Showing results by narrator "Juliet Stevenson" in All Categories

In this moving collection, Shaun Usher gathers together some of the most powerful letters about love ever written. Whether inspired by love’s first blush or the recriminations at its ending, the regrets of unrequited feelings and the joys of passions known, Letters of Note: Love is essential listening for anyone with a heart.

Shakespeare's Sonnets, one of the most remarkable collections of poetry, was first published in 1609, 400 years ago by Mr Thomas Thorpe. Naxos AudioBooks marks the occasion with a selection of 80 of the finest, read by leading actors. The selection includes famous ones such as 'Shall I compare thee to a summer's day' as well as lesser well-known sonnets though of equally fine stature.

Joan’s voice is almost a whisper. ‘Nobody talked about what they did during the war. We all knew we weren’t allowed to.’ Joan Stanley has a secret. She is a loving mother, a doting grandmother, and leads a quiet, unremarkable life in the suburbs. Then one morning there is a knock on the door, and suddenly the past she has been so keen to hide for the last fifty years threatens to overturn her comfortable world. Cambridge University in 1937 is awash with ideas and idealists

Elizabeth Barber is crossing the Atlantic by liner with her perfectly adequate boyfriend, Derek, who might be planning to propose. In fleeing the UK - temporarily - Elizabeth may also be in flight from her past and the charismatic Arthur, once her partner in what she came to see as a series of crimes. Together they acted as fake mediums, perfecting the arcane skills practised by effective frauds. Elizabeth finally rejected what once seemed an intoxicating game. Arthur continued his search for the right way to do wrong.

Hedda Gabler, the daughter of a deceased General, marries dull George Tesman and foresees a life of middle class tedium stretching ahead when they return from their honeymoon. Increasingly, she is drawn into the clutches of her admirer, Judge Brack, who seeks to establish a ménage a trois. Then the brilliant but dissolute Eilert Lovborg, a former flame, arrives to rival her husband for an academic post.

Haunting, uplifting, beautiful: the final work from Helen Dunmore. Helen Dunmore passed away in June 2017, leaving behind this remarkable collection of short stories. With her trademark imagination and gift for making history human, she explores the fragile ties between passion, love, family, friendship and grief, often through people facing turning points in their lives.

In the early hours of 5 June 1944, Captain Rob Collins, played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who is languishing in hospital, receives a call that will take him on a journey through England that will change his life. Mike Walker's play is an epic journey across England poised on the edge of a historical moment. It is set on June 5th, the day before the invasion. It is a portrait of England waiting for the invasion that will change the course of history, but an invasion only a very few know that is about happen. Starring Benedict Cumberbatch, Juliet Stevenson and Claudia Harrison.

Arrogant, self-willed, and egotistical, Emma is Jane Austen's most unusual heroine. Her interfering ways and inveterate matchmaking are at once shocking and comic. She is "handsome, clever, and rich" and has "a disposition to think too well of herself." When she decides to introduce the humble Harriet Smith to the delights of genteel society and to find her a suitable husband, she precipitates herself and her immediate circle into a web of misunderstanding and intrigue, from which no one emerges unchanged.

One of Katherine Mansfield's finest short stories, "Bliss" introduces us to Bertha, who experiences a sense of rapture as she reflects on her life. On her walk home one day, she is overwhelmed by a sense of bliss and contentment. However, her joy later turns to disappointment as she discovers her husband is having an affair with her new friend Pearl.

The stories of David Constantine are unlike any others. His characters possess you instantly, making you see the world as they do, sometimes as exiles, driven into isolation by convictions that even they don't fully understand; sometimes as carriers of an unspoken but unbearable weight. The things they pursue or evade are often unseen and at a distance, like the perfectly preserved body of a woman in the title story, waiting to be discovered in the receding ice of a Swiss glacier.

Published in 1897, The Spoils of Poynton is one of the quintessential works of James's middle period. The "spoils" of the book's title refer to furniture and other objets d'art that the widow Adela Gereth moves to her cottage so that they are kept away from the clutches of her coarse future daughter-in-law, Mona Brigstock. However, events take an unexpected turn when her married son Owen is attracted to her friend, Fleda Vetch.

The Reacher Guy is a compelling and authoritative portrait of the artist as a young man, refracted through the life of his fictional avatar, Jack Reacher. Through parallels drawn between Child and his literary creation, it tells the story of how a boy from Birmingham with a ferocious appetite for reading grew up to become a high-flying TV executive, before coming full circle and establishing himself as the strongest brand in publishing.

For most people, giving up the day job and moving to a beautiful area of France and living off the vines is an impossible but delicious dream. In 1990, Patricia Atkinson and her husband decided to sell up in Britain and emigrate to the Dordogne. Their idea was to buy a house with a few vines attached and employ someone to tend to the wine while they earned their living with some financial consultancy work.

In 1939, Hitler's tyranny approaches western Poland. A prosperous Jewish family - Julius and Josefina Kohn and their two teenage children Peter and Suzanna - flee their homeland, embarking on an unexpected odyssey of 6,000 arduous miles. They evade Nazi capture, only to be arrested by the Soviets, who have invaded Poland from the east. Deported to northern Russia, they endure savage conditions during 18 months of forced labor in a prison camp, where death lurks around every corner.

The Charles Dickens Collection: 10 Novels & A Christmas Carol brings together all of the major novels written during Dickens' lifetime. Dickens wrote into life some of the most beloved and well-known characters in literature - introducing us to Pip, Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Little Nell, Scrooge, Nicholas Nickleby, Miss Haversham, and many more who have lived long in the memory for generations of listeners.

A brand-new collection from the internationally best-selling author of Letters of Note.

In 1892, Gertrude Bell visited Persia (now Iran) shortly after the appointment of her uncle, Sir Frank Lascelles, as British minister in Tehran. Three years later came Persian Pictures, Gertrude Bell’s first written work, which presents a series of vivid sketches of Persian culture and society at the time. Bell explores various cities and landscapes, and encounters local characters along the way, providing a unique perspective on Persian life and customs.

When Mary Lennox is sent from India to live with her uncle at gloomy Misselthwaite Manor, she is the most spoiled and contrary child you could ever meet. But she is also extremely lonely. Until one day, she discovers a walled garden that has been kept secret for years. With the help of a little robin, Mary unearths the key and unlocks the wonder that lies beyond the garden walls - and finds that making friends can be every bit life-changing as a magical garden.

The Gospel of Mark: Juliet Stevenson reads St Mark's account of the life and teachings of Jesus. Specially composed music is included. The readings were part of BBC Radio 4's series of 341 daily episodes of the Bible, broadcast in 1991 and 1992. Abridged by Michael Jones.

In Letters of Note: Sex, Shaun Usher collects together some of the most noteworthy missives ever written on the subject, from euphemism-laden, flirtatious exchanges and desire-driven expressions of passion to sincere and thoughtful meditations on the meaning of sex. Includes letters by John Cheever, Sigmund Freud, Dorothy Day, James Joyce, Margaret Mead, Henry Miller, Anaïs Nin, Mae West and many others.