Audiobooks
From the Arctic to the Azores, from fiction to fact, our festive audio picks are the perfect accompaniment to Christmas preparations.
The Arctic Curry Club Dani Redd, Avon, £12.99
Sit back and snuggle down for just over 10 hours of warm, feel-good audio all about belonging. In it we meet Maya, who follows her boyfriend to the Arctic but soon has cold feet. Lonely and frozen with anxiety, she starts cooking for calm from her mum’s Indian recipe book and finds her way to people’s hearts through their stomachs. There’s just one problem, the dishes evoke memories of her enigmatic mum in Bangalore…
The Couple On Maple Drive
Sam Carrington, Avon, £12.99
Isla has suffered a violent mugging and decides to recover at home, where she is glued to Netflix crime documentaries. Cue boyfriend Zach, who moves in to nurse her. But all is not what it should be and Zac is not what he seems. Things start to unravel and at the end of the nine-hour, 20-minute run time, one of them will be leaving in a body bag…but will it be Zach or Isla?
The Newcomer Laura Elizabeth Woollett, Wavesound, £16.99
Paulina is challenging, and difficult to like. So when she is murdered on a sleepy Pacific island where she was looking for her “happy ever after”, her mother, Judy, is one of the few people willing to fight for the facts. This exquisitely crafted tale from the author of Beautiful Revolutionary explores over nearly 12 and a half minutes, themes of power and the way we perceive victims. Memorable.
These Precious Days Ann Pratchet, Bloomsbury, £26.99
This audio offer a “precious” opportunity to spend 11 hours and 13 minutes in the captivating company of best-selling US author Pratchet. Narrated by Pratchet with a cameo from movie great Tom Hanks, this essay collectioncum-memoir explores family, friendship, marriage, and failure and success, as well as her life-changing friendship with Hanks and the three men she calls dad. Refreshingly funny.
Old Man Sailing John Passmore, Samsara Press, £18.29
Sail 3,629 miles in just eight hours with retired journalist turned adventurer Passmore. When lockdown hit in March last year the British writer, then 70, decided to sail his 32ft sloop single-handed to the Azores and back. His selfisolation in international waters saw yachtsman finally achieve a 60-year ambition. Returning home 42 days later, with shredded sails and almost out of water, he lived to tell the tale.