AuthorPaula Byrne
NarratorAntonia Beamish
Duration17h 6m
CategoriesAdult Non-Fiction, Biography and Autobiography
PublisherHarper Collins
VersionUnabridged
'Captures both Barbara and her writing so miraculously' JILLY COOPER Picked as a Book to Look Forward to in 2021 by the Guardian, The Times and the Observer A Radio 4 Book of the Week, April 2021 Barbara Pym became beloved as one of the wittiest novelists of the late twentieth century, revealing the inner workings of domestic life so brilliantly that her friend Philip Larkin announced her the era's own Jane Austen. But who was Barbara Pym and why was the life of this English writer – one of the greatest chroniclers of the human heart – so defined by rejection, both in her writing and in love? Pym lived through extraordinary times. She attended Oxford in the thirties when women were the minority. She spent time in Nazi Germany, falling for a man who was close to Hitler. She made a career on the Home Front as a single working girl in London's bedsit land. Through all of this, she wrote. Diaries, notes, letters, stories and more than a dozen novels – which as Byrne shows more often than not reflected the themes of Pym's own experience: worlds of spinster sisters and academics in unrequited love, of powerful intimacies that pulled together seemingly humble lives. Paula Byrne's new biography is the first to make full use of Barbara Pym's archive. Brimming with new extracts from Pym's diaries, letters and novels, this book is a joyous introduction to a woman who was herself the very best of company. Byrne brings Barbara Pym back to centre stage as one of the great English novelists: a generous, shrewdly perceptive writer and a brave woman, who only in the last years of her life was suddenly, resoundingly recognised for her genius.
Author: John Humphrys
Author John Humphrys
Narrator John Humphrys
Duration 13h 3m
For more than three decades, millions of Britons have woken to the sound of John Humphrys's voice. As presenter of Radio 4's Today, the nation's most popular news programme, he is famed for his tough interviewing, his deep misgivings about authority in its many forms, and his passionate commitment to a variety of causes. A Day Like Today charts Joh...
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Author: Debbie Harry
Author Debbie Harry
Narrator Clem Burke
Duration 8h 53m
Debbie Harry is a musician, actor, activist and the iconic face of New York City cool. As the front-woman of Blondie, she and the band forged a new sound that brought together the worlds of rock, punk, disco, reggae and hip-hop to create some of the most beloved pop songs of all time. With all the grit, grime, and glory recounted in intimate detail...
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Author: Simon Reeve
Author Simon Reeve
Narrator Simon Reeve
Duration 10h 29m
TV documentary maker Simon Reeve has dodged bullets on frontlines, hunted with the Bushmen of the Kalahari, dived with manta rays, seals and sharks, survived malaria, walked through minefields, tracked lions on foot, been taught to fish by the President of Moldova, and detained for spying by the KGB. After a decade spent making more than 80 program...
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Author: Cathy Glass
Author Cathy Glass
Narrator Denica Fairman
Duration 8h 55m
Innocent is the shocking true story of little Molly and Kit, siblings, aged three years and 18 months, who are brought into care as an emergency after suffering non-accidental injuries. Aneta and Filip, the children's parents, are distraught when their children are taken into care. Aneta maintains she is innocent of harming them, while Filip appear...
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Author: David Cameron
Author David Cameron
Narrator David Cameron
Duration 30h
David Cameron was Conservative Party leader during the largest financial crash in living memory. The Arab Spring and the Eurozone crisis both started during his first year as prime minister. The backdrop to his time in office included the advent of ISIS, surging migration and a rapidly changing EU. He sets out how he helped turn around Britain's ec...
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Author: Paula Byrne
Author Paula Byrne
Narrator Antonia Beamish
Duration 11h 45m
A radical look at Jane Austen As you've never seen her – as a lover of farce, comic theatre and juvenilia. The Genius of Jane Austen celebrates Britain's favourite novelist 200 years after her death and explores why her books make such awesome movies, time after time. Jane Austen loved the theatre. She learned much of her art from a long trad...
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Author: Uwe Schutte
Author Uwe Schutte
Narrator Sam Peter Jackson
Duration 6h 14m
Brought to you by Penguin. The story of the phenomenon that is Kraftwerk, and how they revolutionised our cultural landscape 'We are not artists nor musicians. We are workers.' Ignoring nearly all rock traditions, experimenting in near-total secrecy in their Dsseldorf studio, Kraftwerk fused sound and technology, graphic design and performance, mo...
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Author: Noel Fitzpatrick
Author Noel Fitzpatrick
Narrator Noel Fitzpatrick
Duration 12h 59m
In this inspiring, uplifting and heartwarming memoir, world-renowned veterinary surgeon Professor Noel Fitzpatrick explores his journey to becoming The Supervet. Growing up on the family farm in Ballyfin, Ireland, Noel's childhood was spent tending to the cattle and sheep, the hay and silage, the tractors and land, his beloved sheepdog, Pirate, pro...
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Author: Paula Byrne
Author Paula Byrne
Narrator Maggie Mash
Duration 6h 20m
This is the story of Dido Belle, whose adoption by an aristocratic family challenged the conventions of 18th century England Dido Belle was the illegitimate, mixed-race daughter of a Royal Navy captain and a slave woman, adopted by the Earl of Mansfield. As Lord Chief Justice of England he would preside over the drowning of 142 slaves by a shipping...
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Author: Min Kym
Author Min Kym
Narrator Rebecca Yeo
Duration 8h 10m
Penguin presents the complete unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Gone by Min Kym, read by Rebecca Yeo. 'The hours fell away as I read this spellbinding tale of love, loss, and above all devotion to art. You probably don't know what it feels like to be a child prodigy or a world class violinist, but you will after reading this luminous me...
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