Collins, W.: Moonstone (The) (Abridged)

AUSTEN, J.: Mansfield Park (Abridged)

One of the great novels of nineteenth-century France, Flaubert draws a deeply-felt but sympathetic portrait of a woman who, having warned a country doctor and found herself unhappy with a rural, genteel existence, longs for love and excitement.

In this collection are four of the finest cases of Mr Sherlock Holmes, narrated by his faithful friend and admirer Dr Watson. What was the mystery of the engineer' thumb? What was behind the disappearance of the race horse?

In this exciting sequel to the Wonderful Wizard of Oz, the boy Tip and his pal Jack Pumpkinhead are on the run from the old witch Mombi. Fleeing to the Emerald City, they meet up with the Scarecrow and the Tin Woodman and find themselves battling a gang of girls, led by the fiercely beautiful General Jinjur. A magnified Woggle-Bug and the fabulous flying Gump join in the adventure, which results in the revelation of a dark secret in Tip's past and the dawning of a new era for the Land of Oz.

In Framley Parsonage, the fourth novel of Trollope’s Chronicles of Barsetshire, the author leaves the confines of Barchester and looks to the countryside, where he relates the moral difficulties of Mark Robarts, the young clergyman who has recently been appointed Vicar of Framley. Desperate to keep up socially with the local aristocracy, the country parson is persuaded to underwrite the debts of Sowerby, a well-respected peer. However, when the debts are called in, Robarts finds himself in a serious predicament. Written with acute insight, together with a great deal of warmth and humor towards his characters’ attendant charms and foibles, Framley Parsonage is sure to delight. David Shaw-Parker’s reading perfectly captures the genial but acute voice of Anthony Trollope.

In 1897 Bram Stoker wrote a story expressing the most persistent nightmare of the human condition, and now for over a century Dracula has reigned supreme as the undisputed masterpiece of horror writing. We have all grown up beneath the shadow of the elegant Count, at once an attractive, brutal and erotic creature of the night. Read by David Horovitch, Jamie Parker, Joseph Kloska, Alison Pettitt and cast, this Complete Classic Unabridged Edition, spans a total of 14 CDs. David Horovitch's long and distinguished theatre career includes many West End, National Theatre and RSC stage appearances. Among his many readings for Naxos Audiobooks are Lampedusa's The Leopard, Dickens's Nicholas Nickleby, Ovid's Metamorphoses and Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Known for roles in film, TV and theatre, Jamie Parker has read Hardy's Far From the Madding Crowd and Under the Greenwood Tree for Naxos Audiobooks. Joseph Kloska has appeared in over 100 plays, readings and live broadcasts for the BBC.

Maggie Tulliver has two lovers Philip Wakem, son of her father's enemy, and Stephen Guest, already promised to her cousin. But the love she wants most in the world is that of her brother Tom. Maggie's struggle against her passionate and sensual nature leads her to a deeper understanding and to eventual tragedy.

For the background to this historical novel, a tale of mystery, suspense and unsolved murder, Dickens chose the anti-Catholic Gordon Riots of 1780. Mayhem reigns in the streets of London, vividly described by Dickens, and the innocent Barnaby Rudge is drawn into the thick of it. Against the public disorder, Dickens tells of the private discord within families— with fathers and sons at loggerheads— and creates a wealth of colorful characters: The sinuously evil Lord Chester; the pretty and vivacious Dolly Varden; and the host and regulars at the Maypole Inn— a symbol of security.

LAWRENCE, D.H.: Sons and Lovers (Unabridged)

Our Island Story by H.E. Marshall is an Edwardian history book for younger listeners (aged six & twelve) which tells the story of England, concluding with the reign of Queen Victoria. Antonia Fraser and many other current historians declare that it was this book that opened the delights of history for them. It fell from fashion in the 1960s, but its recent re-release in hardback has seen it become a publishing surprise in the UK, with sales of some 75,000 copies in a few months. Now, Naxos Audiobooks releases it unabridged in three volumes released in March 2006, April 2006 and May 2006.

This sequel to Five Children and It sees the four children finding a carpet—and then being told by a Phoenix that it is a magic carpet. It means a series of adventures. Anna Bentinck reads the tale with great charm. With delightful music of the period.

To inherit a great fortune. To inherit a great misfortune.' These words, from Nathaniel Hawthorne' notebook, neatly encapsulate the theme of the House of the Seven Gables-that of a family whose fortunes are poisoned by it's past misdeeds.

Now considered by many to be Charlotte Bronte's best novel, though unlikely to eclipse Jane Eyre in fame and popularity, Villette is largely concerned with the experiences of Lucy Snowe in a girl's boarding school in a fictionalized Belgium. Lucy flees unhappiness in England only to find more abroad. Her love for Dr John unrequited, she slowly realizes that a deeper attachment is growing between her and her irascible domineering mentor and colleague, M. Paul Emanuel.

How did the great scientists make their remarkable discoveries? And what kind of men were they? This companion volume to Inventors and their Inventions introduces the work of ten men to younger readers, and range from the world of Ancient Greece to the twentieth century discovery of DNA. Among them are the crucial discovery that the earth goes around the sun (Galileo), the principle of gravity (Newton), the evolution of the species (Darwin) and the principle of inherited characteristics or genetics (Mendel).

A mysterious boatman on the Thames, a drowned heir, a dustman and his wife, and a host of other Dickens characters populate this novel of relationships between the classes, money, greed and love.

Information is everything in Hard-boiled Wonderland. A specialist encrypter is attacked by thugs with orders from an unknown source, is chased by invisible predators, and dates an insatiably hungry librarian who never puts on weight. In the End of the World a new arrival is learning his role as dream-reader. But there is something eerily disquieting about the changeless nature of the town and it's fable-like inhabitants. Told in alternate chapters, the two stories converge and combine to create a novel that is surreal, beautiful, thrilling and extraordinary.

STORYTELLING AUDIO CD PACK

The World Cup is the largest sports event outside the summer Olympics: The progress of the 32 countries which qualify for the finals is watched by billions all over the globe. Since the very first World Cup in Uruguay in 1930, there have been 18 finals, held every four years (with a 12-year break over the World War II period). The World Cup in South Africa will be the 19th. Brian Glanville, the distinguished journalist and World Cup historian, has written a fascinating history of the event. Here are the men who played, the goals they scored, the triumphs, the failures, the sho.

The common view of the Romans is that they were only interested in watching gladiators hack one another to pieces, and in lying on couches while they stuffed large meals down their throats. But of course they were a busy and clever people, who built up a great empire to prove it, with fine cities and harbours, bath houses and roads, laws and good government. In this audiobook you can hear the stories of the great Roman emperors and the enduring legacy that they left for later generations.

This widely-studied play is one of the best sellers of the Shakespeare canon. This production is the seventh Shakespeare play in the series undertaken by Naxos Audiobooks in conjunction with Cambridge University Press.

The unremarkable Catholic priest, Father Brown, combines intuition and a profound interest in human nature to solve more crimes that are seemingly improbable. A prophet of a new religion appears in Westminster. Why does an Italian Prince seek exile in Norfolk? Who killed a jovial old philanthropist, and why? a decadent poet is inexplicably murdered in his own home. Did God kill a priest's brother? What really happened in a British battle glorified in history? This second volume of stories from the Innocence of Father Brown presents six crimes, which are at times surreal, bi.

In this hapless state I looked myself over and saw that I was now no bird, but an ass.... In this ancient picaresque adventure, Lucius, an insatiably curious young man, finds himself transformed into a donkey after his fascination with black magic and witchcraft goes awry. While trapped in his new body, he becomes the property of thieves, farmers, cooks, soldiers and priests, and observes the hypocrisy and ineptitude of Imperial Roman society. The Golden Ass is considered the only novel to survive the Roman period, and the earliest novel to survive complete in the Western literary tradition. It is brimming with slapstick humor and sexual escapades, and foreshadows later works by Boccaccio, Rabelais, Cervantes and Chaucer, upon whom it was a direct influence.

Considered the bridge between romanticism and modernism, Matthew Arnold wrote verse that is simple, unadorned and straightforward. From the hypnotic and beautiful lines of Dover Beach to the pastoral narrative of The Scholar Gipsy, Arnold cast a gaze at the main intellectual issues of the nineteenth century while giving a timeless insight into man and nature. This collection covers his major poetic works, including the narrative poems, sonnets and elegiac poems, illuminating the lyricism and serenity of Arnold’s best poetry. The collection includes: Dover Beach, Desire, Longing, A Summer Night, Consolation, Philomela, A Dream, The Scholar Gipsy, East London, West London, Thyrsis, Immortality, Growing Old, A Wish, Bacchanalia; Or, The New Age, A Modern Sappho, The Hayswater Boat, The River, Human Life, The Buried Life, Austerity of Poetry, A Farewell, Requiescat

John and Susan are back at Scatterbrook – this time in May, though that makes little difference to the havoc caused by Worzel Gummidge and his fellow scarecrows, Earthy Mangold and Hannah Harrow. Unfortunate results ensue from their antics, including a swarm of bees invading the living room of Mrs Bloomsbury-Barton, and Worzel has a go at flying before coming down to earth with a crash. First published in 1949, this is the fifth in the series of Barbara Euphan Todd’s Worzel Gummidge novels.The book is read by the multi-talented Jessica Martin, who infuses the stories with verve and excitement.