Interviews, discussions, readings and poems celebrating motherhood in all its diversity.This compilation of extracts from the much-loved BBC Radio 4 programme Woman's Hour looks at the changing role of mothers over the last fifty years; the relationships that they have enjoyed with their children, how they have juggled the work/life balance and how...

A man witnesses a murderous attack on a young woman in a mirror - yet when he turns round there is nothing there. Can he prevent a premonition coming true? Basic human loyalty and jealousy are at the fore in this chilling tale.

Where did she go? What did she know? A woman drives to a secluded beauty spot on the Somerset coast. CCTV watches her enter but doesn't see her leaving. In fact, Lynda Korin is never seen again. How can someone just disappear? Her sister calls missing persons investigator David Raker. For him, the mystery of where she went is only the start. The re...

Aster has little to offer folks in the way of rebuttal when they call her ogre and freak. She's used to the names; she only wishes there was more truth to them. If she were truly a monster, she'd be powerful enough to tear down the walls around her until nothing remains of her world. Aster lives in the lowdeck slums of the HSS Matilda, a space vess...

Christopher Paolini is the author of the Inheritance Cycle series, which is available is borrow from both our online and MP3 CD catalogues.

You Can Start a Revolution in Your Family . . . Tonight ScreamFree Parenting is not just about lowering your voice. It's about learning to calm your emotional reactions and learning to focus on your own behavior more than your kids' behavior . . . for their benefit. Our biggest enemy as parents is not the TV, the Internet, or even drugs. Our bigges...

A nine-year-old girl is killed in crossfire on her way to ballet class. The body of a teenager killed in North Carolina is found hundreds of miles away. Forensic anthropologist Dr Temperance Brennan has to pick up the pieces: she knows she shouldn't let emotion get in the way, but when nin-year-old Emily's body is wheeled into the morgue she cannot...

Returning series of the ever popular Just A Minute, hosted by Nicholas Parsons. Graham Norton, Paul Merton, Sheila Hancock and Tony Hawks are attempting to speak without hesitation, repetition or deviation on 'Barn Dances', 'My Personal Assistant' and other subjects.

Stephen Fry meets the brains behind the mobile phone. In this third episode, he looks at the discovery of text messaging. The engineers who designed the early texting facilities didn't imagine that anyone might want to reply. (Just in case, they added a short list of possible pre-set answers: yes, no and maybe). In the eighties, when network covera...

An offbeat 21st Century urban love story starring Rosie Cavaliero and John Dougall, originally broadcast as BBC Radio 4's 'Afternoon Play' on 12 January 2011. It's a difficult time for Sue, her mother has just died and the kids have moved out. She has a vision of leaving their tough housing estate behind and starting a new life by the sea but husba...

Constance Chatterley feels trapped in her sexless marriage to the invalid Sir Clifford. Unable to fulfil his wife emotionally or physically, Clifford encourages her to have a liaison with a man of their own class. But Connie is attracted instead to her husband's gamekeeper and embarks on a passionate affair that brings new life to her stifled exist...

Armando Iannucci's Charm Offensive is a topical, events-driven radio comedy hosted by comedy guru Iannucci, recorded in front of a live audience. With the sketchability of The Now Show, combined with the going-off-on-a-mad-streak of a maverick News Quiz round, Iannucci and his comedian guests pull apart the week's news, in an effortlessly original...

Before cars and planes, railways and steam engines were the main form of transport. And in the early days the engine driver was the fastest man on earth, travelling at 60 mph (and much faster than a car). No wonder it was every schoolboy's dream to become the driver of a locomotive, even though it was dirty and dangerous work. Some boys went straig...

War-wounded sailor Dickie Carpenter is haunted by strange visitations from a ghostly woman. When his friend Robert tries to solve the mystery, though, he ultimately has to fight his own terrifying battle between love and death.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Beartown by Fredik Backman, read by John Sackville. Beartown is a small town in a large Swedish forest. For most of the year it is under a thick blanket of snow, experiencing the kind of cold and dark that brings people closer together - or pulls them apart. Its isolation means that Beartown has been slowly...

What are the signs of anxiety? What is a panic attack? What is social anxiety? What is anxiety disorder? How to overcome anxiety and how to stop a panic attack: It is now possible to stop anxiety from stopping us in our tracks. In her book, Dr. Odessky helps you understand the process of anxiety, and how to arm yourself with strategies that work. D...

Moments of change, chance encounters, twists of fate that create a new way of thinking or being: the stories in Dear Life build to form a radiant, indelible portrait of just how dangerous and strange ordinary life can be. The collection includes four powerful pieces, 'Autobiographical in Feeling', set during the time of Munro's own childhood, in th...

Bill Bryson has written books in a variety of genres including travel, languages and science. We have a number of his titles available to borrow from both our online and MP3 CD catalogues.

Susan Beth Pfeffer's Life as We Knew It enthralled and devastated listeners with its brutal but hopeful look at an apocalyptic event-an asteroid hitting the moon, setting off a tailspin of horrific climate changes. Now this harrowing companion novel examines the same events as they unfold in New York City, revealed through the eyes of seventeen-yea...

When Alan left school at fifteen little was expected of him. An 'O' level in art is not the most obvious passport to success, but in the ancient greenhouses of the local nursery, Mrs T's little lad found his spiritual home, learning his trade and the strange ways of human nature. But the comfort and familiarity of his home in the Yorkshire Dales wo...

Nicholas Parsons is once again in the chair for this complete series of the popular BBC Radio 4 panel game. Featured in these eight episodes are panellists Paul Merton, Shappi Khorsandi, Tony Hawks, Graham Norton, Julian Clary, Gyles Brandreth, Sheila Hancock, Josie Lawrence, Phill Jupitus, Rick Wakeman, Pam Ayres and newcomers Russell Kane, Miles...