Chris Crutcher takes us on a wild ride through the mind of a teen with ADD, while David Lubar's protagonist gets a sobering lesson from his friends. In Gail Giles's tale, Brad can't help barking at his classmates but finds understanding when he gives a comical (and informative) presentation to his entire school. And Robert Lipsyte introduces us to...

In a ruined and hostile landscape, in a future few have been unlucky enough to survive, a community exists in a giant underground silo. Inside, men and women live an enclosed life full of rules and regulations, of secrets and lies.To live, you must follow the rules. But some don't. These are the dangerous ones; these are the people who dare to hope...

The second episode of the BBC Radio 4 series, 'Touchline Tales', in which old friends Des Lynam and Christopher Matthew visit some famous sporting venues to enjoy, observe, reminisce and trade tales about some of the greatest pleasures in their lives. Originally broadcast 9 July 2010. In 'A Thunder of Hooves, A Babble of Bookies', they lay some bet...

Between 1965 and 1969 the successor to Beyond Our Ken ruled the airwaves. The show was scripted by Barry Took and Marty Feldman with music from the Fraser Hayes Four. Kenneth Horne was the golden-voiced straight man of the show, with the incredible comic talents of Kenneth Williams, Betty Marsden, Hugh Paddick and Bill Pertwee taking on the guise o...

Our narrator is sent on an errand to visit an old man, Simon Wheeler by a friend to find an old acquaintance of his. This is clearly a joke, because once our narrator gets there and asks about the acquaintance, Wheeler immediately begins to tell a long, boring, droll story about Jim Smiley. Jim Smiley is addicted to gambling. He bets on anything fr...

Howard Kirk is the trendiest of radical tutors at a fashionable university. Timid Vice-Chancellors pale before his threats of disruption and reactionary colleagues are crushed beneath his merciless Marxist logic. Reproduced with permission of Curtis Brown Group Ltd, London on behalf of the Estate of Malcolm Bradbury. Copyright Malcolm Bradbury 1975...

Edinburgh, 1759. The Nor' Loch is being filled in, officially because it's a stinking cesspool. But why are there so many whispered stories about the loch - stories about the Doctor, and the many hands of Alexander Munro?

Everyone's favourite prisoner is making the most of his stay at Her Majesty's Pleasure. Never a man to shrink from a challenge, even from behind bars, Fletch could manage anything from organising a win on the horses to buying a council flat in Mayfair. Brian Wilde, Richard Beckinsale and Fulton Mackay star alongside the incomparable Ronnie Barker i...

A Special Edition of the original radio series The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4 in 1978. Starring Peter Jones, Simon Jones, Geoffrey McGivern, Mark Wing-Davey, Susan Sheridan and Stephen Moore, these six episodes (Fit the First to Fit the Sixth) have been remastered to modern-day standards by Dirk Maggs, and for...

Blade is hiding. Playing dead. He knows people are looking for him but he doesn't want to be found because he knows these people aren't messing about. But Blade can look after himself. He has to.

Crime reporter Rosie Gilmour has learned to be tough. The places she's been and the stories she's covered, she's had to be. Her experience stands her in good stead for a grisly new investigation: the body of a refugee in a Glasgow canal, missing limbs and vital organs. He's not the first person to go missing - are there vigilantes at work or is the...

We chat to Ruth Hogan, author of the brilliant novels Queenie Malone's Paradise Hotel, The Keeper of Lost Things and The Wisdom of Sally Red Shoes. Photo credit Ben Crocker.

The second book in Michael Wood's darkly compelling new crime series featuring DCI Matilda Darke. Perfect for fans of Stuart MacBride, Mark Billingham and Val McDermid.When elderly George Rainsford goes to investigate a suspicious noise one night, the last thing he expects to find is a bloodbath. A man has been killed and a woman brutally beaten, l...

For many years Colette has avoided returning to her homeland - the magical island of Belle-×le-en-Mer in Southern Brittany - afraid to confront the painful memories she left behind. She is living on the Cornish coast when she hears about her mother Thea's failing health and realises that the time has come for her to go home. But can Colette e...

Cop. Drunkard. Low-grade magic user. My name is Gideon Tau, but most people just call me London. (Because that's where I'm from. Get it? Hilarious.) Three years ago, someone killed my daughter. I sacrificed everything (the human race included) to learn his name - and then had to allow that knowledge to be erased from my mind in order to save the wo...

A lone gunman unleashes pandemonium when he shoots into a crowd of people in a public plaza in Indiana. Five people are killed in cold blood, shot through the head. But he leaves a perfect trail of evidence behind him, and soon the local police chief tracks him down. After his arrest, the shooter's only words are, 'Get Jack Reacher for me.' What co...

'If the Sun were the size of a grapefruit, Earth would be the size of a grain of salt. Even the largest planet, Jupiter, would be only as big as a large pea.' Some things are so big or so old that it's hard to wrap your mind around them. In If, we look at these hard-to-imagine objects and events and compare them to things we can instantly see, feel...

Meet Sophie - a girl with cerebral palsy (CP). Sophie invites readers to learn about CP from her perspective, helping them to understand what it is like to use a wheelchair to move around and assistive technology to communicate. She also introduces readers to some of her friends who have different forms of CP and explains that living with CP can so...

The third and final episode of the BBC Radio 4 series, 'Touchline Tales', in which old friends Des Lynam and Christopher Matthew visit some famous sporting venues to enjoy, observe, reminisce and trade tales about some of the greatest pleasures in their lives. Originally broadcast 16 July 2010. In 'New Balls Please' they drop in at the opening week...

Between 1965 and 1969 the successor to Beyond Our Ken ruled the airwaves. The show was scripted by Barry Took and Marty Feldman with music from the Fraser Hayes Four. Kenneth Horne was the golden-voiced straight man of the show, with the incredible comic talents of Kenneth Williams, Betty Marsden, Hugh Paddick and Bill Pertwee taking on the guise o...

The courtship and wedding of Tony (Jack and Peggy Archer's son), and Pat Lewis, the girl from Wales with an independent streak.