Showing results by publisher "audible originals" in Literature & Fiction

In George Orwell: The Man and the Mind Behind 1984, Professor Michael Shelden will show you how 1984 presents a plausible reality of thought control and totalitarian power that feels contemporary even as it reflects its own time.

From L.A. to rural Ireland, from war-torn Beirut to a windswept Scottish coastline, from the bright lights of the theatre to the dimness of the therapist’s office - these six outstanding and impactful stories seek to explore grief and trauma, new beginnings and hope. The shortlisted stories have all been chosen for 2021's Sunday Times Audible Short Story Award - the world's richest and most prestigious prize for a single short story. Dubbed the 'equivalent of the Man Booker for the short story' by the Sydney Morning Herald, the winner receives £30,000.

Ashling is every busy parent’s dream: a professional nanny with experience and a warm, sunny attitude. But from the moment Mary hires her to look after her young children, things start to feel just a little...off. Are Mary’s stressful work schedule and lack of sleep playing games with her own sanity, or has she welcomed an unstable troublemaker into her home?

When you’re struck with a difficult emotion, like loneliness, anxiety, or heartbreak, sometimes the best remedy isn’t a pill or herbal potion, but poetry.

Meet Harry, aspiring tech entrepreneur. He’s a would-be Steve Jobs trapped in a cubicle gig at an angel investor firm, so close and yet so far from his dreams. His marriage is foundering, his career is stalled out, and all he wants is to create an app like Uber, or Tinder, something to make real change in the world, and change his own life forever. Now meet Peter, a deeply troubled computer genius who lives in a basement apartment, chugging red wine, nursing old grudges and writing code. When Harry meets Peter, it’s both of their lives that will change, when they invent an app for murder.

When a used car dealership in upstate New York finds out their local rival, Wild Ron (John DiMaggio), is trying to put them out of business, they'll have one week to band together over the holidays to keep their business alive.

Imagine a 1980s world of sumptuous hotel rooms, restaurants, New York City penthouses, and the powerful men who move easily between these pinnacles of luxury. They are music producers, rock stars, writers, and restaurateurs. They are household names like Billy Joel, Art Garfunkel, Eric Clapton, and Sting. And yet, each man has an entire aspect to his life that he doesn’t talk about publicly—his depression, his rocky marriage, his feelings of shame and failure, his private loss of faith. And now: The phone rings. Imagine the woman who has each of these men at her beck and call.

This collection of three of Henrik Ibsen's most well-known and important plays is voiced by a sparkling cast and features music, SFX and a full soundscape. Born in 1828, Norwegian playwright, theatre director and poet Ibsen, wrote in Danish yet lived for many years in Italy and Germany. Heralded as one the most distinguished dramatists after Shakespeare, by the early 20th century A Doll's House became the world's most performed play.

Have you ever slathered mustard on a hotdog and thought, "Wow, I sure hope the company that made this condiment isn't a corrupt tech startup run by a CEO who is a tyrannical chauvinist!" Well, you're about to.

How far would you go to get your dream job?

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.

The Sound Inside follows Bella Baird, an accomplished English professor at an Ivy League university who prizes her solitude. But when she faces a challenge she cannot tackle alone, she allies herself with a brilliant and mysterious student, Christopher.

Lovers Rock stars Jamaica: its language, its landscape, its vibe, its humor, its edge and its persistent, dogged beauty. These seven stories imagine strange, quirky, familiar and delicious encounters between people in search of romantic love in the twenty-first century. Featuring characters from of all walks of life, each story is connected by the unique vibe of Jamaican desire.

Fifteen years ago an anonymous tormentor known only as A terrorized Emily Fields, Spencer Hastings, Hanna Marin, and Aria Montgomery—watching their every move, revealing their darkest secrets, and even nearly killing them. Now A is in jail and the Pretty Little Liars have grown up and moved on. Emily is happily married. Spencer is on partner track at her law firm. Hanna’s family is the envy of the neighborhood. And Aria is a finalist for a coveted art fellowship. Their lives are perfect. Or so they say.

This wasn’t the plan. Judge Herman Calvert, 88, never thought he’d outlive his beloved wife, Marie. Yet now he finds himself alone, a grieving widower, desperate for escape from the home they built together, where every turn brings a painful reminder of his late wife. So the judge retreats to his lake cabin in rural Wisconsin, a place where an old man can find peace and solitude. A place where nature can take its course. But something new has moved in.

Andre Monroe is ready to move on from heartbreak, and the first step is bringing home his rescue pup. He’d bonded instantly with the playful Zeus and was already planning their first adventures. But one thing he definitely hadn’t daydreamed about was Zeus accidentally being promised to someone else - or that he might go home empty-handed and brokenhearted all over again.

At the heart of Audible's three year partnership with the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts (LAMDA) is the involvement of LAMDA students in the creative process of making new audio dramas especially for young people. After the success of GNR8T= (Series 1) last year, another four original audio dramas were commissioned from some of the UK’s most exciting emerging writers. The dramas were workshopped with LAMDA students and these final productions were recorded by graduating third years.

As they recount the events surrounding the disappearance of their toddler—one with a tendency to bite—two parents cope with grief in vastly different ways. While the father wrestles with feelings of guilt, the mother is convinced she’s spotted the boy in frightening TV news reports...though let’s just say he looks nothing like the precocious little boy they remember from a decade ago.

Homeless Bodies and Other Stories is an original fiction podcast featuring audio-exclusive short stories from award-winning authors and Sunday Times best-sellers, inspired by objects & artefacts from Wellcome Collection's permanent exhibition, 'Medicine Man', in London.

Despite his early death from tuberculosis at the age of 44, Chekhov was a prolific writer and produced more than 250 short stories in addition to several novellas and a novel. The Russian was also a practicing doctor. A celebrated playwright, Anton Chekhov is often recognised as an influential figure of early modernism of the theatre in addition to being held in high esteem by the likes of George Bernard Shaw and Virginia Woolf, although much praise was not as forthcoming until after his death in 1904.