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ID: 745792

Title: Midsummer Night in the Workhouse

Author: Diana Athill

Narrator: Diana Athill

Format: Unabridged

Length: 3:00:56

Language: English

Release date: 04-18-24

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Classics

Summary:

A woman trapped in an agonising love affair; a writer avoiding the group seducer at a writers’ retreat; a girl experiencing her first kiss. Set in 1950s England, as well as Italy and France, Midsummer Night in the Workhouse is a collection of short stories written and read by distinguished editor and author, Diana Athill.

Written in the late 1950s, these short stories mainly centre around female protagonists. Several stories are based on events from Athill’s own life. From holidays abroad to love affairs and sexual encounters, these brilliant, touching narratives provide subtle snapshots of human experiences and stage portrayals of memory, conflict and adventure.

Midsummer Night in the Workhouse is part of the Persephone Audiobook Collection, a series of forgotten classics including neglected fiction and non-fiction by women writers. First published in 1962, this edition includes a preface by the author.

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ID: 745794

Title: Cheerful Weather for the Wedding

Author: Julia Strachey

Narrator: Miriam Margolyes

Format: Unabridged

Length: 2:24:06

Language: English

Release date: 04-18-24

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Classics

Summary:

Young bride-to-be Dolly must overcome several obstacles in this hilarious, sardonic novella by Julia Strachey set in 1930s England. Following an excellent film adaptation in 2012, this audio edition of Cheerful Weather for the Wedding is read by internationally acclaimed actress Miriam Margoyles.

Dolly is twenty-three and about to marry the Honourable Owen Bigham. Her wedding day is filled with hasty and chaotic preparations for the entire household. Matters are complicated further by Dolly swigging from a bottle of Jamaica rum, which she later transfers into the folds of her white dress. Will she arrive at her own wedding on time, or will the fumbling advances of Joseph, the man she really loves, get in the way?

Cheerful Weather for the Wedding is part of the Persephone Audiobook Collection, a series of forgotten classics including neglected fiction and non-fiction by women writers. This edition was first published in 1932 by Leonard and Virginia Woolf’s Hogarth Press. It includes a preface by the late author Frances Partridge, a longtime friend of Strachey’s who wrote her biography, Julia, A Portrait of Julia Strachey (1983).

‘A very cute, clever, indeed rather remarkable acidulated story . . . I think it is astonishingly good – complete and sharp and individual’ – Virginia Woolf

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ID: 745793

Title: Someone at a Distance

Author: Dorothy Whipple

Narrator: Susan Wooldridge

Format: Unabridged

Length: 11:19:54

Language: English

Release date: 04-18-24

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Classics

Summary:

Someone at a Distance was Dorothy Whipple’s last book, hailed by many as her best. The story charts the gradual breakdown of a marriage through the eyes of those involved. Whipple deftly and persuasively explores the minds of her characters, particularly the two women. This audio edition is read by Susan Wooldridge.

Ellen and Avery North share a stable and secure life. Everything is well looked after: their teenage children, their garden, and Avery’s elderly mother who lives nearby. In time, old Mrs North decides she is in need of a live-in companion, and Louise Lanier arrives after responding to a newspaper advert. When Louise sets out to seduce Avery for the fun of it, her behaviour threatens to destroy Ellen and Avery’s peaceful life together.

Someone at a Distance is part of the Persephone Audiobook Collection, a series of forgotten classics including neglected fiction and non-fiction by women writers. First published in 1953, this edition includes a preface by author Nina Bawden.

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ID: 745790

Title: William - an Englishman

Author: Cicely Hamilton

Narrator: Stephanie Racine

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7:23:12

Language: English

Release date: 04-18-24

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Classics

Summary:

A satirical view of the suffragette movement and an unblinking yet compassionate story that chronicles the impact of the First World War on an ordinary young couple, William – an Englishman by Cicely Hamilton won the first Prix Femina-Vie Heureuse prize in 1919.

Written in a hospital tent to the sound of gunfire and shells falling, Cicely Hamilton drew on her experiences working in France during WW1 to tell the story of William Tully and his new bride Griselda, who are wrenched away from their all-consuming interests – socialism and votes for women – and plunged into the almost dream-like horror of war. As brutal tragedy strikes, their attitude to both pacifism and patriotism is altered and their lives are changed forever.

William - An Englishman is part of the Persephone Audiobook Collection, a series of forgotten classics that includes neglected fiction and non-fiction by women writers. First published in 1919, this edition includes a preface by writer and MD of Persephone Books, Nicola Beauman.

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ID: 745789

Title: They Were Sisters

Author: Dorothy Whipple

Narrator: Sara Poyzer

Format: Unabridged

Length: 14:20:45

Language: English

Release date: 04-18-24

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Classics

Summary:

When three sisters marry very different men, the choices they make determine whether they will flourish, be tamed or be repressed. Set in 1930’s middle-class England, the classic domestic drama, They Were Sisters, is a compelling but harrowing novel by Dorothy Whipple.

Meet three women with contrasting partners: Lucy's husband is her beloved companion; Vera's husband bores her and she turns elsewhere; and Charlotte's husband is a horrifying bully who turns a high-spirited naive young girl into a deeply unhappy woman. This is the story of how those marriages shape the sister’s lives, the consequences of their decisions, and the sisterly love that hopes to save them from tragedy.

They Were Sisters is part of the Persephone Audiobook Collection, a series of forgotten classics that includes neglected fiction and non-fiction by women writers. This audiobook of a novel first published in 1943 breathes new life into Whipple's work; with a fascinating introduction by novelist Celia Brayfield.

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ID: 716951

Title: Beautiful People

Author: Michelle Gable

Narrator: Eleanor Caudill

Format: Unabridged

Length: 9:03:00

Language: English

Release date: 04-17-24

Publisher: HarperAudio

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Historical Fiction, Essays & Anthologies, Contemporary Women

Summary:

Beautiful People. Beautiful Places. Escape into the glittering world of Lilly Pulitzer and the 1960s Jet Set in this stylish novel.

Its 1961, and for Margo Hightower, everything is about to change. True, her engagement is off, her family has fallen in scandal and she’s completely broke. But shes just been hired as an assistant to photographer Slim Aarons famous for his vibrant pictures of high society, royalty and Hollywood stars and she knows this opportunity is her ticket to something better.

From the bright beaches of Acapulco to glitzy parties in New York, Margo is thrown headfirst into the glamorous jet-set world she so covets, observing its ways from behind the camera as Slims sidekick. Theres Jackie Kennedy, Truman Capote’s Swans, a host of Vanderbilts. Beautiful people in beautiful places.

But when they land in Palm Beach, a scene with few rules and many riches, the lines between work and play begin to blur. As Margo becomes swept up in the citys social circle and into a friendship with heiress and rising fashion designer Lilly Pulitzer the golden life seems increasingly in reach. Until she finds herself entangled in a complicated web of loyalties and secrets that could bring it all crashing down...

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ID: 760324

Title: Curiosities: A Novel

Author: Anne Fleming

Narrator: Amanda Parfitt, Anna Tierney, Anne Fleming, Richard Sheridan Willis, Scott Turner Schofield, Zak Annette

Format: Unabridged

Length: 10:11:09

Language: English

Release date: 04-16-24

Publisher: Knopf Canada

Genres: Fiction & Literature, Historical Fiction, Literary Fiction, LGBTQ+

Summary:

LONGLISTED FOR THE 2024 GILLER PRIZE

'Curiosities is pure delight. Anne Fleming draws us in so that we feel we are living the characters’ lives, whether braving the North Atlantic on a sailing ship, or stealing away for a forbidden tryst in the English countryside. And she does it all with a light touch that has the reader dancing through peril and pleasure.' —Ann-Marie MacDonald

'Curiosities arrives like a little sun from another period to warm the reader with the joy and pleasure of knowledge, even as it illuminates the terrors and confusion that arise from ignorance. Wonders and disasters tumble over fractured lives and loves, but Fleming’s conjuring of the past alive in our present is so deft and sure it might be witchcraft. I loved this book.' —Marina Endicott

This sparkling, genre-bending novel opens with amateur historian Anne, who has a passion for research into the murkier corners of England in the 1600s. In an archive, Anne has stumbled across an obscure memoir, one that hints at an intricate tapestry of secret lives and loves.

    The full story eventually weaves together five manuscripts, each a different thread in the same strange tale: The Plague descends upon a village, and two children, Joan and Thomasina, are the only survivors. They bond with each other and with 'Old Nut,' a woman who lives in the forest nearby. But when relatives return, Old Nut is accused of witchcraft and condemned to death. Joan is hired as a maid to well-educated Lady Margaret Long—and, being lively and curious, soon becomes a beloved companion. Thomasina is sent on a perilous voyage to Virginia, where she adopts boys' clothing and navigates life as a male. 

    Years later, Tom and Joan find each other and fall in love—but are discovered, naked, by a clergyman. Horrified, he believes there can only be one explanation for Tom's 'unmanned' state: Joan is a witch and, like Old Nut years ago, must be tried for sorcery. It falls upon Anne, reading between faded pages and centuries, to uncover the fate of the lovers—and add her own contemporary line of 'truth' to this tale from a time when there were no labels for who Tom and Joan might be.

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ID: 771330

Title: Knife: Meditations After an Attempted Murder

Author: Salman Rushdie

Narrator: Salman Rushdie

Format: Unabridged

Length: 6:22:32

Language: English

Release date: 04-16-24

Publisher: Knopf Canada

Genres: Biography & Memoir, Literary, History & Culture

Summary:

#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • LONGLISTED FOR THE NATIONAL BOOK AWARD • LONGLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE • From Booker Prize winner Salman Rushdie, a searing, deeply personal account of enduring—and surviving—an attempt on his life thirty years after the fatwa that was ordered against him.

On the morning of August 12, 2022, Salman Rushdie was standing onstage at the Chautauqua Institution, preparing to give a lecture on the importance of keeping writers safe from harm, when a man in black—black clothes, black mask—rushed down the aisle toward him, wielding a knife. His first thought: So it’s you. Here you are.

What followed was a horrific act of violence that shook the literary world and beyond. Now, for the first time, and in unforgettable detail, Rushdie relives the traumatic events of that day and its aftermath, as well as his journey toward physical recovery and the healing that was made possible by the love and support of his wife, Eliza, his family, his army of doctors and physical therapists, and his community of readers worldwide.

Knife is Rushdie at the peak of his powers, writing with urgency, with gravity, with unflinching honesty. It is also a deeply moving reminder of literature’s capacity to make sense of the unthinkable, an intimate and life-affirming meditation on life, loss, love, art—and finding the strength to stand up again.

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ID: 709246

Title: Mind Your Manners: An insider's Guide to Social Fluency

Author: Sara Jane Ho

Narrator: Sara Jane Ho

Format: Unabridged

Length: 7:47:53

Language: English

Release date: 04-11-24

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Genres: Self Development, Health & Wellness

Summary:

Read by the author, Sara Jane Ho.

Founder of a global etiquette school and star of her own Netflix series, Mind Your Manners, Sara Jane Ho teaches readers how to thrive socially in a variety of situations, in person and online.

Structured around five main 'microcultures' – Friendship and Social Life, Family Ties, Career-ing, Dating & Relationships, Food & Travel – Mind Your Manners reveals the subtle differences in expectation within each, and how to read the situation you find yourself in with ease and confidence so that you may respond appropriately.

In Sara Jane's brilliant hands, etiquette becomes fresh, dynamic, and situation-specific, rather than strict and unforgiving. Sara Jane’s etiquette is contextual etiquette. Transcending old notions of manners entirely, it is nothing less than the art and science of interacting with others.

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ID: 700833

Title: Calamity of Souls

Author: David Baldacci

Narrator: Cary Hite, David Baldacci, Kiiri Sandy, Macleod Andrews, Sisi Aisha Johnson

Format: Unabridged

Length: 14:26:00

Language: English

Release date: 04-11-24

Publisher: Pan Macmillan

Genres: Thriller & Horror, International Mystery

Summary:

*** PRE-ORDER NOW ***

'This is David Baldacci at his best' - Michael Connelly

'I couldnt stop turning the pages, fascinated, moved, horrified' Alex Michaelides

'A Tour de Force' S.A. Cosby

'May be the best novel David Baldacci has ever written' - Scott Turow

'A tale of high tension, false assumptions and stubborn humanity' - Stacey Abrams

Set in the tumultuous year of 1968 in southern Virginia, a murder case sets a duo of Black and white lawyers against a deeply unfair system as they work to defend their wrongfully-accused Black defendants in this courtroom drama from the number one bestselling author David Baldacci.

Jack Lee is a white lawyer from Freeman County, Virginia, who has never done anything to push back against racism, until he decides to represent Jerome Washington, a Black man charged with killing an elderly and wealthy white couple. Doubting his decision, Lee fears that his legal skills may not be enough to prevail in a case where the odds are already stacked against both him and his client. And he quickly finds himself out of his depth when he realizes that what is at stake is far greater than the outcome of a murder trial.

Desiree DuBose is a Black lawyer from Chicago who has devoted her life to furthering the causes of justice and equality for everyone. She comes to Freeman County and enters a fractious and unwieldy partnership with Lee in a legal battle against the best prosecutor in town. Yet DuBose is also aware that powerful outside forces are at work to blunt the victories achieved by the Civil Rights era.

Lee and DuBose could not be more dissimilar. On their own, neither one can stop the prosecutions deliberate march towards a guilty verdict and the electric chair. But together, the pair fight for what once seemed impossible: a chance for a fair trial and true justice.

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