One night to decide his entire life’s happiness

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JUST PUBLISHED!

Sophie Turner’s latest Pride and Prejudice variation  — read by Verona Westbrook, and available on Amazon, Audible and iTunes.

Chastened by Charles Bingley following Mr Bennet’s untimely death, Fitzwilliam Darcy determines he will offer marriage to Elizabeth . . . but forced by circumstances she marries another.

Years later, Elizabeth is a widow, and mistress of Longbourn. She has vowed she will never marry again.

A chance meeting at Netherfield brings them back together again, but Darcy will have to win more than her heart if he is to have any chance of making her mistress of Pemberley.

Goodbye, Mr Bennet

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COLIN FIRTH may have been many people’s idea of the ultimate Mr Darcy in the 1995 BBC Pride and Prejudice.

And Jennifer Ehle was a particularly spirited Elizabeth Bennet.

But deserving of equal praise should be Benjamin Whitrow, who has just died aged 80, as an occasionally weary-looking Mr Bennet. He was nominated for a BAFTA for the rôle.

Who can forget his grave expression, with a just-perceptible twinkle in his eye, when Mrs Bennet threatens never to speak to Elizabeth again after she refuses her absurd cousin Mr Collin’s offer of marriage?

He adds: “Well, there you are, Lizzie, an unhappy alternative is before you. Your mother will never see you again if you do not marry Mr Collins and I will never see you again if you do.”

Audiobooks let the listener’s imagination take charge

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While listening to an audiobook you can conjure up your own images — what the characters look like, how they’re dressed, what kind of landscape the story is set in.

When these stories are transferred to television or film some of the magic can disappear.

I remember a long time ago listening to a radio version of Johanna Spyri’s classic children’s book Heidi, a story of an orphaned girl who goes to live with the grumpy grandfather in the Swiss alps.

Then, the same story appeared on television, and I was quite cross. The Heidi and the grandfather were from someone else’s imagination, not mine, and they didn’t seem right to me.

But I still remember the radio version in detail.

Similarly Barbara Sleigh’s The Kingdom of Carbonel (“the King of the Cats”) and Audrey Feist’s Wind Whistle Farm.

Thankfully, neither of these made it to television, so my childhood memories haven’t been shattered. But I still remember the “thump squeak” sound of the wooden leg of the evil Clint limping along the floorboards in Wind Whistle Farm and Mrs Catnip, the retired witch, from The Kingdom of Carbonel (the first time I came across the word “widdershins”).

Memoirs from Mrs Hudson’s Kitchen

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MRS HUDSON is possibly the most famous landlady in literature — presiding over the comings and goings of Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson at 221b Baker Street in London.

She meets the clients, the villains and the Baker Street Irregulars, and gives her views on Victorian society — and women’s roles and rights — and explores the recipes she would have prepared for her famous lodgers.

Taken from a long-running series of columns in the Sherlockian journal Canadian Holmes.

 

Kirstie is miffed

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Kirstie Allsopp, doyenne of Channel 4’s long-running Location, Location, Location property search programme, is “slightly miffed” that her fellow presenter Phil Spencer is inundated with voiceover work, and she isn’t.

Perhaps it’s her “Sloaney” accent, she thought.

But no, says her agent (incidentally the same one as Spencer) . . . it’s basic psychology.

Most buying decisions are taken by women, apparently — and women don’t like to be told what to buy by other women.

Hmmm.

Move over Beethoven

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IT SEEMS that audiobooks have attracted a new audience.

Research carried out by the Hartbury College in the UK, and reported by the Discovery Channel and the journal Applied Animal Behaviour Science, has shown that dogs relate more to audiobooks than to classical music.

The study investigated the effects on 31 dogs in a rescue centre. They were exposed to classical and pop music and music “designed” specifically for dogs, as well as audiobooks.

“We were surprised that audiobooks appeared to be more beneficial than classical music as this has been documented as having a positive effect on a range of other species, such as reducing abnormal behaviours in gorillas and elephants,” said Dr Tamara Montrose, Animal Behaviour and Welfare lecturer at the College.

Interestingly, classical music doesn’t seem to work so well with horses. The same college found that the equine favourite is Country & Western.

Perhaps not surprisingly, jazz and rock led to stressful behaviour such as stamping, head tossing, snorting and whinnying.

I wonder what they’d make of audiobooks?

 

2016 a bumper year for audiobook sales

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ENCOURAGING news for audiobook fans.

The Audio Publishers Association say sales were 18.2 per cent higher than in 2015, totalling around $2.1 billion.

And the actual number of books sold increased by 33.9%: that’s 89½ million.

Last year titles from the main audiobook publishers came to 50,937 – a 43.1 increase over 2015.

A lot of this was from digital downloads. And almost 30 per cent of the audiobook audience listened on their smartphones.

The most popular categories in 2016?

Mysteries, thrillers and suspense, science fiction, fantasy and romance.

My audiobooks

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A CONSTANT LOVE
by Sophie Turner

“I had always said that if I did an audiobook of it, I would want it read in a British accent, which ruled me out. In came Verona Westbrook, with her lovely narration, to make both the characters and the setting come to life”


SWEET SURRENDER
by Wendy May Andrews

 

HOW TO CARE FOR A LADY
by Jerrica Knight-Catania

“I do love listening to your voice”

 

FLIRTING WITH SCANDAL
by Jerrica Knight-Catania

“Thank you so much for lending your lovely voice to this project”

“Very excited to have a Regency expert reading for me”

 

FRANCINE
by Alicia Cameron

 

MISS PHILPOTT AND THE FASCINATING MATHILDE
by Alicia Cameron

“Subtle characterisation . . . the Miss Philpott of my imagination”

 

ONE PERFECT AFTERNOON
by Jane Dawkins

 

TO WED AN HEIRESS
by Rosanne E Lortz

Make the most of your commute

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traffic jam

YOU’RE stuck in endless traffic for what can seem an eternity — day after day.

Or perhaps you’re cramped in an overcrowded and over-heated train.

Either way you’ve time to kill — and you’re bored.

So here’s a suggestion . . .

Download an audiobook and time will fly.

One word of advice, though.

If you’re driving it might be wise to choose non-fiction.

You don’t want to become so involved in the story that you become distracted.

Audiobook sales shoot up

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AUDIOBOOKS are the fastest-growing format in the book business today, says the Wall Street Journal.

The Association of American Publishers say downloaded audio sales were up by 37 per cent in January and February this year, compared with the same period in 2015.

Sales of eBooks dropped by 21.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2016.

Books for adults were down by 10.3 per cent, children’s books b 2.1 per cent, and hardcover books by 8.5 per cent.

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