In the late 1700s your circumstance of birth meant everything. Toby and Aaron may both find themselves living at Captain Thomas Coram's Hospital for parentless children, but their histories are as far apart as they could possibly be. Toby has been rescued from a life of slave labour in a faraway country; Aaron is the illegitimate son of the heir to...

The missing man: Harting, a Junior Something in the British Embassy in Bonn. The missing files: forty-three of them, all confidential. The timing: appalling and probably not accidental. London's security officer Alan Turner is sent to Bonn to find the missing man and files, as Germany's past, present and future threaten to collide in a nightmare of...

BBC cricket correspondent Jonathan Agnew introduces a new collection of anecdotes and reflections from some of the Best-loved characters of international cricket. JACK RUSSELL, DEREK PRINGLE, GRAHAM GOOCHE, IAN BOTHAM, DEREK UNDERWOOD, GEOFF LAWSON and many more. From the glory days when players regularly smoked 20 a day and fended off over-eager f...

A surreal, dark comedy from BBC Radio 3's The Wire, by Cornish writer Carl Grose that was inspired by seeing a Johannesburg local newspaper headline about a farmer who hanged 49 donkeys from tree branches on his land. Originally broadcast 1 November 2008 and repeated 18 July 2009. In Grose's play, Stanley Bray, a Cornish farmer, is compelled to han...

The first full-length detective novel to use fingerprinting as a means of detection, its intricate plotting and the double-twist in the final minutes, and not least its engaging hero, painter and amateur sleuth Philip Trent, have assured the book a place in classic fiction of this genre.

On the trail of a dangerous energy field, Torchwood are led to Delhi. There they witness the simultaneous disappearance of hundreds of people, and Jack discovers that the field centres on an old colonial mansion - Torchwood India. Jack is shocked to find that Torchwood India is still going strong - he shut it down himself over 80 years ago. He's ev...

Lee Mack, star of ITV's The Sketch Show and BAFTA Award Winner and British Comedy Award nominee, had his first six part radio series broadcast on Radio 2 in March and April this year. Special musical guests on the first of the Lee Mack series include Toyah Wilcox, Midge Ure, Suggs, Sophie Ellis Bexter, Tom Robinson and Tony Hadley. Alongside the mu...

A full-cast dramatisation of Kipling's classic animal adventure starring Eartha Kitt. Rudyard Kipling's famous tale tells the story of Mowgli, the 'man-cub' rescued from the tiger Shere Khan and adopted by a wolf pack. As he grows up, Mowgli learns the ways of the jungle from Baloo the bear, Bagheera the black panther and Kaa the rock python. His l...

In this audiobook Hawking attempts to make the ideas and concepts of his bestseller 'A Brief History of Time' even more accessible. It is up-to-date with the latest scientific observations and findings, and is a guide to non-scientists everywhere in the search for the secrets of time and space.

In a grimy flat in the city of Cork, a man lies dead. His face is unrecognisable: seven gunshots have shattered cartilage and bone. Yet DS Katie Maguire, of the Irish Garda, knows exactly who he is. Amir Xaaji Maxamed, an evil man who trafficked young girls to be sold for sex. When a second pimp is killed, Katie must decide. Are these vigilante mur...

Three brothers, one death, a fenceline stretching to the horizon. Two rbothers meet at the border of their cast cattle properties under the unrelenting sun of outbakc Queensland. They are at the stockman's grave, a landmark so old, no one can remember who is bruied there. But today, the scant shadow it casts was the last hope for the middle brother...

The heart-pounding conclusion to the InterWorld series, by award-winning writers Neil Gaiman, Michael Reaves and Mallory Reaves As the threat of FrostNight looms ever closer, Joey Harker seeks out more of his fellow Walkers across the Altiverse, training them as fast as he can. But even a solid team of recruits can't prepare Joey for the ultimate s...

A collection of short stories by an award-winning master of horror and suspense. In The Poppet a faceless wooden doll holds the secret to a chilling curse . In Hell in the Cathedral, a bunch of tourists are marooned at the mercy of a voracious sea-beast . In The Baleful Dead an ageing heavy metal band reunite at a lonely mansion, unaware of the blo...

4 weeks, 5 parts, 1 thrilling story. Part two in the gripping murder mystery from bestselling thriller writer James Patterson, with exclusive extra content. The town of Bridgehampton has been shocked by the murder of a Hollywood power broker and his mistress and the killing of a local prostitute. Detective Jenna Murphy is the only one convinced tha...

With the dreaded Family Reunion looming over her head-and a broken heart to boot-Augusta Josephine Burnette takes matters in hand and leaves her hometown for a job in a seaside resort. The setting is elegance incarnate, but the atmosphere says something else entirely. With her innate sense of adventure (and just plain nosiness), AJ sets out to unra...

Narrated in the first person, Great Expectations tells the story of Philip Pirrip (known as Pip) from his disadvantaged start as an orphan in the Kent marshes to the improvement in his position following an anonymous allowance. Pip moves to London where, only after many trials, does he learn humility and the value of loyalty. Key Dickens characters...

Aristotle is an angry teen with a brother in prison. Dante is a know-it-all who has an unusual way of looking at the world. When the two meet at the swimming pool, they seem to have nothing in common. But as the loners start spending time together, they discover that they share a special friendship--the kind that changes lives and lasts a lifetime....

A multi-award-winning actor, writer, comedian and presenter known for his warmth, humour and inspired impressions, Rob Brydon has quickly become one of our very favourite entertainers. But there was a time when it looked like all we'd hear of Rob was his gifted voice. Small Man in a Book is Rob Brydon's funny, heartfelt, honest, sometimes sad, but...

One late spring evening in 1912, in the kitchens at Sterne, preparations begin for an elegant supper party in honour of Emerald Torrington's twentieth birthday. But only a few miles away, a dreadful accident propels a crowd of mysterious and not altogether savoury survivors to seek shelter at the ramshackle manor - and the household is thrown into...

Dr. Geoff Bunn presents a journey through 5000 years of our understanding of the most complex thing in the known universe: the brain, in this major ten-part BBC Radio 4 series. Episode 7, 'Mind the Gap', focuses on how the microscope allowed neurologists to deatil the structure of brain cells. While Sigmund Freud, who started out as a neurologist,...

Nicholas Parsons chairs the devious BBC Radio 4 word game. With Graham Norton, Sue Perkins, Paul Merton and Tony Hawks.