Newsletter Subscribe to our blog via email. Opt out any time - please see our Privacy Policy
Robert Thorogood is a screenwriter and author. He is best known for the Death in Paradise TV series. In 2008 he was a finalist for the Red Planet Prize, which aimed to find undiscovered writers. This gave him the opportunity to pitch his idea for a television series about an English policeman in the Caribbean to Tony Jordan, the creator of Life on Mars and Hustle. Death in Paradise first aired in 2010, and it has gone on to be one of Britain's most popular TV shows, with an average of 9 million viewers for Series 6.
October 2, 2017
0 Comments
This year, the UK is celebrating Banned Books Week to highlight the history of censorship. One of the most famous examples is Lady Chatterley's Lover by D. H. Lawrence. The book was famously banned in the UK because of its explicit content. In 1960, Penguin Books won a court case to publish it due to the 'Obscene Publications Act'. This act said that any book considered obscene but with "redeeming social merit" could be published. After six days, the jury found the book was not obscene. It sold out across the UK on the first day of publication, with 200,000 copies bought. Almost 60 years on, this is considered a landmark case that represented the end of an era.
September 25, 2017
0 Comments
Kiran Millwood Hargrave is a poet, playwright and novelist. She's best know for her debut novel 'The Girl of Ink and Stars' and latest release 'The Island at the End of Everything'. Her books, while perhaps more aimed at children and teens, appeal to adults too, and her debut received multiple awards.
August 7, 2017
0 Comments
Ruth Hatfield is a writer and archaeologist, known for her The Book of Storms trilogy. The series is aimed at children and teens and follows Danny, whos parents are storm chasers...
July 24, 2017
0 Comments
Despite the growing technological panic at the cusp of the twenty-first century, my parents only owned one CD player. It was too big to move from the sitting room, so the audiobook was bought for me as six cassette tapes to listen to in my bedroom. At nine years old, I had already amassed an impressive collection of audiobooks on cassette - I've always struggled to fall asleep and need to be tricked into unconsciousness by distraction from overthinking and worrying. I had Roald Dahl’s Fantastic Mr Fox and The Giraffe, The Pelly and Me memorised, and had been forced to give up my Thomas the Tank Engine cassette to my sister, who was, in fairness, deserving; she's younger than me and suffers from the same problem sleeping.
June 26, 2017
0 Comments
It’s the final day of our book recommendations, and we’ve saved the best for last with six sensational stories to listen to! From crime to dystopian speculative fiction to humour, whatever you’re looking for, we’ve got an audiobook for you.
June 22, 2017
0 Comments
When I was thirteen and wishing that Orlando Bloom would read me the phonebook (it was 2003, that’s the only excuse I have), I could never have dreamt that there would be so many books read by celebrities to choose from.
June 20, 2017
0 Comments
Michelle Paver is a novelist and children's author best known for her Chronicles of Ancient Darkness series. She spoke to Abbie Jaggers about pretending to be a wolf, having her books narrated by Sir Ian McKellen, oh, and that time she came face to face with a black bear in the Californian forest!
June 19, 2017
0 Comments
It can always be difficult to pick your next title to listen to. Whether you've just come off the back of listening to a book you loved or one that you're not sure was quite right for you, or if you've never listened to an audiobook before, how do you pick from the vast range of books out there?
June 5, 2017
0 Comments
There is a strange and troubled kind of intimacy between our own moment of climate change and 19th century Britain. It was there that a global, fossil fuel economy first took shape, through its coal-powered factories, railways, and steamships, which drove the emergence of modern consumer capitalism.
May 30, 2017
0 Comments