Waverley by Sir Walter Scott is an enthralling tale of love, war and divided loyalties. Taking place during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, the novel tells the story of proud English officer Edward Waverley. After being posted to Dundee, Edward eventually befriends chieftain of the Highland Clan Mac-Ivor, and falls in love with his beautiful sister Flora. He then renounces his former loyalties in order actively to support Scotland in open rebellion against the Union with England. The book depicts stunning, romantic panoramas of the Highlands, and is famous for being one of the first historical novels. It's influence extended to many authors, including Dickens, Dumas, Gogol, Stevenson, Thackeray and Tolstoy. David Rintoul's finely tuned narration and characterization wonderfully evoke the atmosphere of the Scottish Highlands.

The Story of My Life is the explosive and exhilarating autobiography by the infamous libertine Giacomo Casanova. Intense and scandalous, Casanova’s extraordinary adventures take the listener on an incredible voyage across 18th-century Europe – from France to Russia, Poland to Spain and Turkey to Germany, with Venice at their heart. He falls madly in love, has wild flings and delirious orgies, and encounters some of the most brilliant figures of his time, including Catherine the Great, Louis XV and Benjamin Franklin. He holds a verbal dual with Voltaire, a pistol duel with a Polish noble, and finds himself hauled before the court multiple times, including in London, where the judge in question turns out to be none other than Henry Fielding. His appetite for life is voracious; for him, a life lived close to the precipice is the only life worth living. The book is divided into six sections. Volume 1 contains the first two sections: ‘1: Venetian Years’ and ‘2: To Paris and Prison’.

Also known as Demons, The Possessed is a powerful socio-political novel about revolutionary ideas and the radicals behind them. It follows the career of Pyotr Stepanovich Verkhovensky, a political terrorist who leads a group of Nihilists on a demonic quest for societal breakdown. They are consumed by their desires and ideals, and have surrendered themselves fully to the darkness of their ‘demons’. This possession leads them to engulf a quiet provincial town and subject it to a storm of violence. Inspired by a real political killing in 1869, the book is an impassioned response to the ideologies of European liberalism and nihilism, which threatened Russian Orthodoxy; it eerily predicted the Russian Revolution, which would take place fifty years later. Funny, shocking and tragic, it is a profound and affecting work with deep philosophical discourses about God, human freedom and political revolution. Reader Constantine Gregory is an accomplished Russian speaker- he imbues the novel with understanding and invites his listeners to share it.

John and Susan are back at Scatterbrook for the Easter holidays. Worzel, temporarily resident in the orchard, is up to his old tricks once again. Together the scarecrow and children embark on a series of adventures, which include Worzel getting stuck in a chimney and becoming a star attraction at the visiting circus. First published in 1938, More About Worzel Gummidge is the third of the Worzel novels by Barbara Euphan Todd. The Worzel Gummidge stories were broadcast on the popular Children's Hour on British radio and two of them were featured in TV’s Jackanory. 1979 saw the birth of a successful television series based on Worzel Gummidge and other characters from the books, with Jon Pertwee playing the eponymous scarecrow, which still has a dedicated following to this day. The book is read by the multi-talented Jessica Martin, who infuses the stories with verve and excitement.

Spending their summer holidays with Farmer Braithwaite and his wife in Scatterbrook, John and Susan come across a particularly lifelike scarecrow in a nearby field. That evening, much to the children’s surprise, the scarecrow makes an appearance in the Braithwaites’ kitchen to warm himself by the fire. He is Worzel Gummidge and he is no ordinary scarecrow. His tendency to cause mayhem wherever he goes sparks a series of mishaps and adventures, often with hilarious results. This is the first of the Worzel Gummidge novels written by Barbara Euphan Todd, originally published in 1936.

When Worzel hears that John and Susan have gone on holiday to the seaside, he decides that he and Earthy Mangold should join them. In the town of Seashell he finds a kindred spirit in the ship’s figurehead, Saucy Nancy, and many dramas follow, including one in which Earthy Mangold is swept out to sea. This is the fourth in the series of Barbara Euphan Todd’s Worzel Gummidge novels and it dates from 1947. The Worzel Gummidge stories were broadcast on the popular Children’s Hour on British radio and two of them were featured in TV’s Jackanory. 1979 saw the birth of a successful television series based on Worzel Gummidge and other characters from the books, with Jon Pertwee playing the eponymous scarecrow, which still has a dedicated following to this day. The book is read by the multi-talented Jessica Martin, who infuses the stories with excitement.

Grigori Aleksandrovich Pechorin is an enigma: arrogant, cocky, melancholic, brave, cynic, romantic, loner, socialite, soldier, free soul, and yet, victim of the world, he eludes definition and remains a mystery to those who know him. Just who is he? And what does he hope to achieve? Evolving from first person to third person, and then into a diary, A Hero of our Time takes on a variety of forms to interrogate Pechorin’s cryptic character and his unusual philosophy providing breathtaking descriptions of the Caucasus along the way. The novel has been hailed as an influence on such writers as Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Chekhov, and is a striking take on Lord Byron’s ‘superfluous man’; it hearkens back to the teaching of Machiavelli, while anticipating the future work of Nietzsche. Nicholas Boulton’s remarkable fluency and beauty of tone defy the listener to take a break from this unique story. Hailed by Vladimir Nabokov as one of the greatest Russian novels, the book has been referenced in novels by Albert Camus and Ian Fleming, and films by Ingmat Berman.

Before Sir Florian Eustace dies, he gives his beloved wife Lizzie a beautiful and expensive diamond necklace valued over �10,000. Dispute soon rages between the Eustace family and the manipulative and conniving Lizzie: it's claimed that the diamonds are a precious family heirloom, but Lizzie argues they were a gift. Is she lying? As the family's lawyer determines to reunite them with the jewels, Lizzie resorts to increasingly desperate measures, until one day the jewels are stolen. Who is responsible? The third novel in Trollope's Palliser series, The Eustace Diamonds is a wonderfully absorbing blend of dark cynicism and humor. David Shaw-Parker's reading has been described as "confiding and personal, perfectly capturing the spirit of Trollope's narrative voice." (AudioFile Magazine)

Following its successful run of unabridged Dickens titles, Naxos AudioBooks has turned its attention to Henry James. Further titles are planned for 2018. In the second novel of James’s celebrated late period, American Lambert Strether is sent to Paris on behalf of Mrs. Newsome, his fiance, to collect her son, Chad. When Strether finds Chad, he discovers an altered man and becomes introduced to a free and unconventional style of life that soon intoxicates him. His views begin to change; the morality of Woollett, his hometown, becomes foreign, and the ‘ambassador’ loses sight of his mission… Part tragedy, part comedy, The Ambassadors is a rewarding portrait about one man’s late awakening. John Chancer is an award-winning narrator of many audiobooks. His soft American accent lends an authenticity to James’s intercontinental tale.

MONTGOMERY, L.M.: Anne of Green Gables (Abridged)

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. So opens this famous novel which has become Jane Austen's best-loved and best-known work. Here, all her talents combined to create not only a wonderful love story, but dialogue that sparkles with wit and irony, an ingenious and compelling plot, and some of the most unforgettable characters ever created.

More than half a century ago, the naturalist Farley Mowat accepted an assignment to investigate why wolves were killing Arctic caribou. Mowat's account of the summer he lived in the frozen tundra alone studying the wolf population and developing a deep affection for these wild creatures (who were no threat to caribou or man) is today celebrated as a classic of nature writing, at once a tale of remarkable adventure and an indelible record of the myths and magic of wolves. Never Cry Wolf was made into a major motion picture by Walt Disney Productions.

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi is an impassioned response to the Holocaust: consisting of twenty-one short stories, each possessing the name of a chemical element, the collection tells of the author's experiences as a Jewish-Italian chemist before, during and after Auschwitz in luminous, clear, and unfailingly beautiful prose. It has been named the best science book ever by the Royal Institution of Great Britain and is considered to be Levi's crowning achievement.

In Volume V (Chapters XLVII-LVI), Edward Gibbon further explores the influence of Christianity on the fall of the Roman Empire. He looks at the growth of the worship of Christian images and the resulting persecution by Leo III, emperor of the East. The conflict is intensified as a split develops between the Eastern and Western churches, a weakness that encourages attacks from Lombardy. Gibbon then moves to the foundation of the Moslem religion and the attempts by the Arabs to besiege Constantinople.]

With 7 inch vinyl.