What happens when you sneeze in space? Was it fun to do a space walk? How squashed were you in the capsule on the way back? What were your feelings as you looked down on Earth for the first time? Were you ever scared? Where to next-the Moon, Mars, or beyond? Based on his historic mission to the International Space Station, Ask an Astronaut is Tim P...

The Cold War is over, and chaos is setting in. The new President of Russia is trying to create a new democratic regime. But there are strong elements within the country that are trying to stop him: the ruthless Russian Mafia, the right-wing nationalists, and even revanchist Czarists. Op-Center, the newly founded but highly successful crisis managem...

To avoid fainting, keep repeating It's only a movie ...only a movie If you grew up believing that Planet of the Apes told you all you needed to know about politics, that Slade in Flame was a savage expos‚ of the pop world, and that The Exorcist revealed the meaning of life, then you probably spent far too many of your formative years at the c...

On the eve of his marriage to the beautiful Mercedes, having that very day been made Captain of his ship, the young sailor Edmond DantŠs is arrested on a charge of treason, trumped up by jealous rivals. Incarcerated for many lonely years in the isolated and terrifying Chateau d'If near Marseille, he meticulously plans his brilliant escape an...

Helen Walsh doesn't believe in fear - it's just a thing invented by men to get all the money and good jobs - and yet she's sinking. Her work as a Private Investigator has dried up, her flat has been repossessed and now some old demons have resurfaced. Not least in the form of her charming but dodgy ex-boyfriend Jay Parker, who shows up with a missi...

Nicholas Parsons chairs the devious BBC Radio 4 word game. Panellists Paul Merton and Julian Clary reveal, among other things, what they think of New Year's Eve parties, and David Mitchell and Gyles Brandreth discuss the art of writing a book.

Colin is in many ways an ideal citizen. A responsible job for the council, visits to his aged mother Norah, and cooking and shopping for her. But no-one knows about his other - much more secret - life that involves a garden shed, a circus acrobat, and a much-adored three-year-old charmer.

William Wordsworth (1770-1850) was born in Cockermouth, in the Lake District. His Lyrical Ballads, written in collaboration with Coleridge, was published in 1798, and shortly afterwards he settled in Dove Cottage, Grasmere, with his sister Dorothy. Inspired in his early manhood by the French Revolution, he grew disillusioned with revolutionary poli...

Few can forget where they were thirteen years ago when they first heard "Jeremy Hardy Speaks To The Nation". The show was an immediate smash-hit success, causing pubs to empty on a Saturday night, which was particularly astonishing since the show went out on Thursdays. Since that fateful first series, the show has gone on to win Sony awards, Writer...

She came, she saw, she criticised. Yes, this is the complete 4-part series where Jo Caulfield, 'the funniest female stand-up on Radio 4' presents her glorious mixture of bitchy friendliness, waspish likeability and foot-in-mouth populism - but always with charm. In the series, Jo is, as ever, failing to Shut Up about - love, marriage, dating, celeb...

The fascinating story of England's history and of the public and private life of her Royal Family is highlighted by extracts from the diaries and speeches of English Monarchs and observations by their contemporaries.

Random House presents the audiobook edition of Home Sweet Murder by James Patterson, read by Peter Ganim. Two true-crime cases from the hit TV series Murder is Forever HOME SWEET MURDER: Lawyer Leo Fisher and his wife Sue are enjoying a quiet Sunday dinner at home. Until a man in a suit rings at their front door claiming to be an SEC agent. By the...

A plane crashes on a desert island and the only survivors, a group of schoolboys, assemble on the beach and wait to be rescued. By day they inhabit a land of bright fantastic birds and dark blue seas, but at night their dreams are haunted by the image of a terrifying beast. As the boys' delicate sense of order fades, so their childish dreams are tr...

The fifth book in the bestselling, award-winning GEEK GIRL series. Harriet Manners knows almost every fact there is. She knows duck-billed platypuses don't have stomachs. She knows that fourteen squirrels were once detained as spies. She knows that both chess and snakes and ladders were invented in the same country. And for once, Harriet knows exac...

It is 1925 and the war is long over. But much has been lost and life will never truly be the same again. Castle Deverill, cherished home to the Deverill family in the west of Ireland for hundreds of years, has burned to the ground. But young and flighty Celia Deverill is determined to restore the sad ruin to its former glory. Celia married well and...

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of Frazzled, written and read by Ruby Wax. Five hundred years ago no-one died of stress: we have invented this concept and now we let it rule us. Rest has become a dirty word, and our idea of satisfaction is answering the last email. We're sleepwalking through our own lives. Ruby Wax...

264 wood and ivory carvings, none of them larger than a matchbox: potter Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in the Tokyo apartment of his great uncle Iggie. Later, when Edmund inherited the 'netsuke', they unlocked a story far larger than he could ever have imagined...In this stunningly original memoir, Edmund de...

Nicholas Parsons chairs this complete series of the devious BBC Radio 4 word game. Featuring in these 12 episodes are panellists Paul Merton, Julian Clary, David Mitchell, Gyles Brandreth, Charles Collingwood, Tony Hawks, Dave Gorman, Josie Lawrence, Liza Tarbuck and Graham Norton.

Series 2 of the BBC Radio 4 sitcom written by and starring Sanjeev Kohli and Donald McLeary, set in a Glasgow corner shop. More shop-based shenanigans and over-the-counter philosophy, courtesy of Ramesh Mahju and his trusty sidekick Dave. This second series sees guest appearances from Nina Wadia and Hardeep Singh Kohli. Gerard Kelly also reprises h...

Hat Grant is getting married. She is having a proper, big wedding. That is until something goes wrong - six weeks before the wedding, her fiance dumps her. Hat is devastated. This is her special day, she can't cancel everything - what about the flowers, her dress the photographer, the caterers, her ghastly mother? So, she doesn't - she decides to g...

A sparkling BBC Radio 4 adaptation of J.B. Priestley's comic play, starring Alan Bennett, Brenda Blethyn, Gwen Taylor, Alun Armstrong, Michael Jayston and Nicola Pagett. Three eminently respectable Yorkshire couples are in the midst of their joint silver wedding celebrations when they receive a rude shock - they are not legally married. Confronted...