As the days grow shorter and the temperature drops, Halloween approaches. Come, brave listener, pull up a chair, and spend some time with master storyteller Stephen Fry as he tells us some of his favourite ghost stories of all time, in truly terrifying spatial audio. From the headless horseman of Sleepy Hollow to the tortured spirits of M.R. James, from Edgar Allan Poe’s terrifying tale of a doppelganger to Charlotte Riddell’s Open Door that should definitely stay shut, join Stephen as he tells you some truly terrifying tales.

Well hello to you dear audiobook browser. Now I have your attention it would be rude if I didn't tell you a little about my literary feast. So, here is the thing: is it just me or does anyone else find that adulthood offers no refuge from the unexpected horrors, peculiar lack of physical coordination and sometimes unexplained nudity, that accompanied childhood and adolescence? I am proud to say I have a wealth of awkward experiences - from school days to life as an office temp - and here I offer my 18-year-old self (and I hope you, too, dear listener) some much needed caution and guidance on how to navigate life's rocky path.

In Unruly, David Mitchell explores how early England’s monarchs, while acting as feared rulers firmly guiding their subjects’ destinies, were in reality a bunch of lucky bastards who were mostly as silly and weird in real life as they appear today in their portraits.

The hilarious and heartwarming account of Miranda and her life changing dog, the inimitable and most lovable Peggy. Hello dear audiobook browser and welcome to Peggy and Me. The story of my life since getting a beautiful Shih-Tzu Bichon Frise cross puppy (I call the breed a Shitty Frise - fun) in the form of Peggy.

Few can forget where they were in September 1993 when they first heard Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation. The show was an immediate smash-hit success, causing pubs to empty on a Saturday night, which was particularly astonishing since the show went out on Thursdays. Since that fateful first series, the show has gone on to win Sony awards, Writers Guild nominations and a Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Included here are all 10 series of Jeremy Hardy Speaks to the Nation.

Where do comedians come from? Why is it that one person is a funny bloke down the pub while another actually makes a living by standing up in front of an audience telling jokes? And where does all that material come from? Well, young Lee McKillop used to wonder that too. Growing up in his parents’ pub, small and wiry in a world of bigger and chunkier specimens, Lee quickly learned that cracking jokes was a way to get attention.

Miranda is an unconventional woman. She’s six feet tall, self-conscious and posh. And is frequently mistaken for a man. She’s also invested her inheritance in a joke shop that she runs with her friend Stevie while trying to deal with her outrageously embarrassing mother. Though surrounded by chocolate willies, Miranda is determined to suss out what it takes to be a girly girl and to not look a complete idiot every time she meets the gorgeous Gary.

Join Professor John Lloyd and Curators Noel Fielding, Jo Brand, Romesh Ranganathan and Sally Phillips as they plunge down the badger hole of ignorance in a search for the universe's most mind-boggling oddnesses. The Museum of Curiosity is BBC Radio 4's monumental comedy edifice and the only one with gargoyles in the foyer. It allows nothing inside that doesn’t make you scratch your head, stroke your chin or, at the very least, go ‘hmm’. Fortunately, helping to fill its almost vacant plinths is a gathering of the world’s most original minds.

Let Sandi Toksvig guide you on an eclectic meander through the calendar, illuminating neglected corners of history to tell tales of the fascinating figures you didn't learn about at school. From popes who gave birth during papal processions, to the inventor of Scrabble, to pioneering civil rights activist Ida B. Wells, who refused to give up her seat on a train decades before Rosa Parks was born. As witty and entertaining as it is instructive, this is an essential companion to each day of the year.

Described by the Radio Times as ‘a cross between QI and The Moral Maze’, this hilarious and thought-provoking panel show sees comedian Sue Perkins putting her guests through the moral and ethical wringer as she poses a series of tricky hypothetical questions - and cross-examines them on their answers. Would you provide an alibi for someone you hate? Would you let an annoying colleague take credit for your work if it meant they would get a job elsewhere? Is cheating on your partner ever acceptable?

There are few people Gyles Brandreth doesn't know or hasn't met. Now a grandparent, he traces his steps back to being a three-year-old tearing around 1950s London on his tricycle, to boarding school where he had an appendix removed simply to get out of football, to Bedales, where he met Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall, to balancing his growing love of theatre with his love for educating, the 'woolly jumper years', the stint as an MP, the years of close friendship with the queen, to becoming a septuagenarian Twitter star and stalwart fixture in British entertainment.

Why is every film or tv programme a sequel or a remake? Why are people so f***ing hung up about swearing? Why do the asterisks in that sentence make it okay? Why do so many people want to stop other people doing things, and how can they be stopped from stopping them? These and many other questions trouble David Mitchell. Join him on a tour of the absurdities of modern life - from Ryanair to Richard III, Downton Abbey to phone etiquette, UKIP to hot dogs made of cats.

The millions of people around the world who loved What If? still have questions, and those questions are getting stranger. Thank goodness xkcd creator Randall Munroe is here to help. Planning to ride a fire pole from the Moon back to Earth? The hardest part is sticking the landing. Hoping to cool the atmosphere by opening everyone’s freezer door at the same time? Maybe it’s time for a brief introduction to thermodynamics. Want to know what would happen if you rode a helicopter blade, made a lava lamp out of lava, or jumped on an erupting geyser? Okay, if you insist.

Sarah Millican picks through her guests' minds and secret routines—using simple surveys from the Great British Public on childhood habits, daily rituals, and preferred cheeses—to discover which of them fits the pattern of the average person on the street, and which is so far from the norm we really ought to be worried.

James Acaster has been nominated for the Edinburgh Comedy Award five times and has appeared on prime-time TV shows like Mock the Week, Live at the Apollo and Russell Howard's Stand Up Central. But behind the fame and critical acclaim is a man perpetually getting into trouble. Whether it's disappointing a skydiving instructor midflight or hiding from thugs in a bush wearing a bright red dress, James is always finding new ways to embarrass himself.

The year 1972 saw the beginning of a five-year span in which Stevie Wonder released five groundbreaking, critically acclaimed albums, garnering him more than half a dozen Grammys and more than 10 million albums sold, securing his place as one of the most important American musicians and songwriters in history. For the first time, uncover the untold story of an extraordinary artistic journey that shaped the greatest creative era in popular music history.

Fresh off the success of her groundbreaking first play, A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry's The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window tells the tragicomic story of a young bohemian couple in New York's Greenwich Village, struggling to do what's right in a world that rewards everything that's wrong. Sidney is a dreamer who wants his own Walden Pond; Iris is a budding actress whose own backstory is a performance. They're caught in a moment where, "the world is about to crack right down the middle," as the play tackles racism, sexism, antisemitism, homophobia, liberal complacency, and more.

With exclusive insights from the legendary cast, including Al Pacino, Robert Duvall, Robert De Niro, and Talia Shire, and commentary from a diverse array of film experts and ardent aficionados, we dissect the film’s magnetic allure and its pervasive influence across our culture. Journey alongside Rebecca Keegan, acclaimed senior film editor at The Hollywood Reporter, as she explores the heart of this cinematic masterpiece through a new lens.

In the spring of 2020, as the world grappled with the deepening coronavirus pandemic, acclaimed British screenwriter and playwright David Hare was struck down by the virus himself. With brutal honesty, sharp humor, and his trademark insight, the renowned writer of modern classics like Skylight and Plenty brings us into his own experience battling the bizarre and terrifying symptoms of Covid-19.

Book 1: The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, better known and loved today as simply The Wizard of Oz, is a tale that has been cherished by readers and listeners throughout the years. This timeless story has inspired Broadway shows, cartoon series, and many films over the past few generations. I hope that this book has inspired your sense of creativity and wonder as much as it has mine.

The very strange but nevertheless true story of the dark underbelly of a 1960s hippie utopia. Laurel Canyon in the 1960s and early 1970s was a magical place where a dizzying array of musical artists congregated to create much of the music that provided the soundtrack to those turbulent times. But there was a dark side to that scene as well. Many didn't make it out alive, and many of those deaths remain shrouded in mystery to this day.

With Emmy, Grammy, and six-time Tony Award winner Audra McDonald as Blanche DuBois alongside Carla Gugino as Stella, O’Hara takes a fresh and visceral look at the emotionally charged relationship between these two iconic sisters. Haunted by her past, Blanche seeks refuge with Stella and Stanley (Ariel Shafir) in New Orleans, where she wrestles with the nature of her sister’s husband, her sister’s denial, and her own unraveling mind.

After a betrayal at work costs Song Kuan her job, she retreats to her friend Lucy’s idyllic family cabin on a lake in Minnesota to lick her wounds. She devotes herself to recording Ice Cold Cases, a true-crime podcast that she and Lucy cohost with the gleeful energy of obsessed fans—until an anonymous tip about a missing-person case disrupts their equilibrium. Then Lucy disappears, leaving Song alone in an unfriendly and unfamiliar town where locals don’t take kindly to strangers asking questions.

In this brave and moving memoir, Corey Feldman is revealing the truth about what his life was like behind the scenes: His is a past that included physical, drug, and sexual abuse, a dysfunctional family from which he was emancipated at age fifteen, three high-profile arrests for drug possession, a nine-month stint in rehab, and a long, slow crawl back to the top of the box office.

No one other than Warren Zanes, rocker and writer and friend, could author a book about Tom Petty that is as honest and evocative of Petty's music and the remarkable rock and roll history he and his band helped to write. Born in Gainesville, Florida, with more than a little hillbilly in his blood, Tom Petty was a Southern shit kicker, a kid without a whole lot of promise. Rock and roll made it otherwise.