Gyles Brandreth

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Have You Eaten Grandma? written and read by Gyles Brandreth. It can be much harder than it seems; commas, colons, semicolons and even apostrophes can drive us all mad at times, but it riles no one more than the longest-serving resident of Countdown's Dictionary Corner, grammar guru Gyles Brandreth. In this brilliantly funny tirade and guide, Gyles anatomises the linguistic horrors of our times, tells us where we've been going wrong (and why) and shows us how, in future, we can get it right every time. 

This witty and unexpected show brings you toponyms, abbreviations, euphemisms, old words, new words, cockney rhyming slang and Greek gobbledegook. Find out the meaning of words like giff-gaff, knock-knobbler and buckfitches; the difference between French marbles, French velvet and the French ache; hear the glorious poetry of the English language, as practiced from writers varying from William Shakespeare to Vanilla Ice; and spend time laughing and learning with some of the finest Wordaholics in the business. 

Lazy HR officer Sam (Nicholas le Provost) and his equally useless workmate Peter (Jonathan Pryce) realise they are in trouble: Peter for lateness and abusive phone calls to clients, and Sam for his over-relaxed attitude to errant staff members like Peter. Soon their worst fears are realised when they learn that one of the abusive phone calls made by Peter has been intercepted. 

Exclusively from Audible. 'It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.' So begins Charles Dickens' most famous historical drama: a gripping tale of war, social injustice and the choice between darkness and light. After being unjustly imprisoned for 18 years, French doctor Manette is released from the Bastille jail in Paris and embarks upon a journey to London in the hope of finding the daughter he never met.

London, 1894. 'I am not a detective, chief constable.' 'No, but you are a poet, a freemason and a man of the world. All useful qualifications for the business in hand.' So says Police Chief Macnaghten to Oscar Wilde in a Chelsea drawing room, in the company of Arthur Conan Doyle. The business they are gathered to discuss is none other than the case of Jack the Ripper, the most notorious murderer in England. And thus the three men set out to solve one of the world's most famous mysteries.

In the first of six witty short stories, 60s-something English barrister, Horace Rumpole, takes on the younger generation both at home and in the hallowed courtroom—while offending his esteemed colleagues and his draconian wife, Hilda.

"I see murder in this unhappy hand...." When Mrs. Robinson, palmist to the Prince of Wales, reads Oscar Wilde's hand she cannot know what she has predicted. Nor can Oscar know what he has set in motion when, that same evening, he proposes a game of "Murder" in which each of his Sunday Supper Club guests must write down those whom they would like to kill. For the fourteen "victims" begin to die mysteriously, one by one, and in the order in which their names were drawn from the bag....

A sparkling collection of 22 classic episodes of the ever-popular BBC Radio 4 panel game chaired by Nicholas Parsons. Showcasing five key players from the past five decades - Sheila Hancock, Gyles Brandreth, Jenny Eclair, Stephen Fry and Graham Norton - the collection also includes two bonus Christmas themed editions of the show. Loved for the verbal dexterity, wicked wit and competitive edge of its participants, Just a Minute has welcomed scores of guest players to the game since it began in 1967.

You’ve heard of an Essex Girl or even a Chelsea Girl, but what about a Hounslow Girl? Definition of a Hounslow Girl: a young Muslim woman who wears hooped earrings with her headscarf and grapples with traditional values while hustling her way through urban London. The Diary of a Hounslow Girl is a bold and provocative one-person play, written and performed by Ambreen Razia. From the joys of traditional Pakistani weddings to fights on the night bus, this is a comic story of dreams, aspirations and coming of age, told through the eyes of a 16-year-old British Muslim girl. 

It's not what you know but who you know that matters...and, indeed, how well you know them. The show is a bit like ‘Mr and Mrs’, except that it's not played by husbands and wives. Instead, panellists can pick anyone they like: dad, cousin, best friend, mother-in-law. What is Bridget Christie's worst fear? Or Ainsley Harriott's worst habit? Or Seann Walsh's worst gig? All these burning questions, and more, will be answered in this BBC comedy panel show hosted by Miles Jupp, where panellists are tested on how well they know their nearest and dearest.

For more than half a century, a shared love of canals and narrowboats has been inseparable from the marriage of Timothy West and Prunella Scales. The two iconic actors have spent many of the happiest days of their life together enjoying the calming pleasures of watching land and nature unfold before them at four miles an hour.

Shakespeare's life, despite the scrutiny of generations of biographers and scholars, is still a thicket of myths and traditions, some preposterous, some conflicting, arranged around the few scant facts known about the Bard: from his birth in Stratford to the bequest of his second best bed to his wife when he died.

Marcus Brigstocke persuades his reluctant guests to try new experiences: things that they've perhaps always meant to try but haven't had the time, the courage or possibly the inclination. Enjoy hearing some famous names embrace new challenges, such as Phill Jupitus drinking absinthe, Mark Steel constructing flat-pack furniture, Esther Rantzen finally joining Facebook, Kelly Holmes trying her first deep-fried Mars bar, Giles Coren having a go at being vegan, and Frank Skinner getting a spray tan.

In Doctor Who and the Green Death, the Third Doctor, Jo and the Brigadier find a Welsh mining village beset by sudden deaths and a swarm of giant maggots. In Doctor Who and the Time Warrior, the Third Doctor and Sarah investigate disappearances from a top secret research establishment. In Doctor Who and the Dinosaur Invasion, UNIT presides over the evacuation of London caused by the arrival of prehistoric monsters. In Doctor Who and the Planet of the Spiders, UNIT is attacked by an alien influence seeking to retrieve something in the Doctor’s possession. 

January 1946 and writer Juliet Ashton receives a letter from a man in Guernsey, who has found her name written inside a book. As they exchange letters, she is drawn into the eccentric world of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, which boasts a charming cast of characters, from pig farmers to phrenologists, literature lovers all. Captivated by their stories, she sets sail for Guernsey, and what she finds will change her forever.