Showing titles in Authors

Joining us at Audible Studios is prominent stage and television actor David Tennant, who has narrated The War of the Worlds by H. G. Wells for Audible Studios. The War of the Worlds depicts the arrival of an alien vessel on Horsell Common, in Woking. The initial genial interest in the Martians quickly turns to terror as they emerge with deadly heat rays and power beyond our control and comprehension. Their ruthless disregard for human life leaves humanity under threat of extinction. As the world crumbles, a lone man sets out across the wasteland to find his wife.

Every writer's origin story is different. In How I Became a Writer, Gloria Steinem charts her unlikely journey from restless teen in Toledo, Ohio, to professional magazine writer in Manhattan - with sage advice and "random directives" for getting started.

In April 2019, Stokes was named in the England's squad for the 2019 Cricket World Cup, and after a sensational win was declared Man of the Match, an accolade he has been awarded many times before, such as a record-breaking three times within fourteen games in 2017. The World Cup win, alongside the 2019 Ashes, has been brought to life in On Fire: My Story of an Unbelievable Summer for English Cricket, Stokes’ newest book.

Charlotte, Emily, and Anne Brontë created some of the greatest works of 19th-century English literature. How did these three young women, born into a humble parsonage on the isolated moors of Northern England, write such striking work? What influenced them? How did they get their stories out into the world? Why do their novels continue to grip readers to this day? These and other questions are what you will explore in The Brontës: Romantic Passion and Social Justice.

Joining us in the Audible studios to talk about his latest book No Spin: My Autobiography is Australian former international cricketer Shane Warne. Widely regarded as one of the greatest bowlers in the history of cricket, Shane Warne has had an astonishing career in the game, playing his first Test match in 1992 and retiring in 2013. The lead wicket taker in Test cricket until 2007 and named twice as a Wisden Leading Cricketer in the World, Warne has now published his biography, No Spin. Shane Warne talks to us about how he fell into cricket by accident, the lack of cricket superstars today and his relationship with Elizabeth Hurley.

Richard Reed, co-founder of innocent drinks, joins Robin Morgan in the Audible Studios. Richard is the author of new book called If I Could Tell You Just One Thing. In the book he lays out the invaluable advice that has been passed to him by 62 extraordinary people that he’s met by both chance and design; from Simon Cowell to Richard Branson, Marina Abramovic to Dame Judi Dench.

Joining us in the Audible Studios to talk about his latest book of verse, Essex Clay, is lauded British poet, biographer and novelist Andrew Motion. Andrew Motion was the former President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England and Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom from 1999 to 2009. His career has seen him publish numerous collections of award-winning poetry, including Natural Causes (1987) and Dangerous Play (1984), and his revered biography, In the Blood. June 2018 saw Motion publish his second biographical sequence, Essex Clay.

This is a biography of James Baldwin, author, one-time preacher, and civil rights activist. He chose David Leeming, a close friend and colleague, to write his biography and granted him access to his correspondence. Leeming traces his life from his birth in Harlem in 1924 to his self-imposed exile in Europe, his later years as political activist, and his public funeral in 1987.

Barely educated and valued since childhood strictly for his labor, Ernaux's father had grown into a hard, practical man who showed his family little affection. Narrating his slow ascent towards material comfort, Ernaux's cold observation reveals the shame that haunted her father throughout his life. She scrutinizes the importance he attributed to manners and language that came so unnaturally to him as he struggled to provide for his family with a grocery store and cafe in rural France.

In A Girl's Story, Annie Ernaux revisits a night 50 years earlier when she found herself submerged and controlled by another person's desire and willpower. It was the summer of 1958, the year she turned 18, and the man she had given herself to had moved on. She'd submitted her will to his and then found that she was a slave without a master.

Introducing his autobiography, A Life in Parts, Bryan Cranston talks to us about embodying the infamous drug kingpin Walter White, the physical and emotional turmoil that comes with being an actor and how a difficult and oftentimes violent upbringing led him to become an unrelenting optimist. Having first graced our screens at the age of seven, Bryan now has over 150 titles to his name, including Linwood Boomer’s hugely celebrated sitcom Malcom in the Middle and Vince Gilligan’s multiaward-winning Breaking Bad.

In the late 1970s Ondaatje returned to his native island of Sri Lanka. As he records his journey through the drug-like heat and intoxicating fragrances of that "pendant off the ear of India", Ondaatje simultaneously retraces the baroque mythology of his Dutch-Ceylonese family. An inspired travel narrative and family memoir by an exceptional writer.

Three years before she began writing her New York Times best-selling book I'm Telling the Truth, but I'm Lying, Bassey Ikpi returned to her native Nigeria to try to piece together a life that had fallen apart. Her career had been cut short by a bipolar II diagnosis and hospitalization, and she longed to find her way back to it. Nigeria welcomed her with promise. That fall, she created BasseyWorld presents Naija Poetry Slam, Nigeria's first National Poetry Slam competition, and she started getting hopeful.

Joining us at Audible Studios is Professor Richard Wiseman, Britain’s first Professor of the Public Understanding of Psychology. His newest book, Shoot for the Moon, gives listeners eight key principles on how to live their lives with the same mind-set of the Apollo mission crew, who put a man on the moon. He explains how pessimism is key to success and how you can transform fear into hope and tragedy into optimism.

Sir Terry Pratchett was a much-loved writer who gained international fame for his Discworld fantasy series. In this recording we hear - in his own words - about science-fantasy and comedy writing. He discusses his fans and followers, how he enjoys writing and the importance of the Discworld...

In this deeply etched and haunting memoir, Vivian Gornick tells the story of her lifelong battle with her mother for independence. Gornick's groundbreaking book confronts what Edna O'Brien has called "the principal crux of female despair": the unacknowledged Oedipal nature of the mother-daughter bond. Born and raised in the Bronx, the daughter of "urban peasants," Gornick grows up in a household dominated by her intelligent but uneducated mother's romantic depression over the early death of her husband.

Joining us in the studio to talk about his latest book, Rebel Ideas, is British table tennis Olympian, author, journalist and broadcaster Matthew Syed. Known for being the ping-pong guy from popular sports podcast Flintoff, Savage and the Ping Pong Guy, Matthew Syed started his career as a table tennis player, competing in two Olympic games, and was ranked as a top player in England for 10 years. Since then, Matthew moved on to a career in journalism, writing a column in The Times and broadcasting on the BBC and Eurosport.

The Patient Assassin covers the events of the Amritsar Massacre of 1919 in which hundreds of lives were lost when the army opened fire on a crowd with no warnings. An injured survivor, Udham Singh, vowed, wiping blood-soaked earth onto his forehead, that he would kill the men responsible. The Patient Assassin follows him through Africa and the US and across Europe to end up in front of Sir Michael O'Dwyer, who had sent the men to attack.

Joining us at Audible Studios is Alex Bertie, YouTube vlogger of his transgender journey and author of Trans Mission: My Quest to a Beard. When Alex was born, doctors took one look and put an 'F' for female on the birth certificate, based on genitals. When Alex was 15 he realised he was a transgender man, through many years of struggling with identity. After coming out to family and friends, Alex battled the health-care system in order to take male hormones, have surgery, change his name and grow a beard.

In Russian literary marriages, the wives of some of the most famous authors of all time did not resent taking a "secondary position", although to call their position secondary does not do justice to the vital role these women played in the creation of some of the greatest literary works in history. Living under restrictive regimes, many of these women battled censorship and preserved the writers' illicit archives, often risking their own lives to do so. They established a tradition all their own, unmatched in the West.