Showing titles in Literature & Fiction

Now in audio for the first time, Without Feathers is narrated by Woody Allen himself. Here they are: 16 of the funniest tales and ruminations ever recorded, by one of the great comic minds of our time. From "The Whore of Mensa", to "Fabulous Tales & Mythical Beasts", to "No Kaddish for Weinstein", old and new Allen fans will laugh themselves silly over these sparkling gems.

Disillusioned with the capitalist system, five ambitious students set out to make waves and change the face of democracy. Holding their meetings in a garden shed, budding politician Jared, ideas engine Simon, socialist firebrand Mel, image conscious materialist Phoebe and Communications Tsar Duncan wrangle with the modern political machine and attempt to lay the foundations of a new movement. Or they would, if only they had a pen.

This tells the often hilarious story of two middle-aged women, Pat and Sam, intent on fleeing hearth and home for a blissful, family-free fortnight of drawing and cooking classes – only to end up at leaky old Hartley House. There, the ever-resourceful Aunt Biddy is struggling to get her nephew Tom’s life back on track by opening his only asset as an idyllic country retreat.

Waking up in a tacky coffin and wearing off-brand shoes, Betsy Taylor can't believe the horrible turn her life has taken; then she discovers she's a vampire. Soon, Betsy becomes a participant in a power struggle between the forces of darkness. With only her friend Jessica and the hunky vampire Sinclair to help her, this new "Queen of Vampires" will have a tough time getting her afterlife straight.

The first time somebody tried to kill him was an accident. The second time was deliberate. Now Paul Mulchrone finds himself on the run with nobody to turn to except a nurse who has read one-too-many crime novels and a renegade copper with a penchant for violence. Together they must solve one of the most notorious crimes in Irish history. Or else they’ll be history.

Olive is many things. Independent. Adrift. Anxious. Loyal. Kind. Knows her own mind. It’s okay that she’s still figuring it all out, navigating her world without a compass. But life comes with expectations, there are choices to be made, boxes to tick and - sometimes - stereotypes to fulfil. And when her best friends’ lives start to branch away towards marriage and motherhood, leaving the path they’ve always followed together, Olive starts to question her choices - because life according to Olive looks a little bit different.

Would you want to know what your colleagues say behind your back? Jolene certainly doesn’t. She’s riddled with anxiety, depressed, and hates her coworkers. The less she knows about them, the better. So when a catastrophic IT f--k up grants her access to all of their emails and private messages, she’s initially horrified. The last thing she wants is to be privy to their sad discussions about dying desk plants and marital troubles. That’s until with job cuts looming, she realises the power this new-found knowledge gives her.

Psychotherapist Martha is reasonably compassionate, but deep down she's losing patience. It seems all her clients want to be something they are not, and it's driving them (and her) out of their minds. Across a series of 15-minute comedy vignettes, How Does that Make You Feel? offers a fly-on-the-wall view of Martha’s sessions, each one shedding more light on the lives of her entertaining clients. Starring Frances Tomelty, Roger Allam, Marcella Riordan, Tim McInnerny, Cathy Belton and Rebecca Saire. Produced and directed by Eoin O’Callaghan.

Laugh-out-loud funny and deeply touching, Beth Hoffman's sparkling debut is, as Kristin Hannah says, "packed full of Southern charm, strong women, wacky humor, and good old-fashioned heart." It is a novel that explores the indomitable strengths of female friendship and gives us the story of a young girl who loses one mother and finds many others.

In late 2003, in his column in Entertainment Weekly, Stephen King called The Memory of Running "the best novel you won't read this year." This glowing endorsement of the audiobook resulted in Ron McLarty receiving a $2 million two-book deal from Viking Penguin. Also, Warner Brothers has shelled out big bucks for the movie rights to The Memory of Running, for which McLarty will write the script.

England between the wars was a paradise of calm and leisure for the very, very rich. Into this enclave is born Mrs. Emmeline Lucas—La Lucia, as she is known—a woman determined to lead a life quite different from the subdued formality of her class.

Bristow is a middle-aged, ineffectual buying clerk for the Chester-Perry Organisation. He is merely a small cog in a gigantic wheel...and he knows it. But he has his own small ways of rebelling, and together with sparring partner, Jones, and tea lady, Mrs Purdy, he weaves hopeless tangles of red tape to confound the system and liven up everyone’s day.

Finding themselves permanently stuck in this strange new world, the gang tries to make the best of it by finding the nearest tavern and getting shitfaced. The plan goes just fine until they lose Katherine and Chaz.

Victor Alderheim has a lot to answer for. Not only has he heartlessly tricked his young ex-wife, Jenny, out of her art gallery inheritance, but he has also abandoned his son, Kevin, to die in the middle of the Kenyan savanna. It doesn’t occur to Victor that Kevin might be rescued and adopted by a Maasai medicine man, or that he might be expected to undergo the rituals expected of all new Maasai warriors - which have him running back to Stockholm as fast as you can say circumcision without anaesthetic.

Frazzled mum Alice Ray likes to think she’s on top everything - she has four bags-for-life in the boot of her car for heaven's sake. But after spectacularly embarrassing herself at work, she finally gives in to her sister’s pleas to take a much-needed break. But this is not the luxury spa holiday Alice hoped for - instead, she finds herself in Denmark, in the middle of nowhere, on a ‘How to be a Viking’ getaway. Can the two sisters finally learn to get along, or will learning to embrace their inner warriors just make them better at fighting?

After five long years of waiting for a new novel, Dawn’s millions of fans will fall in love with this tantalising story of motherhood. This is a story about mothers and daughters, love and loss, mistakes and regret. It’s a story about nature and nurture. Ultimately, it’s a story about what makes us who we are - it is a story for all of us.

Starting life on BBC TV, Whack-O! transferred to radio in 1961 and ran for three series on the Light Programme until 1963. Collected here are those rediscovered episodes, featuring scholastic scheming and academic anarchy at Chiselbury School. An old-established seat of learning for the ‘sons of gentlefolk’, Chiselbury is presided over by whack-happy Headmaster Professor James Edwards, who runs rings around his fellow masters and never misses a trick when it comes to exploiting the pupils and their parents.

Mummy dreams of a quirky rural cottage with roses around the door and chatty chickens in the garden. Life, as ever, is not going quite as she planned. Paxo, Oxo and Bisto turn out to be highly rambunctious rather than merely chatty, and the roses have jaggy thorns.

A compendium of radio sitcoms and retrospectives celebrating the legendary duo: Ray Galton and Alan Simpson were Britain's best-loved and most successful comedy writing partners. Together, they created two of the greatest sitcoms of all time, Hancock's Half Hour and Steptoe and Son. This compilation brings together some of the finest programmes from their 60-year career, as well as interviews with them both.

Mr Finchley takes a fancy to a horse-drawn caravan that he sees for sale, but his new wife does not relish the prospect of a caravan journey, so he sets off alone to explore the countryside and go house-hunting. While learning to handle the horse and the caravan, he encounters a variety of eccentrics and country characters, and several unsuitable houses. It gradually emerges that the caravan contains a secret, and Mr Finchley finds himself in real trouble. This gentle comedy trilogy was a runaway bestseller on first publication in the 1930s and retains a timeless appeal today.