The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon is a fascinating, detailed account of Japanese court life in the closing years of the 10th century. Written by a lady of the court at the height of Heian culture, this book enthrals with its lively gossip, witty observations and subtle impressions. Lady Shōnagon was an erstwhile rival of Lady Murasaki, whose novel, The Tale of Genji, fictionalized the elite world Lady Shōnagon so eloquently relates.

Benedict Cumberbatch reads these four new Sherlock Holmes stories by John Taylor: 'An Inscrutable Masquerade', 'The Conundrum of Coach 13', 'The Trinity Vicarage Larceny' and 'The 10.59 Assassin'. Inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle's original Sherlock Holmes stories, John Taylor has written four more mysteries featuring the world's greatest detective. Read by acclaimed actor Benedict Cumberbatch, these new adventures share all the suspense of the original tales.

Benedict Cumberbatch and Louise Brealey read a love story in letters, played out against the backdrop of the Second World War. 'Can you feel, as you read these words, that I am thinking of you now; aglow, alive, alert at the thought that you are in the same world, and by some strange chance loving me.' A small blue box opened in 2008 revealed a wartime world of love, longing and frustration. Inside were bundles and bundles of letters written neatly on thin blue airmail paper or headed army notepaper.

The complete collected dramatisations of C. J. Sansom's historical mystery series: Set during the reign of Henry VIII, these six stunning dramas follow the adventures of hunchbacked lawyer-detective Matthew Shardlake as he navigates the dangerous world of Tudor England, solving crimes and seeking out murderers.

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.

Double Blind follows three close friends and their circle through a year of extraordinary transformation. Set between London, Cap d'Antibes, Big Sur, and a rewilded corner of Sussex, this thrilling, ambitious novel is about the headlong pursuit of knowledge - for the purposes of pleasure, revelation, money, sanity, or survival - and the consequences of fleeing from what we know about others and ourselves.

A collection of BBC radio full-cast dramatisations of Jane Austen's six major novels. Jane Austen is one of the finest writers in the English language, and this volume includes all six of her classic novels. Mansfield Park: on a quest to find a position in society, Fanny Price goes to live with her rich aunt and uncle. Northanger Abbey: young, naïve Catherine Morland receives an invitation to stay at the isolated Gothic mansion Northanger Abbey.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays the young Horace Rumpole in this second stellar collection of court cases, also starring Timothy West as the older Rumpole. 'Rumpole and the Man of God': It is 1959, and Rumpole must defend a clergyman accused of shoplifting who, although he clearly did not commit the crime, is curiously reluctant to be cross-examined under oath. Meanwhile, Hilda (she who must be obeyed) has big news....

Benedict Cumberbatch, Greta Scacchi and Simon Russell Beale star in Michael Frayn's award-winning play about the controversial 1941 meeting between physicists Bohr and Heisenberg. Copenhagen, Autumn 1941. The two presiding geniuses of quantum physics, Niels Bohr and Werner Heisenberg meet for the first time since the breakout of war.

Benedict Cumberbatch plays the young, feisty, devastatingly acute Horace Rumpole in this collection of cracking cases, also starring Timothy West as the older Rumpole. Rumpole and the Penge Bungalow Murders: It is the '50s, and two war heroes have been shot dead. Defending the suspect is deemed hopeless, so the case is handed to a novice. But the novice's superiors didn't count on the tenacity and wit of the young and hungry Horace Rumpole.

In lyric, accessible prose, Carlo Rovelli invites us to consider questions about the nature of time that continue to puzzle physicists and philosophers alike. For most listeners, this is unfamiliar terrain. We all experience time, but the more scientists learn about it, the more mysterious it appears. We think of it as uniform and universal, moving steadily from past to future, measured by clocks. Rovelli tears down these assumptions one by one, revealing a strange universe where, at the most fundamental level, time disappears.

John Finnemore (Dead Ringers & Mitchell & Webb) has written this brilliant new sitcom starring Stephanie Cole, Roger Allam & Benedict Cumberbatch. Cabin Pressure is set in a small airline business. The flipside of the glamorous world of international airlines.

John Moffat stars as the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot in seven more BBC Radio 4 full-cast dramatisations. The stories in this volume are: Evil Under the Sun, Sad Cypress, Murder in Mesopotamia, Lord Edgware Dies, Halloween Party, Murder on the Links and Five Little Pigs. Based on the original novels by Agatha Christie, these superb adaptations feature a cast of outstanding actors playing an array of likely suspects.

John Moffatt stars as the Belgian detective Hercule Poirot. The ABC Murders: A chilling letter sets the sleuth on the trail of an enigmatic killer. After the Funeral: A wealthy businessman is dead, and his sister thinks it was murder. Death on the Nile: Poirot is in Egypt when a chilling murder takes place. Peril at End House: Whilst on holiday, the sleuth encounters a young woman, a hat and a bullet. The Murder of Roger Ackroyd: Mrs Farrars is found dead, one year after the death of her husband.

As The Jewel in the Crown opens, World War II is at its height, and Gandhi is calling for the British to leave. When Daphne Manners arrives in Mayapore, she meets two men who will change her life: Hari Kumar and Ronald Merrick. She begins to fall for Hari, but Ronald Merrick - the local police superintendent - becomes infatuated with her and seethes with hatred for Hari. The Day of the Scorpion finds Merrick worming his way into the Layton family, and his treatment of Hari Kumar is revealed.

When Sasha receives a call from her old university friend Gabby inviting her to spend Christmas at Gabby’s remote Scottish lake house, Sasha knows she shouldn’t go. Twelve years ago, on Christmas Eve, when Sasha and her five closest friends were celebrating the festive season, something truly horrific happened that would change the course of their friendship forever. Something that meant Sasha hasn’t spoken to any of them since that night.

After the killing of a prominent mob lawyer, NYPD homicide detectives Jacob Jackson and Caitlin Grimes start receive chilling, written “rules” for how to commit the perfect murder. "Rule number one for the perfect murder: Evidence is your enemy. Leave none behind." Jackson (Reid Scott) and Grimes (Cobie Smulders) race to find the killer, setting them on a collision course with the city’s crime underbelly, and a perpetrator who seems happy to toy with them. “Rule number two. No crimes of passion. The perfect murder is always business, never pleasure.”

England, 1914. The world is at war. Captain Hastings, injured and shaken, is invited to Styles Court to recover. It’s a grand old country house - the family home of his old friend - and a perfect haven. Or so it seems. But in the blistering summer heat, trouble is afoot. Simmering tensions are tearing the family apart, and it all comes to a head in the most horrifying way.

Jenny sits in the same seat on the same train every week, seeing familiar faces come and go. Until a chance encounter shatters her world. Sixteen years ago, Jenny survived a traumatic ordeal that left her best friend, Susie, missing and presumed dead. The world has its theories about what happened to Susie Patterson, and one of those theories points the finger at Jenny. Now she lives a quiet life, volunteering at a crisis helpline while trying to deal with her own anxiety and the true crime fans obsessed with finding her missing friend.

Lowen Ashleigh is a struggling writer on the brink of financial ruin when she accepts the job offer of a lifetime. Jeremy Crawford, husband of best-selling author Verity Crawford, has hired Lowen to complete the remaining books in a successful series his injured wife is unable to finish. Lowen arrives at the Crawford home, ready to sort through years of Verity's notes and outlines, hoping to find enough material to get her started. What Lowen doesn't expect to uncover in the chaotic office is an unfinished autobiography Verity never intended for anyone to read.

Kidnappers grabbed Jenna in broad daylight, right in front of her children and their horrified classmates. Her family was issued an insane ransom demand: $25 million in cash and jewels, payable by the end of the school day, otherwise they’ll never see her again. As Jenna’s mother scrambles to gather the money, detectives Mo Butler and George Ortega follow the trail of the kidnappers, which will lead them through a sordid landscape of jealous lovers, broken dreamers, and twisted schemers. But every second counts, and there’s one thing Jenna Wade doesn’t have: very much time.

When Heather McKinley dreamed of becoming a doctor, she imagined curing sick kids and sporting pink stethoscopes. She never anticipated the sleepless nights, grueling exams, and endless labs. And she certainly never knew that her medical school earned the nickname Dead Med thanks to the tragic history of students overdosing on illegal drugs. But Heather would never consider doing anything like that. That is, until her longtime boyfriend dumps her, she finds herself failing anatomy, and her world starts to crumble.

Cassie thinks she has met the perfect man. Joel is sweet, handsome, romantic, and best of all, he’s crazy about Cassie. She thinks she’s found the guy she’ll spend the rest of her life with. Have children with. Grow old with. Yes, she knows about his perfect ex-girlfriend, Francesca. The beautiful, brilliant chef, beloved by all his friends. But she thinks Francesca is out of the picture. She thinks Francesca is gone for good. Think again, Cassie.

Jazz Bashara is a criminal. Well, sort of. Life on Artemis, the first and only city on the moon, is tough if you're not a rich tourist or an eccentric billionaire. So smuggling in the occasional harmless bit of contraband barely counts, right? Not when you've got debts to pay and your job as a porter barely covers the rent. Everything changes when Jazz sees the chance to commit the perfect crime, with a reward too lucrative to turn down.

Everyone thinks my husband is dead. Just like we planned. Eleven years ago, my husband disappeared. Eleven long hard years I waited, my heart breaking for our son, who didn’t know his father was coming back. Today, my hands shake as I try to understand what I’ve just learned: my husband has a new wife. This wasn’t part of our plan. Eleven years ago, my husband made a terrible mistake. I sacrificed everything to help him fix it. But now he’s put our son and me in danger again. We had a plan. He broke the rules. But who will pay the price?

The Pillow Book of Sei Shōnagon is a fascinating, detailed account of Japanese court life in the closing years of the 10th century. Written by a lady of the court at the height of Heian culture, this book enthrals with its lively gossip, witty observations and subtle impressions. Lady Shōnagon was an erstwhile rival of Lady Murasaki, whose novel, The Tale of Genji, fictionalized the elite world Lady Shōnagon so eloquently relates.

Dean Jocelin has a vision: that God has chosen him to erect a great spire on his cathedral. His mason anxiously advises against it, for the old cathedral was built without foundations. Nevertheless, the spire rises octagon upon octagon, pinnacle by pinnacle, until the stone pillars shriek and the ground beneath it swims. Its shadow falls ever darker on the world below, and on Dean Jocelin in particular.From the author of Lord of the Flies, The Spire is a dark and powerful portrait of one man's will, and the folly that he creates.

Benedict Cumberbatch reads these four new Sherlock Holmes stories by John Taylor: 'An Inscrutable Masquerade', 'The Conundrum of Coach 13', 'The Trinity Vicarage Larceny' and 'The 10.59 Assassin'. Inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle's original Sherlock Holmes stories, John Taylor has written four more mysteries featuring the world's greatest detective. Read by acclaimed actor Benedict Cumberbatch, these new adventures share all the suspense of the original tales.

Double Blind follows three close friends and their circle through a year of extraordinary transformation. Set between London, Cap d'Antibes, Big Sur, and a rewilded corner of Sussex, this thrilling, ambitious novel is about the headlong pursuit of knowledge - for the purposes of pleasure, revelation, money, sanity, or survival - and the consequences of fleeing from what we know about others and ourselves.

An irresistible collection of sparkling stories featuring John Mortimer's beloved comic creation: Horace Rumpole is the most erudite, astute, and seldom defeated of barristers in the annals of the Old Bailey. In these 32 dramas, arranged in order of broadcast, four distinguished actors don the wig and white band to portray our hero as he recalls his long, eventful career.

The first four series of the original BBC Radio 4 fantastical drama series set in a world almost, but not quite, like our own. Paul Hilton stars as William Palmer, the immortal, reluctant and unthanked hero protecting mankind from an enemy they resist believing in: the Grey Folk. Thrilling, dark and contemporary, the dramas are set in a recognisable present day but one haunted by the folktales of the British Isles: drowned villages, changeling children, werewolves and unruly nature spirits.

One of the greatest novelists of all time, Leo Tolstoy is famed worldwide for his masterpieces of realist fiction, War and Peace and Anna Karenina. This comprehensive collection contains both those iconic works, as well as his final novel, Resurrection, his autobiographical essay 'A Confession', Stephen Wakelam's dramatic account of his tempestuous marriage, Mrs Tolstoy, and In Our Time: Tolstoy.

A BBC radio collection of full-cast dramatisations, bringing together Edith Wharton’s most popular and best-loved works.

Novelist, journalist and literature’s greatest whistleblower, Émile Zola was one of the 19th century’s pre-eminent authors. He is renowned for his philosophy of naturalism, which informed his 20-volume Rougon-Macquart cycle, an epic family saga set during France’s Second Empire, and for his controversial intervention in the Dreyfus affair through his infamous protest letter, J’Accuse.

John Finnemore (Dead Ringers & Mitchell & Webb) has written this brilliant new sitcom starring Stephanie Cole, Roger Allam & Benedict Cumberbatch. Cabin Pressure is set in a small airline business. The flipside of the glamorous world of international airlines.

A collection of BBC radio full-cast dramatisations of Jane Austen's six major novels. Jane Austen is one of the finest writers in the English language, and this volume includes all six of her classic novels. Mansfield Park: on a quest to find a position in society, Fanny Price goes to live with her rich aunt and uncle. Northanger Abbey: young, naïve Catherine Morland receives an invitation to stay at the isolated Gothic mansion Northanger Abbey.

Letters of Note, the book based on the beloved website of the same name, became an instant classic on publication in 2013, selling hundreds of thousands of copies. This new edition sees the collection of the world's most entertaining, inspiring, and unusual letters updated with 14 riveting new missives and a new introduction from curator Shaun Usher.

In Praise of Shadows is an eloquent tribute to the austere beauty of traditional Japanese aesthetics. Through architecture, ceramics, theatre, food, women, and even toilets, Tanizaki explains the essence of shadows and darkness, and how they are able to augment beauty. He laments the heavy electric lighting of the West and its introduction to Japan, and shows how the artificial, bright, and polished aesthetic of the West contrasts unfavorably with the moody and natural light of the East.

The first part of the Memoirs of Giacomo Casanova, a special film tie-in version. The film, starring Heath Ledger as Casanova with Jeremy Irons and Sienna Miller, will be released in UK February 2006.

The complete collection of acclaimed BBC Radio dramas based on John le Carré's best-selling novels, starring Simon Russell Beale as George Smiley. With a star cast including Kenneth Cranham, Eleanor Bron, Brian Cox, Ian MacDiarmid, Anna Chancellor, Hugh Bonneville and Lindsay Duncan, these enthralling dramatisations perfectly capture the atmosphere of le Carré's taut, thrilling spy novels.