The Wind in the Willows

"A bear on Paddington Station?" said Mrs Brown in amazement. "Don't be silly - there can't be." The Browns first met Paddington on a railway station - Paddington station, in fact. He had travelled all the way from Darkest Peru with only a jar of marmalade, a suitcase and his hat. The Browns soon found that Paddington was a very unusual bear.

Penguin Audiobooks presents Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach, read by Green Wing actor Julian Rhind-Tutt. The audiobooks features original music and '3D' sound design by Pinewood film studios. James Henry Trotter's parents have been eaten by a rhinoceros, so now he lives with his two repulsive aunts. One hot day something peculiar happens and an enormous peach grows in their garden.

Hold on to your broom for magical mayhem! Lovable but disaster-prone Mildred Hubble is a trainee at Miss Cackle's Academy for Witches, but she's making an awful mess of it. She keeps getting her spells wrong and crashing her broomstick. Yet she manages to get by until she turns Ethel, the teacher's pet, into her deadly enemy and chaos ensues....

Walk a day in a Roman's sandals. What was it like to live in one of the ancient world's most powerful and bustling cities - one that was eight times more densely populated than modern-day New York? In this entertaining and enlightening guide, best-selling historian Philip Matyszak introduces us to the people who lived and worked there. In each hour of the day, we meet a new character - from emperor to slave girl, gladiator to astrologer, medicine woman to water-clock maker - and discover the fascinating details of their daily lives.

The unapologetic intensity with which Emily Brontë wrote this story ensures that it will forever be considered one of the greatest works of English literature. A passionate tale of a chaotic and often violent love, Wuthering Heights transcends your average romance and, with its Gothic undertones, takes the listener on a journey through one man's lustful hunt for revenge.

When Lee and his daemon, Hester, land in the Arctic town of Novy Odense, they quickly become embroiled in an out-and-out political brawl. So when Iorek offers to help, Lee is only too happy to accept. Together they take on a slippery politician, his monstrous gas-powered gun and a murderous gunfighter. And so begins a friendship that will continue throughout their lives.

After moving back to the States, Bryson started to write a column for The Mail on Sunday Night and Day magazine. This is a collection of these column entries. Bryson writes about everything from everyday chores, to suing people, the beach, TV, movies, air conditioners, college, Americana, injury dangers, wasting resources, and holiday seasons.

A brilliantly funny, gripping novel from a born storyteller, The Parent Agency is an epic wish-fulfilment adventure for every child - and for the child in everyone. Barry said, a third time, "I wish I had better parents!" And then suddenly the entire room started to shake. Barry Bennett hates being called Barry. In fact it's number 2 on the list of things he blames his parents for, along with 1) 'being boring' and 3) 'always being tired'. But there is a world, not far from this one, where parents don't have children.

It is the third summer of perestroika. Niki Landau, philanderer and travelling rep, attends the first Moscow audio fair and is asked by beautiful young Katya to take a parcel back to England. It’s addressed to Barley Blair, jazz-player and drinker, and contains information vital to the defence of the West. But times and heroes are changing. And Barley Blair is a man who makes his own rules of engagement.

'Somebody's going to be murdered at the ball tonight. It won't appear to be a murder, and so the murderer won't be caught. Rectify that injustice and I'll show you the way out.' It is meant to be a celebration, but it ends in tragedy. As fireworks explode overhead, Evelyn Hardcastle, the young and beautiful daughter of the house, is killed. But Evelyn will not die just once. Until Aiden - one of the guests summoned to Blackheath for the party - can solve her murder, the day will repeat itself over and over again.

Luke is a comic-mad 11-year-old who shares a tree house with his geeky older brother, Zack. Luke's only mistake is to go for a wee right at the wrong time. While he's gone, an alien gives his undeserving, never-read-a-comic-in-his-life brother superpowers and then tells him to save the universe. Luke is massively annoyed about this, but when Zack is kidnapped by his archnemesis, Luke and his friends have only five days to find him and save the world.... Hilariously narrated by Joe Thomas.

Winner of the Costa Book of the Year 2015. The Lie Tree is a wonderfully evocative and atmospheric story by Frances Hardinge, award-winning author of Cuckoo Song and Fly by Night. Faith's father has been found dead under mysterious circumstances, and as she is searching through his belongings for clues she discovers a strange tree. The tree grows healthy and bears fruit only if you whisper a lie to it.

To live in 19th-century Britain was to experience an astonishing series of changes, of a kind for which there was simply no precedent. There were revolutions in transport, communication and work; cities grew vast; and scientific ideas made the intellectual landscape unrecognisable. This was an exhilarating time but also a horrifying one. In his new book, David Cannadine has created a bold, fascinating new interpretation of the British 19th century in all its energy and dynamism, darkness and vice.

A ground-breaking account of accidents, near-misses, extraordinary heroism, and technological breakthroughs, Command and Control explores the dilemma that has existed since the dawn of the nuclear age: how do you deploy weapons of mass destruction without being destroyed by them? Schlosser reveals that this question has never been resolved, and while other headlines dominate the news, nuclear weapons still pose a grave risk to mankind.

Seventeenth-century England, and a plough uncovers a grisly skull in the furrows of a farmer's field. The skull disappears, but its malefic influence begins to work in insidious ways upon the nearby village of Hexbridge. First, the cows stop milking and the fruit turns rotten on the trees. Then, an insolent ungodliness takes hold of the local children, mysterious fur patches appear on limbs and people start disappearing.... Something evil is stirring in the woods.