Audio Books

Naughty-but-nice nuggets suggested by Lucy Lethbridge

Oldie Radio 4 addicts, of which there must be a great many, would be thrilled to receive the BBC’S collections of classic radio programmes, most of them comic, several surprisingly rude. There’s Just a Minute: Through the Years:

12 classic episodes of the muchloved BBC Radio comedy game (BBC Audio £30, Oldie price £ 16.38). Going back through the archives to its genesis in 1967, there are some scene-stealing moments from the likes of Kenneth Williams and chair Nicholas Parsons (above) as well as Paul Merton et al. Or what about

I’m Sorry, I’ll Read that Again, a selection of classic radio comedy chosen by the former Goodies, Graeme Garden and Bill Oddie (BBC Audio £35, Oldie price £ 31.15). And bang up to date for anyone who’s missed it this year is The

News Quiz: Best of 2018 (BBC Audio £13.25, Oldie price £11.79).

Children who don’t hide behind the sofa when Doctor Who is on telly might enjoy Dave Rudden’s reading of his own stories about 12 famous villains from the series – including, for older readers, The

Master – in Doctor Who: Twelve Angels Weeping (BBC £18.99). Younger children will love wry-but-cosy comedian Hugh Dennis reading Tove Jansson’s Finn Family Moonintroll (Penguin £12.99, Oldie price £10.98). Everyone will enjoy being spooked by a new reading of J Meade Falkner’s classic tale of smuggling and the high seas, Moonfleet (BBC £10.99). Sophie Hannah has written a

bestselling new mystery novel starring Agatha Christie’s Hercule Poirot, and The Mystery of the

Three Quarters is read by her in audiobook (Harpercollins £16.99). Matthew Shardlake fans will be delighted to know that Tombland, C J Sansom’s most recent novel starring the Reformation’s sleuthing monk, is read by Steven Crossley (Pan Macmillan Audiobook £39.99).

For anyone who’s been wondering what the Jordan Peterson phenomenon is about, £25 will buy them his 12 Rules for Life:

An Antidote to Chaos – read on CD by the man himself (Penguin Audio). Or what about something completely different, a trip to The

Marsh Arabs with Wilfred Thesiger, read by Laurence Kennedy (Naxos Audiobooks £27.99)? Thesiger’s

Arabian Sands is also available from Naxos (£37.75).

Henry Mayhew’s wonderfully evocative chronicle of Victorian London street life, London Labour

and the London Poor, has just been recorded unabridged for the first time. Read by David Timson, it costs £70 on CD, £46 as a download (Naxos Audiobooks). David Attenborough brings examples of extraordinary evolution to the sound waves in his reading of Life on Earth: the greatest story ever

told (Harpercollins £12.99). And because it seems to be obligatory to have ghost stories at Christmas, give Dickens a miss this year and try Ghost Stories by H G Wells: Six Chilling Tales

(BBC Audio £13.25).