AudioBooksReview

Think Yourself British by Al Murray

2009-11-30T20:14:00.001Z

read by Al Murray

Full of the wisdom and wit of Britain's favourite pub landlord, Think Yourself British is a wonderful introduction to the author's guiding principle of 'Helping Yourself'.

This is, ideally, a Christmas postprandial indulgence: one for those, perhaps, of a somewhat laddish persuasion. Doubtless some of the pub landlord's own amber nectar will enhance its surprises and delights.

Complete with soothing, quasi-hypnotic melodic introductions, Helping Yourself is very much in the style of American self-help tapes (now, of course, downloads for the iPod). If I were the Commissioning Editor of publisher Hodder & Stoughton's long-running Teach Yourself imprint, I would recommend cutting any reprints for the foreseeable future as Mr Murray covers a veritable encyclopaedia of wisdom in his Helping Yourself series.

Following a brief but essential biographical sketch, your not so humble host shares with us his insights into, amongst many other things, psychiatry, medicine, dating, warfare (and the vexed question of the naming of wars), eating, exercise and well-being. His answer to debt is to burn down the pub and claim the insurance, as many times as possible, collecting life insurance on the way. This can be slightly risky since you have to attend your own funeral in disguise and your widow might already have pocketed the insurance and planned to open a hostelry with her French teacher.

Just for good measure, Al provides an invaluable guide to mirth, and is very edifying on American terms and phrases.

The strapline to Helping Yourself is that 'low expectations lead to success'. Very sage.

Sure to be a success.

* * *

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Tracks of My Years by Ken Bruce

2009-11-29T15:45:00.103Z

read by Ken Bruce

Ken Bruce made his name hosting one of the most popular shows on 'the most listened-to radio station in the United Kingdom', Radio 2 (once known as The Light Programme and now much more akin to its younger brother Radio 1).

Tracks of My Years makes for great listening, even if you are not an aficionado of Radio 2 and know nothing of its internal politics. Bruce's journey in broadcasting is fascinating and will intrigue anyone who values the power and strength of radio. His first, unsuccessful interview at the BBC in Glasgow, his unhappy apprenticeship as an accountant (who now, it is rumoured, actually run the BBC) and a more lucrative job in the newly arrived car hire business eventually allowed Ken Bruce to start in hospital radio and finally enter the hallowed portals of BBC Scotland as a humble continuity announcer. A lot of it was luck and being in the right place, etc. But, clearly, talent will out, and Ken's career was a gradual progression up the spiral staircase of ambition.

On-air and off-air calamities and shenanigans are charmingly recounted. Radio and television have always been full of larger-than-life characters and personalities, and Ken has met all of them in his time. Most of the big names of broadcasting in the 70s, 80s, 90s and beyond pop in and out of this autobiography. The drinking is Roman in its excesses. Ken's four marriages illustrate the other hazards to innocent bystanders.

Some of Ken's comments on Radio 2's recent habit of giving the airways to personalities rather than professional broadcasters are abridged from the audiobook: 'Loud, larger-than-life performances work in clubs and theatres, but not on radio. Managements have lost their gifts as talent-spotters and are too content to rely on a proven public profile to garner an audience. There are very few young broadcasters coming up in the way I did, being allowed to do a music programme with no format.' Management would do well to heed Ken's comments, or radio will cease to do what radio broadcasting does best - and what Ken Bruce does best - foster and keep a loyal and entertained constituency over a lifetime. And, despite recent rumours in the press, let's hope Radio 2 will still find time for Ken Bruce and his like before radio becomes television without the pictures.

* * *

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The Blaze of Obscurity. Unreliable Memoirs volume V: The TV Years by Clive James

2009-11-29T15:43:00.004Z

read by Clive James

Listening to this peerless volume of reminisces, one realises just how much broadcasting has declined in the last ten years since Clive James was writing and fronting mainstream television.

He appears effortlessly articulate, in a way that current broadcasters are not. Even the BBC allows people on the air who think 'media' and 'criteria' are singular nouns, and who abuse English as if it did not matter. These young graduates, most of them from Oxford and Cambridge, simply cannot read and write. James, on the other hand, Australian through and through, is clearly a man for whom the written and broadcast word really are important, and his sometimes derided contributions to the medium of television are sorely missed. Such writing and broadcasting are now unfashionable and unwanted. Think of today's highest-paid television 'personalities'. Listen to how they speak and to what they talk about; then listen to five minutes of Clive James. It is a different country - and today's output is no matter for congratulation and admiration: Clive James cares about what he writes about and the way he writes. Today's broadcasters, and those who consume what they produce, could learn a great deal from him.

This fifth volume of memoirs charts the end of James's television career and includes some telling observations on colleagues and bosses, including the elusive Alan Yentob, the agendist John Burt and the facilitating Michael Grade. It really was 'The Golden Age of Television' and we will never see the like of Clive James again, combining wit with wisdom and succeeding so brilliantly. It must have been a wonderful time to be in television, especially if you had the support of those in charge. The mass audiences he achieved are the stuff now only of dreams. There was so much of the world to explore and to film in those days: small wonder that Clive James's 'Postcards' were so popular and successful. He was the first to bring to the British small screen the masochism of Japanese game shows, the seductive delights of Copocabana and the solipsisms of New York. Nowadays, cheap flights and cheaper television have given everyone the opportunity not only to go and look but to take part in the world's absurdities.

We are lucky still to be able to sample Clive James the reflective commentator, the poet and the lover of women. His website remains a source of tremendous pleasure, and his new weekly Radio 4 spot reminds us just what an inimitable mind and voice we have been lucky enough to share over the years.

Wonderful.

* * * *

Buy The Blaze of Obscurity

A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens

2009-11-23T21:33:00.008Z

read by Martin Jarvis

Dickens's A Christmas Carol is a true annual: I can't imagine many people taking this short moral tale from the shelves at any time other than Christmas.

One might think the tale has been abused to death - in cartoons, feature films, television adaptations, musicals, even with extraneous characters appended (Mr Magoo's Christmas Carol - if anyone can remember quite who Mr Magoo was), and so on. But the story rarely fails to get its simple message across. Perhaps it should be required reading for all the bankers this Christmas before they pocket their ill- (or, more accurately, un-) earned bonuses.

This Christmas, the CGI-animated film - in 3D - of A Christmas Carol, directed by Robert Zemeckis, with the voice of Jim Carrey, is in the cinemas. Martin Jarvis's reading is released to coincide with the film. Zemeckis has produced one of the most stunning pieces of motion pictures in the history of the cinema, following the story and original illustrations with utmost taste and artistic brilliance: a surprising and refreshing example of the new Disney. Returning from the cinema, it was a great pleasure to hear Martin Jarvis reading the story in this 2-CD package. Dickens' descriptions and dialogue are masterly, and Martin Jarvis has the perfect repertoire of voices for Dickens and for A Christmas Carol in particular.

The enduring popularity of the tale is fully vindicated in this gloriously spirited (no pun intended) production.

* * * *

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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (volume 3)

2009-11-23T21:16:00.006Z

read by Edward Hardwicke

As is well documented, Conan Doyle grew tired of his creation Sherlock Holmes: but his readers did not, and Holmes was brought out of retirement, if not raised from the dead by his spiritualism-endorsing creator, on more than one occasion. The audiobook enthusiast will not, I believe, tire of hearing these brilliant and entertaining puzzles being read by that most sympathetic of Watsons, Edward Hardwicke. One can think of no better narrator then he, particularly following his superlative portrayal of the detective's long-suffering companion and chronicler in the peerless Granada television series.

To have these tales (including, The Red-Headed League, Silver Blaze, and A Scandal in Bohemia) read in their entirety demonstrates just what a remarkable writer Conan Doyle at his best really is, and makes one want to try some of his many other creations, which have not fared so successfully as the lodger of 221B Baker Street.

Recordings to be enjoyed again and again.

* * * * *

Buy The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes (volume 3)

The Picture of Dorian Gray by Oscar Wilde

2009-11-23T21:05:00.007Z

read by Rupert Graves

Wilde's literary conceit is well known - the painting in the attic taking on the care-worn characteristics of a dissolute, immoral and criminal life, leaving the man to retain his gilded, youthful, innocent beauty. It is the stuff of ancient and classical myths, and has much to say to a modern generation obsessed by celebrity, shallow glamour and delaying the aging process.

The writing is mannered and not Wilde's most literary. He revised the rather short work for book publication and removed many of the overt references to his own homosexuality. One wonders just how much Dorian is what Wilde himself would have liked to have been. He certainly defied convention and followed a self-destructive existence. Wilde was no Dorian when it came to looks and physique. Perhaps he was searching throughout his life for the missing painting and for the painter to find grace and beauty in him.

Although The Picture of Dorian Gray lends itself to dramatisation and film - and has been adapted several times for both stage and screen (the latest feature film providing the artwork for the present packaging) - attempts to illustrate the degredation of the painting seem inevitably to disappoint. All the gaudy decadence and cruelty of the characters and events of the book may be conjured up by skilful art directors and extravagant wardrobe specialists, but it is only in the reader's own imagination that the horror in the locked room can be successfully and truly realised. Which is why this reading is so outstanding and why Wilde's book will for ever remain in print.

CSA have once again cast their narrator with great skill and judgement. Who better to read Wilde than Rupert Graves? As if effortlessly, Graves affects all the langorousness and excess, all the selfishness and sadism, and all the residing self-loathing. He is one of our finest actors and one of the most eloquent.

Quite brilliant

* * * * *

Buy The Picture of Dorian Gray

Animal Farm by George Orwell

2009-11-23T20:56:00.004Z

read by Simon Callow

This audiobook is unreservedly recommended for all ages - for those who have read the book before, but also for the young, who might misunderstand the premise of the 'Fairy Story', or who simply find the process of reading a chore. Animal Farm is often taught at GCSE, but not all students take English Literature in addition to English Language, so one cannot assume all the young have been introduced to this modern classic.

Animal Farm needs no complex explication. It succeeds on its own through its unassailable logic and simple morality. Its truths are self-evident to both the trusting young and the cynical old, and the seeming inevitability of the narrative delivers the kind of political punch that, in the sixty-five years since its original publication, has made Animal Farm such a feared script of repressive regimes the world over. With Russian attempts, it is said, now to rehabilitate Stalin, perhaps the Russian translation should be reprinted and distributed to the young in the former Soviet Republics.

CSA are to be congratulated in entrusting Animal Farm to Simon Callow. Callow is a breathtakingly talented and stimulating reader. His nuances could not be bettered, expertly imparting, as he does, all the subtle insinuation of Orwell's various levels of irony. A knighthood is surely long overdue; so perhaps he has been offered one and turned it down. His ongoing biography of Orson Welles is masterly, his screen acting and master classes are unrivalled. There is so much literature and biography I, for one, would love to hear him read.

Inspiring and revelatory.

* * * * *

Buy Animal Farm

The Queen Mother: The Official Biography by William Shawcross

2009-11-23T20:25:00.015Z

read by William Shawcross and Sophie Roberts

At something in excess of 1,100 pages, this 'official biography' holds few surprises and is, inevitably, far from the 'revelatory royal biography' its publishers proclaim. So, an abridged audiobook version of William Shawcross's labour of duty, if not of love, is definitely to be welcomed.

The problem with an official biography is that the writer is under an obligation to pen more a celebration than a thorough-going analysis. That will have to wait until some of the principals are themselves no more - the Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Charles, perhaps. One feels that, for example, more can be revealed concerning the Duke and Duchess of Windsor - the true feelings, perhaps, of the other royals to this unhappy episode. For a more-modern generation, the Queen Mother's close relationship with Princess Diana could reveal some unwelcome truths, although we are led to believe that all their correspondence was destroyed by or on the advice of the Queen Mother's second daughter, the late Princess Margaret.

The life of the former Elizabeth Bowes Lyon certainly spans some of the most interesting recent history of the erstwhile British Empire and of the rest of the world. The Queen Mother's place was centre stage in the dismantlement of Empire, which followed quite naturally from the disastrous world wars for which she would never forgive the German people. But the Queen Mother's one hundred years saw such a seismic shift in the political, social and educational make-up of the world that the social historian is going to find this account so much more interesting than the constitutional historian.

There is always something to be gained from having an author read his or her own work. And William Shawcross reads the ten hours of this recording with a reverent, slightly monotonous delivery, employing some startlingly un-English pronunciations ('harrassment' and 'aristocrat', for example), which, it might be imagined, would have horrified the Queen Mother. Perhaps these were insisted upon for the American market.

Sophie Roberts, on the other hand, is unimpeachable.

Full of poignant memories for those who lived through just a little or even most of the Queen Mother's life, and a great way to get through this baggy monster.

* * *

Buy Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother: The Official Biography

Nineteen Eighty-four, by George Orwell

2009-10-11T14:28:00.006+01:00

read by Philip Glenister

First published, amazingly, sixty years ago and pinpointing a date that itself has passed some twenty-five years, Nineteen Eighty-four is arguably the most prescient and terrifying novel of the twentieth century.

Written, Orwell explained, 'directly or indirectly, against totalitarianism and for democratic socialism', Nineteen Eighty-four might well be a set book for GCSE and A-level English Literature students, but its analysis of political and social futures should be a warning to us all and required reading alongside Naomi Wolf's The End of America.

Television's abuse of the term 'Big Brother' is a misfortune; thinking that Orwell's predictions are no longer of relevance will be a disaster. O'Brien's description of the future should reverberate in the collective consciousness: 'There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always — do not forget this, Winston — always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless. If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face ... for ever.'

Winston Smith is Orwell's Everyman and in what can be taken as a conventional love story Orwell warns post-Second World War readers of how society might well disintegrate into hate, propaganda, surveillance and control.

Perhaps it already has.

Nineteen Eighty-four is a masterpiece of English writing and the words viscerate on the page. But, read with the compelling skill and gravitas of Philip Glenister, we are transfixed by Orwell's brilliance.

Priceless.

* * * *

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Even Money, by Dick Francis and Felix Francis

2009-10-11T14:20:00.008+01:00

read by Martin Jarvis

Dick Francis' success is justly earned: few writers can so surely be depended on for that well-crafted, well-researched, gripping and entertaining journey that is the crime novelist's art. The sporting milieu is well-trodden, but never dull, and I'm sure Francis has introduced many a new racegoer to the sport through his novels, even though horseracing seems to be full of the most untrustworthy individuals with whom you could ever have the misfortune to become entangled.

Even Money is no exception. Bookmaker Ned Talbot's world is thoroughly turned upside down when a man approaches him while he is taking bets at Royal Ascot and introduces himself as his father - a father he had been told all his life had died in a car crash when he was a baby. In characteristic Dick Francis style, murder is followed by threats which are followed by nasty goings on and a carefully planned and executed escape route. But I don't need to go into any more detail because if you have ever enjoyed a Dick Francis yarn you are going to enjoy this new one equally as much, if not more.

One theme, however, that of father and son, makes one reflect on the father-son joint authorship of Even Money -Felix Francis sharing authorship with his father. Parent-children relationships are a constant thread in Dick Francis' novels, providing great material for plots and perhaps also reflecting the author's more private feelings.

If you have never listened to a reading or dramatisation of a Dick Francis novel then you will be in for a great four hours. He truly is a rewarding writer to have read aloud. And who better to read to you than Martin Jarvis, who brilliantly voices all the nuances of class and regional variation of the numerous characters of the racing world.

Be sure to master the subtleties of betting odds before the off.

* * * *

Buy Even Money

Right Ho, Jeeves by P. G. Wodehouse

2009-08-24T09:35:00.018+01:00

read by Martin Jarvis

George Orwell wrote in his 1945 essay 'In Defence of P. G. Wodehouse' that 'Wodehouse's real sin has been to present the English upper classes as much nicer people than they are. All through his books certain problems are constantly avoided. Almost without exception his moneyed young men are unassuming, good mixers, not avaricious: their tone is set for them by Psmith, who retains his own upper-class exterior but bridges the social gap by addressing everyone as "Comrade".'

Psmith has perhaps been overlooked in favour of Wodehouse's most famous creations Jeeves and Bertram Wooster, whose antics have been so brilliantly potrayed on the small screen but which truly come alive in readings such as CSA Word's excellent Right Ho, Jeeves, with the perfect modulations of Martin Jarvis at the helm.

Whether Orwell is right about how 'nice' Wodehouse's upper classes are portrayed is open to discussion. This listener is beginning to find the misogyny and recklessness of young Bertram rather cruel, and is even wondering whether Wodehouse, far from being under the thrall of the right, as some claim his broadcasts from German-occupied France during the Second World War demonstrate he was, is in fact Marxist by inclination.

Regardless, let it be said that Gussie Fink-Nottle, Madeline Bassett, Tuppy Glossop, Aunt Dahlia and the very first celebrity chef, Anatole, will bring a smile to even the gloomiest listener. This 4-CD set will be played time and time again and will never fail to amuse.

Quite simply, brilliant.

* * * *

Buy Right Ho, Jeeves

Claudius the God by Robert Graves

2009-07-15T12:17:00.004+01:00

read by Derek Jacobi

Epic drama from the celebrated mythographer Robert Graves, Claudius the God draws on classical sources to recreate the lost autobiography of Claudius, fourth emperor of Rome, whose rule spanned from 41 to 54 AD. A sequel to the equally dramatic and surprisingly human I, Clauduis, Claudius the God covers Cluadius' life as he is reluctantly pronounced emperor of the Roman Empire and then a 'god'.

Placating the army following his nephew Caligula's disastrous actions and overseeing the invasion of Britain provide some of the central episodes to Claudius's life as emperor. His reputedly nymphomaniac wife Messalina becomes one of his many distractions, as does his friendship with King Herod, beset by the most horrible diseases and their symptoms. The writing is timeless and there is much to savour.

This great and ever-popular book can be enjoyed on its own just as much as it can as a sequel to I, Claudius (also available from CSA Word), brought alive by the commanding authority of Derek Jacobi, who one simply accepts as the voice of this great and troubled leader.

A modern classic.

* * * *

Buy Claudius the God

Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence

2009-06-16T11:00:00.008+01:00

read by Emilia Fox

The novel, paperback publication of which, arguably, was in part responsible for the social and sexual revolutions of the 1960s, is today perhaps more of sociological than literary significance. It is difficult to divorce one's response to the novel without Mervyn Griffith-Jones, QC's astonishing question to the jury in the 1960 Old Bailey prosecution of Penguin Books for obscenity ringing in your ears: 'Is this the kind of book you would wish your wife or servants to read?'.

However, it is essential to bear in mind that Lady Chatterley's Lover was written and first published (in Italy) in 1928 and so should be read with the First World War and the 1926 Miners' Lockout thundering in one's consciousness. The work is outstandingly modern and brave, and Lawrence's intentions serious and important. Not only are social and marital conventions questioned, but raised also - possibly for the first time in English literature - are issues related to childlessness and disability. Class and language are foremost concerns, with Mellors speaking his local dialect as well as introducing Old English-derived 'four-letter' words never uttered in 'polite' society, much less written down.

An assuredly moral and compassionate work, Lady Chatterley's Lover is a masterpiece of literary fiction, bowlderized and debased by what has been published in its wake. So much so, that the novel is victim to parody and mockery, bastardized by pulp 'romantic' and 'chicklit' scribblings.

Emilia Fox's reading is faultless - giving beautiful, serene and confident voice to Lawrence's poetic and idealistic vision of emotional fulfilment.

An audiobook classic.

* * * *

Buy Lady Chatterley's Lover

Farewell to the East End by Jennifer Worth

2009-06-16T09:42:00.027+01:00

read by Anne Reid

This really is the farewell to London's East End and the start of the East London we know today. Anyone growing up or moving to twenty-first century East London would be shocked and horrified by what was accepted as the norm only sixty years before: illiteracy, poverty and sickness; crowded, barely lit and insanitary housing, with child and maternal mortality of present-day third-world proportions.

Jennifer Worth's recollections of her time working as a midwife with the Nonnatus House nuns is an outstanding series for Orion Audiobooks, beautifully read by the splendid Anne Reid - evocative, haunting, gladdening and reassuring. Full of humour and anecdote, these tales of true working-class characters are at the same time entertaining and thought-provoking - the back-street abortionists with their ineffective concoction for 'digestive problems'; the identical twins who share a husband; the enormous ship's woman who provides sexual services for the crew - including the captain, her father, whose baby she is delivered of in the close confines of her ship's cabin. With the ongoing histories of the nuns and of her fellow night sisters, Farewell to the East End is a fitting and moving end to the author's work in the rapidly transforming landscape and amongst the fast-changing lives of those whose domain is this part of the capital.

I hope we will hear of Jennifer Worth's life as a musician and music teacher - the career she took up on leaving midwifery. It is guaranteed to work its charms.

Exceptional.

* * * *

Buy Farewell to the East End

The Inimitable Jeeves, vol. 1 by P. G. Wodehouse

2009-05-12T13:48:00.008+01:00

read by Martin Jarvis

Martin Jarvis has the superlative ability to individualise Wodehouse's bizarre cast of characters with consummate skill and humour. Three and half hours in the company of Jeeves, Wooster, Bingo Little, Aunt Agatha, et al. - as well as the inimitable Jarvis - is pretty hard to beat. The Inimitable Jeeves will not disappoint.

In spite of the arguably contentious attitude to class and status depicted in these short stories, there is little to offend and much to entertain. Bingo Little's infatuation with Mabel, a waitress in a tea-and-bun shop (significantly some fifty yards east of the Ritz Hotel), and then Bingo's socialisation of his uncle, Mortimer Little, through reading him the novels of Rosie M. Banks, in which 'marriage with young persons of an inferior social status is held up as both feasible and admirable', is just the start to this wonderful, incomparable set of short stories which is guaranteed to be listened to time after time.

Wodehouse brightens up the dullest day and lightens the heaviest heart. So give yourself a tonic by listening to this comedy classic.

* * * * *
© 2009 AudioBooksReview

Buy The Inimitable Jeeves, vol. 1

Black & Blue by Ian Rankin

2009-05-12T13:44:00.003+01:00

read by James Macpherson

Darker and larger in scale, Black & Blue is one of Ian Rankin's greatest and richest novels, featuring Detective Inspector John Rebus, read with all the nuance and drama that James Macpherson can muster.

Rebus has four cases on his plate - hunting down the sadistic 'Johnny Bible,' a copy-cat serial killer of the real killer dubbed 'Bible John', who raped and murdered women he met at the Barrowlands Dancehall in the 1960s, and who was never caught. Rebus is also under pressure from an internal inquiry led by a man he has accused of taking bribes from Glasgow's 'Mr Big'. Even worse, TV journalists are poking about into Rebus's past over an alleged miscarriage of justice.

With his personal life in a mess, Rebus travels the length and breadth of Scotland - Glasgow, Edinburgh, Aberdeen, Shetland and the North Sea - risking his own safety with an investigation into a suspicious death of an oil-rig worker and contacting the ruthless underworld career criminal Big Ger Cafferty, a vicious character Rebus has locked horns with several times in the past. With leads relating to the supply of drugs from mainland Scotland to the oil-rigs, and the accusation of police corruption in an old murder case which implicates Rebus and his former mentor Lawson Geddes, Black & Blue is complex, unsettling and very very good. Truly a contemporary crime classic.

* * * * *
© 2009 AudioBooksReview

Buy Black & Blue

Agatha Raisin: The Curious Curate and The Buried Treasure by M. C. Beaton

2009-05-12T13:39:00.003+01:00

full cast recording, with Penelope Keith

Perhaps reversing the trend for aristocratic and patrician detectives, M. C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin's background is decidedly plebian: Agatha was born in a tower block 'slum' in Birmingham to unemployed and dipsomaniac, shoplifting parents, living on benefits.

Raisin drinks and smokes, but her self-determination forged her a lucrative career in PR and, having retreated to 'a quiet Cotswold village', falls into detecting by happy accident. This feisty, glorious character is superbly brought to life through the incomparable voice of Penelope Keith, supported by a host of excellent BBC drama regulars. In this boxed set of two one-hour dramas, Raisin is up against murder and mayhem - as well as duck racing, morris dancing, treasure hunts and secret libraries - but, as ever, more than anything, seeking romance.

Life-affirming and entertaining, if you haven't tried Agatha Raisin, this is thoroughly recommended.

* * * *
© 2009 AudioBooksReview

Buy The Curious Curate and The Buried Treasure

Paul Temple and the Front Page Men by Francis Durbridge

2009-05-12T13:35:00.005+01:00

read by Anthony Head

Familiar to listeners to BBC radio from the excellent dramatisations prefaced by Vivian Ellis's vivid and memorable theme 'Coronation Scot', Paul Temple needs little introduction. Francis Durbridge's detective was developed for the wireless and broadcasts started in the late 1930s, continuing right up to the 1960 and then revived in the early twenty-first century.

The decidedly patrician crime novelist cum amateur detective and his impossibly supportive and attractive wife Steve is for ever being called on by Scotland Yard to help solve damnably puzzling crimes. And, of course, he always triumphs where the police simply can't make any headway. Although there are always elements of class conflict in the stories, Durbridge is only carrying on in the traditions of Dorothy L. Sayers' Lord Peter Wimsey and even Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes (who mentions that his ancestors were 'country squires').

Anthony Head is the perfect reader of the Temple stories and they make a thoroughly entertaining listen. With more than a little self-satire, 'The Front Page Men' is the title of a detective novel from an pseudonynmous author Andra Fortune. Thefts and kidnappings, then murders, are marked by a card left at the scene of the crime inscribed with the words 'The Front Page Men'. When Steve disappears, Temple knows he is up against a dastardly and dangerous opponent.

Great fun.

* * * *
© 2009 AudioBooksReview

Buy Paul Temple and the Front Page Men

Wise Children by Angela Carter

2009-05-11T23:33:00.008+01:00

read by Eileen Atkins

Angela Carter's last novel, Wise Children is a wickedly camp delight and a veritable masterpiece. The 'wise children' of the title (two of them, at least) are twin chorus girls, Dora and Nora Chance, and the story is an account of the mockingly bizarre theatrical dynasty of which they are a part. At the age of 75, they recount their own and their progenitors' weird and wonderous lives.

The novel is full of surreal and real individuals, and centres on fatherhood and paternal neglect, and the consequences thereof. Dora and Nora's 'illegitimate' lechery is both a delight and a horror and there is an underlying sadness in the midst of the satire. Based, one might speculate, on several grandees of the English stage and their extensive progeny- on both sides of the blanket - the novel combines Shakespeare with vaudeville, the circus and carnival, with telling asides at television and celebrity.

The centrepiece of the drama is the 100th birthday party of Sir Melchior Hazard - the greatest Shakespearian actor of his generation - a birthday he shares with the Bard himself but also with his twin brother Peregrine Hazard and Dora and Nora - the daughters Sir Melchior has never acknowledged. Twins abound, as do the themes of song and dance - and incest. There is never a dull moment, especially in the hands of the incomparable Eileen Atkins, who expertly brings all the marvellous characters, twists and turns to gaudy life. Quite simply, a modern classic.

What a joy it is to dance and sing.

* * * * *
© 2009 AudioBooksReview

Buy Wise Children

The Essential Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

2009-05-11T19:24:00.006+01:00

read by David Timson, Tim Pigott-Smith, Crawford Logan, Rupert Degas, et al.

This a treasure trove and Naxos have to be congratulated for assembling such a rewarding choice of material and such a wonderful cast of actors to illustrate Conan Doyle's life and works - which, as the listener will discover, extends far beyond Holmes, Watson and Baker Street.

Conan Doyle's amost picaresque early life indicates just how random can be the course of a person's life. Always a raconteur and storyteller, Conan Doyle's might have been knighted as a Harley Street eye specialist and not as the multimillionaire writer he became, had his particular choice of medical specialism ever found a paying clientele. We are so fortunate it did not.

David Timson expertly reads The Adventure of the Speckled Band, apparently one of Conan Doyle's own favourite Sherlock Holmes stories - and surely as intriguing, inventive, and satisfying today as it was the day it was first published, and Carl Rigg builds great tension into the equally enthralling short stories Lot No. 249, about an Egyptian mummy, and The Sealed Room, about, well, a sealed room, containing a dark and tragic secret. Rupert Degas and Glen McCready bring us Brigadier Gerard and Professor Challenger from his neglected adventure and historical novels.

More fascinating still are Conan Doyle's spiritual and psychic interests, including the affair of the Cottingley Fairies - something worth investigating on the Internet, if you have never seen these remarkable photographs.

With a number of recordings of Conan Doyle's own voice, The Essential Sir Arthur Conan Doyle is a truly wonderful package and comes highly recomended for all lovers of the literary, historical, and the bizarre.

* * * * *

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Our Man in Havana by Graham Greene

2009-05-11T15:00:00.006+01:00

read by Jeremy Northam

Based (it is claimed) on Graham Greene's experiences as a spy working for MI6, this satirical romance is a gem - and this CSA Word recording, brilliantly narrated by the excellent Jeremy Northam, is all the better for being 'complete and unabridged'.

Opening with a blast of Cuban jazz, Northam has the wonderfully entertaining skill of characterizing the protagonists with just the right accent, tone, and delivery - from the vague Hawthorne to the venal Captain Segura, the petulant Milly to the tortured Hasselbacher. The story has its own momentum, leading the unworldly James Wormold headlong into an unstoppable maelstrom with international consequences - with uncanny prescience of the Cuban missile crisis.

If you haven't read the book (or seen Carol Reed's feature film) Our Man in Havana is going to delight and entertain. A wonderful seven hours.

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© 2009 AudioBooksReview

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My Secret Diary by Jacqueline Wilson

2009-05-11T14:20:00.004+01:00

read by Jacqueline Wilson

Adored and fêted by many a teenaged girl, this is Jacqueline Wilson’s account of her own schooldays and adolescence, growing up in Kingston upon Thames, south-west of London, in the 1960s.

What her young fans will make of it is difficult to imagine (and she does seem to have them in mind as she charts her own growing pains, ambitions and discoveries), but for older readers and listeners, this account of strict single-sex schools, austere homes and holidays, and unemancipated lifestyles will strike some painful memories.

Thoroughly entertaining, Jacqueline Wilson’s ambitions to write are clear right from the start - and we are never allowed to forget them. Her thirst for literature is thoroughly documented and displayed, although it is a shame that she rightly relates her admiration for Nabokov whilst at the same time telling her young readers to steer well clear of anything so corrupt as Lolita: as if she is afraid that championing such a masterpiece might get her into trouble, and that although she was mature enough to understand the novel’s subtle message, today’s youth would only confuse irony with pornography.

A great listen, and an honest insight into the mind of our greatest living children’s author.

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© 2009 AudioBooksReview

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Say Goodbye by Lisa Gardner

2009-05-11T14:14:00.003+01:00

read by Ann Marie Lee and Lincoln Hoppe

Not for the fainthearted, Lisa Gardner has written a compelling and profoundly disturbing serial killer fiction, which is as unpleasant and entertaining as they come. Superbly characterized and horribly convincing, this is not the sort of novel you will want to put down or will be able easily to forget, dealing as it does with psychopathic cruelty and base abuse of children - and the consequences thereof.

Stunningly narrated by Ann Marie Lee and Lincoln Hoppe, Say Goodbye demonstrates Gardner’s deft talent for dialogue and her gifted expertise in creating and sustaining tension and narrative momentum. With so many similar tales unfolding nightly in multitudinous investigative television series - most of the best from the US - this novel shows how the written (and spoken) word can convey so much force and power.

Not an easy listen - but a rewarding one - and one that will stay with you for a long time.

Highly recommended.

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© 2009 AudioBooksReview

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The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, vol. 2, by Arthur Conan Doyle

2009-02-04T10:37:00.004Z

read by Edward Hardwicke

Magazines, books, films, television and radio have for more than 100 years brought us faces, voices, locations and atmosphere that many instinctively associate with Conan Doyle's famous detective - from Paget's somewhat posed portraits in the Strand Magazine to Jeremy Brett's brilliant, increasingly distrait 1984-94 Granada television series. Guinness World Records cites Holmes as the 'most-portrayed' character in film and television, with over seventy actors playing the part in some 200 productions in all parts of the globe.

But, the absolute joy of this CSA audiobook is that we hear Conan Doyle's own words - unabridged -and can treasure the conversations between Holmes and Watson, the wonderful dialogue, descriptions, plottings, and the complete 'world' produced by this master craftsman. Doyle may very well have tired of Holmes and desired to be associated with other things, but that does nothing to undermine the sheer brilliance of his story-telling - and it is the story-telling that displaces utterly all the dramatisations and adaptations which have plundered the tales themselves.

Edward Hardwicke's readings are unmatched in their brilliance. He really is a consummate narrator - and perhaps the definitive Watson (the supposed chronicler, of course, of Holmes' exploits). This is more than a delight. This is an absolute revelation to those of us who have not read the original stories. I cannot think of anyone better than Edward Hardwicke to read the stories - unabridged - in their entirety. For this listener, Holmes is more alive than ever - and more appreciated. I sincerely hope the rest of the canon may be given the Hardwicke treatment. He has the gravitas, a niggling cynicism but the refined acclamation which are Watsons' hallmarks - and the readings are endlessly entertaining.

Perfection.
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© 2009 AudioBooksReview

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Dewey by Vicki Myron

2009-01-26T14:42:00.013Z

read by Suzanne Toren

The face on the cover says it all, really - the knowing, serious intelligence emanating from the orangey red cat photographed against a backdrop of books.

Dewey - cat and book (and soon to be motion picture) has captured the imagination of the world and put Spencer, Iowa firmly on that world’s map - the story and the character drawing visitors, well-wishers, journalists, film-makers and cat lovers from all over the globe. Google ‘Dewey’ and you will see exactly the phenomenon of this wonderful creature.

Of course, Dewey isn’t the true subject of this audiobook - it is the author and librarian Vicki Myron and how a cat transforms her life, the lives of her daughter, her colleagues and all the naysayers and spoilsports of Spencer, Iowa. Absorbing, heart-warming, moving, life-affirming - and not only for animal lovers or even book lovers - Dewey is social history, recording in microcosm the changing economic, public, community, recreational and even architectural tastes of small-town USA.

Mesmerizingly read by Suzanne Toren, Dewey is a delight for all ages and highly suitable for shortening even the longest of journeys. Dewey will stay in your imagination for life.

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© 2009 AudioBooksReview

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