Prize Winners
Talking Books
The titles in this booklist are just a selection of the titles available for loan from the
RNIB National Library Talking Book Service.
Don’t forget you are allowed to have up to 6 books on loan. When you return a title,
you will then receive another one.
If you would like to read any of these titles then please contact the Customer Services
Team on 0303 123 9999 or email library@rnib.org.uk
If you would like further information, or help in selecting titles to read, then please
contact the Reader Services Team on 01733 37 53 33 or email
libraryinfo@rnib.org.uk.
You can write to us at RNIB NLS, PO Box 173, Peterborough PE2 6WS
Man Booker Prize (formerly the Booker Prize)
Adiga, Aravind
The white tiger. 2008. Read by David Thorpe, 9 hours 32 minutes. TB 16055.
Balram gets his break when a rich man hires him as a chauffeur, and takes him to live
in Delhi. As he drives his master to shopping malls and call centres, Balram becomes
increasingly aware of immense wealth and opportunity all around him, while knowing
that he will never be able to gain access to that world. As Balram broods over his
situation, he realizes that there is only one way he can become part of this glamorous
new India - by murdering his master. (Winner 2008). Contains strong language. TB
16055.
Ali, Monica
Brick Lane. 2003. Read by Tania Rodriguez, 18 hours 21 minutes. TB 13604.
Keeping house and rearing children, Nazneen does what is expected of her. Into that
fragile peace walks Karim, raising questions of longing and belonging that open her
eyes to surprising truths. While Nazneen struggles in Tower Hamlets, her sister
Hasina has her own dreams back home in Bangladesh. (Shortlisted 2003). TB 13604.
Atwood, Margaret
Oryx and Crake. 2004. Read by John Chancer, 12 hours 25 minutes. TB 13347.
Snowman may be the only survivor of an unnamed apocalypse. Once he was Jimmy,
a member of a scientific elite; now he lives in isolation and loneliness, trawling
through the past - the disappearance of his mother and the arrival of his mysterious
childhood companions Oryx and Crake. (Shortlisted 2003). Contains passages of a
sexual nature. TB 13347.
Atwood, Margaret
The blind assassin. 2000. Read by Liza Ross, 19 hours 46 minutes. TB 12317.
Even now, at the age of 82, Iris lives in the shadow cast by her younger sister Laura.
Now poor and trying to cope with a failing body, Iris reflects on her far from exemplary
life, in particular the events surrounding her sister's tragic death and the novel which
earned her such notoriety. (Winner 2000). Contains passages of a sexual nature. TB
12317.
Banville, John
The sea. 2005. Read by Stephen Hogan, 6 hours 40 minutes. TB 14351.
When Max Morden returns to the coastal town where he spent a holiday in his youth
he is both escaping from a recent loss and confronting a distant trauma. The Grace
family appear that long ago summer as if from another world. Drawn to the Grace
twins, Chloe and Myles, Max soon finds himself entangled in their lives, which are as
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seductive as they are unsettling. What ensues will haunt him for the rest of his years
and shape everything that is to follow. (Winner 2005). Contains strong language. TB
14351.
Barker, Nicola
Darkmans. 2007. Read by Mark Elstob, 27 hours 15 minutes. TB 15826.
'Darkmans' is a very modern book, set in Ashford (a ridiculously modern town), about
two very old-fashioned subjects: love and jealousy. It's also a book about invasion,
obsession, displacement and possession, about comedy, art, prescription drugs and
chiropody. And the main character? The past, which creeps up on the present and
whispers something quite dark - quite unspeakable - into its ear. (Shortlisted 2007).
Contains strong language and passages of a sexual nature. TB 15826.
Barnes, Julian
Arthur & George. 2005. Read by Steve Hodson, 19 hours 52 minutes. TB 14302.
Arthur and George grow up worlds apart in late nineteenth century Britain: Arthur in
shabby-genteel Edinburgh, George in the vicarage of a small Staffordshire village.
Arthur becomes a doctor, then a writer; George a solicitor in Birmingham. Arthur is to
become one of the most famous men of his age, while George remains in hardworking obscurity. However as the new century begins, they are brought together by
a sequence of events which made sensational headlines at the time as The Great
Wyrley Outrages. (Shortlisted 2005). Contains violence. TB 14302.
Barry, Sebastian
The secret scripture. 2008. Read by Stephen Hogan, 10 hours 43 minutes. TB
16056.
Roseanne McNulty faces an uncertain future, as the Roscommon Regional Mental
hospital where she's spent the best part of her adult life prepares for closure. Over the
weeks leading up to this upheaval, she talks often with her psychiatrist Dr Grene, and
their relationship intensifies and complicates. Refracted through the haze of memory
and retelling, Roseanne's story becomes an alternative, secret history of Ireland's
changing character and the story of a life blighted by terrible mistreatment and
ignorance, and yet marked still by love and passion and hope. (Shortlisted 2008). TB
16056.
Byatt, A S
The children's book. 2009. Read by Judy Franklin, 32 hours 56 minutes. TB
16724.
Olive Wellwood, a famous writer, writes for each of her children a separate private
book, bound in different colours and placed on a shelf. In their rambling house near
Romney Marsh the children play in a story-book world - but their lives, and those of
their rich cousins, children of a city stockbroker, and their friends, the son and
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daughter of a curator at the new Victoria and Albert Museum, are already inscribed
with mystery. (Shortlisted 2009). Contains strong language. TB 16724.
Carey, Peter
True history of the Kelly gang. 2001. Read by John Eastmann, 12 hours 30
minutes. TB 12665.
This story is the song of Australia, and it sings its protest in a voice at once crude and
delicate, menacing and heart-wrenching. The author gives us Ned Kelly as orphan, as
Oedipus, as horse thief, farmer, bushranger, reformer, bank-robber, police-killer and
as his country's Robin Hood. (Winner 2001). Unsuitable for family reading. TB 12665.
Carey, Peter
Parrot and Olivier in America. 2010. Read by Gordon Griffin and Jonathan
Keeble, 14 hours 58 minutes. TB 17385.
Olivier is a French aristocrat, the traumatized child of survivors of the Revolution.
Parrot the son of an itinerant printer who always wanted to be an artist but has ended
up a servant. Born on different sides of history, their lives will be brought together by
their travels in America. When Olivier sets sail for the New World, ostensibly to study
its prisons but in reality to save his neck from one more revolution - Parrot is sent with
him, as spy, protector, foe and foil. (Shortlisted 2010) Contains strong language. TB
17385.
Coetzee, J M
Summertime: scenes from provincial life. 2009. Read by various narrators, 8
hours 48 minutes. TB 16776.
A young English biographer is working on a book about the late writer, John Coetzee.
He plans to focus on the years from 1972-1977 when Coetzee, in his thirties, is
sharing a run-down cottage in the suburbs of Cape Town with his widowed father.
This, the biographer senses, is the period when he was 'finding his feet as a writer'.
Never having met Coetzee, he embarks on a series of interviews with people who
were important to him. (Shortlisted 2009). Contains strong language. TB 16776.
Dangor, Achmat
Bitter fruit. 2004. Read by Paul Herzberg, 10 hours 19 minutes. TB 13894.
The last time Silas Ali encountered the Lieutenant, Silas was locked in the back of a
police van and the Lieutenant was conducting a vicious assault on Lydia, his wife.
When Silas sees him again, by chance, crimes from the past erupt into the present,
splintering the Ali's fragile family life. (Shortlisted 2004). Contains strong language. TB
13894.
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Desai, Kiran
The inheritance of loss. 2006. Read by Steve Hodson, 13 hours 47 minutes. TB
14792.
At the foot of Mount Kanchenjunga in the Himalayas, lives an embittered old judge
who wants nothing more than to retire in peace. But with the arrival of his orphaned
granddaughter, Sai, and his cook's son trying to stay a step ahead of US immigration
services, this is far from easy. When a Nepalese insurgency threatens Sai's
blossoming romance with her handsome tutor they are forced to consider their
colliding interests. (Winner 2006). TB 14792.
Donoghue, Emma
Room. 2010. Read by various narrators, 10 hours 45 minutes. TB 17969.
It's Jack's birthday, and he's excited about turning five. Jack lives with his Ma in
Room, which has a locked door and a skylight, and measures 11 feet by 11 feet. He
loves watching TV, and the cartoon characters he calls friends, but he knows that
nothing he sees on screen is truly real - only him, Ma and the things in Room. Until
the day Ma admits that there's a world outside. Told in Jack's voice, "Room" is the
story of a mother and son whose love lets them survive the impossible. (Shortlisted
2010). TB 17969.
Enright, Anne
The gathering. 2007. Read by Alison McKenna, 8 hours 5 minutes. TB 15399.
This is a family epic, condensed and clarified through the lens of Anne Enright's
unblinking eye. It is also a sexual history: tracing the line of hurt and redemption
through three generations - starting with the grandmother, Ada Merriman - showing
how memories warp and family secrets fester. This is a novel about love and
disappointment, about thwarted lust and limitless desire, and how our fate is written in
the body, not in the stars. (Winner 2007). Contains strong language. TB 15399.
Foulds, Adam
The quickening maze. 2009. Read by Damian Lynch, 7 hours 3 minutes. TB
16755.
Based on real events in Epping Forest on the edge of London around 1840, this novel
centres on the first incarceration of the great nature poet, John Clare, in High Beach
Private Asylum. At the same time another poet, the young Alfred Tennyson, moves
nearby and becomes entangled in the life and catastrophic schemes of the asylum's
owner, the peculiar, charismatic Dr Matthew Allen. This novel describes his
vertiginous fall, through hallucinatory episodes of insanity and dissolving identity,
towards his final madness. (Shortlisted 2009). Contains passages of a sexual nature
and is unsuitable for family reading. TB 16755.
5
Galgut, Damon
The good doctor. 2003. Read by Jon Cartwright, 7 hours. TB 13542.
When Laurence Waters arrives at his rural hospital posting, Frank is instantly
suspicious. Laurence is everything Frank is not - young and optimistic. The two
become uneasy friends, while the rest of the staff in the deserted hospital view
Laurence with a mixture of awe and mistrust. (Shortlisted 2003). Contains strong
language. TB 13542.
Galgut, Damon
In a strange room. 2010. Read by Paul Herzburg, 6 hours 7 minutes. TB 17968.
A young man takes three journeys, through Greece, India and Africa. He travels
lightly, simply. To those who travel with him and those whom he meets on the way including a handsome, enigmatic stranger, a group of careless backpackers and a
woman on the edge - he is the Follower, the Lover and the Guardian. Yet, despite the
man's best intentions, each journey ends in disaster. Together, these three journeys
will change his whole life. (Shortlisted 2010). TB 17968.
Ghosh, Amitav
Sea of poppies. 2008. Read by Steve Hodson, 21 hours 58 minutes. TB 16054.
At the heart of this epic saga, set just before the Opium Wars, is an old slaving-ship,
The Ibis. Its destiny is a tumultuous voyage across the Indian Ocean, its crew a
motley array of sailors and stowaways, coolies and convicts. Fate has thrown
together a truly diverse cast of Indians and Westerners, from a bankrupt Raja to a
widowed villager, from an evangelical English opium trader to a mulatto American
freedman. As their old family ties are washed away they, like their historical
counterparts, come to view themselves as jahaj-bhais or ship-brothers. An unlikely
dynasty is born, which will span continents, races and generations. (Shortlisted 2008).
Contains strong language. TB 16054.
Grant, Linda
The clothes on their backs. 2008. Read by Lucy Scott, 8 hours 40 minutes. TB
16040.
In a red brick mansion block off the Marylebone Road, Vivien, a sensitive, bookish girl
grows up sealed off from both past and present by her timid refugee parents. Then
one morning a glamorous uncle appears, dressed in a mohair suit, with a diamond
watch on his wrist and a girl in a leopard-skin hat on his arm. Why is Uncle Sandor so
violently unwelcome in her parents' home? Set against the backdrop of a London
from the 1950s to the present day, this is a novel about the clothes we choose to
wear, the personalities we dress ourselves in, and about how they define us all.
(Shortlisted 2008). Contains strong language. TB 16040.
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Grenville, Kate
The secret river. 2006. Read by Richard Burnip, 12 hours 18 minutes. TB 14787.
London, 1807 - William Thornhill, happily wedded to his childhood sweetheart Sal, is
a waterman on the River Thames. Life is tough but bearable until William makes a
mistake, a bad mistake for which he and his family are made to pay dearly. His
sentence: to be transported to New South Wales for the term of his natural life. Soon
Thornhill, a man neither better nor worse than most, has to make the most difficult
decision of his life... (Shortlisted 2006). Contains strong language. TB 14787.
Hall, Sarah
The electric Michelangelo. 2004. Read by Jonathan Oliver, 14 hours 3 minutes.
TB 13893.
This tells the story of Cy Parks, from his childhood spent in a seaside guest house for
consumptives with his mother, to his apprenticeship as a tattoo-artist. His skills
acquired and a thirst for experience burning within him, he departs for America and
the riotous world of the Coney Island boardwalk, where he sets up his own business
as 'The electric Michelangelo'. Here he meets Grace, a mysterious immigrant and
circus performer who commissions him to cover her body entirely with tattooed eyes.
(Shortlisted 2004). Contains strong language. TB 13893.
Hamid, Mohsin
The reluctant fundamentalist. 2007. Read by Satya Bhabha, 4 hours 46 minutes.
TB 15527.
At a cafe table in Lahore, a Pakistani man begins the tale that has led to his fateful
meeting with an uneasy American stranger... Changez is living an immigrant's dream
of America. He thrives on the energy of New York, his work at an elite firm, and his
budding relationship. For a time, it seems that nothing will stand in the way of his
meteoric rise to success. But in the wake of September 11, Changez finds his
relationship crumbling and his exalted status overturned. (Shortlisted 2007). TB
15527.
Heller, Zoe
Notes on a scandal. 2003. Read by Diana Bishop, 7 hours 46 minutes. TB 13678.
When Sheba Hart joins St George's as the new pottery teacher, lonely Barbara
Covett senses that she has found a kindred spirit. But Barbara is not the only one
drawn to Sheba. Before long Sheba is involved in an illicit affair with a pupil. Barbara
is powerless to stop Sheba from pursuing her foolhardy course of action. But when
the liaison is found out and Sheba's marriage falls apart, Barbara is loyally standing
by, ready to provide succour. (Shortlisted 2003). Contains strong language. TB
13678.
7
Hensher, Philip
The northern clemency. 2008. Read by Owain Shaw, 29 hours 31 minutes. TB
16041.
Set in Sheffield, this epic charts the relationship between two families: Malcolm and
Katherine Glover and their three children; and their neighbours the Sellers family,
newly arrived from London so that Bernie can pursue his job with the Electricity
Board. The day the Sellers move in there is a crisis across the road: Malcolm Glover
has left home, convinced his wife is having an affair. The consequences of this
rupture will spread throughout the lives of both couples and their children, in particular
10-year-old Tim Glover, who never quite recovers from a moment of his mother's
public cruelty and the amused taunting of 15-year-old Sandra Sellers, childhood
crises that will come to a head twenty years later. In the background, England is
changing: from a manufacturing and industrial based economy into a new world of
shops, restaurants and service industries, a shift particularly marked in the North with
the miners' strike of 1984, which has a dramatic impact on both families. (Shortlisted
2008). Contains strong language. TB 16041.
Hollinghurst, Alan
The line of beauty. 2004. Read by Daniel Philpott, 16 hours 52 minutes. TB
13890.
"The line of beauty" traces the further history of a decade of change and tragedy. In
the summer of 1983, 20-year-old Nick Guest moves into an attic room in the Notting
Hill home of the Feddens as the Thatcher boom-years unfold. (Winner 2004).
Contains strong language. TB 13890.
Hyland, M J
Carry me down. 2006. Read by John Cormack, 9 hours 25 minutes. TB 14790.
A story that at its heart examines an adolescent's difficulties navigating the world.
John Egan is a misfit - a twelve-year-old in the body of a grown man with the voice of
a giant - who diligently keeps track of the lies large and small that are told to him.
(Shortlisted 2006). Contains strong language. TB 14790.
Ishiguro, Kazuo
Never let me go. 2005. Read by Rachel Atkins, 8 hours 36 minutes. TB 14158.
A reunion with two childhood friends draws Kathy and her companions on a nostalgic
odyssey into their lives at Hailsham, an isolated private school in the English
countryside, and a confrontation with the truth about their childhoods. (Shortlisted
2005). Contains passages of a sexual nature. TB 14158.
8
Jacobson, Howard
The Finkler question. 2010. Read by Steven Crossley, 12 hours 34 minutes. TB
17970.
Julian Treslove, a professionally unspectacular former BBC radio producer, and Sam
Finkler, a popular Jewish philosopher, writer and television personality, are old school
friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they've never quite lost
touch with each other - or with their former teacher, Libor Sevick, a Czech always
more concerned with the wider world than with exam results. Now, both Libor and
Finkler are recently widowed, and with Treslove, his chequered and unsuccessful
record with women rendering him an honorary third widower, they dine at Libor's
grand, central London apartment. It's a sweetly painful evening of reminiscence in
which all three remove themselves to a time before they had loved and lost; a time
before they had fathered children, before the devastation of separations, before they
had prized anything greatly enough to fear the loss of it. (Winner 2010). TB 17970.
Jones, Lloyd
Mister Pip. 2007. Read by Lucy Scott, 6 hours 38 minutes. TB 15400.
It is Bougainville in 1991 - a small village on a lush tropical island in the South Pacific.
Eighty-six days have passed since Matilda's last day of school as, quietly, war is
encroaching from the other end of the island. When the villagers' safe, predictable
lives come to a halt, Bougainville's children are surprised to find the island's only
white man, a recluse, re-opening the school. Pop Eye, aka Mr Watts, explains he will
introduce the children to Mr Dickens. (Shortlisted 2007). Contains strong language.
TB 15400.
Kelman, James
Kieron Smith, boy. 2009. Read by Robert Howat, 14 hours 18 minutes. TB 16658.
Rejected by his brother and largely ignored by his parents, Kieron Smith finds comfort
and endless stories in the home of his much-loved grandparents. But when his family
move to a new housing scheme on the outskirts of Glasgow, a world away from the
close community of the tenements, Kieron struggles to find a way to adapt to his new
life. Kieron Smith, boy is a brilliant evocation of an urban childhood. Capturing the
joys, frustrations, injustices, excitements, revels, battles, games, uncertainties,
questions, lies, discoveries and sheer of wonder of boyhood, it is a story of one boy
and every boy. (Shortlisted 2009). Contains strong language and is unsuitable for
family reading. TB 16658.
Levy, Andrea
The long song. 2010. Read by Andrea Levy and Adrian Lester, 11 hours 21
minutes. TB 17753.
This tale is set in Jamaica during the last turbulent years of slavery and the early
years of freedom that followed. July is a slave girl who lives upon a sugar plantation
named Amity and it is her life that is the subject of this tale. She was there when the
9
Baptist War raged in 1831, and she was also present when slavery was declared no
more. (Shortlisted 2010). TB 17753.
Mantel, Hilary
Wolf Hall. 2009. Read by Christopher Oxford, 25 hours 11 minutes. TB 16735.
England, the 1520s. Henry VIII is on the throne, but has no heir. Cardinal Wolsey is
his chief advisor, charged with securing the divorce the pope refuses to grant. Into
this atmosphere of distrust and need comes Thomas Cromwell, first as Wolsey's
clerk, and later his successor. Cromwell is a wholly original man: the son of a brutal
blacksmith, a political genius, a briber, a charmer, a bully, a man with a delicate and
deadly expertise in manipulating people and events. Ruthless in pursuit of his own
interests, he is as ambitious in his wider politics as he is for himself. His reforming
agenda is carried out in the grip of a self-interested parliament and a king who
fluctuates between romantic passions and murderous rages. (Winner 2009). Contains
strong language. TB 16735.
Martel, Yann
Life of Pi. 2002. Read by Garrick Hagon, 12 hours 38 minutes. TB 13950.
Pi and his family, who own a zoo, decide to emigrate from India. On the way, tragedy
strikes and the ship is sunk. Pi finds himself in a life boat with a hyena, a zebra, a
tiger and an orangutan. He manages to keep his wits as the food chain establishes
itself. (Winner 2002). Unsuitable for family reading. TB 13950.
Matar, Hisham
In the country of men. 2006. Read by Nigel Graham, 8 hours 2 minutes. TB
14791.
On a white-hot day in Tripoli in the summer of 1979, nine-year-old Suleiman is
shopping in the market square with his mother. His father is away on business - but
Suleiman is sure he has just seen him, standing across the street. Why doesn't he
come over when he knows Suleiman's mother is falling apart? Whispers intensify
around Suleiman as his friend's father disappears and his mother frantically burns his
father's books. As Suleiman begins to wonder whether his father has gone for good, it
feels as if the walls of his home will break with the secrets held within. (Shortlisted
2006). Contains strong language. TB 14791.
Mawer, Simon
The glass room. 2009. Read by Daniel Philpott, 14 hours 38 minutes. TB 16757.
High on a Czechoslovak hill, the Landauer House shines as a wonder of steel and
glass and onyx built specially for newlyweds Viktor and Liesel Landauer, a Jew
married to a gentile. But the radiant honesty of 1930 that the house, with its unique
Glass Room, seems to engender quickly tarnishes as the storm clouds of WW2
gather, and eventually the family must flee, accompanied by Viktor's lover and her
child. But the house's story is far from over, and as it passes from hand to hand, from
10
Czech to Russian, both the best and the worst of the history of Eastern Europe
becomes somehow embodied and perhaps emboldened within the beautiful and
austere surfaces and planes so carefully designed, until events come full-circle.
(Shortlisted 2009). Contains strong language and passages of a sexual nature. TB
16757.
McCarthy, Tom
C. 2010. Read by Christopher Oxford, 14 hours 58 minutes. TB 17967.
"C" follows the short, intense life of Serge Carrefax. Born to the sound of one of the
very earliest experimental wireless stations, Serge finds himself steeped in a weird
world of transmissions, whose very air seems filled with cryptic and poetic signals of
all kinds. When personal loss strikes him in his adolescence, this world takes on a
darker and more morbid aspect. What follows is a stunning tour de force in which the
eerily idyllic settings of pre-war Europe give way to the exhilarating flight-paths of the
frontline aeroplane radio operator, then the prison camps of Germany, the drugfuelled London of the roaring twenties and, finally, the ancient tombs of Egypt.
Contains strong language and passages of a sexual nature. (Shortlisted 2010). TB
17967.
McEwan, Ian
On chesil beach. 2007. Read by Daniel Philpott, 4 hours 12 minutes. TB 15170.
It is July 1962. Edward and Florence, young innocents married that morning, arrive at
a hotel on the Dorset coast. At dinner in their rooms they struggle to suppress their
private fears of the wedding night to come. (Shortlisted 2007). Contains passages of a
sexual nature. TB 15170.
McEwan, Ian
Atonement. 2002. Read by Carole Boyd, 12 hours 33 minutes. TB 13411.
A story that begins with three young people in the garden of a country house on the
hottest day of 1935, and ends with three profoundly changed lives. A depiction of love
and war, class, childhood and England, that explores shame and forgiveness,
atonement and the possibility of absolution. (Shortlisted 2001). Contains passages of
a sexual nature. TB 13411.
Miller, Andrew
Oxygen. 2001. Read by Daniel Philpott, 10 hours 30 minutes. TB 13107.
In the summer of 1997 Alec Valentine returns to the West Country house of his
childhood to care for his gravely ill mother, Alice. In San Francisco, his older brother
Larry prepares to visit too, knowing it will be hard to conceal that his acting career is
sliding towards sleaze and his marriage is faltering. By contrast, Laszlo Lazar, the
Hungarian exile whose play Alec is translating, seems to have it all. Yet Laszlo cannot
shake off his memories of the 1956 uprising. For all four, the moment has come to
assess the turnings taken and the opportunities foregone, the achievements and the
11
failures, the point of it all. (Shortlisted 2001). Contains passages of a sexual nature.
TB 13107.
Mitchell, David
number9dream. 2001. Read by Daniel Philpott, 16 hours 50 minutes. TB 13235.
Eiji Miyake arrives in a sprawling Japanese metropolis to track down the father he has
never met, but the city is a mapless place if you are 18, broke, and the only person
you can trust is John Lennon. (Shortlisted 2001). Contains violence. TB 13235.
Morrall, Clare
Astonishing splashes of colour. 2003. Read by Rachel Atkins, 9 hours 45
minutes. TB 13538.
Caught in an over-vivid world, Kitty feels haunted by her child that never was. As
children all around become emblems of hope, longing and grief, she learns the
reasons for her shaky sense of self. What family mystery makes Kittty's four brothers
so vague about her mother’s life? And why does Dad splash paint on canvas rather
than answer his daughter’s questions? On the edges of her dreams Kitty glimpses the
kaleidoscope van that took her sister Dinah away - is it a link to her indistinct
childhood? (Shortlisted 2003). TB 13538.
Pierre, D B C
Vernon God Little: a 21st century comedy in the presence of death. 2003. Read
by Kevin Collins, 9 hours 50 minutes. TB 13694.
Fifteen-year-old Vernon Gregory Little is in trouble, and it has something to do with
the recent massacre of 16 students at his high school. Soon, the quirky backwater of
Martirio, barbecue capital of Texas, is flooded with wannabe CNN hacks, eager for a
scapegoat. (Winner 2003). Contains strong language. TB 13694.
Robertson, James
The testament of Gideon Mack. 2007. Read by Hugh Ross, 14 hours 43 minutes.
TB 15017.
For Gideon Mack, faithless minister, unfaithful husband and troubled soul, the
existence of God, let alone the Devil, is no more credible than that of ghosts or fairies.
Until the day he falls into a gorge and is rescued by someone who might just be Satan
himself. His testament recounts one man's emotional crisis, disappearance,
resurrection and death. (Shortlisted 2007). Contains strong language. TB 15017.
Seiffert, Rachel
The dark room. 2001. Read by Elaine Claxton, 10 hours 21 minutes. TB 13579.
"The Dark Room" tells three stories: that of Helmut a young photographer in the
1930s; Lore a twelve-year-old girl at the end of the war; and Micha a young school
teacher, half a century later. Between them, the reader traces the legacy of the Nazi
12
period on the lives of ordinary Germans. (Shortlisted 2001). Contains strong
language. TB 13579.
Sinha, Indra
Animal's people. 2007. Read by Steve Hodson, 17 hours 47 minutes. TB 15824.
Ever since he can remember, Animal has gone on all fours, the catastrophic result of
what happened on That Night when, thanks to an American chemical company, the
Apocalypse visited his slum. Now not quite twenty, he leads a hand-to-mouth
existence with his dog Jara and a crazy old nun called Ma Franci, and spends his
nights fantasising about Nisha, the daughter of a local musician, and wondering what
it must be like to get laid. When a young American doctor, Elli Barber, comes to town
to open a free clinic for the still suffering townsfolk - only to find herself struggling to
convince them that she isn't there to do the dirty work of the 'Kampani' - Animal
plunges into a web of intrigues, scams and plots with the unabashed aim of turning
events to his own advantage. (Shortlisted 2007). Contains strong language. TB
15824.
Smith, Ali
Hotel world. 2001. Read by Kate McGoldrick, 6 hours 54 minutes. TB 13508.
This story brings alive five characters, one of whom is dead, during one night in a
hotel. The author traces their intersecting lives, examining the themes of time,
chance, money and death. (Shortlisted 2001). TB 13508.
St Aubyn, Edward
Mother's milk. 2006. Read by Raymond Sawyer, 8 hours 49 minutes. TB 14788.
The once illustrious, once wealthy Melroses are in peril. Caught in the wreckage of
broken promises, child-rearing, adultery and assisted suicide, Patrick finds his wife
consumed by motherhood, his mother consumed by a New Age foundation, and his
five-year-old son Robert understanding far more than he ought. (Shortlisted 2006).
Contains strong language. TB 14788.
Toibin, Colm
The master. 2004. Read by Peter Marinker, 14 hours 29 minutes. TB 13892.
It is January 1895 and Henry James's play Guy Domville, from which he hoped to
make a fortune, has failed on the London stage. The Master opens with this disaster
and takes James through the next five years, as having found his dream retreat, he
moves to Rye in Sussex. It is there he writes his short masterpiece, The Turn of the
Screw, in which he used much of his own life as an exile in England and a member of
one of the great eccentric American families. He is impelled by the need to work and
haunted by sections of his own past, including his own failure to fight in the American
Civil War, the golden summer of 1865, and the death of his sister Alice. He is watchful
and witty, relishing the England in which he has come to live and regretting the New
England he has left. (Shortlisted 2004). TB 13892.
13
Toltz, Steve
A fraction of the whole. 2008. Read by John Eastman and Peter Wickham, 23
hours 10 minutes. TB 16053.
Martin Dean spent his entire life analyzing absolutely everything - from the benefits of
suicide to the virtues of strip clubs - and passing on his self-taught knowledge to his
son, Jasper. But now that his father's dead, Jasper recounts a boyhood of outrageous
schemes and shocking discoveries - about his infamous criminal uncle, his
mysteriously absent mother, and Martin's constant battle to leave his mark on the
world. (Shortlisted 2008). Contains strong language. TB 16053.
Trevor, William
The story of Lucy Gault. 2002. Read by Kate Binchy, 7 hours 30 minutes. TB
12879.
Captain Gault has decided that his family must leave Lahardane. They are after all
Protestants living in the big house in rural Cork, and the country is in turmoil. It is
1921. But eight-year-old Lucy can't bear to leave the seashore, the old house, the
woods - so she hatches a plan. (Shortlisted 2002). TB 12879.
Waters, Sarah
The night watch. 2006. Read by Elaine Caxton, 17 hours 21 minutes. TB 14772.
This is the story of four Londoners - three women and a young man with a past. Kay,
who drove an ambulance during the war and lived life at full throttle, now dresses in
mannish clothes and wanders the streets with a restless hunger, searching. Helen,
clever, sweet, much-loved, harbours a painful secret. Viv, glamour girl, is stubbornly,
even foolishly loyal, to her soldier lover. Duncan, an apparent innocent, has had his
own demons to fight during the war. Their lives, and their secrets connect in
sometimes startling ways. (Shortlisted 2006). Contains strong language. TB 14772.
Waters, Sarah
Fingersmith. 2002. Read by Rachel Atkins, 20 hours 2 minutes. TB 12892.
Set in a den of thieves in 1860's London, this novel focuses on Susan, a pickpocket,
who is persuaded by her cohorts to pose as a lady's maid and infiltrate the household
of Maud, a young heiress in possession of a large inheritance. (Shortlisted 2002).
Contains strong language. TB 12892.
Waters, Sarah
The little stranger. 2009. Read by Simon Vance, 15 hours 54 minutes. TB 16895.
In a dusty post-war summer in rural Warwickshire, a doctor is called to a patient at
Hundreds Hall. Home to the Ayres family for over two centuries, the Georgian house,
once grand and handsome, is now in decline, its masonry crumbling, its gardens
choked with weeds, the clock in its stable yard permanently fixed at twenty to nine.
But are the Ayreses haunted by something more sinister than a dying way of life?
14
Little does Dr Faraday know how closely, and how terrifyingly, their story is about to
become entwined with his. (Shortlisted 2009). TB 16895.
Winton, Tim
Dirt music. 2002. Read by Nigel Graham, 12 hours 52 minutes. TB 12747.
Set in Western Australia, Georgie Jutland is a mess. At 40, with her career in ruins,
she finds herself stranded in White Point with a fisherman she doesn't love and two
kids whose dead mother she can never replace. Then a dangerous element enters
her life - Luther Fox. (Shortlisted 2002). Contains strong language. TB 12747.
Woodward, Gerard
I'll go to bed at noon. 2004. Read by Steve Hodson, 17 hours 26 minutes. TB
13888.
It is 1970 in the suburbs of north London and, from the untidy comfort of her crowded
house, Colette Jones is watching her older brother go to pieces in a cold, modern culde-sac up the road. Childless, recently widowed, he is drinking himself into oblivion on
home-made wine, and then brewing up shoe polish when the tomato sherry runs out.
Colette knows the solace a drink can provide, being partial to an evening at the Red
Lion and a few 'Gold Labels' herself. But soon she finds she cannot afford to ignore
the destructive effect that alcohol is having on her family. (Shortlisted 2004). Contains
strong language. TB 13888.
Costa Book Awards (formerly the Whitbread Awards)
Athill, Diana
Somewhere towards the end. 2009. Read by Nicolette McKenzie, 4 hours 38
minutes. TB 16483.
Diana Athill made her reputation as a writer with the candour of her memoirs, now
aged ninety, and freed from any inhibitions that even she may once have had, she
reflects frankly on the losses and occasionally the gains that old age brings, and on
the wisdom and fortitude required to face death. This is a lively narrative of events,
lovers and friendships: the people and experiences that have taught her to regret very
little, to resist despondency and to question the beliefs and customs of her own
generation. (Biography Award 2008). Contains strong language. TB 16483.
Boyd, William
Restless. 2007. Read by Beth Chalmers, 11 hours 20 minutes. TB 14908.
It is 1939. Eva Delectorskaya is a beautiful 28-year-old Russian émigré living in Paris.
As war breaks out she is recruited for the British Secret Service by Lucas Romer, a
mysterious Englishman, and under his tutelage she learns to become the perfect spy,
to mask her emotions and to trust nobody. Now years later she must complete one
15
final assignment and this time she needs her daughter Ruth's help. (Novel Award
2006). Contains strong language. TB 14908.
Evans, Diana
26a. 2006. Read by Madeleine Hyland, 9 hours 9 minutes. TB 15242.
Four sisters live at 26a, in a shabby London neighbourhood, coping with their
alcoholic English father and their spirit-talking Nigerian mother. To escape, the twins
create their own world in an attic room. As they grow into adulthood they discover a
life apart but cannot escape the oneness of their relationship. (Shortlisted First Novel
Award 2005). TB 15242.
Farley, Paul
The ice age. 2002. Read by Jonathan Oliver, 1 hour 45 minutes. TB 13338.
The Ice Age sees Farley extend his range to embrace a new and philosophical
seriousness. His gift is to uncover the evidence so often overlooked by less attentive
observers, finding - in childhood games, dental records and dog-eared field guides those details by which we are proven and elegised. Formally deft and dizzying in its
variety, The Ice Age will consolidate Farley's reputation as one of the most
imaginative and enduring poets to have emerged in recent years. (Winner Poetry
Award 2002) TB 13338.
Fletcher, Susan
Eve Green. 2005. Read by Penelope Freeman, 7 hours 48 minutes. TB 14095.
Following the loss of her mother, eight-year-old Evie is sent to a new life in rural
Wales - a dripping place, where flowers appear mysteriously on doorsteps and people
look at her twice. With a sense of being lied to she sets out to discover her family's
dark secret - unaware that there is yet more darkness to come with the sinister
disappearance of local girl Rosemary Hughes. Now many years later Eve Green is
waiting for the birth of her own child, and when she revisits her past something clicks
in her mind and her own reckless role in the hunt for Rosie's abductor is revealed.
(First Novel Award 2004). Contains strong language. TB 14095.
Foulds, Adam
The broken word. 2008. Read by Mark Elstob, 1 hour 16 minutes. TB 16479.
Set in the 1950s, "The broken word" is a poetic sequence that animates and
illuminates a dark, terrifying period in British colonial history. Tom has returned to his
family's farm in Kenya for the summer vacation between school and university when
he is swept up by the events of the Mau Mau uprising. (Poetry Award 2008). Contains
strong language and is unsuitable for family reading. TB 16479.
16
Guy, John Alexander
My heart is my own: the life of Mary Queen of Scots. 2004. Read by Greg
Wagland, 23 hours 23 minutes. TB 14770.
To some she was a murderer, an adulteress, and a traitor. To others she was
courageous and principled, a heroine and a martyr. In this biography John Guy
returns to the archives to explode the myths and correct the inaccuracies in the
dramatic life of Mary Queen of Scots. (Biography Award 2004). TB 14770.
Haddon, Mark
A spot of bother. 2006. Read by Steve Hodson, 13 hours 27 minutes. TB 15056.
At fifty-seven, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a shed in
his garden, reading historical novels, listening to a bit of light jazz. Then Katie, his
tempestuous daughter, announces that she is getting remarried, her mother Jean is a
bit put out by all the planning and arguing the wedding has occasioned, which get in
the way of her quite fulfilling late-life affair with one of her husband's former
colleagues. And his son Jamie's life crumbles when he fails to invite his lover, Tony,
to the dreaded nuptials. Unnoticed in the uproar, George discovers a sinister lesion
on his hip, and quietly begins to lose his mind. (Shortlisted Novel Award 2006).
Contains strong language. TB 15056.
Jones, Sadie
The outcast. 2008. Read by Richard Teverson, 11 hours 3 minutes. TB 15980.
This book is about a boy called Lewis - his childhood and adolescence as he grows
up in the stultifying world of the home counties in the late forties and fifties. It is an
everyday tale of drunkenness, violence and a fair amount of sex, set amongst the
well-brought-up professional classes. It is also a love story. (First Novel Award 2008).
Contains strong language. TB 15980.
Kennedy, A L
Day. 2007. Read by Nick Underwood, 10 hours 55 minutes. TB 15099.
Before Hitler and the bombs Aldred Day was a boy in Staffordshire, helpless to
defend his mother, to resist his abusive father. The RAF taught him how to burn
through lifetimes on night ops and brief, sweet leaves, surviving the unsurvivable. But
it didn't prepare him for capture, for the prison camp and the chaos as the war wound
down. Now it's 1949 and Alfred is doing the impossible again, winding back time to
see where he lost himself. He has taken the role of an extra in a Pow film. Shipped
out to Germany and an ersatz camp, he picks his way through the cliches that will
become all that's left of his war and begins to do what he's never dared - to
remember. (Book of the Year 2007). TB 15099.
17
Lebrecht, Norman
The song of names. 2002. Read by David Graham, 11 hours 42 minutes. TB
13237.
Two boys are growing up in wartime London. One is Martin, a lonely, swottish only
child. The other is Dovidl, a brilliant young refugee violinist from Warsaw. Bloodbrothers, they roam the ruined city, finding tragedy and triumph, sex and crime. It is
the time of their lives. Then Dovidl disappears, on the afternoon of his international
debut. Martin is broken-hearted, his father near-bankrupted, the police mystified.
Martin is condemned to forty years of humdrum half-life, until, one wintry night, an
unexpected musical clue sets him on the trail to an astounding act of self-discovery
and renewal. (First Novel 2002). TB 13237.
Mitchell, David
Black Swan Green. 2006. Read by Annie Aldington, 13 hours 15 minutes. TB
15161.
This book charts thirteen months in the black hole between childhood and
adolescence, set against the sunset of an agrarian England still overshadowed by the
Cold War. It's a dank January in the Worcestershire village of Black Swan Green and
thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor - covert stammerer and reluctant poet - anticipates a
stultifying year in the deadest village on Earth. But Jason hasn't reckoned with a junta
of bullies, simmering family discord, the Falklands War, an exotic Belgian emigre, a
threatened gypsy invasion and the caprices of those mysterious entities known as
girls. (Shortlisted Novel 2006). Contains strong language. TB 15161.
O'Flynn, Catherine
What was lost. 2007. Read by Rachel Atkins, 6 hours 44 minutes. TB 16066.
A lost little girl with her notebook and toy monkey appears on the CCTV screens of
the Green Oaks shopping centre, evoking memories of junior detective, Kate Meaney,
missing for 20 years. Kurt, a security guard with a sleep disorder and Lisa, a
disenchanted deputy manager at Your Music, follow her through the centre's endless
corridors - welcome relief from the behaviour of customers, colleagues and the Green
Oaks mystery shopper. But as this after-hours friendship grows in intensity, it brings
new loss and new longing to light. (Shortlisted First Novel 2007). Contains strong
language. TB 16066.
Paterson, Don
Landing light. 2003. Read by Jonathan Hackett, 1 hour 56 minutes. TB 13786.
In these poems, Paterson guides readers down the labyrinths of their most private
emotions. Ceaselessly inquiring and deftly tuned into the emotional cackle of the
world, Paterson explores the swings of light and dark that mark out troubling feelings.
(Poetry Award 2003). Contains strong language. TB 13786.
18
Penney, Stef
The tenderness of wolves. 2006. Read by Jacqueline King, 14 hours 22 minutes.
TB 14903.
1867, Canada - As winter tightens its grip on the isolated settlement of Dove River, a
man is brutally murdered and a 17 year old boy disappears. Tracks leaving the dead
man's cabin head north towards the forest and the tundra beyond. In the wake of
such violence, people are drawn to the township - journalists, Hudson's Bay Company
men, trappers, traders - but do they want to solve the crime, or exploit it? (First Novel
Award 2006). Contains strong language. TB 14903.
Roberts, Michael Symmons
Corpus. 2004. Read by Patrick Romer, 1 hour 8 minutes. TB 14094.
Corpus centres around the body. Mystical, philosophical and erotic, the bodies in
these poems move between different worlds - life and after-life, death and
resurrection - encountering pathologists' blades, geneticists' maps and the wounds of
love and war. (Poetry Award 2004). TB 14094.
Sage, Lorna
Bad blood. Read by Charlotte Strevens, 9 hours 25 minutes. TB 12824.
The author's memoir of childhood and adolescence brings to life her eccentric family
and somewhat bizarre upbringing in Hanmer, on the border between Wales and
Shropshire. The period as well as the place is evoked with the crystal clarity: from the
1940s, dominated for Lorna by her dissolute but charismatic vicar grandfather,
through the 1950s, where the invention of fish fingers revolutionised the lives of
housewives like Lorna's mother, to the brink of the 1960s, where the community was
shocked by Lorna's pregnancy at sixteen. (Biography Award 2000). TB 12824.
Sebag Montefiore, Simon
Young Stalin. 2007. Read by Steve Hodson, 18 hours 26 minutes. TB 15696.
Stalin remains one of the creators of our world - like Hitler, the personification of evil.
Yet Stalin hid his past and remains mysterious. This enthralling biography that reads
like a thriller finally unveils the secret but extraordinary journey of the Georgian
cobbler's son who became the Red Tsar. (Biography Award 2007) Contains strong
language. TB 15696.
Smith, Ali
The accidental. 2005. Read by Diana Bishop, 8 hours 50 minutes. TB 14352.
I was born in the year of the supersonic, the era of the multi-storey multivitamin
multitonic, the highrise time of men with the technology and women who could be
bionic, when jump jets were Harrier, when QE2 was Cunard, when thirty-eight feet tall
the Princess Margaret stood stately in her hoverpad, the annee erotique was only
thirty aircushioned minutes away and everything went at twice the speed of sound. I
opened my eyes. It was all in colour. It didn't look like Kansas anymore. The students
19
were on the barricades, the mode was maxi, the Beatles were transcendental. It was
Britain. It was great. (Novel Award 2005). Contains strong language. TB 14352.
Smith, Zadie
White teeth. 2001. Read by Steve Hodson, 21 hours 40 minutes. TB 14049.
This is the story of three families, one Indian, one white, one mixed, in North London
and Oxford from World War II to the present day. It deals with friendship, love, war,
three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse, and the
tricky way the past has of coming back. (First Novel Award 2000). Contains strong
language. TB 14049.
Sprackland, Jean
Tilt. 2007. Read by Jacqueline King, 55 minutes. TB 16131.
Jean Sprackland's third collection describes a world in free-fall. Chaos and calamity
are at our shoulder, in the shape of fire and flood, ice-storm and hurricane; trains
stand still, zoos are abandoned, migrating birds lose their way - all surfaces are
unreliable, all territories unmapped. Tilt is a collection of raw, distressed and beautiful
poems, a hymn to the remarkable survival of things in the face of threat - for every
degradation an epiphany, for every drowning a birth. (Poetry Award 2007). Contains
strong language. TB 16131.
Spurling, Hilary
Matisse the master: a life of Henri Matisse: the conquest of colour, 1909-1954.
2005. Read by Jilly Bond, 20 hours 40 minutes. TB 15046.
Sequel to: The unknown Matisse, TB 14598. Hilary Spurling's exploration of Matisse's
world uncovers the secret life of the artist, whose paintings shocked and infuriated his
contemporaries while paving the way for modern art. This second volume tells the
story of Matisse's growing artistic maturity and the relationship between his life and
art from 1909 to 1954, his glory years. (Biography Award 2005). TB 15046.
Tearne, Roma
Mosquito. 2008. Read by Wayne Forester, 10 hours 48 minutes. TB 16607.
When author Theo Samarajeeva returns to his native Sri Lanka after his wife's death,
he hopes to escape his gnawing loss amid the lush landscape of his increasingly wartorn country. But as he sinks into life in this beautiful, tortured land, he also finds
himself slipping into friendship with an artistic young girl, Nulani, whose family is
caught up in the growing turmoil. Soon friendship blossoms into love. Under the threat
of civil war, their affair offers a glimmer of hope to a country on the brink of
destruction! But all too soon, the violence which has cast an ominous shadow over
their love story explodes, tearing them apart. (First Novel Award 2007). TB 16607.
20
Thompson, Brian
Keeping mum. 2006. Read by Brian Thompson, 6 hours 18 minutes. TB 15504.
Memoirs; book 1. What's it like to be the man of the house when you're still only a
boy? In 'Keeping mum', Thompson describes such a story. Whilst other children were
evacuated out of the cities, Brian spent much of the war with an eccentric crowd of
ribald relations. (Biography Award 2006). Contains strong language. TB 15504.
Tomalin, Claire
Samuel Pepys: the unequalled self. 2002. Read by Frances Jeater, 18 hours 27
minutes. TB 13138.
A biography of naval administrator Samuel Pepys, who was well-known for being the
friend of the famous and powerful. This text, which draws on Pepys' own personal
diary, covers his childhood and young adulthood. It moves through the famous diary
years and beyond, to the death of his wife and the setting up of a new household.
While using the diary as a source, the author goes beyond its narrative to the inner
man, at the same time revealing life as a young man in Restoration London. Explored
within are Pepys' relations with women, his fears and ambitions, his political shifts and
his agonies and delights. (Biography Award 2002). Contains passages of a sexual
nature. TB 13138.
Orange Prize for Fiction
Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi
Half of a yellow sun. 2007. Read by Joy Elias-Rilwan, 20 hours 10 minutes. TB
14989.
In 1960s Nigeria, a country blighted by civil war, three lives intersect. Ugwu, a boy
from a poor village, works as a houseboy for a university lecturer. Olanna, a young
woman, has abandoned her life of privilege in Lagos, to live with her charismatic new
lover, the professor. The third is Richard, a shy Englishman in thrall to Olanna's
enigmatic twin sister. When the shocking horror of the war engulfs them, their
loyalties are severely tested as they are pulled apart and thrown together in ways that
none of them imagined. (Winner 2007). Contains passages of a sexual nature. TB
14989.
Connelly, Karen
The lizard cage. 2007. Read by Lucy Scott, 15 hours 30 minutes. TB 15189.
Teza once electrified the people of Burma with his protest songs against the
dictatorship. Arrested by the Burmese secret police in the days of mass protest, he is
seven years into a twenty-year sentence in solitary confinement, cut off from his
family and contact with other prisoners. Enduring the harsh conditions with
resourcefulness, Buddhist patience and humour, he searches for news and human
21
connection in every being and object that is grudgingly allowed into his cell. Despite
his isolation, Teza has a profound influence on the world of the cage. (New Writers
Award winner 2007). Contains strong language. TB 15189.
Donovan, Anne
Buddha Da. 2003. Read by Sally Armstrong and Jonathan Hackett, 9 hours 23
minutes. TB 13030.
Anne Marie's Da, a Glaswegian painter and decorator, has always been game for a
laugh. So when he first takes up meditation at the Buddhist Centre, no one takes him
seriously, especially when his pursuit of the new lama ends in a trip round the
Carmunnock bypass. But as Jimmy becomes more involved in a search for the
spiritual, his beliefs start to come into conflict with the needs of his wife, Liz. Cracks
appear in their apparently happy family life, and the ensuing events change the lives
of each family member. (Shortlisted 2003). TB 13030.
Dunmore, Helen
The siege. Read by Jilly Bond, 10 hours 30 minutes. TB 13428.
Leningrad, September 1941. German forces surround the city, imprisoning those who
live there. The besieged people of Leningrad face shells, starvation and the Russian
winter. Interweaving two love affairs in two generations, the Siege draws us deep into
the Levin family's struggle to stay alive during this terrible winter. (Shortlisted 2002).
TB 13428.
Gardam, Jane
Old filth. 2004. Read by Anthony Jackson, 9 hours 14 minutes. TB 14201.
FILTH, in his heyday, was an international lawyer with a practice in the Far East.
Now, only the oldest QCs and Silks can remember that his nickname stood for 'Failed
In London Try Hong Kong'. Old Filth was a 'Raj orphan'. His earliest memories are of
his amah, a teenage Malay girl - not of his mother who is dead, nor his father who
can't cope. But very soon he is torn away from the only person who loves him, and
sent to be educated at 'Home', where he is boarded out with strangers... What is the
terrible secret that the children shared? What exactly happened at the farmhouse in
Wales from which Filth is rescued by 'Sir' whose 'outfit' is one of the oddest schools in
England? (Shortlisted 2005). TB 14201.
Grant, Linda
When I lived in modern times. 2000. Read by Rachel Atkins, 7 hours 45 minutes.
TB 12460.
Evelyn Sert journeys to Tel Aviv, where Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany are
determined to forge a modern consciousness in the heart of the Middle East. Against
this background, her story weaves together national identity, terrorism, love and the
art of hairdressing. (Winner 2000). Contains passages of a sexual nature. TB 12460.
22
Guo, Xiaolu
A concise Chinese-English dictionary for lovers. 2007. Read by Charlie Norfolk,
7 hours 34 minutes. TB 15190.
Z is a 23-year-old Chinese language student who has come to London to learn
English. When the book begins she can barely ask for a cup of tea, but when
language comes, so does love. As she gets to know British culture she also falls for
an older English man who lives a resolutely bachelor life in Hackney. It's a million
miles away from the small Chinese town she comes from, where her parents want
nothing more for her than that she should follow them into the shoe business. Z learns
about sex, humour, companionship and passion, but she also learns the painful truth
that language is also a barrier and the more you know about it, the less you
understand. (Shortlisted 2007). Contains passages of a sexual nature. TB 15190.
Harris, Jane
The observations. 2006. Read by Lara Hutchinson, 15 hours 10 minutes. TB
15401.
This story is set in Scotland, in the year 1863. In an attempt to escape her not-soinnocent past in Glasgow, Bessy Buckley - the wide-eyed Irish heroine takes a job as
a maid in a big house outside Edinburgh working for the beautiful Arabella. Bessy is
intrigued by her new employer, but puzzled by her increasingly strange requests and
her insistence that Bessy keep a journal of her most intimate thoughts. And it seems
that Arabella has a few secrets of her own - including her near-obsessive affection for
Nora, a former maid who died in mysterious circumstances. (Shortlisted 2007). TB
15401.
Levy, Andrea
Small island. 2004. Read by Eddie Connor, Inika Leigh Wright and Joan Walker,
16 hours 31 minutes. TB 13854.
Returning to England after the war Gilbert Joseph is treated very differently now that
he is no longer in an RAF uniform. Joined by his wife Hortense, he rekindles a
friendship with Queenie who takes in Jamaican lodgers. Can their dreams of a better
life in England overcome the prejudice they face? (Winner 2004). Contains strong
language. TB 13854.
Lewycka, Marina
A short history of tractors in Ukrainian: a novel. 2005. Read by Penelope
Freeman, 9 hours 29 minutes. TB 14197.
When their recently widowed father announces he plans to remarry, sisters Vera and
Nadezhda realize they must put aside a lifetime of feuding in order to save him. His
new love is a voluptuous gold-digger from the Ukraine half his age, and with a
proclivity for green satin underwear and boil-in-the-bag cuisine, who stops at nothing
in her single-minded pursuit of the luxurious Western lifestyle she dreams of. But the
23
old man, too, is pursuing his eccentric dreams - and writing a history of tractors in
Ukrainian. (Shortlisted 2005). Contains strong language. TB 14197.
Lippi, Rosina
Homestead. Read by Jilly Bond, 7 hours. TB 13264.
In 1909, in the remote Alpine village of Rosenau, the postmistress has gathered a
group of women - the wives and daughters of dairy farmers and cheese-makers - to
solve a problem. A postcard has arrived addressed to "Anna Fink", who, because of
the conventions of naming in this close-knit community, might be one of seven
women. The mystery of the card's intended recipient - and its lovesick sender preoccupies all of Rosenau, and takes one Anna, Anna of Bengat farm, on a profound
inner journey. (Shortlisted 2001). TB 13264.
Mackay, Shena
Heligoland. 2003. Read by Liz Holliss, 5 hours 22 minutes. TB 13901.
Celeste Zylberstein and Francis Campion are the only two original inhabitants still
living at the 'Nautilus', a strange building shaped like the chambered shell of the same
name, which was a haven for a floating community of cosmopolitan refugees,
intellectuals and artists in the 1930s. Gus Crabb, a dealer in bric-a-brac, is the only
other resident until, to the 'Nautilus', like a hermit crab seeking a home or the
Heligoland of her childhood imagination, comes Rowena Snow... (Shortlisted 2003).
TB 13901.
Martin, Valerie
Property. 2003. Read by Regina Reagan, 6 hours 5 minutes. TB 13336.
Manon Gaudet is unhappily married to the owner of a Louisiana sugar plantation. She
misses her family and longs for the vibrant lifestyle of her native New Orleans, but
most of all she longs to be free of her suffocating domestic situation. The tension
revolves around Sarah, a slave girl given to Manon as a wedding present from her
aunt, whose young son Walter is living proof of where Manon's husband's inclinations
lie. This private drama is played out against a brooding atmosphere of slave unrest
and bloody uprisings. And if the attacks reach Manon's house, no one can be sure
which way Sarah will turn... (Winner 2003). Contains violence. TB 13336.
Meloy, Maile
Liars and saints. 2004. Read by Regina Reagan, 9 hours 29 minutes. TB 13751.
Yvette Santerre had met the photographer on the beach as her children played. He
had offered to take their picture for her husband, away at war. When he arrives at her
house with his camera, the last thing she had expected was that he would try to kiss
her. But his kiss will haunt her family for generations. Set in California, the narrative
follows four generations of the Santerre family from World War II to the present, as
they navigate a succession of life-changing events. (Shortlisted 2005). Contains
strong language. TB 13751.
24
Mendelson, Charlotte
When we were bad. 2008. Read by Sian Thomas, 9 hours 51 minutes. TB 15573.
Claudia Rubin is in her heyday. Wife, mother, rabbi and sometime moral voice of the
nation, it is she whom everyone wants to be with at her older son's glorious February
wedding. Until Leo becomes a bolter and the heyday of the Rubin family begins to
unravel. (Shortlisted 2008). Contains passages of a sexual nature. TB 15573.
Robinson, Marilynne
Home. 2009. Read by Liza Ross, 12 hours 7 minutes. TB 16959.
Jack - prodigal son of the Boughton family, godson and namesake of John Ames,
gone twenty years - has come home looking for refuge and to try to make peace with
a past littered with trouble and pain. A bad boy from childhood, an alcoholic who
cannot hold down a job, Jack is perpetually at odds with his surroundings and with his
traditionalist father, though he remains Boughton's most beloved child. His sister
Glory has also returned to Gilead, fleeing her own mistakes, to care for their dying
father. Brilliant, loveable, wayward, Jack forges an intense new bond with Glory and
engages painfully with his father and his father's old friend John Ames. (Winner
2009). TB 16959.
Shriver, Lionel
We need to talk about Kevin. 2003. Read by Liza Ross, 17 hours 41 minutes. TB
14204.
Two years ago, Eva Khatchadourian's son, Kevin, murdered seven of his fellow highschool students, a cafeteria worker, and a popular algebra teacher. Because he was
only fifteen at the time of the killings, he received a lenient sentence and is now in a
prison for young offenders in upstate New York. Telling the story of Kevin's
upbringing, Eva addresses herself to her estranged husband through a series of
letters. Fearing that her own shortcomings may have shaped what her son has
become, she confesses to a deep, long-standing ambivalence about both motherhood
in general and Kevin in particular. How much is her fault? (Winner 2005). Contains
strong language. TB 14204.
Smith, Zadie
On beauty. 2005. Read by Steve Hodson, 20 hours 19 minutes. TB 14368.
Howard Belsey, a Rembrandt scholar who doesn't like Rembrandt, is an Englishman
abroad and a long-suffering Professor at Wellington College. He has been married for
thirty years to Kiki, an African-American woman who no longer resembles the sexy
activist she once was. Their three children passionately pursue their own paths, and
faced with the oppressive enthusiasms of his children, Howard feels that the first two
acts of his life are over and he has no clear plans for the finale. Then Jerome,
Howard's oldest son, falls for Victoria, the stunning daughter of the right-wing icon
Monty Kipps. Increasingly, the two families find themselves thrown together in a
25
beautiful corner of America, enacting a cultural and personal war against the
background of real wars that they barely register. (Winner 2006). Contains strong
language. TB 14368.
Tartt, Donna
The little friend. Read by Pat Starr, 24 hours 59 minutes. TB 13429.
Although the Cleves generally revelled in every detail of their family history, the
events of "the terrible mother's day" were never, ever discussed. On that day, dearly
loved nine-year-old Robin was found hanging by the neck from a black-tupelo tree in
his own garden. The mystery - with its taunting traces of foul play - was still no nearer
a solution than it had been on the day it happened. Robin's youngest sister, Harriet,
was only a baby when the tragedy occurred. Now twelve years old and steeped in the
adventurous daring of favourite writers such as Stevenson, Kipling and Conan Doyle,
Harriet is ready and eager to find and punish her brother's killer. But the world she
encounters is dark, adult and all too menacing. (Shortlisted 2003). TB 13429.
Tiffany, Carrie
Everyman's rules for scientific living. 2006. Read by Erica Grant, 6 hours 35
minutes. TB 14678.
It is 1934; the Great War is long over and the next is yet to come. It is a brief time of
optimism and advancement. Amid billowing clouds of dust and information, the
government 'Better Farming Train' slides through the wheat fields and small towns of
Australia, bringing expert advice to those living on the land. (Shortlisted 2005).
Contains passages of a sexual nature. TB 14678.
Tremain, Rose
The road home. 2008. Read by Steven Pacey, 14 hours 50 minutes. TB 16298.
Lev is on his way to Britain to seek work, so he can send money back to Eastern
Europe to support his mother and daughter. He struggles with the mysterious rituals
of 'Englishness', and the fads of the London scene. (Winner 2008). Contains strong
language. TB 16298.
Tyler, Anne
Digging to America. 2007. Read by Laurel Lefkow, 8 hours 47 minutes. TB
15619.
Friday August 15th, 1997. Two tiny Korean babies are delivered to two very different
Baltimore families. Every year, on the anniversary of "Arrival Day" the two families
celebrate together, with more and more elaborately competitive parties, as little Susan
and Jin-ho take roots and become American. (Shortlisted 2007). TB 15619.
26
Wells, Rebecca
Divine secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood: a novel. 1999. Read by Liza Ross, 14
hours 4 minutes. TB 11946.
Enraged by an interview given by her daughter, Siddalee, Vivi disowns her.
Devastated, Sidda postpones her wedding, putting her life on hold until she is granted
forgiveness. Trying to repair the relationship, the Ya-Yas will grant their own "merci"
to Sidda for understanding their lives. (Shortlisted 2000). TB 11946.
Galaxy British Book Awards (Nibbies)
Ballard, J G
Miracles of life: Shanghai to Shepperton: an autobiography. 2008. Read by
Gordon Dulieu, 6 hours 37 minutes. TB 16025.
Beginning with his early childhood spent exploring the vibrant surroundings of pre-war
Shanghai, Ballard charts the course of his remarkable life from the deprivations and
unexpected freedoms of the Lunghua Camp to his return to a Britain physically and
psychologically crippled by war. He explores his subsequent involvement in the
dramatic social changes of the 1960s, and the adjustments to life following the
premature death of his wife. In prose displaying his characteristic precision and eye
for detail, Ballard recounts the experiences which would fundamentally shape his
writing, while simultaneously providing a striking social analysis of the fragmented
post-war Britain that lies behind so many of his novels. (Shortlisted Biography of the
Year 2009). Contains strong language. TB 16025.
Brand, Russell
My booky wook. 2007. Read by David Thorpe, 9 hours 43 minutes. TB 16063.
In 2006 Russell Brand exploded onto the international comedy scene. Before the
fame, however, Russell's life was anything but glamorous. His father left when he was
three months old, he was bulimic at age 12 and he began drinking heavily and taking
drugs by age 16. He regularly visited prostitutes in Soho, began cutting himself, took
drugs on stage during his stand-up shows, and even set himself on fire while on crack
cocaine. In 2003 Russell was told that he would be in prison, a mental hospital, or
dead within six months unless he went into rehab. He has now been clean and hasn't
looked back since. This is Russell's amazing story. (Biography of the Year 2008).
Contains strong language. TB 16063.
Brown, Dan
The Da Vinci code. 2003. Read by Hayward Morse, 17 hours 35 minutes. TB
13795.
Robert Langdon; book 2. Robert Langdon, Harvard Professor of symbology, receives
an urgent late-night call while in Paris: the curator of the Louvre has been murdered.
27
Alongside the body is a series of baffling ciphers. Langdon and a gifted French
cryptologist, Sophie Neveu, are stunned to find a trail that leads to the works of Da
Vinci - and further. The curator, part of a secret society named the Priory of Sion, may
have sacrificed his life to keep secret the location of a vastly important religious relic
hidden for centuries. It appears that the clandestine Vatican-sanctioned Catholic sect
Opus Dei has now made its move. Unless Langdon and Neveu can decipher the
labyrinthine code and quickly assemble the pieces of the puzzle, the Priory's secret and a stunning historical truth - will be lost forever. (British Book of the Year 2005). TB
13795.
Clinton, Bill
My life. 2004. Read by Jeff Harding, 50 hours 25 minutes. TB 14131.
A look at the former president as a son, brother, teacher, father, husband and public
figure. Clinton painstakingly outlines the history behind his greatest successes and
failures, including his dedication to educational and economic reform, his war against
a "vast right-wing operation" determined to destroy him, and the "morally indefensible"
acts for which he was nearly impeached. My Life is an autobiography as therapy - a
personal history written by a man trying to face and banish his private demons.
(Biography of the Year 2005). TB 14131.
Cole, Martina
The take. Read by Annie Aldington, 16 hours 55 minutes. TB 14551.
Jackie Jackson is preparing a party to welcome home her husband Freddie. Everyone
is gathered at the party, including her sister Maggie. But after six years in prison,
Freddie thinks he is the Essex equivalent to the Godfather. And he's going to make
sure everyone knows it. (Crime Thriller of the Year 2006). Contains strong language.
TB 14551.
Cornwell, Patricia D
Book of the dead. 2008. Read by Lorelei King, 11 hours 59 minutes. TB 16031.
Scarpetta; book 15. Sequel to: Predator, TB 15343. The 'book of the dead' is the
morgue log in which all cases are entered. For Kay Scarpetta, however, it is about to
have a new meaning. She moves to Southern California in the hope of a quieter life,
but then a series of violent murders begins. (Crime Thriller of the Year 2008).
Contains violence. TB 16031.
Edwards, Kim
The memory keeper's daughter. 2007. Read by Lachele Carl, 15 hours 49
minutes. TB 15811.
The night Dr David Henry delivers his wife's twins is a night that will haunt five lives
forever. For though the boy is healthy, the girl has Down's syndrome. In a shocking
act of betrayal David tells his wife their daughter has died. As grief quietly tears apart
28
David's family, so a little girl must make her own way in the world as best she can.
(Winner Popular Fiction 2008). TB 15811.
Faulks, Sebastian
Devil may care. 2008. Read by Crawford Logan, 8 hours 26 minutes. TB 15747.
James Bond. Dr Julius Gorner is a name that will become seared into James Bond's
consciousness. The name of a man who knows no master but his own power-crazed
ego, whose wealth is exceeded only by his greed and who will stop at nothing until he
has destroyed the very heart of Britain. A savage execution in the desolate outskirts
of Paris sets in motion a chain of events designed to lead only to global catastrophe,
as a tide of lethal narcotics threatens to engulf Sixties Britain, a British airliner goes
missing over Iraq and the thunder of coming war echoes around the Middle East.
Bond finds a willing accomplice in the shape of a glamorous Parisian called Scarlet
Papava. He will need all her help in a life-and-death struggle with his most dangerous
adversary yet - a man who would dance with the Devil himself. (Popular Fiction Award
2009). Contains strong language. TB 15747.
Ferguson, Alex
Alex Ferguson: managing my life - my autobiography. 1999. Read by Crawford
Logan, 17 hours 14 minutes. TB 12072.
This is the autobiography of Alex Ferguson - he runs the Manchester United Football
players with a rod of iron, but is respected for his managerial style and for the way he
cares for the welfare of his players. (British Book of the Year 2000). TB 12072.
Galloway, Steven
The cellist of Sarajevo. 2009. Read by Kenneth Jay, 6 hours 10 minutes. TB
16423.
Snipers in the hills overlook the shattered streets of Sarajevo. Knowing that the next
bullet could strike at any moment, the ordinary men and women below strive to go
about their daily lives as best they can. Kenan faces the agonizing dilemma of
crossing the city to get water for his family. Dragan, gripped by fear, does not know
who among his friends he can trust. And Arrow, a young woman counter-sniper must
push herself to the limits - of body and soul, fear and humanity. (Shortlisted Richard
and Judy Read of the Year 2009). Unsuitable for family reading. TB 16423.
Hague, William
William Pitt the Younger. 2005. Read by Richard Burnip, 24 hours 40 minutes.
TB 15524.
William Pitt the Younger was one of the most extraordinary figures in British history.
After becoming Prime Minister at the age of twenty-four, he went on to dominate the
political scene for twenty-two years, presiding over a series of complex and
treacherous national crises, including the madness of King George III, the impact of
29
the French Revolution and the trauma of the Napoleonic wars. (History Book of the
Year 2005). TB 15524.
Hislop, Victoria
The island. 2006. Read by Elizabeth Proud, 14 hours 48 minutes. TB 14935.
On the brink of a life-changing decision, Alexis Fielding longs to find out about her
mother's past. But Sofia has never spoken of it. All she admits to is growing up in a
small Cretan village before moving to London. When Alexis decides to visit Crete,
however, Sofia gives her daughter a letter to take to an old friend, and promises that
through her she will learn more. (Newcomer 2007). TB 14935.
Jenkins, Roy
Churchill: a biography. 2001. Read by Jon Cartwright, 41 hours 48 minutes. TB
12843.
This text is an exhaustive biographical picture of one of the most enigmatic and
important figures of the Twentieth Century. From the admiralty to the miner's strike,
from the Battle of Britain to the Nobel Prize, Churchill oversaw some of the most
important events the World has ever seen. Roy Jenkins faithfully presents these
events, while also managing to convey the contradictions and quirks in Churchill's
character. (Biography of the Year 2003). TB 12843.
Johnson, Martin
Martin Johnson: the autobiography. 2003. Read by Mark Straker, 13 hours. TB
13648.
This autobiography examines the career of former England rugby captain Martin
Johnson. Johnson joined Leicester Tiger's senior squad in 1989 and has since gone
on to lead the side to four successive Premiership titles (1999-2002) and two
European Cups (2001-2002). His international career saw him debut for England in
1993 and first captained the team in 1998. He has also, uniquely, captained the
British Lions on two separate tours, to South Africa in 1997 and Australia in 2001. His
third successive World Cup and second as captain, in Australia in autumn 2003, took
him to a total of more than 80 caps for England. (Sports Book of the Year 2004).
Contains strong language. TB 13648.
Jones, Sadie
The outcast. 2008. Read by Richard Teverson, 11 hours 3 minutes. TB 15980.
This book is about a boy called Lewis - his childhood and adolescence as he grows
up in the stultifying world of the home counties in the late forties and fifties. It is an
everyday tale of drunkenness, violence and a fair amount of sex, set amongst the
well-brought-up professional classes. It is also a love story. (Shortlisted Popular
Fiction 2009). Contains strong language. TB 15980.
30
Jordan, Hillary
Mudbound. 2008. Read by Garrick Hagon and Liza Ross, 9 hours 27 minutes.
TB 16505.
Henry's love of rural life is not shared by his city-bred wife, Laura, who struggles to
raise their two young children in an isolated shotgun shack on a cotton farm in the
Mississippi Delta in 1946, under the eye of her hateful, racist father-in-law. When it
rains, the waters rise up and swallow the bridge to town, stranding the family in a sea
of mud. As the Second World War shudders to an end, two young men return from
Europe to help work the farm and become players in a tragedy on the grandest scale.
(Shortlisted New Writer of the Year 2009). TB 16505.
Kay, Peter
The sound of laughter. 2006. Read by Andrew Stanson, 7 hours 24 minutes. TB
14902.
This autobiography is full of humour and nostalgia, beginning with Kay's first ever
driving lesson, taking him back through his Bolton childhood, the numerous jobs he
held after school and leading up until the time he passed his driving test and found
fame. (Biography of the Year 2007). Contains strong language. TB 14902.
Kellerman, Jesse
The brutal art. 2008. Read by John Chancer, 14 hours 13 minutes. TB 16435.
In a decaying New York slum, an elderly tenant has disappeared, leaving behind a
huge collection of brilliant paintings. No one knows anything much about him. For art
dealer Ethan Muller, this is the discovery of a lifetime. He displays the pictures in his
gallery and watches as they rocket up in value. But suddenly the police want to talk to
him. It seems the missing artist had a sinister past. (Shortlisted Richard and Judy
Best Read 2009). Contains strong language. TB 16435.
Keyes, Marian
This charming man. 2008. Read by various narrators, 25 hours 28 minutes. TB
16159.
'Everybody remembers where they were the day they heard that Paddy de Courcy
was getting married'. Lola has every reason to be interested in who Paddy's marrying
- because although she's his girlfriend, she definitely isn't the bride-to-be.
Heartbroken, she flees the city for a cottage by the sea. But will Lola's retreat prove
as idyllic as she hopes? Not if journalist Grace has anything to do with it. She wants
the inside story on the de Courcy engagement and thinks Lola holds the key.
(Shortlisted Popular Fiction 2009). Contains passages of a sexual nature. TB 16159.
31
Le Carre, John
The constant gardener. 2001. Read by Michael Jayston, 17 hours 10 minutes.
TB 14982.
The young and beautiful Tessa Quayle has been horribly murdered on the shores of
Lake Turkana. Her putative African lover has disappeared, and her husband, Justin, a
career diplomat and amateur gardener, sets out on a personal odyssey in pursuit of
the killers and their motive. (TV and Film Book of the Year 2006) Contains strong
language. TB 14982.
Marr, Andrew
A history of modern Britain. 2007. Read by Peter Wickham, 28 hours 49
minutes. TB 15444.
This book tells the story of how the great political visions of New Jerusalem or a
second Elizabethan Age, rival idealisms, came to be defeated by a culture of
consumerism, celebrity and self-gratification. In each decade, political leaders thought
they knew what they were doing, but find themselves confounded. This history follows
all the political and economic stories, but deals too with comedy, cars, the war against
homosexuals, Sixties anarchists, oil-men and punks, Margaret Thatcher's wonderful
good luck, political lies and the true heroes of British theatre. (Shortlisted Popular
Non Fiction 2009). Contains strong language. TB 15444.
McGregor, Ewan
Long way round: chasing shadows across the world. 2004. Read by Peter
Kenny, Read by Alistair Petrie, 9 hours 53 minutes. TB 13927.
In this book, fellow film actors and bike enthusiasts Ewan McGregor and Charley
Boorman travel 20,000 miles around the world by motorbike. They will encounter
many troublesome situations on the way, ranging from extreme and threatening
weather to impenetrable terrain, and will face challenges such as caviar fishing in the
Caspian sea, wrestling with the Mongolian Olympic team and riding with the Canadian
Mounties. Whilst throwing themselves enthusiastically into the culture of each new
country - from Alaska to Mongolia, from Canada to Kazakhstan - the two friends will
also have to rely on each other's good humour, as the journey tests their relationship
and their stamina to the limits. (Winner Popular Non Fiction 2008). Contains strong
language. TB 13927.
Mitchell, David
Cloud atlas. 2004. Read by various narrators. 21 hours 30 minutes. TB 13891.
A reluctant voyager crossing the Pacific Ocean in 1850; a disinherited composer
blagging a precarious livelihood in Belgium between the First and Second World
Wars; a high-minded journalist in Governor Reagan's California; a vanity publisher
fleeing his gangland creditors; the testament of a genetically modified 'dinery server'
on death-row; and Zachry, a young Pacific Islander witnessing the nightfall of science
and civilisation - the narrators of Cloud Atlas hear each other's echoes down the
32
corridor of history, and their destinies are changed in ways great and small. (Richard
and Judy Best Read 2005) Contains strong language. TB 13891.
Moore, Michael
Stupid white men: and other sorry excuses for the state of the nation. 2002.
Read by Jeff Harding, 8 hours 57 minutes. TB 13326.
This text tells you everything you need to know about how the great and the good
screw us over. It reveals - among other things - how 'President' Bush stole an election
aided only by his brother, cousin, his dad's cronies, electoral fraud and tame judges;
how the rich stay rich while forcing the rest of us to live in economic fear; and how
politicians have whored themselves to big business. Not to mention providing
fascinating details on just how stupid Bush is, a convincing case for male
obsolescence and a fabulous new us for Whites Only signs! (British Book of the Year
2003). Contains strong language. TB 13326.
Mosse, Kate
Labyrinth. 2006. Read by Rachel Atkins, 20 hours 4 minutes. TB 14559.
July 1209: in Carcassonne a seventeen-year-old girl is given a mysterious book by
her father which he claims contains the secret of the true grail. Although Alais cannot
understand the strange words and symbols hidden within, she knows her destiny lies
in keeping the secret of the labyrinth safe. July 2005: Alice Tanner discovers two
skeletons in a forgotten cave in the French Pyrenees. Puzzled by the labyrinth symbol
carved into the rock, she realises she's disturbed something that was meant to remain
hidden. Somehow, a link to a horrific past - her past - has been revealed. (Richard
and Judy Best Read 2006). Contains passages of a sexual nature. TB 14559.
Niffenegger, Audrey
The time traveller's wife. 2005. Read by Russell Bentley and Sarah Mennell, 17
hours 58 minutes. TB 13998.
This novel is the story of Clare and Henry who have known each other since Clare
was six and Henry was thirty-six, and were married when Clare was twenty-two and
Henry thirty. Impossible but true, because Henry is one of the first people diagnosed
with Chrono-Displacement Disorder: periodically his genetic clock resets and he finds
himself pulled suddenly into his past or future. His disappearances are spontaneous
and his experiences are alternately harrowing and amusing. The Time Traveller's
Wife depicts the effects of time travel on Henry and Clare's passionate love for each
other with grace and humour. Their struggle to lead normal lives in the face of a force
they can neither prevent nor control is intensely moving and entirely unforgettable.
(Popular Fiction 2006). Contains strong language. TB 13998.
33
Obama, Barack
Dreams from my father: a story of race and inheritance. 2008. Read by Jeff
Harding, 16 hours 18 minutes. TB 16436.
The son of a black African father and a white American mother, Obama was only two
years old when his father walked out on the family. Many years later, Obama receives
a phone call from Nairobi: his father is dead. This sudden news inspires an emotional
odyssey for Obama, determined to learn the truth of his father's life and reconcile his
divided inheritance. (Biography of the Year 2009). TB 16436.
O'Grady, Paul
At my mother's knee... and other low joints. 2008. Read by Peter Kenny, 9 hours
40 minutes. TB 16325.
Paul O'Grady tells story of his early life in Irish Catholic Birkenhead that started him
on the long and winding road from mischievous altar boy to national treasure. It is a
brilliantly evoked, hilarious and often moving tale of gossip in the back yard, bragging
in the corner shop and slanging matches on the front doorstep, populated by largerthan-life characters with hearts of gold and tongues as sharp as razors. (Shortlisted
Biography of the Year 2009). Contains strong language. TB 16325.
Osborne, Frances
The Bolter: Idina Sackville, the woman who scandalised 1920s society and
became White Mischief's infamous seductress. 2009. Read by Jilly Bond, 10
hours 14 minutes. TB 16430.
In 1934 Idina Sackville met the son she had last seen fifteen years earlier when she
shocked high society by running off to Africa with a near-penniless man, abandoning
him, his brother and their father. So scandalous was Idina's life - she was said to have
had 'lovers without number' - that it was kept a secret from her great-granddaughter,
Frances Osbourne. Now Frances explores her tale of betrayal and heartbreak.
(Shortlisted Richard and Judy Read of the Year 2009). TB 16430.
Palin, Michael
Himalaya. 2004. Read by Michael Palin, 11 hours 26 minutes. TB 13774.
In his most challenging journey, Michael Palin tackles the Himalaya, the greatest
mountain range on earth, a virtually unbroken wall of rock stretching 1800 miles from
the borders of Afghanistan to south-west China. In a journey rarely, if ever, attempted
before, in 6 months of hard travelling Palin takes on the full length of the Himalaya
including the Khyber Pass, the hidden valleys of the Hindu Kush, ancient cities like
Peshawar and Lahore, the mighty peaks of K2, Annapurna and Everest, the bleak
and barren plateau of Tibet, the gorges of the Yangtze, the tribal lands of the IndoBurmese border and the vast Brahmaputra delta in Bangladesh. This book, compiled
from his diaries, records the pleasure and pain of an extraordinary journey. (TV and
Film Book of the Year 2005). TB 13774.
34
Parsons, Tony
Man and boy. 2000. Read by Daniel Philpott, 9 hours 30 minutes. TB 12422.
Harry Silver has it all: a beautiful wife, a wonderful son, a great job in the media - but
in one night he throws it all away. Then Harry must start to learn what life and love are
really all about. (British Book of the Year 2001). Contains strong language. TB 12422.
Rowling, J K
Harry Potter and the half-blood Prince. 2005. Read by Stephen Fry, 20 hours 33
minutes. TB 14301.
Harry Potter; book 6. 'In a brief statement on Friday night, Minister for Magic
Cornelius Fudge confirmed that He Who Must Not Be Named has returned to this
country and is once more active. "It is with great regret that I must confirm that the
wizard styling himself Lord - well, you know who I mean - is alive and among us
again," said Fudge.' Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince takes up the story of
Harry Potter's sixth year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, with
Voldemort's power and followers increasing day by day. (British Book of the Year
2006). TB 14301.
Sebold, Alice
The lovely bones. 2003. Read by Regina Reagan, 10 hours 52 minutes. TB
13540.
Watching from her place in heaven, Susie sees her happy, suburban family
devastated by her death, isolated even from one another as they each try to cope with
their terrible loss alone. Over the years, her friends and siblings grow up, fall in love,
do all the things she never had the chance to do herself. But life is not quite finished
with Susie yet... (Richard and Judy Best Read 2004). Contains strong language. TB
13540.
Slater, Nigel
Toast: the story of a boy's hunger. 2004. Read by Nigel Slater, 6 hours 2
minutes. TB 13641.
The book looks at the author’s memories of childhood through food. Whether relating
his mother's ritual burning of the toast, his father's dreaded Boxing Day stew or such
culinary highlights of the day as Arctic Roll and Grilled Grapefruit (then considered
something of a status symbol in Wolverhampton), this memoir vividly recreates daily
life in sixties suburban England. (Biography of the Year 2004). Contains strong
language. TB 13641.
Stephenson, Pamela
Billy. 2001. Read by Erica Grant, 9 hours 37 minutes. TB 13523.
The inside story of Billy Connolly, one of the most successful British stand-up
comedians, as told by the person best qualified to reveal all about the man behind the
35
comic, his wife of 10 years Pamela Stephenson. (British Book of the Year 2002).
Contains strong language. TB 13523.
Summerscale, Kate
The suspicions of Mr. Whicher: or, The murder at Road Hill House. 2008. Read
by Beth Chalmers, 10 hours 26 minutes. TB 16062.
A true story that inspired a generation of writers such as Wilkie Collins, Charles
Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle, this has all the hallmarks of the classic murder
mystery - a body; a detective; and, a country house steeped in secrets. In "The
suspicions of Mr. Whicher", Kate Summerscale untangles the facts behind this
notorious case, bringing it back to vivid, extraordinary life. (Book of the Year 2009).
TB 16062.
Truss, Lynne
Eats, shoots and leaves: the zero tolerance approach to punctuation. 2003.
Read by Charlotte Strevens, 4 hours 30 minutes. TB 13675.
Everyone knows the basics of punctuation, surely? Aren't we all taught at school how
to use full stops, commas and question marks? The author dares to say that, with our
system of punctuation patently endangered, it is time to look at our commas and
semicolons and see them for the wonderful and necessary things they are. This is a
book for people who love punctuation and get upset about it. (British Book of the Year
2004). Contains strong language. TB 13675.
Worth, Jennifer
Call the midwife. 2002. Read by Maggie Palmer, 12 hours 15 minutes. TB 13733.
Never before has anyone revealed so candidly the shocking truth of childbirth
conditions just half a century ago. These fascinating stories encompass the whole
spectrum of human emotions. No woman could read this book without feeling the pain
- and the joy. No man could read it without being deeply moved. This book contains
descriptions of gynaecological examinations. (Shortlisted Popular Non Fiction 2009).
Unsuitable for family reading. TB 13733.
Other Prize Winners
Armstrong, Lance
It's not about the bike: my journey back to life. 2001. Read by Jeff Harding, 10
hours 40 minutes. TB 13276.
This is the autobiography of Lance Armstrong who won the 1999 Tour de France in
spectacular style, taking four stages and both a mountain and a time trial. His story is
even more remarkable because he was diagnosed with stage four testicular cancer in
36
October 1996. (William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2000). Contains strong
language. TB 13276.
Aspden, Kester
The hounding of David Oluwale. 2008. Read by Richard Teverson, 11 hours 4
minutes. TB 16849.
When the body of David Oluwale, a rough sleeper with a criminal record and a history
of mental illness, was pulled out of the River Aire near Leeds in May 1969, nobody
asked too many questions about the circumstances of his death. A year and a half
later, rumours that the Nigerian man had been subject to a lengthy campaign of
abuse from two police officers led to the opening of the grave and a difficult criminal
investigation. Drawing on original archival material only just released into the public
domain, and interviews with police officers and lawyers involved in the eventual
prosecution of two Leeds City Police officers, Kester Aspden's book revisits one of the
most notorious racist crimes in British history. (CWA Gold Dagger Award for Non
Fiction Winner 2008). Contains strong language. TB 16849.
Bennett, Alan
Untold stories. 2005. Read by Christopher Scott, 24 hours 20 minutes. TB
14876.
The book provides a collection of prose. The title piece is a poignant family memoir
with an account of the marriage of the author’s parents, the lives and deaths of his
aunts and the uncovering of a long-held family secret. Also included are his diaries
from 1996 to 2004, as well as essays, reviews, lectures and reminiscences ranging
from childhood trips to the local cinema and a tour around Leeds City Art Gallery to
reflections on writing, honours and his Westminutester Abbey eulogy for Thora Hird.
(Shortlisted for BBC4 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non Fiction 2006). Contains strong
language. TB 14876.
Bryson, Bill
A short history of nearly everything. 2004. Read by Jeff Harding, 20 hours 17
minutes. TB 14060.
This book is Bryson's quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big
Bang to the rise of civilization - how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here,
being us. Bill Bryson's challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off
most of us, like geology, chemistry and particle physics, and see if there isn't some
way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be
interested in science. It's not so much about what we know, as about how we know
what we know. How do we know what is in the centre of the Earth, or what a black
hole is, or where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever
figure these things out? (Shortlisted for BBC4 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non Fiction
2004). Contains strong language. TB 14060.
37
Butcher, Tim
Blood river: a journey to Africa's broken heart. 2008. Read by Greg Wagland, 11
hours 44 minutes. TB 15661.
Ever since Stanley first charted its mighty river in the 1870s, the Congo has
epitomised the dark and turbulent history of a failed continent. However, its troubles
only served to increase the interest of "Daily Telegraph" correspondent Tim Butcher,
who was sent to cover Africa in 2000. Butcher retraced Stanley's steps and this is
what he found. (Shortlisted for BBC4 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non Fiction 2008).
Contains strong language. TB 15661.
Chandrasekaran, Rajiv
Imperial life in the Emerald City: inside Baghdad's green zone. 2008. Read by
Garrick Hagon, 12 hours 32 minutes. TB 16012.
From inside the Green Zone the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority attempted to
rule Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. Chandrasekaran tells of this
ill-prepared attempt to build American democracy in a war-torn Middle Eastern
country, detailing not only the risky disbanding of the Iraqi army, but absurdities such
as the aide who based Baghdad's new traffic laws on those of the state of Maryland,
downloaded from the net. (Samuel Johnson Prize Winner 2007). Contains strong
language. TB 16012.
Clare, Horatio
Running for the hills. 2006. Read by Horatio Clare, 9 hours 23 minutes. TB
14835.
One summer's day in the late 1960's, two young Londoners fell in love with a hill farm
in South Wales. They had almost no money, no idea about sheep and their
tempestuous relationship would soon feel the strain. From memory, conversations
and the diaries of his now-separated parents, the author reconstructs their
relationship with each other and their mountain farm. (Somerset Maugham Award
Winner 2007). TB 14835.
Cleeves, Ann
Raven black. 2006. Read by Caroline Guthrie, 9 hours 58 minutes. TB 16074.
Shetland Island Quartet; book 1. It is a cold January morning and Shetland lies buried
beneath a deep layer of snow. Trudging home, Fran Hunter's eye is drawn to a vivid
splash of colour on the white ground, ravens circling above. It is the strangled body of
her teenage neighbour Catherine Ross. The locals on the quiet island stubbornly
focus their gaze on one man - loner and simpleton Magnus Tait. But when police
insist on opening out the investigation a veil of suspicion and fear is thrown over the
entire community. For the first time in years, Catherine's neighbours nervously lock
their doors, whilst a killer lives on in their midst. (Duncan Lawrie Dagger for Best
Crime Novel 2006). Contains strong language. TB 16074.
38
Coetzee, J M
Disgrace. 1999. Read by Anton Blake, 7 hours 21 minutes. TB 11944.
A divorced, middle-aged professor finds himself increasingly unable to resist affairs
with his female students. When discovered by the college authorities he is expected
to apologise to save his job, but instead he refuses and resigns, retiring to live with his
daughter on her remote farm. (Commonwealth Writers Prize 2000). Contains
passages of a sexual nature. TB 11944.
Dickie, John
Cosa Nostra: a history of the Sicilian Mafia. 2004. Read by Jonathan Oliver, 17
hours 54 minutes. TB 14491.
The Mafia has been given many names since it was founded in the mid-19th century the Sect, the Brotherhood, the Honoured Society, and now Cosa Nostra. Yet as times
have changed, the Mafia's subtle and bloody methods have remained the same. This
book reconstructs the complete history of the Sicilian Mafia from its origins to the
modern day, from the lemon groves and sulphur mines of Sicily, to the streets of
Manhattan. (CWA Gold Dagger for Non Fiction 2004). Contains strong language. TB
14491.
Eggers, Dave
A heartbreaking work of staggering genius. 2000. Read by Hayward Morse, 15
hours 28 minutes. TB 12632.
Dave's parents died from cancer within a month of each other when he was
21 and his brother, Christopher was seven. They left the Chicago suburb
where they had grown up and moved to San Francisco. This book tells the
story of their life together. (Pulitzer Prize for Non Fiction Shortlisted 2001) Some
passages of a sexual nature. TB 12632.
Eugenides, Jeffrey
Middlesex. 2003. Read by Peter Brooke, 20 hours 42 minutes. TB 16193.
'I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day of
January 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near
Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.' So begins the story of Calliope Stephanides,
and three generations of the Greek-American Stephanides family who travel from a
tiny village overlooking Mount Olympus in Asia Minor to Prohibition era Detroit,
witnessing its glory days as the Motor City, and the race riots of 1967, before they
move out to the tree-lined streets of suburban Grosse Point, Michigan. To understand
why Calliope is not like other girls, she has to uncover a guilty family secret, and the
astonishing genetic history that turns Callie into Cal. (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Winner
2003) Contains strong language and some passages of a sexual nature. TB 16193.
39
Flynn, Gillian
Sharp objects. 2008. Read by Liza Ross, 8 hours 50 minutes. TB 16004.
When two girls, aged nine and ten are abducted and killed in Wind Gap, Missouri,
Camille Preaker is sent back to her home town to investigate and report on the
crimes. Long-haunted by a childhood tragedy and estranged from her mother for
years, Camille suddenly finds herself installed once again in her family's Victorian
mansion, reacquainting herself with her distant mother and the half-sister she barely
knows, a precocious 13-year-old who holds a disquieting grip on the town and
surrounds herself with a group of vampish teenage girls. (CWA Ian Fleming Steel
Dagger 2007). TB 16004.
Franzen, Jonathan
The corrections. 2002. Read by Garrick Hagon, 23 hours 53 minutes. TB 13220.
This novel about the Lambert family brings an old-time America of industrialism and
civic duty, of Cub Scouts, Christmas cookies and sexual inhibitions, into collision with
the modern absurdities of brain science, home surveillance, hands-off parenting, and
do-it-yourself mental healthcare. (Pulitzer Prize for Fiction Shortlisted 2002) TB
13220.
Fyfield, Frances
Blood from stone. 2009. Read by Rula Lenska, 10 hours 42 minutes. TB 17079.
Marianne Shearer is at the height of her career, a dauntingly successful barrister,
respected by her peers and revered by her clients. So why has she killed herself? Her
latest case had again resulted in an acquittal, though the outcome was principally due
to the death of the prime witness after Marianne's forceful cross-examination. Had
this wholly professional and unemotional lawyer been struck by guilt or uncertainty, or
is there some secret to be discovered in her blandly comfortable private life? (CWA
Duncan Dagger Award Winner 2008). Contains strong language. TB 17079.
Grant, Richard
Ghost riders: travels with American nomads. 2003. Read by Jonathan Oliver, 13
hours 35 minutes. TB 13953.
In this book, Richard Grant, a restless Englishman and something of an itinerant
himself seeks out the wanderers, the rootless, the "legion of drifters, grifters, hoboes
and tramps". Grant traces their historical antecedents (the ghosts of the title are the
nomadic horsemen of the American West) and ponders what drives a man to spend
his life in motion. (Thomas Cook Travel Book Award 2004). Contains strong
language. TB 13953.
Gregson, Julia
East of the sun. 2008. Read by Lucy Scott, 17 hours 15 minutes. TB 15983.
Autumn 1928. Three young women are on their way to India, each with a new life in
mind. Rose, a beautiful but naive bride-to-be, is anxious about leaving her family and
40
marrying a man she hardly knows. Victoria, her bridesmaid couldn't be happier to get
away from her overbearing mother, and is determined to find herself a husband. And
Viva, their inexperienced chaperone, is in search of the India of her childhood, ghosts
from the past and freedom. (RNA Romantic Novel of the Year Winner 2009). TB
15983.
Hampton, Janie
The austerity Olympics: when the Games came to London in 1948. 2009. Read
by Stephanie Beattie, 13 hours 13 minutes. TB 16636.
Janie Hampton's book about the last time the Olympics came to London is a tale of
female competitors sewing their own kit, teams ferried to the Games on red London
buses and billeted in Spartan hostels or even army camps, and the main stadium
being hastily cleared of greyhound racing to allow the athletics to take place. The total
budget was GBP760,000, great athletes like Emil Zatopek and Fanny Blankers-Koen
thrilled the crowds, and at the end a profit was turned! (William Hill Sports Book of
the Year Shortlist 2008). TB 16636.
Hill, Lawrence
The book of negroes. 2009. Read by Adjoa Andoh, 17 hours 8 minutes. TB
16702.
The story of Aminata, a young girl abducted from her village in Mali aged 11 in 1755,
and who, after a deathly journey on a slave ship where she witnesses the brutal
repression of a slave revolt, is sold to a plantation owner in South Carolina, who rapes
her. She is brought to New York, where she escapes her owner, and finds herself
helping the British by recording all the freed slaves on the British side in the
Revolutionary War in The Book of Negroes (a real historical document that can be
found today at the National Archives at Kew). (Commonwealth Writers Prize 2008).
TB 16702.
Hillenbrand, Laura
Seabiscuit: the true story of three men and a racehorse. 2001. Read by Lori
Dungey, 16 hours 42 minutes. TB 15225.
The author retraces the journey of Seabiscuit, a horse with crooked legs and a
pathetic tail that made racing history in 1938. Thanks to theefforts of a trainer, an
owner, and a jockey this racehorse was transformed into a legend. (William Hill
Sports Book of the Year 2001). TB 15225.
Hoare, Philip
Leviathan or, the whale. 2008. Read by Matt Addis, 11 hours 6 minutes. TB
16251.
All his life, Philip Hoare has been obsessed with whales, from the huge skeletons in
London's Natural History Museum to adult encounters with the wild animals
themselves. Why does the whale so vividly inhabit our imaginations? Is it a symbol of
41
Edenic innocence in a time of threatened species and climate change? Or an older
emblem of evil, the grotesque fish which swallowed Jonah? Travelling around the
globe in search of the whale, Philip Hoare sheds light on our perennial fascination
with the strange creatures of the sea, whose nature remains tantalizingly
undiscovered. (BBC4 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non Fiction Winner 2009). Contains
strong language. TB 16251.
Holmes, Richard
The age of wonder: how the Romantic generation discovered the beauty and
terror of science. 2009. Read by Mark Elstob, 24 hours 5 minutes. TB 16830.
The book opens with Joseph Banks, botanist on Captain Cook's first Endeavour
voyage, stepping onto a Tahitian beach in 1769, hoping to discover Paradise. Banks
introduces us to the two scientific figures that dominate the book: astronomer William
Herschel and chemist Humphry Davy. Herschel's tireless dedication to the stars,
assisted (and perhaps rivalled) by his comet-finding sister Caroline, changed forever
the public conception of the solar system, the Milky Way galaxy and the meaning of
the universe itself. Davy first shocked the scientific community with his near- suicidal
gas experiments in Bristol, then went on to save thousands of lives with his Safety
Lamp and established British chemistry as the leading professional science in
Europe. (Shortlisted for BBC4 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non Fiction 2009). Contains
strong language. TB 16830.
Kearsley, Susanna
Sophia's secret. 2008. Read by Sally Armstrong, 16 hours 46 minutes. TB 16689.
When bestselling author Carrie McClelland visits the windswept ruins of Slains Castle,
she is enchanted by the stark and beautiful Scottish landscape. The area is strangely
familiar to her but she puts aside her faint sense of unease to begin her new novel,
using the castle as her setting, and one of her own ancestors, Sophia, as her heroine.
Then Carrie realises her writing is taking on a life of its own and the lines between fact
and fiction become increasingly blurred. (RNA Romantic Novel of the Year Shortlisted
2009). TB 16689.
Kelly, Cathy
Someone like you. Read by Brett O'Brien, 21 hours 25 minutes. TB 14006.
Emma, Leonie and Hannah all want just one thing in life and then they'll happy. For
just-married Emma, happiness means escaping the control of her domineering father
and conceiving a much longed-for child with her beloved husband. For Leonie,
divorced mother of three teenagers, it means finding the true love that was missing
from her ten-year marriage. And for Hannah, striking out alone after the man she
loved abandoned her, happiness means independence and security - something she
doesn't think any man can provide. As they work out their hopes, needs and desires,
Emma, Leonie and Hannah come to rely more and more on one another's support in
42
their battles to win through. (Parker Romantic Novel Award 2001). Contains strong
language. TB 14006.
Manotti, Dominique
Lorraine connection. 2008. Read by Peter Wickham, 8 hours 9 minutes. TB
16223.
When a cathode ray tube factory in a small French town is hit first by a strike and then
by a suspicious fire, the battle for the take-over of the plant's beleaguered parent
company heats up. The Lorraine factory is at the centre of a strategic battle being
played out in Paris, Brussels, and Asia for the take-over of the ailing state-owned
electronics giant Thomson. Accusations of foul play fly, and rival contender Alcatel
calls in its intrepid head of security Charles Montoya to investigate. He soon uncovers
explosive revelations and a trail of murders, dirty tricks, blackmail, and corporate
malfeasance. (CWA Duncan Lawrie International Dagger Winner 2008). Contains
strong language. TB 16223.
Masters, Alexander
Stuart: a life backwards. 2006. Read by Andrew Stanson, 9 hours 14 minutes.
TB 14971.
Stuart was homeless, with many of the problems this sub-section of English society
display; alcoholism, drug-addiction, crime, violence. Scattered with glimpses of the
author's friendship with Stuart in the years before his death, Masters gives us Stuart's
life in reverse, tracing his route backwards through the post-office heists and attempts
at suicide and the spells inside many of this country's prisons, on back to a troubled
time at school and learning difficulties and a violent childhood that acted like a
springboard into the trouble that was to follow him all his life.This book is a glimpse at
the underbelly of English society, a world largely hidden from our lives. (Shortlisted for
BBC4 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non Fiction 2005). Contains strong language. TB
14971.
McCarthy, Cormac
The road. 2007. Read by Pat Courtenay, 6 hours 21 minutes. TB 16094.
A father and his young son walk alone through burned America, heading slowly for
the coast. Nothing moves in the ravaged landscapes save the ash on the wind. They
have nothing but a pistol to defend themselves against the men who stalk the road,
the clothes they are wearing, a cart of scavenged food - and each other. (Pulitzer
Prize for Fiction 2007). Unsuitable for family reading. TB 16094.
Moyes, Jojo
Foreign fruit. 2004. Read by Stephanie Beattie, 15 hours 2 minutes. TB 13807.
Merham is a well-ordered 1950s seaside town, the kind of town in which everyone
knows their place. Lottie Swift, an evacuee who has grown up with the respectable
Holden family, loves Merham, while the Holdens' daughter Celia chafes against the
43
constraints of the town. When a group of bohemians takes over Arcadia, a stark Art
Deco house on the seafront, the girls are drawn to its temptations as Merham's
citizens are appalled by them. They set in place a chain of events which will have
longstanding and tragic consequences for all concerned. Now, almost fifty years on,
Arcadia is returning to life, and its inhabitants stirring up strong feelings again. And
prompting more than one person to look into their own history and ask: can you ever
leave your past behind? (Parker Romantic Novel Award 2004). Contains passages of
a sexual nature. TB 13807.
North, Freya
Pillow talk. 2008. Read by Felicity Duncan, 11 hours 24 minutes. TB 16234.
By day, Petra Flint is a talented jeweller working in a lively London studio. By night,
she sleepwalks. She has 40 carats of the world's rarest gemstone under her mattress
but it's the skeletons in her closet that make it difficult for her to rest. The insomniac.
At one time a promising song-writer, Arlo Savidge now teaches music at a boys'
boarding school in North Yorkshire. He assumes he's happy with his isolated lifestyle.
But, like Petra, ghosts from his past disturb his sleep. Putting the past to bed. Petra
and Arlo loved each other from afar during their schooldays. Now, seventeen years
later, in a tiny sweetshop one rainy day, they stand before each other once more.
Could this be their second chance? (RNA Romantic Novel of the Year Winner 2008).
Contains strong language and passages of a sexual nature. TB 16234.
O'Brien, Sean
The drowned book. 2007. Read by Mark Elstob, 1 hour 30 minutes. TB 16018.
Many of the poems in Sean O'Brien's new collection take their emotional tenor and
imaginative cue from his acclaimed translation of Dante's Inferno, and occupy a dark,
flooded, subterranean world, as dramatically compelling as it is disquieting.
Circumstances have compelled O'Brien to return repeatedly to the elegiac form, and
"The Drowned Book" contains a number of powerfully moving poems written in
memory of fellow poets and artists. (T S Eliot Prize 2007). TB 16018.
Rees, Matt
The Bethlehem murders: an Omar Yussef novel. 2007. Read by Daniel Philpot, 7
hours 55 minutes. TB 16228.
Omar Yussef; book 1. For decades, Omar Yussef has taught history to the children of
Bethlehem. When a favourite former pupil, George Saba, is arrested for collaborating
with the Israelis in the killing of a Palestinian guerrilla, Yussef is convinced that he has
been framed. With George facing imminent execution Yussef sets out to prove his
innocence. As Yussef falls foul of his headmaster and the local police chief, time
begins to run out for this teacher-turned-detective. His classroom is bombed and
members of his family are threatened. But with no one else willing to stand up for the
truth, it is up to Omar to act, even as bloodshed and heartbreak surround him. (CWA
New Blood Dagger Award Winner 2008). Contains strong language. TB 16228.
44
Roberts, Gene
The race beat: the press, the civil rights struggle, and the awakening of a
nation. 2007. Read by Larry Belling, 19 hours 58 minutes. TB 16107.
This book examines how news stories, editorials and photographs in the American
press - and the journalists responsible for them - profoundly changed the nation's
thinking about civil rights in the South during the 1950s and '60s. The authors draw on
private correspondence, notes from secret meetings, unpublished articles, and
interviews to show how a dedicated cadre of newsmen - black and white - revealed to
a nation its most shameful shortcomings that compelled its citizens to act. (Pulitzer
History Prize 2007). Contains violence. TB 16107.
Summerscale, Kate
The suspicions of Mr. Whicher: or, The murder at Road Hill House. 2008. Read
by Beth Chalmers, 10 hours 26 minutes. TB 16062.
A true story that inspired a generation of writers such as Wilkie Collins, Charles
Dickens and Arthur Conan Doyle, this has all the hallmarks of the classic murder
mystery - a body; a detective; and, a country house steeped in secrets. In "The
suspicions of Mr. Whicher", Kate Summerscale untangles the facts behind this
notorious case, bringing it back to vivid, extraordinary life. (BBC4 Samuel Johnson
Prize for Non Fiction Winner 2008). TB 16062.
Thomas, Rosie
Iris and Ruby. 2006. Read by Frances Edmond, 16 hours 11 minutes. TB 16095.
Stiflingly quiet and claustrophobic, Iris's house in old Cairo is disturbed by the
unexpected arrival of her troubled and wilful granddaughter, Ruby. Teenage Ruby has
run away from her family in England to seek solace with the grandmother she hasn't
seen for many years. An unlikely bond is formed as the two open themselves up to
one another. In exploring Iris's past the women are lead into terrible danger. (RNA
Romantic Novel of the Year Winner 2007). Contains strong language. TB 16095.
Trescothick, Marcus
Coming back to me: the autobiography. 2008. Read by David Thorpe, 12 hours 6
minutes. TB 16545.
The memoir of one of the best batsman in the game who stunned the cricket world
when he prematurely ended his own England career in 2006 after a mental
breakdown. Trescothick's brave and soul-baring account of his mental frailties opens
the way to a better understanding of the unique pressures experienced by modernday professional sportsmen. . (William Hill Sports Book of the Year 2008). Contains
strong language. TB 16545.
45
Vargas, Fred
Wash this blood clean from my hand. 2008. Read by Michael Tudor Barnes, 13
hours 55 minutes. TB 16218.
Between 1943 and 2003, nine people have been stabbed to death with a most
unusual weapon: a trident. In each case, arrests were made, suspects confessed
their crime and were sentenced to life in prison. One slightly worrying detail: the
presumed murderers lost consciousness during the night of the crime and have no
recollection of it. Commissaire Adamsberg is convinced all the murders are the work
of one person, the terrifying Judge Fulgence. Years before, Adamsberg's own brother
had been the principal suspect in a similar case and avoided prison only thanks to
Adamsberg's help. History repeats itself when Adamsberg, who is temporarily based
in Quebec for a training mission, is accused of having savagely murdered a young
woman he had met. In order to prove his innocence, Adamsberg must go on the run
from the Canadian police and find Judge Fulgence. (Duncan Lawrie International
Dagger 2007). Contains strong language. TB 16218.
Walters, Minette
Fox evil. 2003. Read by Maureen O'Brien, 13 hours 8 minutes. TB 15090.
When elderly Ailsa Lockyer-Fox is found dead in her garden, dressed only in night
clothes and with blood stains on the ground near her body, the finger of suspicion
points at her wealthy, landowning husband, Colonel James Lockyer-Fox. A coroner's
inquest gives a verdict of 'natural causes' but the gossip surrounding him refuses to
go away. (CWA Gold Dagger 2003). Contains violence. TB 15090.
Wright, Lawrence
The looming tower: Al-Qaeda's road to 9/11. 2006. Read by Garrick Hagon, 17
hours 52 minutes. TB 14887.
This book tells the full story of Al Qaeda from its roots up to 9/11. Drawing on
interviews and first-hand sources, it investigates the extraordinary group of
ideologues behind this organization - and those who tried to stop them. Interweaving
this story with events including the Israeli-Palestine conflict, the Soviet invasion of
Afghanistan and the first attack on the World Trade Center, Lawrence Wright takes us
into training camps, mountain hideouts and top secret meetings to explore how it all
fed into the planning and execution of 9/11 - and reveals the complex origins of Al
Qaeda's hatred of the West. (Pulitzer Prize for Non Fiction 2007) Contains strong
language. TB 14887.
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