 1892 and died in England in 1973. He worked on The Silmarillion from as early as 1917 but the work was not published until after his death. This edition, richly illustrated by Ted Nasmith, is both collector's item and source of reference and fascination for every follower of Tolkien. -James Barclay.
Creator: Tony Robinson
Edition: Abridged
Publication date: 1997-11-01
Price: £10.99
Review Hogfather / Corgi Audio:What could more genuinely embody the spirit of Christmas (or Hogswatch, on the Discworld) than a Terry Pratchett book about the holiday season? Every secular Christmas tradition is included. But as this is the 21st Discworld novel, there are some unusual twists. This year the Auditors, who want people to stop believing in things that aren't real, have hired an assassin to eliminate the Hogfather. (You know him: red robe, white beard, says, "Ho, ho, ho!") Their evil plot will destroy the Discworld unless someone covers for him. So someone does. Well, at least Death tries. He wears the costume and rides the sleigh drawn by four jolly pigs: Gouger, Tusker, Rooter and Snouter. He even comes down chimneys. But as fans of other Pratchett stories about Death know, he takes things literally. He gives children whatever they wish for and appears in person at Crumley's in The Maul. [+]Fans will welcome back Susan, Death of Rats (the Grim Squeaker), Albert and the wizardly faculty of Unseen University and revel in new personalities like Bilious, the "oh god of Hangovers. " But you needn't have read Pratchett before to laugh uproariously and think seriously about the meanings of Christmas. -Nona Vero, Amazon. com.
Publication date: 1997-01-02
Price: £6.99
Review The Sixty Minute Marriage / Hodder & Stoughton Audio Books:
Publication date: 2005-05-23
Dewey code: 813
RRP: £10.99
Price: £1.98
Review The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Quandary Phase (BBC Audiobooks) / BBC Audiobooks Ltd:
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Models & Brands:
The Hobbit (BBC Radio Collection), Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - Adult Edition (Unabridged 6 Audio Cassette Set), Moving Pictures (Discworld), The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Primary Phase (BBC Radio Collection), The Two Towers (Audio cassette), Sphere, The Colour of Magic (Discworld), Tales from the Perilous Realm: Farmer Giles of Ham/Smith of Wootton Major/The Adventures of Tom Bombadil/Leaf by Niggle (BBC Radio Collection), Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince (Harry Potter 6): Adult audio cassette edition, Dark Empire Collector's Set (5 CDs), The Hobbit (Abridged), Lord of the Rings, Volume 3: Return of the King (BBC Radio 4 Full-cast Dramatisation), The Secret of Shambhala: In Search of the Eleventh Insight, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (Book 3 - Unabridged 8 Audio Cassette Set - Adult Edition), The Lord of the Rings (BBC Radio Collection), Thief of Time, The Silmarillion Part 1: Audio Cassette, Hogfather, The Sixty Minute Marriage, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Quandary Phase (BBC Audiobooks) |
