Random House Audiobooks – The Bell Bookshop

Much Ado About Nothing

Emma — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Much Ado About Nothing is one of Shakespeare’s greatest love stories and a comic tour de force. Exploring the eternal themes of love, jealousy and honour, it focuses on two pairs of very different lovers and their trials and tribulations en route to the altar. Claudio and Hero are in love and soon to be married. As they await the wedding, they decide to play a trick on their friends Beatrice and Benedick, two confirmed singletons who scorn marriage and enjoy nothing more than expressing their mutual disdain. Can they persuade Benedick that Beatrice is in love with him – and vice versa? Meanwhile, the evil Don John plots to destroy Claudio and Hero’s love… Shakespeare’s delightful play sparkles with the wonderful verbal sparring of Beatrice and Benedick, as high comedy and melodrama mix in a magical combination. Featuring a star cast including Emilia Fox, Chiwetel Ejiofor and Julian Rhind-Tutt, and with specially-composed music, this witty, fast-paced comedy is sure to enchant all listeners.

2 CDs. 2 hrs 14 mins.

The Big Sleep

Emma — Thu, 24 Feb 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Fast-talking, trouble-seeking private eye Philip Marlowe is a different kind of detective: a moral man in an amoral world. California in the ’40s and ’50s is as beautiful as a ripe fruit and rotten to the core, and Marlowe must struggle to retain his integrity amidst the corruption he encounters daily. The Big Sleep finds the world-weary, wisecracking investigator consulted by a wealthy family man with two big problems: his children. Carmen Sternwood has got herself mixed up with a blackmailer, while Vivian has managed to mislay her husband, ex-bootlegger Rusty Regan. Old, ailing General Sternwood hires Marlowe to take care of things – but it’s not too long before the bodies start piling up, and Marlowe finds himself knee-deep in trouble… Starring Toby Stephens, this landmark dramatisation retains all the suspense and excitement of Chandler’s complex and compelling novel.

2 CDs. 1 hr 26 mins.

And Then There Were None

Emma — Thu, 06 Jan 2011 00:00:00 +0000

Ten guests travel to an island at the invitation of someone named U.N. Owen. All are strangers, but they have two things in common: they have all been responsible for someone’s death, and none will leave the island alive. Over the next two days and nights, each of the guests is killed off in a different manner in keeping with the nursery rhyme, ‘Ten Little Soldier Boys’. As they are picked off one by one, who could possibly be responsible? The killers are forced to turn detective so they can find the unknown murderer, but one by one they become victims… Billed as ‘the famous detective story without a detective’, And Then There Were None is one of Agatha Christie’s darkest and most enduring tales.

2 CDs. 1 hr 30 mins.

David Attenborough Life Stories

Emma — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 00:00:00 +0000

One of the nation’s most popular presenters examines twenty marvels of the natural world from his extraordinary and pioneering experiences.What was Sir David’s first pet? Which animal would he most like to be? What creature lays ‘the biggest egg in the world’? How do you communicate with an ancient nomadic community in Fiji? And what did Sir David do when confronted by a ten-foot-long reptile? His enthusiasm is as infectious as ever, and conveys a unique fascination on topics as diverse as the Sloth, Monstrous Flowers, the Platypus, Giant Birds, Dragons, the Fire Salamander, Faking Fossils, the Coelacanth, the Dodo, Bird’s-nest Soup and the Large Blue Butterfly. So listen to these stories to find out the real reason why animals sing, the story behind a 150-million-year-old feather and what it is about snakes that really unnerves Sir David.

3 CDs. 3 hrs 9 mins.

Birdsong

Emma — Fri, 01 Oct 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Set before and during the Great War, Birdsong captures the drama of that era on both a national and a personal scale. It is the story of Stephen, a young Englishman, who arrives in Amiens in 1910. His life goes through a series of traumatic experiences, from the clandestine love affair that tears apart the family with whom he lives, to the unprecedented experience of the war itself.

Green Dolphin Street

Emma — Sun, 01 Apr 2001 00:00:00 +0000

Part love story, part novel about America, this story tells of a solitary woman and her exhilarating attempt to face down death. The Eisenhower years end and 1960 ushers in John F. Kennedy. Mary van der Linden confronts the terror of the Cold War.