Originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4, Jeremy Irons' perceptive reading illuminates the poetry of T. S. Eliot in all its complexity. Major poems range from 'The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock' through the post-war desolation of 'The Waste Land' and the spiritual struggle of 'Ash-Wednesday', to the enduring charm of 'Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats'.

Alan Bennett's selection of English verse by his favourite poets: Thomas Hardy, A.E. Housman, W.H. Auden, Louis MacNeice, and Philip Larkin is accompanied by his own enlivening commentary and was recorded before a live audience. In this personal anthology, Alan Bennett has chosen more than seventy poems by six well-loved poets, discussing the writers and their verse in his customary conversational style through anecdote, shrewd appraisal and spare but telling biographical detail.

The Complete Short Stories is a collection to be loved and cherished, from one of the finest short-story writers of the twentieth century. From the cruel irony of A member of the Family to the fateful echoes of The Go-Away Bird and the unexpectedly sinister The Girl I Left Behind Me, in settings that range from South Africa to the Portobello Road, Muriel Spark coolly probes the idiosyncrasies that lurk beneath the veneer of human respectability, displaying the acerbic wit and wisdom that are the hallmarks of her unique talent.

This unique anthology of Alan Bennet's BBC radio and television work features extracts from his diaries and readings, as well as tributes to friends Russell Harty and Peter Cook.

This splendid title showcases the combined talents of Alan Bennett, one of our foremost dramatists and writers, and Thora Hird, the celebrated and much-loved actor who died in 2003. It features an exclusive and unique recording, The Last of the Sun, that Thora made for BBC Audiobooks a couple of months before her death.

From the moment Judi Dench appeared as a teenager in the York Mystery Plays, it was clear that acting would be her career. Trained at London's Central School of Speech and Drama it was her performance in her twenties as Juliet in Franco Zeffirelli's memorable Old Vic production that turned her into a star. In the theatre since she has played every classic role from Titania (three times, most recently in 2010) to Cleopatra.

Following on from the phenomenal success of Writing Home, Alan Bennett reminisces about his early years, from his schooldays to undergraduate life at Oxford University.

Maggie Smith stars in this BBC radio adaptation of Alan Bennett's highly acclaimed autobiographical stage play. An eccentric old lady moves into a quiet street in Camden Town. There she remains, installed in her van in glorious self-sufficiency, until the council instructs her to move on. Then a kind homeowner invites her to move her van into his garden - where she stays for the next 15 years.

The humorous and moving tale of Miss Shepherd, an eccentric old lady who, by a bizarre series of twists and turns, lived in the author's garden for many years. Alan Bennett reads his own acclaimed work, recently adapted as a West End smash hit starring Maggie Smith as the eccentric old lady.

Two unexpected tales written and read by the best-selling author of The Uncommon Reader, Untold Stories and The History Boys."The Greening of Mrs Donaldson" - Mrs Donaldson is a conventional middle-class woman beached on the shores of widowhood after a marriage that had been much like many others: happy to begin with, then satisfactory and finally dull. But when she decides to take in two lodgers, her mundane life becomes much more stimulating…

In the years since he first had the idea of prescribing short, powerful poems for all manner of spiritual ailments, William Sieghart has taken his Poetry Pharmacy around the length and breadth of Britain, into the pages of the Guardian, onto BBC Radio 4 and onto the television, honing his prescriptions all the time. This audiobook presents the most essential poems in his dispensary: those which, again and again, have really shown themselves to work. Whether you are suffering from loneliness, lack of courage, heartbreak, hopelessness or even an excess of ego, there is something here to ease your pain. 

Peter Tinniswood was best known for his popular TV series The Home Front and I Didn't Know You Cared and award-winning novel A Touch of Daniel. But he was also a prolific writer for radio, where he created a host of wonderful characters - often funny, sometimes poignant and always totally believable. This compilation brings together six of his finest monologues, as well as his comic play The Governor's Consort.

John Lithgow has compiled an outstanding collection of memorable poems and has gathered his famous friends to read them. The wide variety of carefully selected poetry in this audiobook provides the perfect introduction to reel in those who are new to poetry, and for poetry lovers to experience beloved verses in a fresh, vivid way. Lithgow offers insightful and sometimes poignant commentary to accompany each poem. His essential criterion is that "each poem's light shines more brightly when read aloud".

From his remarkable debut The Hawk in the Rain (1957) to his death in 1998, Ted Hughes was a colossal presence in the English literary landscape. He was also admired as a performer of his own work. Crow is one of his most significant collections, focusing on the central figure of the crow - predatory, mocking and indestructible. Crow is read here by the author in its entirety and with narrative links not included in the published text.

1944, in the ruined wine cellar of a Tuscan villa, as bombs fall around them, two strangers meet and share an extraordinary evening. Ulysses Temper is a young British soldier; Evelyn Skinner is a sexagenarian art historian and possible spy. She has come to Italy to salvage paintings from the wreckage and relive memories of the time she encountered EM Forster and had her heart stolen by an Italian maid in a particular Florentine room with a view.