The tragedy of King Lear receives an outstanding performance in an all-star cast led by Britain’s senior classical actor, Paul Scofield. He is joined by Alec McCowen as Gloucester, Kenneth Branagh as The Fool, Harriet Walter as Gonerill, Sara Kestelman as Regan and Emilia Fox as Cordelia. This is the ninth recording of Shakespeare plays undertaken by Naxos AudioBooks in conjunction with Cambridge University Press, and is directed by John Tydeman. It was released to mark the eightieth birth...

A full-cast historical mystery by award-winning author Leon Garfield, plus his captivating conclusion to The Mystery of Edwin Drood by Charles DickensLeon Garfield was the renowned author of more than 30 novels for children and adults. He won numerous awards for his work, including the Carnegie Medal, the Whitbread Award and the inaugural Guardian Children’s Fiction Prize. Inspired by Charles Dickens, he set many of his tales in the 18th and 19th century, ...

Why are we so often in conflict – arguing with ourselves and with others, uncertain over who we are and what we want?For thousands of years, writers, thinkers and philosophers have seen life as a battle between the guiding power of reason and a disruptive animal within. In a world where fierce culture wars and endless newsfeeds turn up the tension, how can we overcome our uncertainties and know the many sides of ourselves?In The Animal and the Thinker

**A new biography of Cicero, one of the most influential and fascinating figures in classical history.This program is read by the author.**When the Roman statesman Cicero was murdered in 43 BCE, his head was cut off, and his tongue pierced with pins – a final, brutal act of revenge against a man whose words had shaped a generation and made him many enemies. Rising from provincial obscurity to the highest elected office in Rome, Cicero became the greatest orator of his age, ...

Brought to you by Penguin.An electrifying novel about the Nazi who reinvented himself, Albert Speer‘Which is the most seductive, truth or fiction?’This is the story of Albert Speer: The protégé. The ‘good Nazi’. The star. The mythmaker.In 1969 Speer, Hitler’s favourite architect and Minister of Armaments and War Production, publishes his memoirs. Rewriting his own past, claiming to have known nothin...

**From bestselling, award-winning author James Ellroy, "the neo-noir eminence of L.A. crime fiction" (The New Yorker)—a gritty, fast-paced historical crime thriller set in 1962 Los Angeles during the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis"The Freddy Otash novels will be mentioned . . . as some of Ellroy's best work.” —NPR**It’s late October 1962. The Cuban Missile Crisis has just concluded. The Russkies blinked and pulled their ICBMs out of Cuba. Attorney G...

Embark on a tantalising journey into the weird and wonderful world of fermentation.Dr Johnny Drain has spent his career exploring how fermentation has shaped the bodies we inhabit, the foods we eat and the world we live in. From making live yoghurt in his grandma’s kitchen, to fermenting butter at the world’s best restaurant, Noma, Dr Drain’s fascination with the magic of fermentation has led him around the globe. Adventures in Fermentation charts his culi...

Brought to you by Penguin.The global powerhouse that is the United States of America is younger even than the British Museum, Guinness and the flushing toilet. In 2026 it will celebrate its 250th birthday. How did this vast land, long inhabited by diverse indigenous cultures, come to be dominated by English speakers? How has it grappled with the stark contradictions between its ideals of liberty and the grim reality of genocide and slavery?This extraordinar...

"Spectacular." ―Daniel PinkA guide to dealing with uncertainty at a time when our lives have never felt less certain.From our careers to our politics to our personal lives, the future is unknown. And yet, our capacity to tolerate this uncertainty is in decline. How to Not Know will help you prepare for and even appreciate the uncertainty that surrounds us.Through gripping stories of people grappling with big problems withou...

Discover the simple principles that took a team from mediocrity to Olympic gold, and which you can use every day in work, life and play.How do you go from ordinary to exceptional? This bestselling coaching classic will show you how.Ben Hunt-Davis shares the inspiring story of how he and the British men’s rowing Eight went from never winning an international race to becoming the best in the world just two years later. Performance Coach Harriet Beveridge then...

Len Deighton—one of the masters of twentieth-century espionage fiction—combines his expertise as both historian and novelist in Bomber, the classic World War II novel that relates, in devastating detail, the twenty-four-hour story of an allied bombing raid.Skilled Royal Air Force bomber pilot Sam Lambert is exhausted, and his veteran crewmen have just been replaced by an inexperienced new team. Victor von Löwenherz, a German night fighter pilot who interce...

Slavery in the Islamic world has a complex and controversial history. In the earliest days of Islam, Arab Muslims enslaved men, women, and children as the spoils of war. In the following centuries, young boys were imported to imperial Islamic courts in enormous numbers. Some were castrated to serve as guardians of sacred spaces, while others were "harvested" by the Ottomans to serve in the sultan's elite infantry unit. Some even rose to the highest levels of political and military command,...