Family Classics

Truman Capote makes whisky-soaked fruitcake in Alabama; Laurie Lee slides across a frozen pond in Gloucestershire; and Shirley Jackson is outwitted by a wily Santa Claus at the bank. Ghosts haunt the Christmases of Muriel Spark and Elizabeth Bowen, while Dostoyevsky, Daphne du Maurier and Italo Calvino take a cynical view of the season and Selma Lagerlof and Angela Carter celebrate its miracles. Ranging from Cork to Lagos to the Wild West, and from Paris to San Paolo to outer space, this is Christmas as imagined by some of the greatest short-story writers of all time.

It's Christmas time for Emily Elizabeth and Clifford! While they count down the days to their favorite holiday, Clifford gets a tree, a stocking, and a surprise under the mistletoe.

John and Lorraine happen to be passing by the Pigman’s abandoned house when they receive the shock of their lives: someone or something is watching them from the upstairs window. Convinced this is a sign from beyond the grave, John and Lorraine decide they have been given a chance to make up for what happened to the Pigman. Can they make things right once and for all?

Banished from longbourn at a young age, Elizabeth Bennet is raised among the Fitzwilliams at the Romsley estate, growing up alongside Fitzwilliam Darcy and his cousins. Entering adulthood, Elizabeth soon finds herself in possession of a secret love for him that even she knows is futile, and she must settle for his friendship.

Zola’s La Terre (The Earth) proved highly controversial on publication in 1887 and still retains the power to shock. It follows the fortunes of the Fouan family in the years leading up to the Franco-Prussian War. Old Fouan, the patriarch, draws up a legal contract to divide his farmland between his three children in exchange for an allowance that will support him and his wife through a comfortable retirement.

When Marshal of the Nobility Pozdnyshev suspects his wife of having an affair with her music partner, his jealousy consumes him and drives him to murder. Controversial upon publication in 1890, The Kreutzer Sonata illuminates Tolstoy's then-feverish Christian ideals, his conflicts with lust and the hypocrisies of nineteenth-century marriage, and his thinking on the role of art and music in society.

"Send Us a Boy, We'll Send You a Cowboy!" is the slogan of the Box Canyon Boys Camp. But for the nail biters, thumb suckers, and teeth grinders, the cast-away offspring of parents who are busy traveling, being divorced, remarrying, and garnering fortunes, it's just another place to face rejection. Until Cotton.

Nancy Mitford's first novel, a set of completely incompatible and hilariously eccentric characters collide in a Scottish castle. Inspired by Mitford's youthful infatuation with a Scottish aristocrat, her story follows young Jane Dacre to a shooting party at Dulloch Castle, where she tramps around a damp and chilly moor on a hunting expedition with formidable Lady Prague, xenophobic General Murgatroyd, one-eyed Admiral Wenceslaus and an assortment of other ancient and gouty peers of the realm, while falling in love with Albert, a surrealist painter with a mischievous sense of humour.

The Glass Menagerie is a memory play by Tennessee Williams that premiered in 1944 and catapulted Williams from obscurity to fame. The play has strong autobiographical elements, featuring characters based on its author, his histrionic mother, and his mentally fragile sister, Laura.

Eleven-year-old Rebecca Randall is quite a handful - and now she’s leaving her beloved Sunnybrook Farm to live with her well-to-do elderly aunts and get an education. But they were expecting Rebecca’s quiet, hardworking older sister instead. Can the bright-eyed and talkative girl win them over...especially her strict, rule-bound Aunt Miranda? Just as Rebecca’s “grand spirit” charms everyone in the story, it will captivate listeners, too.

A father and three of his seven children work brutal hours in a mine, facing hazards such as landslides, fire, and poisoned air, to scrape together enough money for food. When their lodger, Étienne, shares ideas about a workers' revolt, the family gradually embraces his plans. Soon the settlement is aflame with resolve to strike for better wages and working conditions. Savage and horrifying events ensue as miners clash with management and with each other.

Meet Eve, who has departed from her 30-year career to become a Free Spirit, Sally, who has waved goodbye to her indifferent husband and two grown-up children, and Anastasia: defiantly independent narrow-boat-dweller, suddenly vulnerable as she awaits a life-saving operation. Inexperienced and ill-equipped, Sally and Eve embark upon a journey through the canals of England, guided by the remote and unsympathetic Anastasia.

Calico Road runs through a tiny Lancashire hamlet up on the edge of the moors, miles from anywhere. Its folk are an independent breed - and in 1827 they are a thorn in the side of the vicious mill owner in the valley below. Toby Fletcher's father ignored his bastard son while alive. Now Toby is the new owner of the rambling old inn, an unwitting keeper of its secrets. Then Meg Staley comes to Calico - a woman who was strong enough to survive one tragedy but found it harder to withstand a second blow.

Edgewood Rectory may be set in an ancient landscape, but the Grantly family are very much of their time. Caught up in the uncertain world that has emerged since the outbreak of peace, the Rector and Mrs Grantly are bewildered by the challenges facing their eldest children: Eleanor, longing for more excitement than can be found in the Red Cross Library; and Tom, struggling to readjust to student life at Oxford after his military service.

This is the sequel to Freckles - the moving story of a young girl whose kindness and wholesome philosophy brightens the lives of everyone she meets.

The five young March sisters grew up on the East Coast during the American Civil War. Although they had very different personalities, their strong bond connected them as sisters throughout their childhoods and into their adult lives. They relied on one another as they faced struggles of growing up during the war and as they grew into young women.

Read by Geraldine McEwan. This classic story has been loved by millions of children since it was first published over 40 years ago.The doorbell rings just as Sophie and her mummy are sitting down to tea. Who could it possibly be? What they certainly don't expect to see at the door is a big furry, stripy tiger!

When Arkady Petrovich returns home from college, his father finds his eager, naïve son changed almost beyond recognition, for the impressionable Arkady has fallen under the powerful influence of the friend he has brought home with him. A self-proclaimed nihilist, the ardent young Bazarov shocks Arkady's father with his determination to overthrow the traditional values of society. Vividly capturing the hopes and fears of a changing Russia in the 19th century, Fathers and Sons is Ivan Turgenev's masterpiece. Please note: This audiobook is in Russian.

This is the charming, human account of the adventures of lovely, wealthy Rose Campbell as she grows into young womanhood. Rose's greatest attraction undoubtedly is that she's such a real girl. She has her trials and disappointments, her temptations and failures. But with the aid of loving counsel and a level head she manages to turn out into a thoroughly lovable, admirable woman.

Some of the most famous children's tales to be enjoyed by the whole family.