General fiction (part 1)
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
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. TB 13604.
Amis, Martin
Time's arrow, or, the nature of the offence. 1991. Read by Raymond Sawyer, 5
hours 37 minutes. TB 8883.
Shortlisted for the 1991 Booker Prize, "Time's Arrow" caused considerable
controversy because of its treatment of the Holocaust. The story begins with an old
man dying in hospital and through the narrator, trapped in the man's head, we learn
the story of his life - in reverse. Moving backwards in both narration and plot, the
novel chillingly re-enacts the life of a Nazi war criminal on the run. Contains strong
language. TB 8883.
Atkinson, Kate
Behind the scenes at the museum. Read by Susan Jameson, 12 hours 19
minutes. TB 13467.
Bunty had never wanted to marry George but he was all that was left. She was stuck
in a flat in York with Patricia aged 5, and greedy cross-patch Gillian and Ruby - Ruby
tells the story of the family from the end of the nineteenth century, through to the
memorable events of her own life. Contains strong language. TB 13467.
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. Contains passages of a sexual nature. TB 12317.
Austen, Jane
Love and friendship, and other early works. 2000. Read by Rachel Atkins, 3
hours 50 minutes. TB 14975.
"Love and friendship", "The three sisters" and "Lesley Castle" form part of this
endearing collection of Jane Austen's earliest works. Some written when Jane was as
young as fifteen, were initially only intended for family listening. The works are full of
the exuberance of youth as well as the sharp wit which is so prominent in her later
works. TB 14975.
2
Banks, Iain
Dead air. 2003. Read by Kenny Blyth, 11 hours 52 minutes. TB 14325.
In a loft apartment in the East End, in a former factory due to be knocked down in a
few days, after a wedding breakfast people start dropping fruits from a balcony on to a
deserted car park ten storeys below, then they start dropping other things; an old TV
that doesn't work, a blown loudspeaker, beanbags, other unwanted furniture...Then
they get carried away and start dropping things that are still working, while wrecking
the rest of the apartment. But mobile phones start ringing and they're told to turn on a
TV, because a plane has just crashed into the World Trade Centre. Contains strong
language. TB 14325.
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
seductive as they are unsettling. What ensues will haunt him for the rest of his years
and shape everything that is to follow. Contains strong language. TB 14351.
Barnes, Julian
A history of the world in 10 1/2 chapters. 1989. Read by various narrators, 11
hours 36 minutes. TB 10010.
Julian Barnes's audacious fictional history of the world first seems to consist of
simple, intriguing, disconnected stories, sophisticatedly told. But gradually they echo
each other; the chapters interlock; images insistently recur; themes deepen. This is
no ordinary history, but something stronger, a challenge and a delight for the reader's
imagination, ambitious yet accessible, witty and playfully serious. TB 10010.
Bennett, Arnold
Anna of the Five Towns. 1936. Read by Ray Jones, 8 hours 31 minutes. TB
6867.
Anna is one of Bennett's "modern" heroines: brought up in a typical Potteries' town
with its prayer meetings and rent collecting, stark Sunday schools and dark interiors,
by a father who is a miser as well as a tyrant. Gradually her spirit expands until - at
last - she manages to defy him. Almost a character in its own right, the community in
which they live is shown as gossipy, myopic and uncaring. TB 6867.
Binchy, Maeve
Evening class. 1996. Read by Brett O'Brien, 15 hours 4 minutes. TB 11885.
The new Italian evening class at Mountainview School in Dublin is like hundreds of
others starting up all over the city - but this one has its own special quality...the hopes
and dreams of so many people are tied up in the twice-weekly lessons. TB 11885.
3
Brookner, Anita
The rules of engagement. 2004. Read by Joanna David, 8 hours 14 minutes. TB
13468.
Elizabeth and Betsy are old school friends. Born in 1948 and not ready for the sixties,
they had high hopes of the lives they would lead, even though their circumstances
were so different. When they meet again in their thirties, Elizabeth, married to the
safe, older Digby is relieving the boredom of a cosy but childless marriage with an
affair. Betsy seems to have found real romance in Paris. Are their lives taking off, or
are they just making more of the wrong choices without even realising it? TB 13468.
Buchan, Elizabeth
The good wife. 2004. Read by Joanna David, 8 hours 24 minutes. TB 13764.
Fanny Savage has been married for twenty busy, packed years to a man very much
in the public eye. 'Our marriage grew and deepened' she reflects. 'It went through
troughs, blossomed, withered a little, blossomed again but it was never stagnant'.
Now, Fanny feels in need of breathing space and a change and finds herself on a
plane to Italy. There, settled in the lovely decaying Casa Rosa, among the vines and
the olive trees, she has the solitude and the peace to reflect on her life. Is she happy?
Will she remain the Good Wife and, if so, what exactly does it mean? TB 13764.
Burgess, Anthony
Earthly powers. 1980. Read by Andrew Timothy, 32 hours 33 minutes. TB 3993.
Michael Toomey, distinguished writer, tells the story of his life from the First World
War to his final years of idleness. Having seen much cruelty in the world, he has at
last come to the conclusion that evil comes from man himself - it is inborn. TB 3993.
Camus, Albert
The plague. 2002. Read by Steve Hodson, 11 hours 6 minutes. TB 13857.
The townspeople of Oran are in the grip of a deadly plague, which condemns its
victims to a swift and horrifying death. Fear, isolation and claustrophobia follow as
they are forced into quarantine, each responding in their own way to the lethal
bacillus: some resign themselves to fate, some seek blame and a few, like Dr Rieus,
resist the terror. Unsuitable for family reading. TB 13857.
Coelho, Paulo
The alchemist. 1998. Read by Nigel Graham, 4 hours 52 minutes. TB 13472.
The story of an Andalusian shepherd boy who yearns to travel in search of a treasure.
He journeys to the markets of Tangiers and into the Egyptian desert where a fateful
encounter with the alchemist awaits him. This story teaches us about the wisdom of
listening to our hearts, reading the omens along life's path and following our dreams.
TB 13472.
4
Coetzee, J M
Life and times of Michael K. 1983. Read by John Livesey, 5 hours 17 minutes.
TB 5124.
Michael K, the anti-hero of this tale of war and the dispossessed, is stronger than any
hero and more subversive than any freedom fighter because he refuses to be
assimilated into the system, to belong to one side or the other or even to be helped. A
jobbing gardener with a harelip and a dying mother, he yet manages to live his own
life on his own terms, however minimal, while society is disintegrating around him.
(Booker Prize Winner in 1983). TB 5124.
Colette
The collected stories of Colette. 1984. Read by Pauline Munro, 26 hours 32
minutes. TB 5519.
A collection of 100 stories written between 1908 and 1945. The settings move from
Paris to the Brittany coast, from Mediterranean gardens to theatre dressing rooms
and from disreputable bars to the countryside of the author's native Burgundy. TB
5519.
Dickens, Charles
Barnaby Rudge. 1841. Read by George Hagan, 30 hours. TB 1544.
Barnaby, pathetic and half-witted son of a murderer, and his raven Grip play unwitting
parts in the Gordon riots of 1780 and in the family feud of the Haredale and Chester
families. TB 1544.
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. TB 13030.
Dostoevskii, F M
The idiot. 1970. Read by Gene Foad, 29 hours 18 minutes. TB 5963.
Two young men meet on the Petersburg train; Rogozhin, dark, stocky, well-dressed
and rich; Prince Myshkin, tall, fair, rather gaunt and shabby. His education has been
interrupted by epilepsy and he calls himself an idiot, but he does have some unusual
gifts, not the least being the ability to say - with disconcerting clarity - not only what he
is thinking himself, but to put into words the thoughts of others; yet his innocence has
a strange attraction for all who meet him. TB 5963.
5
Doyle, Roddy
Paddy Clarke ha, ha, ha. 1993. Read by John Cormack, 7 hours 5 minutes. TB
9617.
Paddy Clarke is ten in 1968 and loves George Best, Geronimo and the smell of his
hot water bottle. He hates zoos, kissing and boys from the Corporation houses and
his brother. He wants to be a missionary and plays lepers. Kevin is his best friend.
He's confused; he sees everything, but understands less and less. TB 9617.
Eliot, George
The mill on the Floss. 1860. Read by Gabriel Woolf, 21 hours. TB 1118.
Maggie Tulliver is deeply attached to her brother Tom, but their conflicting
temperaments and outlook produce only stress and misunderstanding until they are
finally reconciled in a moment of revelation before tragedy overtakes them. TB 1118.
Elton, Ben
Dead famous. 2001. Read by David Thorpe, 11 hours 10 minutes. TB 12454.
One house, ten contestants, thirty cameras and forty microphones. Another televised,
real-life soap opera, House Arrest. Everyone knows the rules: total strangers are
forced to live together while the rest of the country watches them do it. Only this time
they're asking: who is the murderer? Contains strong language. TB 12454.
Erdrich, Louise
Tracks. 1988. Read by Laurel Lefkow, 7 hours 17 minutes. TB 8954.
The story of the devastation of the American Indian way of life is told by Nanapush,
sole survivor of the clan of that name and Pauline, the gossipy young Chippewa
woman with bizarre ideas about life. It is a story for a new generation, woven with raw
myth and Indian folklore of the tragic past that has gone forever. TB 8954.
Faulks, Sebastian
On Green Dolphin Street. 2001. Read by Jacqueline King, 12 hours 29 minutes.
TB 13948.
America, 1959. With two young children she adores, loving parents back in London,
and an admired husband, Charlie, working at the British embassy in Washington, the
world seems an effervescent place of parties, jazz and family happiness to Mary Van
der Linden. But the Eisenhower years are ending, and 1960 brings the presidential
battle between two ambitious senators: John Kennedy and Richard Nixon. An
American newspaper reporter called Frank Renzo dramatically enters the Van der
Linden's lives, and through him Mary is forced to confront the terror of the Cold War
that is the dark background of their carefree existence. Contains strong language. TB
13948.
6
Fforde, Katie
Life skills. 1999. Read by Penelope Freeman, 11 hours 35 minutes. TB 11962.
When Julia breaks off her engagement to boringly safe Oscar, she decides to go for a
complete change of life, as cook on a narrow boat. But even afloat, Julia's past
catches up with her and she must contend with not only Oscar and his awful mother
but also the arrival of the enigmatic Fergus. TB 11962.
Fitzgerald, F Scott
The great Gatsby. 1926. Read by John Dunn, 5 hours 30 minutes. TB 1487.
Gatsby in his fabulous Long Island Mansion is the enigmatic central figure of this
picture of the Jazz age. TB 1487.
Flaubert, Gustave
Madame Bovary. 1857. Read by John Richmond, 15 hours 50 minutes. TB 1337.
A French novel renowned for its realistic picture of smalltown bourgeois life of an
ambitious, ruthless wife who drives her doctor-husband to despair and destruction
with her deceits and schemes. TB 1337.
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.
Contains strong language. TB 14095.
Foden, Giles
The last king of Scotland. 1998. Read by Jonathon Hackett, 15 hours 14
minutes. TB 11907.
Combining elements of the thriller-noir with comedy, this novel is based on the
macabre events of Idi Amin's regime. "The last King of Scotland" is one of the many
titles that the dictator bestowed upon himself. It is also about a young Scottish doctor
who becomes involved in Amin's administration. Contains strong language. TB
11907.
7
Forster, E M
A room with a view. 1908. Read by Corbett Woodall, 8 hours 15 minutes. TB
1525.
The moral of this story is that many people, though good, are ruled by catchwords
and phrases rather than the truth of their inner hearts. TB 1525.
Fowles, John
The magus. 1977. Read by Ian Craig, 27 hours 45 minutes. TB 5191.
A young English schoolmaster, Nicolas Urfe, meets the urbane self-styled psychic,
Maurice Conchis, on a Greek island. A cat-and-mouse game develops between the
two men, which Nicolas finds puzzling and directly challenging. Unsuitable for family
reading. TB 5191.
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. TB 13220.
Fry, Stephen
The stars' tennis balls. 1999. Read by Raymond Sawyer, 12 hours 40 minutes.
TB 13757.
The story of a very nice young man called Ned Maddstone who, 20 years after being
seized outside a Knightsbridge language college and thrown into solitary confinement
as a political prisoner, returns to London implacably focused upon revenge. Contains
strong language. TB 13757.
Gaskell, Elizabeth
North and south. 1854. Read by Gabriel Woolf, 19 hours. TB 1129.
This novel is a study of the contrast between the values and habits of rural southern
England and industrial northern England. The heroine, Margaret Hale, is the daughter
of a parson whose religious doubts force him to resign his Hampshire living and to
move with his family to a northern city. TB 1129.
Gissing, George
New Grub Street. 1997. Read by Michael Tudor Barnes, 21 hours 50 minutes. TB
12019.
Through the foggy gloom of the British Library Reading Room and the garrets of
Tottenham Court Road, this novel follows a collection of hack journalists, aspiring
newcomers and embittered veterans through the literary world of the 1880's. This
study edition also contains a commentary. TB 12019.
8
Golden, Arthur
Memoirs of a geisha. 1998. Read by Carole Boyd, 19 hours 20 minutes. TB
13410.
Summing up more than 20 years of Japan's most dramatic history, the geisha's story
uncovers a hidden world of eroticism and enchantment, exploitation and degradation.
It moves from a small fishing village in 1929 to the glamorous and decadent Kyoto of
the 30s and on to post war New York. Contains passages of a sexual nature. TB
13410.
Golding, William
Lord of the flies: a novel. 1954. Read by Trevor Lucas, 8 hours 29 minutes. TB
4721.
A group of boys are stranded on a desert island after a plane crash. They realize they
must work together to survive. However, it is not long before their latent animal
savagery erupts, shattering the thin veneer of civilization. TB 4721.
Gordimer, Nadine
The conservationist. 1974. Read by David Strong, 10 hours 18 minutes. TB
2673.
A South African financier, farmer and womaniser struggles to conserve his way of life
against the claims of his mistress, his young son, and his black workers. Joint winner
of the Booker Prize, 1974. TB 2673.
Green, Jane
Jemima J. 1998. Read by Francine Brody, 13 hours 3 minutes. TB 11667.
Treated like a slave by her thin and bitchy flatmates, lorded over at the Kilburn Herald
by the beautiful Geraldine, her only consolation is food, Jemima knows her life needs
changing. But can she reinvent herself? Should she? Contains passages of a sexual
nature. TB 11667.
Greene, Graham
The quiet American. 1973. Read by David Banks, 6 hours 50 minutes. TB 5087.
Pyle, an American working for the Economic Aid Mission during the early days of the
Vietnam War in the 1950s, is murdered. But things are not as they appear in this
conspiratorial country. Was Pyle devoted to helping the people of this troubled land,
or was he involved with a Third Force, dedicated to anarchy? TB 5087.
9
Grossmith, George
The diary of a nobody. 1984. Read by Robin Holmes, 5 hours 17 minutes. TB
5638.
Being a true and faithful account of the daily comings of the Pooter household:
Charles, the author, his dear wife Carrie and their (at times) difficult-to-understand
son Lupin. Pooter is Everyman struggling to maintain dignity in the face of petty
frustration. TB 5638.
Hailey, Arthur
Wheels. 1971. Read by Marvin Kane, 15 hours 30 minutes. TB 2003.
In Detroit, everyone's life seems somehow concerned with the car industry; and the
private life of everyone down from the wealthy executives and designers to the
poorest workers on the factory floor is influenced by the dreadful pressures of life on
the plant. TB 2003.
Hall, Radclyffe
The well of loneliness. 1982. Read by Gretel Davis, 18 hours 16 minutes. TB
5208.
This book was banned in 1928 for twenty years because it is the story of an "invert",
that is a woman who is born with the mind and soul of a man trapped in a female
body. Stephen was baptised with a saint's name by her father who had longed for a
boy and she grew up with all the virtues of a son. As a daughter she thinks, feels and
desires in a way that was forbidden to a woman and must therefore be an outlaw. TB
5208.
Hardy, Thomas
The mayor of Casterbridge. 1886. Read by Robin Holmes, 14 hours. TB 1228.
Michael Henchard, a Dorset man, sells his wife and child to an unknown sailor. The
story shows the lifelong result of this folly. TB 1228.
Harris, Joanne
Chocolat. 2000. Read by Diana Bishop, 10 hours 20 minutes. TB 12558.
The food trilogy; book 1. When an exotic stranger opens a chocolate boutique in a
French village at the beginning of Lent, the traditional season for self-denial, it divides
the community and causes a conflict that escalates into a "church not chocolate"
battle. TB 12558.
Hartley, L P
The go-between. 1953. Read by Gabriel Woolf, 11 hours. TB 402.
Leo, now in his sixties, looks back to the summer of 1900, when as a young boy he
stayed at a house in Norfolk. There he has his first glimpse of the passions and
intrigue of adulthood which changed his life irrevocably. TB 402.
10
Hidier, Tanuja Desai
Born confused. 2002. Read by Regina Reagan, 15 hours 12 minutes. TB 13670.
Dimple Lala doesn't know what to think. She's spent her whole life resisting her
parents' traditions. But now she's turning seventeen and things are more complicated
than ever. She's still recovering from a year-old break-up and her best friend isn't
around the way she used to be. Then, to make matters worse, her parents arrange for
her to meet a "suitable boy." Of course, it doesn't go well...until Dimple goes to a club
and finds him spinning a magical web of words and music. Suddenly the suitable boy
is suitable because of his sheer unsuitability. Complications ensue. TB 13670.
Hornby, Nick
High fidelity: a novel. 1995. Read by Nigel Carrington, 7 hours 23 minutes. TB
10536.
Rob Fleming, thirty-five year old, pop addict and owner of a failing record shop, has
some questions that need answering; about whether he will love his girlfriend if she
comes back, whether he can go on living in a poky flat or should he get a real home,
a real family and a real job and, most difficult of all, will he ever be able to stop
thinking of life in terms of the All Time Top Five bands, books, films and songs?
Contains strong language. TB 10536.
Huxley, Aldous
Eyeless in Gaza. 1936. Read by John Richmond, 19 hours 15 minutes. TB 3302.
In middle life, Anthony Beavis discovers that the philosophical freedom which he has
fought so hard to win is a poor copy of the real liberty he has been seeking. TB 3302.
Ishiguro, Kazuo
The remains of the day. 1989. Read by Michael Tudor Barnes, 7 hours 53
minutes. TB 8107.
It is the summer of 1956. Stevens, an ageing butler, has embarked on a rare holiday a six-month motoring trip to the West Country. But his travels are disturbed by the
memories of a lifetime in service to the late Lord Darlington, and most of all by the
increasingly painful recollection of his friendship with the housekeeper, Miss Kenton.
Winner of the 1989 Booker Prize. TB 8107.
James, Henry
The turn of the screw. 1957. Read by Rosemary Davis, 5 hours 38 minutes. TB
7954.
A complex web of fantasies, worked upon by the fraught and tortured mind of Miles
and Flora's Governess. The other people who haunt this novel include Miles' distant
uncle, Miss Jessel the previous governess, and Quint who is found dead on the road
from the village. In this novel, Henry James probes the lives and imaginations of the
people who live at the big house. TB 7954.
11
Joyce, James
Ulysses. 1986. Read by Denys Hawthorne and Kate Binchy, 36 hours 18
minutes. TB 8275.
Penguin modern classics. A day in the life of the author's city, Dublin, becomes a wild
and joyous celebration of the love of a man for his home town. Blum, the Jew, the
outcast, and Stephen, young, Catholic, and in his own eyes a failure, come together
in a hilarious scene in a brothel. It is as if Stephen takes the place of the son who died
when Blum was a young man and the story becomes a celebration of life itself.
Unsuitable for family reading. TB 8275.
Kesey, Ken
One flew over the cuckoo's nest: a novel. 1962. Read by Jonathan Oliver, 12
hours 27 minutes. TB 4958.
Life in an American mental hospital as told by Chief Broom Bromden, a half-Indian
who is driven to feign being deaf and dumb for many years in order to survive the
rigours and traumas of institutional life. He is the spectator without responsibility for
the many incidents - some hilarious, some very moving - in this struggle between
bureaucracy and the individual. Unsuitable for family reading. TB 4958.
Keyes, Marian
Rachel's holiday. 1998. Read by Marie McCarthy, 16 hours 24 minutes. TB
11520.
Rachel Walsh's propensity for recreational drugs lands her in Dublin's answer to the
Betty Ford Clinic. Whilst she is expecting to encounter wall to wall jacuzzis,
gymnasiums and rock stars, the reality proves to be otherwise, with group therapy in
the company of middle-aged men, the order of the day. She seeks redemption from
Chris, a man with a past, who might be more trouble than he's worth. Contains strong
language. TB 11520.
Kingsolver, Barbara
The poisonwood Bible. 2000. Read by Liza Ross, 19 hours 57 minutes. TB
13754.
This is a story told by the wife and four daughters of Nathan Price, a fierce
evangelical Baptist who takes his family and mission to the Belgian Congo in 1959.
They carry with them all they believe they will need from home, but soon find that all
of it, from garden seeds to Scripture, is calamitously transformed on African soil.
Contains strong language. TB 13754.
12
Kureishi, Hanif
The Buddha of suburbia. 1990. Read by David Thorpe, 10 hours 53 minutes. TB
12081.
The winner of the Whitbread Best First Novel 1990, this is the story of Karim Amir, "an
Englishman born and bred - almost", who lives with his English mother and Indian
father in the south London suburbs. It is written by the author of "My Beautiful
Launderette" and "Sammy and Rosie Get Laid". TB 12081.
Lee, Harper
To kill a mockingbird. 1960. Read by Marvin Kane, 10 hours 45 minutes. TB
2289.
In Maycombe County, Alabama, Atticus Finch and his children lived a quiet, upright
sort of life until the day Atticus defended a negro on a rape charge; then danger
seemed to lurk in the bushes and to threaten them from all dark places. TB 2289.
Lodge, David
Thinks: a novel. 2001. Read by Anthony Jackson, Jacqueline King and Steve
Hodson, 13 hours 31 minutes. TB 13659.
Approaching his 50th birthday, Ralph Messenger has good reason to feel pleased
with himself. He is in demand as a pundit on developments in artificial intelligence,
and is a regular on the media circuit. A womanizer, he refrains from straying in his
own back yard, until Helen arrives on the scene. Contains strong language. TB
13659.
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. Contains passages of a sexual nature. TB
13411.
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. Contains
strong language. TB 14791.
13
Mo, Timothy
Sour sweet. 1982. Read by Patrick Romer, 13 hours 36 minutes. TB 4522.
Lily Chen and her husband open a Chinese restaurant in a London suburb. To Lily it
means the chance of success and going up the social scale; to Chen it means escape
from the Triad Hung 'family' with whom he has inadvertently become involved. TB
4522.
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 Kitty'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? TB 13538.
Orwell, George
1984: a novel. 1949. Read by David Brown, 13 hours. TB 1459.
A novel of the future showing how people are affected by propaganda and brainwashing. TB 1459.
Oyeyemi, Helen
The Icarus girl. 2005. Read by Debra Michaels, 9 hours 5 minutes. TB 14382.
Jessamy Harrison is eight years old. Sensitive and whimsical, she is possessed of an
extraordinary and powerful imagination. As the child of an English father and a
Nigerian mother, Jess can't shake the feeling of being alone wherever she goes.
When she is taken to her mother's family compound in Nigeria, she encounters
Titiola, a ragged little girl her own age, whom Jess calls TillyTilly. It seems that Jess
has found another outsider who will understand her. But as Tilly shows Jess just how
easy it is to hurt those around her, Jess begins to realise that she doesn't know who
TillyTilly is at all. TB 14382.
Pasternak, Boris
Doctor Zhivago. 1958. Read by Garard Green, 25 hours 50 minutes. TB 1553.
Classic love story set in Russia at the time of the revolution. Yuri Zhivago, physician
and poet, wrestles with the new order and confronts the changes cruel experience
has made in him, and the anguish of being torn between the love of two women. TB
1553.
14
Picoult, Jodi
My sister's keeper. 2004. Read by various narrators, 13 hours 11 minutes. TB
14020.
By age thirteen, Anna has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and
injections so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukaemia that has
plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna
was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate – a life and a role that she has
never challenged ... until now. Anna makes a decision that for most would be
unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal
consequences for the sister she loves. TB 14020.
Purves, Libby
A free woman. 2002. Read by Juliet Prague, 10 hours 15 minutes. TB 12685.
After fifteen years of backpacking around the world, Maggie, light-hearted and footloose, has come home - just for a few months - to a dank, dull British winter. Visiting
her sister Sarah, now married and settled contentedly in small-town life, the wayward
Maggie delights the family. Fate, however, has an unexpected adventure in store; it
rocks the whole family, bringing up dark shadows from their common past, and
confronts Maggie with the hardest decision of her life. TB 12685.
Rhue, Morton
The wave. 1981. Read by Stanley McGeagh, 3 hours 16 minutes. TB 4828.
This rather sinister story is based on a real incident that took place in a Californian
High School in the late 1960s. Ben Ross, teaching on the subject of the success of
Nazism in pre-war Germany, shows how group pressure is a very powerful force in
subjugating the individual. The result is frightening.... TB 4828.
Rhys, Jean
Wide Sargasso Sea. 1966. Read by George Hagan, 5 hours 5 minutes. TB 88.
The life of Rochester's first wife, the mad woman kept hidden at Thornfield Hall, who
later haunted Jane Eyre. TB 88.
Roth, Joseph
The Radetzky march. 1984. Read by Stanley Pritchard, 14 hours. TB 2565.
Penguin modern classics. Set in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, this story follows three
generations of the Trotta family - the hero soldier, his son the district commissioner,
his grandson the unhappy soldier unable to live up to family tradition. TB 2565.
15
Roy, Arundhati
The god of small things. 1997. Read by Carole Boyd, 14 hours 6 minutes. TB
12440.
Twins Rahel and Estha grow up between vats of banana jam and heaps of
peppercorns in the blind grandmother's factory. They try to fashion a childhood in the
shade of the wreck that is their family - their lonely, lovely mother, their beloved uncle,
and their incumbent grand-aunt. They learn that things can change in a day and that
lives can twist into new shapes. TB 12440.
Rushdie, Salman
Midnight's children. 1981. Read by Garard Green, 26 hours 5 minutes. TB 4119.
"The children born at the midnight of India's independence are endowed with
extraordinary talents." Saleem Sinai is one of them and at the tender age of nine he
has developed an inner ear, which gives him access to the private thoughts and
public affairs of India. This novel won the Booker Prize for 1981. TB 4119.
Russell, Willy
The wrong boy. 2001. Read by Peter Kenny, 14 hours 6 minutes. TB 14105.
Raymond Marks is a normal boy from a normal town. Until, that is, in the wake of the
Transvestite Nativity Play Scandal, the ill-fated flytrapping craze begins - a craze that
involves 15 boys, a number of flies and an intimate part of the male anatomy, after
which, Raymond's world is never quite the same again. Contains strong language. TB
14105.
Salinger, J D
The catcher in the rye. 1951. Read by Marvin Kane, 7 hours. TB 1922.
A 16-year old American boy relates in his own words the experiences he goes
through at school and after, and reveals with unusual candour the workings of his own
mind. TB 1922.
Saramago, Jose
Blindness: a novel. 1997. Read by Diana Bishop, 11 hours 50 minutes. TB
12014.
A city is hit by a sudden epidemic of blindness. The authorities segregate the newly
blind and all who have come into contact with them; they are herded into camps by
armed guards under instruction to shoot anyone trying to escape. "The meticulous
care of the writing, emphasised by the studied absence of punctuation and the
consistency of tenses, make the reader focus on every nuance of meaning. The result
is a challenging, thought-provoking and ironic novel." TB 12014.
16
Sartre, Jean-Paul
The age of reason. 2001. Read by Steve Hodson, 16 hours 12 minutes. TB
13996.
Roads to freedom trilogy; book 1. Set in the volatile Paris summer of 1938, this book
follows two days in the life of Mathieu Delarue, a philosophy teacher, and his circle in
the cafes and bars of Montparnasse. Mathieu has so far managed to contain sex and
personal freedom in conveniently separate compartments. But now he is in trouble,
urgently trying to raise 4,000 francs to procure a safe abortion for his mistress,
Marcelle. Beyond all this, filtering an uneasy light on his predicament, rises the distant
threat of the coming of the Second World War. Contains passages of a sexual nature.
TB 13996.
Shields, Carol
The Stone diaries. 1993. Read by Helen Horton, 11 hours 58 minutes. TB 9991.
The story of one woman's life, vivid with incident and yet leaving her with a sense of
powerlessness. She listens, she observes and through sheer force of imagination
becomes a witness to her own life: her birth, death and the troubling misconnections
she discovers between. In the end, her most signal accomplishment is to write herself
out of her own story. The reader must decide if Daisy's life is a triumphant act of
resistance or a surrendering to circumstance. Contains passages of a sexual nature.
TB 9991.
Shreve, Anita
Fortune's rocks: a novel. 2000. Read by Laurel Lefkow, 14 hours 5 minutes. TB
12640.
It is the summer of 1899, and Olympia Biddeford and her parents have retired from
the heat of Boston to the coastal resort of Fortune's Rocks. When the celebrated
essayist John Haskell is invited to stay, no one foresees the affair that is to follow.
What begins as the briefest of silences becomes a relationship that is both passionate
and destructive, six short weeks that will shape the rest of their lives. TB 12640.
Shute, Nevil
A town like Alice. 1950. Read by Stephen Jack, 13 hours. TB 500.
Jean Paget has survived World War II as a prisoner of the Japanese in Malaya. After
the war she comes into an inheritance that enables her to return to Malaya to repay
the villagers who helped her to survive. But her return visit changes her life again,
when she discovers that an Australian soldier she thought had died has survived. She
goes to Australia in search of him and of the town he described to her. TB 500.
17
Sijie, Dai
Balzac and the little Chinese seamstress. 2002. Read by Danny Bage, 4 hours
28 minutes. TB 13643.
1971: Mao's Cultural Revolution is at its peak. Two sons of doctors, sent to 'reeducation' camps, forced to carry buckets of excrement up and down mountain paths,
only have their sense of humour to keep them going. Although the attractive daughter
of the local tailor also helps to distract them from the task at hand. The boys' true reeducation starts when they discover a hidden suitcase packed with the great Western
novels of the nineteenth century and their lives are transformed. TB 13643.
Sillitoe, Alan
Saturday night and Sunday morning. 1958. Read by John Dunn, 8 hours 15
minutes. TB 1304.
An uninhibited story of factory workers in Nottingham who relieve the boredom of
work with weekends of sex, laughter, drinking and fighting. TB 1304.
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 high rise 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 hover pad, the annee erotique was only
thirty air cushioned 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
were on the barricades, the mode was maxi, the Beatles were transcendental. It was
Britain. It was great. Contains strong language. TB 14352.
Soyinka, Wole
The interpreters. 1996. Read by Anthony Ofoegbu, 9 hours 50 minutes. TB
12714.
"The Interpreters" is concerned with a group of young Nigerian intellectuals trying to
make something worthwhile of their lives and talents in a society where corruption
and consequent cynicism, social climbing and conforming give them alternative cause
for despair and laughter. Contains strong language. TB 12714.
Steel, Danielle
Wings. 1995. Read by Laurel Lefkow, 11 hours 54 minutes. TB 10468.
Cassie O'Malley's father had always wanted his son to be a pilot and not his reckless,
red haired daughter but it was Cassie who had the gift and her father's junior partner,
Nick Galvin, who gave her flying lessons. This is the story of a young woman who
fights the odds and becomes a renowned aviator. TB 10468.
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Steinbeck, John
Cannery Row. 1945. Read by William Roberts, 2 hours 9 minutes. TB 7256.
Cannery Row contains the quaintest crowd of flotsam and jetsam in Monterey Bay,
California. Lee Chong, grocer creditor; Dora Flood and her girls at the Bear Flag
Restaurant; casual labourers with reputations to keep; and Doc, loner and fount of all
wisdom, the man for whom everyone wants to do business and who usually ends up
paying. With these characters in the Row, comes an exuberant pageant of discord
and joy. TB 7256.
Swift, Graham
Last orders. 1996. Read by Jacqueline King and Peter Wickham, 9 hours 20
minutes. TB 11198.
Four men once close to Jack Dodds, a London butcher, meet to carry out his last
peculiar wish: to have his ashes scattered into the sea. For reasons best known to
herself, Jack's widow, Amy, declines to join them. Contains strong language. TB
11198.
Thackeray, W M
Vanity fair. 1847. Read by Eric Gillett, 37 hours 15 minutes. TB 1545.
No one is better equipped in the struggle for wealth and worldly success than the
alluring and ruthless Becky Sharp, who defies her impoverished background to
clamber up the class ladder. Her sentimental companion Amelia, however, longs only
for caddish soldier George. As the two heroines make their way through the tawdry
glamour of Regency society, battles - military and domestic - are fought, fortunes
made and lost. The one steadfast and honourable figure in this corrupt world is
Dobbin with his devotion to Amelia, bringing pathos and depth to Thackeray's
gloriously satirical epic of love and social adventure. TB 1545.
Thomas, Rosie
Bad girls, good women. 1988. Read by Carol Marsh, 31 hours. TB 7919.
In the finest tradition of the modern women novelists, this engrossing book deftly and
compassionately draws us into the girlhood and womanhood of two friends, Mattie
and Julia. Encompassing all the experiences of their widely differing lives, the
satisfying thread of their friendship carries all through the book to its warming
conclusion. Contains passages of a sexual nature. TB 7919.
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
19
Australia, bringing expert advice to those living on the land. Contains passages of a
sexual nature. TB 14678.
Titchmarsh, Alan
Mr MacGregor. 1998. Read by Raymond Sawyer, 10 hours 16 minutes. TB
12086.
Rob MacGregor is quick to find his feet as the replacement presenter of a stuck-in-arut gardening programme. Rob's good looks and enthusiasm quickly make him a
favourite with the green-fingered brigade. And that's half his trouble... Rob finds that
TV stardom involves more than shedding light on plants. In-fighting, jealousy and
politics take their toll, as does sexy news presenter Lisa Drake. But when his father's
long-established nursery is threatened, Rob realises it might be time to leave the
glamour behind. The debut novel from the presenter of TV's Gardeners world and
Ground Force. Contains strong language. TB 12086.
Townsend, Sue
Number Ten. 2002. Read by Anthony Jackson, 7 hours 45 minutes. TB 12850.
Jack Spratt is a policeman on the door of number ten Downing Street. When the
Prime Minister decides that the only way to get closer to the men and women on the
street is to travel around the country incognito, he enlists Jack's help. TB 12850.
Tremain, Rose
Sacred country. 1993. Read by Joan Walker, 11 hours 43 minutes. TB 10111.
At the age of six, in 1952, Mary Ward the child of a poor farming family in Suffolk, has
a revelation. She isn't Mary. She's a boy. An inexplicable mistake has been made
and, somehow, it will have to be rectified. So begins Mary's heroic struggle to change
gender, while around her others too fight to discover a place of meaning in a savage
and confusing world. Contains strong language. TB 10111.
Trevor, William
Felicia's journey. 1995. Read by Dermot Crowley, 7 hours 58 minutes. TB 10989.
Felicia journeys across the Irish Sea to the Midlands, where Johnny says he works once she finds Johnny everything will be all right. Her search takes her into the
industrial wastelands of contemporary Britain. Mr Hilditch is also searching, and when
he finds Felicia he knows he can help. She needs feeding, protecting and looking
after, and the obese catering manager proceeds to do precisely that. Always careful
to temper his guidance and advice with judicious restraint, Mr Hilditch helps her, as he
has helped many girls before. TB 10989.
Trollope, Anthony
An eye for an eye. 1992. Read by John Cormack, 7 hours 24 minutes. TB 10164.
Written in 1870, but held back until 1879, this is the most melodramatic story Trollope
wrote, and his frankest and most daring treatment of pre-marital sex. Fred Neville,
20
heir to an earldom, resolves to enjoy a year in Ireland with his regiment, and falls in
love with a beautiful Irish girl with a mysterious background. His family oppose the
match, and he seduces his wild Irish girl. The scene is thus set for a tragic outcome
that far exceeds the adventures Fred had in mind. TB 10164.
Tyler, Anne
A patchwork planet. 1998. Read by William Roberts, 8 hours 18 minutes. TB
12311.
Barnaby Gaitlin is a loser - just short of 30, he's the black sheep of a philanthropic
Baltimore family. He has an almost pathological curiosity for other people's lives and
a hopeless charm that attracts the kind of angelic woman who wants to save him from
himself. TB 12311.
Waugh, Evelyn
Scoop: a novel about journalists. 1938. Read by Gabriel Woolf, 6 hours 45
minutes. TB 4467.
A story very much of the thirties when it was written. Foreign correspondents were
famous figures and the centre of interest on board, was beginning to shift from
Abyssinia to Spain. Here, Boot of the Beast reports on the war in Ishmaelia. TB 4467.
Welsh, Irvine
Trainspotting. 1994. Read by various narrators, 10 hours 48 minutes. TB 11341.
"A loosely knotted string of jagged, dislocated tales that lay bare the hearts of
darkness of the junkies, wide boys and psychos who ride the down escalator of
opportunity... "(The Herald) Contains strong language. TB 11341.
Wesley, Mary
The camomile lawn. 1984. Read by John Westbrook, 11 hours 20 minutes. TB
5217.
In August 1939 five cousins gather at their aunt's home in Cornwall for the summer
holiday. For most of them it is the last summer of their youth. They are eager to lose
their innocence and explore every experience. Unsuitable for family reading. TB 5217.
Woolf, Virginia
Mrs Dalloway. 1925. Read by Rosemary Davis, 9 hours 23 minutes. TB 14092.
The action spans one June day in London in 1923 but travels much further in time
and space through the minds of Clarissa Dalloway, her husband, Richard and Peter
Walsh who has just returned from India (and whom she rejected years ago to marry
Richard); through the minds also of others whose lives brush against theirs: Sally
Seton, an old friend, Miss Kilman, who has ‘seen the light’ and teaches to young
Elizabeth Dalloway with sinister serenity and sad, shell-shocked young Septimus and
his little Italian wife. TB 14092.
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