Audio - Literary Titles 1999
New Audio - Literary Titles
1999
Melvyn Bragg
The Soldiers Return
Published November 99 by Headline Audio at £8.99
ISBN: 1-84032-154-7
Read by Melvyn Bragg
When Sam Richardson returns in 1946 from the 'Forgotten War' in Burma to Wigton in Cumbria, he finds little about his own prospects has changed. But his young family has altered immensely. His wife Ellen has found a sense of self worth in her war time jobs; and their six-year-old son Joe doesn't welcome the father he barely remembers. And Sam finds the traumatic scenes he witnessed in Burma have changed him too, making the confines of this working class Cumbrian town stifling. The result is a family in turmoil, which reaches breaking point when Sam resolves to emigrate to Australia.
2 Cassettes Running Time: approx. 3 hours
Abridged by Peter Mackie
Produced by Heavy Entertainment
Hanif Kureishi
Intimacy
Published January 99 by Penguin Audio at £8.99
ISBN: 0140869085
Read by Anton Lesser
'It is the saddest night, for I am leaving and not coming back'
Jay is leaving his partner and their two sons. As the long night before his departure unfolds he remembers the ups and downs
of his relationship with Susan. In an unforgettable, and often pitiless, reflection of their time together he analyses the agonies and the joys of trying to make a life with another person.
Hanif Kureishi read philosophy at King's College, London. In 1982 he was appointed Writer in Residence at the Royal Court Theatre. In 1984 he wrote My Beautiful Laundrette, which was
nominated for Best Screenplay Oscar. Other screenplays include Sammy and Rosie Get Laid and London Kills Me, which he also directed. He is the author of The Buddha of Suburbia, which won the Whitbread Prize for Best First Novel in 1990, and The Black Album.
Anton Lesser's distinguished stage career includes several productions for the RSC and the Royal National Theatre. His television appearances include The Politician's Wife, Invasion Earth and Vanity Fair. He appeared recently in Art at the Wyndhams Theatre.
Produced by Anne Rosenfeld
Running time approx. 3 hours 15 mins - unabridged
2 cassettes
'Telling the truth is always a precarious business, but Kureishi does it
with seriousness, tenderness and upsetting aplomb' Julie Myerson,
Mail on Sunday
Toni Morrison
Beloved
Published February 99 by Random House Audio at £8.99
ISBN: 1-85686-751-X
From the Pulitzer Prize winning novel
Read by Lynn Whitfield
It is the mid-1800s. At Sweet Home in Kentucky, an era is ending as slavery comes under attack from the abolitionists. The worlds of Halle and Paul D. are to be destroyed in a cataclysm of torment and agony. The world of Sethe, however, is to turn from one of love to one of violence and death - the death of Sethe's baby daughter Beloved, whose name is the single word on the tombstone, who died at her mother's hands, and who will return to claim retribution.
Lynn Whitfield won an Emmy Award for her work in The Josephine Baker Story. She has also appeared in the films Eve's Bayou and The Thin Line Between Love and Hate.
An abridgement of Beloved copyright Toni Morrison 1987
Published by Vintage in paperback
Original cover photograph copyright 1998 Touchstone pictures
Playing time approx. 3 hours
Two cassettes
'A magnificent achievement… an American masterpiece' A.S.Byatt.
'Beloved is Toni Morrison's fifth novel, and another triumph. Indeed, Ms Morrison's versatility and technical and emotional range appear to know no bounds. If there were any doubts about her stature as a pre-eminent American novelist, of her own or any other generation, Beloved will put them to rest.' Margaret Atwood
'She melds horror and beauty in a story that will disturb the mind forever' The Sunday Times
Anne Tyler
A Patchwork Planet
Published March 99 by Random House Audio at £12.99
ISBN: 1-85686-711-0
Read by David Morse
In true Anne Tyler tradition, the hero of A Patchwork Planet, Barnaby Gailtin is a curious character. In his youth, he was a burglar who got caught not stealing valuable antiques but reading people's love letters and looking through their photograph albums. His wife and child have left him and so he lives in a small bedsit and works for "Rent-a-Back". "Rent-a-Back" - when your muscles aren't quite enough - is his life. He buys groceries for the Cartwrights, collects bags of salt for Ditty Nolan and cleans out Mrs Alford's attic.
Then Barnaby encounters an angel. He follows a woman on a train journey who has been mysteriously asked to give a package to a woman who turns out to be called Sophia. Sophia is civilised and works in a bank and seemingly falls in love with Barnaby. His life begins to change, he no longer appears so geeky, he has a credible girlfriend who his parents approve of but is this really what he wants? The book's finale set at Barnaby's parent's house is the Thanksgiving dinner from hell.
The mundanities of Barnaby's life are hilarious but also touching. The Patchwork Planet is full of wonderful observations of simple folk dealing with the every day consequences of their actions. Anne Tyler's world is an intriguing one, start reading and it opens up and engulfs you.
Author of fourteen novels, most recently Ladder of Years, Anne Tyler has been nominated 'greatest living novelist in English' by both Paddy Doyle and Nick Hornby. She won a Pulitzer Prize for Breathing Lessons, and The Accidental Tourist was made into a major film.
David Morse has appeared in films such as Contact, Extreme Measures and The Rock. He was a series regular on television's St. Elsewhere for six series, and also does regular theatre work.
An abridgement of A Patchwork Planet copyright Anne Tyler 1998
Published by Vintage in paperback
Playing time approx. 5 hours
Four Cassettes
'This is possibly Tyler's best book yet - which must make it pretty near perfection' The Times
