The second of Dickens’ five Christmas novels, The Chimes is filled with an array of comic characters. It tells the story of Toby Veck, a humble porter whose loses his faith in human nature at the hands of his presumed social superiors, but regains it thanks to the spirits of the bells.

Like its predecessor, A Christmas Carol, it carries a heartfelt plea for charity and brotherhood and examines such distressing themes as suicide and infanticide, as well as the question of whether the poor have any right to live at all. The book also continues its predecessor’s vigorous satire on the social injustices of its day, and is perhaps more explicit and confrontational in its approach. The supernatural is also present, this time in the form of the spirits of the bells in a church tower.

In this very funny unabridged audio book The Diary of A Nobody, read by star actor Geoffrey Palmer, we meet Mr Charles Pooter, a city clerk of lower middle-class status but with significant social aspirations.

Realising that his life does not appear to be remarkable enough to attract the attention of a biographer, he decides to jolly well write one for himself.  The result is his hilarious diary detailing his unconscious gaffes and self-importance, as well as the snubs he receives from those he considers socially inferior.

George Grossmith’s description of the seemingly ordinary life of this most wonderful of nobodies is one of the most entertaining and famously funny books in classical literature.

Geoffrey Palmer’s perfectly lugubrious tones make this a dangerous choice for listening to on the train – laughing out load is inevitable!

Download The Diary of a Nobody audiobook today for just £7.95

The hugely popular English actor Geoffrey Palmer reads this superbly funny, agonising account of a very strange childhood.

Probably everyone has a swipe at their parents and the way they were brought up at some point in their lives, very few of us exact revenge to the extent that Edmund Gosse did upon his father.

The subtitle of the book is A Study of Two Temperaments and these were temperaments not destined to get on, Gosse Sr. was an eminent naturalist and zoologist and a keen follower of the Plymouth Brethren. Gosse Jr. had a natural leaning towards the arts and would grow up to be one of Victorian England’s leading literary figures. The battle lines were drawn. Throw into the picture the struggle already taking place within Gosse Sr (and most of the rest of the country) to reconcile his faith with the new Theory of Evolution as expounded by his fellow naturalist Charles Darwin and backed up by his own zoological studies and you have the makings of a seriously entertaining fight..

In this unabridged audio book, star actor Colin Salmon reads one of the most famous children’s stories ever written.   Black Beauty  is the story of the highly spirited and gorgeous black stallion and his transfer from owner to increasingly abusive owner until his final happy rescue.

The book was originally intended to be a campaigning work distributed to those who worked with horses in the middle of the nineteenth century, but has become a firm favourite with children of all ages!

Financier & Money changer, Ebenezer Scrooge, is an old and bitter miser, who has devoted his life to the accumulation of wealth. He holds anything other than money in contempt, including friendship, love and the Christmas season. Over the course of one night he undergoes a profound experience of redemption having been visited first by Marley’s Ghost, then three different spirits who show him how his life could turn out…

First of the five Charles Dickens' Christmas stories, A Christmas Carol deals extensively with two of his recurrent themes, social injustice and poverty, the relationship between the two, and their causes and effects.

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The astonishingly sharp original versions of some of Hans Christian Andersen’s best loved stories are brought vividly to life in this marvellous audio book for download. Classic Fairy Tales such as The Little Mermaid and The Snow Queen are given a glittering reading by Greta Scacchi in this classic and exclusive recording available in MP3 or iPod audiobook format for you to download immediately.