Art audiobooks

Man & Superman

By: Bernard Shaw

Narrated by: Full Cast, Judi Dench, Juliet Stevenson & Ralph...

Length: 4 hours 16 minutes

Abridged: No

Man and Superman was the first drama to be broadcast on the BBC's Third Programme on October 1st, 1946. To celebrate Radio 3's 50th anniversary, the play was directed by Sir Peter Hall, and preserved for all time in this lush audio dramatisation. 'A comedy and a philosophy', Man and Superman is based on the Don Juan theme and, using all the... Read more

The Archers

By: Joanna Toye

Narrated by: Stella Gonet

Length: 5 hours 37 minutes

Abridged: No

For over fifty years, Britain's most popular radio drama has captured the imagination of listeners throughout the country. Ambridge and its residents have been constant companions to millions throughout the highs and lows of five successive decades. Covering the years 1968 to 1986, Joanna Toye's novel follows the fortunes of Dan and Doris's... Read more

The Degner Defection

By: Stephen Evans

Narrated by: Stephen Evans

Length: 27 minutes

Abridged: No

Fifty years ago a dashing, ultra-talented motorbike racer planned to escape from Communist East Germany at the height of the Cold War. Award-winning presenter Stephen Evans tells how Degner, a hero in his homeland, risked everything including the life of his young family to flee to the west, taking with him groundbreaking technology developed... Read more

Miracles R Us

By: Lesley Bruce

Narrated by: Anna Massey & Full Cast

Length: 1 hour 49 minutes

Abridged: No

Caroline is running Household Solutions on her own from the student rooms she is renting - just leaflets through doors, offering a family back-up service. Then she meets Sylvia, who is sure she could be helpful to the business. Caroline is sure she couldn't. But Sylvia persists and gradually, throughout this BBC Radio series, a mutual respect is... Read more

Angela Carter's Love Affair With Radio

By: Charlotte Crofts

Narrated by: Charlotte Crofts

Length: 27 minutes

Abridged: No

Angela Carter's relationship with radio began with an accidental sound effect. She went on to write two docu-dramas, Come Unto These Yellow Sands (about the Victorian painter Richard Dadd) and A Self-Made Man (about Edwardian novelist Ronald Firbank) and re-worked two of her short stories into radio plays. Carter loved radio's technical... Read more

Dress Code

By: Eve Michaels

Narrated by: Eve Michaels

Length: 6 hours 46 minutes

Abridged: No

"Your sweats, PJs and flip-flops are losing you money! Chances are your computer and cellphone are more current than your image. Stop making excuses and learn to look your best!"

Move past your excuses of no time and money and become your own American success story. Do you crave more confidence, respect and power? Want to earn more money? Not... Read more

The Wait Album

By: NPR

Length: 1 hour 58 minutes

Abridged: No

Each week, more than three million listeners tune into Wait Wait . . . Don’t Tell Me! to test their knowledge of the week’s news. In the popular “Not My Job” segment, a celebrity guest must answer three questions on a topic totally outside his or her area of expertise. The topic seems random but is thoughtfully skewed.
 
Because Henry Winkler... Read more

Picasso

By: Arianna Huffington

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 19 hours 30 minutes

Abridged: No

This landmark biography penetrates the barriers of legend to bring to full and intimate life a man whose burning passions—for painting, women, and ideas—were matched by a compulsion to invent reality in his life no less than in his art. Here is the tragic story of a man who, from his teenage passion for a gypsy boy to the chilling bitterness and... Read more

Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World

By: Simon Callow

Narrated by: Simon Callow

Length: 11 hours 3 minutes

Abridged: No

A short biography of Charles Dickens by acclaimed actor and writer Simon Callow that offers a fresh perspective on one of the greatest novelists in the English language in a lively, highly readable account. "It has all the gusto that a popular biography of Dickens—a man who “could do nothing by halves”—should possess. . . . The best biography... Read more

Tom Keith

By: Garrison Keillor

Length: 1 hour 8 minutes

Abridged: No

Tom Keith had a wonderful ear for sound and beautiful sense of comic timing.
 
 As a schoolboy imitator of birds, livestock, and people being punched in the face, he had natural abilities that pointed to a career in the Live Radio Sound Effects Production Industry. But by the time he graduated from the University of Minnesota in the late ’60s,... Read more

Vincent van Gogh

By: Julius Meier-Graefe

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 7 hours 42 minutes

Abridged: No

The lives of many famous artists have been shrouded in mystery and conjecture, but none have been more controversial than the life of Vincent van Gogh.Remembered for his swirling brushstrokes and burning colors, Vincent van Gogh is today one of the best-known painters. Though his career as a painter spanned less than ten years, he produced a... Read more

The Renaissance

By: Walter Pater

Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon

Length: 6 hours 24 minutes

Abridged: No

Published to great acclaim in 1873, Walter Pater's compendium of idiosyncratic, impressionistic essays on the Renaissance gained him a reputation as a daring modern philosopher. Oscar Wilde called it the "holy writ of beauty." It was Pater's cry of "art for art's sake" that became the manifesto for the aesthetic movement. He believed that art... Read more

Life after Television

By: George Gilder

Narrated by: Jeff Riggenbach

Length: 2 hours 2 minutes

Abridged: No

In this remarkably prescient book, Gilder predicts how television will merge with other technologies and evolve into the telecomputer, a personal computer adapted for video processing and connected by fiberoptic threads to other personal computers around the world. This interactive system will change how we do business, educate our children, and... Read more

Reason in Art

By: George Santayana

Narrated by: Bernard Mayes

Length: 6 hours 43 minutes

Abridged: No

In Reason in Art, Santayana explores the social and psychological origins of art. He examines its moral and ideal functions, its lapses into tastelessness, and the distinctive character of music, speech, poetry, and prose. The Spanish-born philosopher sees art as part of the broader human context, concluding that art prepares “the world to... Read more

A Series Of Psychotic Episodes (Bbc Radio 4 Comedy) Series 2

By: Miriam Elia

Narrated by: Dan Tetsell & Full Cast

Length: 55 minutes

Abridged: No

Following a successful run on Radio 7, Miriam Elia's fantastical Sony Radio Academy Award nominated comedy sketch series transfers to Radio 4 for a second series, with new characters and a few familiar faces. Originally broadcast from 29 September 2010 - 20 October 2010, this download offers another chance to step inside the deranged mind of... Read more

Caveat Emptor

By: Ken Perenyi

Narrated by: Dan Butler

Length: 9 hours 52 minutes

Abridged: No

The true story of America's greatest art forger! Ten years ago, an FBI investigation was about to expose a scandal in the art world that would have been front-page news in New York and London. After a trail of fake paintings of astonishing quality led federal agents to art dealers, renowned experts, and the major auction houses, the... Read more

My Name Is Stephen Luckwell

By: Nick Wood

Narrated by: Full Cast & James Rastall

Length: 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Stephen Luckwell is an autistic teenager with an enquiring mind. His teacher, Claire, helps him through the daily activities which present him with enormous challenges, from deciphering phrases such as 'I was miles away' or 'I wouldn't want to be in your shoes', to understanding private jokes and other people's expressions. It's the day of the... Read more

The London Nobody Knows

By: Dan Cruickshank

Narrated by: Dan Cruickshank

Length: 13 minutes

Abridged: No

Geoffrey Fletcher's London was not the big landmarks, but rather 'the tawdry, extravagant and eccentric'. He wrote about parts of the city no-one ever had before. This could be an art nouveau pub, a Victorian music hall, a Hawksmoor church or even a public toilet in Holborn in which the attendant kept goldfish in the cisterns. He was drawn to... Read more

Lighthouse

By: Alan Harris

Narrated by: Full Cast, Ifan Huw Dafydd & Paul Rhys

Length: 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Lighthouse keepers Howell and Griffith are posted to 6 weeks on the Smalls - a desolate rock 20 miles off the Pembrokeshire coast. But the two men share a past, and because of what happens next, lighthouses would never again have only a crew of two. Based on a true story. Written by Alan Harris, and starring Paul Rhys as Howell and Ifan Huw... Read more

Bertrand Russell The First Media Academic? (Archive On 4)

By: Robin Ince

Narrated by: Robin Ince

Length: 56 minutes

Abridged: No

Bertrand Russell was one of the greatest thinkers of the last century. His contributions to the fields of mathematics and philosophy are widely acknowledged as some of the most important of their kind. But he also brought his brand of rationalism and intellect to an audience far beyond the academic and political circles he routinely mixed with.... Read more

The Mystery Of The Mystery Of Edwin Drood

By: Frances Fyfield

Narrated by: Full Cast

Length: 27 minutes

Abridged: No

'The Mystery of Edwin Drood' is a tantalising element of the Dickens manuscript archive held by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
Along with fellow crime-writer Simon Brett and Dickens scholar Professor Jenny Hartley, Frances Fyfield uses the packed manuscript pages, detailed number plans and early cover designs to try and make sense of... Read more

Twelve Years

By: Alexandra Wood

Narrated by: Brian Hastert & Megan Ketch

Length: 43 minutes

Abridged: No

A love story told across the two New York blackouts of 1965 and 1977. Larry and Nancy meet during the first blackout, while the prosperous city enjoys a spontaneous holiday. Twelve years on, the city is very different: rioting and looting accompany the blackout in a time of economic depression, and the couple must fight for their survival in a... Read more

Zurich (The Wire)

By: Pearse Elliott

Narrated by: Conleth Hill

Length: 43 minutes

Abridged: No

Best friends Aidan and Paul make a yearly pilgrimage to catch their rock idols AC/DC on their European tour. This year Paul has chosen Zurich - and Aidan soon discovers why. The cast stars Conleth Hill as Paul and Patrick FitzSymons as Aidan, with music by Brendan Ratliff. First broadcast: BBC Radio 3, February 4, 2012. Read more

My Generation

By: Alice Nutter

Narrated by: Jo Hartley

Length: 1 hour 56 minutes

Abridged: No

A family saga covering four decades, My Generation offers a window into the drugs and pop-fuelled protest movement inspired by writer Alice Nutter's own experience of the protest movement (she was part of the band Chumbawamba). With original music by Harry Hamer, My Generation stars Jo Hartley (Waterloo Road; This Is England) as Cath, Jason Done... Read more