Audio books

John Lennon was well into a career as a non-Beatle long before the quartet was officially dissolved in 1971. Five years earlier, he’d met Yoko Ono, a Japanese-American ‘concept artist’ who was to become his second wife. She also replaced Paul McCartney as his creative partner, beginning when she and Lennon filled a trilogy of albums with sounds not usually regarded as musical. Saying things most people didn’t want to hear, the pair made their headline-hogging lives an open and ludicrous book with many bewildering public pranks. Nevertheless, taped at one of their ‘Bed-Ins’ was John’s ‘Give Peace A Chance’, a singalong anthem released as - so he put it - ‘an escape valve from The Beatles’.

Lennon’s eponymous debut solo album was the cathartic result of Primal Scream therapy under psychologist Dr Arthur Janov. This was evidenced in its personal exorcisms (eg ‘Mother’ and ‘Isolation’) as well as its stark rejection of former heroes - notably in ‘God’ - and a projection of himself as a ‘Working Class Hero’....

"A pleasure for Beatles fans." Daily Mail

"Clayson's knowledge of the period is unparalleled and always unerringly accurate." Q

"As detailed about the subject as anything else ever published." Beatles Monthly

The late George Harrison’s last willing burst of public activity began in 1991, when, alongside Eric Clapton, he undertook a tour of Japan. He was in excellent form, as evidenced on a subsequent live album.

There was to be no tailing off in quality either during what amounted to his only full-scale UK show as an ex-Beatle, when he headlined an extravaganza at London’s Royal Albert Hall to raise funds for the Natural Law Party in the run-up to 1992’s General Election. Its finale was ‘Roll Over Beethoven’, one of George’s lead vocals on 1963’s With The Beatles.

Always it boiled down to The Beatles, who - Harrison once suggested - were an English grammar-school interpretation of rock ’n’ roll. His 15-year-old self, however, had filed out on his last day at Liverpool Institute High School For Boys in 1958, with no academic qualifications whatsoever, to start work as a trainee electrician. Also in that year, he passed through the ranks of several short-lived skiffle groups before joining The Quarry Men, the outfit that mutated into The Beatles....

"A pleasure for Beatles fans." Daily Mail

"Clayson's knowledge of the period is unparalleled and always unerringly accurate." Q

"As detailed about the subject as anything else ever published." Beatles Monthly

Paul McCartney’s career as an ex-Beatle became tangible in 1970 with an eponymous solo album, praised for its sketchy charm. Ram and - also in 1971 - Wild Life were almost as slap-dash. In keeping with this production criterion, Wings - McCartney’s new group, with his wife Linda on rudimentary keyboards - trekked across Britain and Europe for mainly casual, unannounced engagements before the issue of four contrasting singles: ‘Give Ireland Back To The Irish’ (after the ‘Bloody Sunday’ incident in Londonderry), ‘Mary Had A Little Lamb (yes, the nursery rhyme), Hi Hi Hi (banned by the BBC for sexual innuendo) and the syrupy ‘My Love’ from 1973’s Red Rose Speedway. A reflection of the growing McCartney family’s rural contentment, this offering confirmed that, despite his still-agile bass playing, Paul’s wispy capacity for what John Lennon as derided as ‘granny music’ was bottomless....

"A pleasure for Beatles fans." Daily Mail

"Clayson's knowledge of the period is unparalleled and always unerringly accurate." Q

"As detailed about the subject as anything else ever published." Beatles Monthly

The ‘straightest’ Beatle, Ringo Starr might have returned to comparative anonymity when the group sundered in 1970. Instead, his discs often outsold concurrent offerings by his former colleagues - and he was the only ex-Beatle to make sustained headway in films.

During the hiatus before The Beatles’ dissolution, Starr recorded Sentimental Journey, an album of pre-rock ‘n’ roll favourites. At a loss afterwards, he flew to Nashville to begin what became Beaucoups Of Blues. The completion of this quota of new country-and-western songs renewed Ringo’s confidence as a composer himself. However, after he wrote his maiden solo single, ‘It Don’t Come Easy’, some alleged that its follow-up, the repetitive ‘Back Off Boogaloo’, was ghosted by T Rex’s Marc Bolan, subject of Born To Boogie, Starr’s debut as a movie director....

"A pleasure for Beatles fans." Daily Mail

"Clayson's knowledge of the period is unparalleled and always unerringly accurate." Q

"As detailed about the subject as anything else ever published." Beatles Monthly

Duration: 165 minutes (approx) - text abridged for audio use

Ben Elton performs his hilarious new novel This Other Eden

 

If the end of the world is nigh, then surely it’s only sensible to make alternative arrangements. Certainly the Earth has its points, but what most people need is something smaller and more manageable. Of course there are those who say that’s planetary treason, but who cares what the weirdos and terrorists think? Not Nathan. All he cares is that his movie gets made and there’s somebody left to see it.

 

The Untold Story Of Their Entangles Lives

No one laughed more loudly than the King himself when the Beatles' manager, Brian Epstein, boasted 'My boys are going to be bigger than Elvis Presley'. It was the early sixties, and Presley, a living legend, appeared unassailable. Yet, in 1964, John, Paul, George and Ringo suddenly topped the American charts - and Beatlemania rolled the King in the greatest rock coup of all time.

Chris Hutchins, then a music journalist in his early twenties,was at the eye of the hurricane as the Beatles swept all before them. No other writer grew as close to the Fab Four from Liverpool as they conquered the world.

As America turned on to the Beatles in a big way during their 1965 tour, Chris Hutchins used his extensive network of connections to mastermind the greatest rock summit meeting ever: a one-and-only rendezvous between the King and the pretenders who were seizing his throne.

With co-author Peter Thompson, Hutchins draws on his own exclusive sources and unpublished personal archives, as well as FBI files and explosive dossiers from the District Attorney's investigators in Memphis, to probe into the greatest rock story never told - one in which the lives of Elvis Presley and the Beatles became dramatically entwined. They reveal the passions and the powerplay, the corruption and the conspiracies, the vendettas and the vanity behind pop-culture's greatest phenomena.

No book has ever penetrated so deeply into the secret worlds of Elvis and the Beatles. This is the graphic, firsthand account of the ambition, lust and greed that drove the most gilded icons in pop history to the very peak of the mountain. And of the dark and dangerous forces that destroyed them.

Duration: 5 hours 45 minutes

It’s easy to become disheartened when your planet has been demolished for an unnecessary express route, the woman you love has vanished in a misunderstanding about the nature of space/time, the spaceship in which you are travelling crashed in flames on a remote and Bob-fearing planet, and all you have to fall back on are a few simple sandwich-making skills.

 

However, instead of becoming disheartened, Arthur Dent makes the terrible mistake of starting to enjoy life a bit and immediately all hell breaks loose.

 

Audio snapshots - from Elvis himself and from the people who knew him

Duration: 60 minutes (approx)

The ultimate Elvis documentary packed with exclusive, new material

 

Elvis lives again, in this intimate audio profile

 

You’ve seen the photos, read the books, and made the music a part of your life. Now relive the legend that is Elvis Presley by listening to the incredible story of his phenomenal career - in the words and voice of Elvis himself and those of the people who know him best.

 

Drawing on extensive archives, Elvis: An Audio Scrapbook takes you back in time to hear again the many unforgettable turning points in Elvis’s life in the spotlight - from his meteoric rise to his tragic death.

 

This is a unique treasury of ‘audio snapshots’ that portray the man and the magic of Elvis.

 

Recorded at the Sayles Hall, Brown University, Providence, Rhode Island on 15th April 1988

1. Give Me Some Abuse, 2. The Dangerous Sports Club, 3. The Winter Sports Event, 4. Catapulting, 5. The Bungee Jump, 6. Adventure Movie, 7. Keith Moon, 8. The 'Shitties' Game, 9. A Bottle Of Gin, 10. Exploding Door, 11. Censorship, 12. What Is Your Favourite Colour?, 13. Coconuts, 14. Full Frontal Nudity, 15. Favourite Scenes, 16. Monty Python Casting, 17. Terry Gilliam, 18. How The Pythons Met, 19. Improvisation, 20. Life Of Brian, 21. Hell Fire And Damnation, 22. Oscar Wilde, 23. Thankyou And Goodnight

Duration: 74 minutes

For most of his professional career, Graham Chapman was known by his fellow Pythons as ‘He-who-sat-quietly-at-meetings-half-clothed-and-smoked-his-pipe’. So it came as a great surprise to them when, in the mid-80’s, he seemed to suddenly awake from his self-imposed catatonia and take to the stage, armed with only a microphone and his memories, and deliver hilarious and sharply-focused monologues.

 

This particular show finds Graham in an expansive mood, obviously at home on the stage, and at ease with himself. He is frank and funny (and frankly funny) about his struggles with alcohol, his homosexuality, his fellow Pythons and his life. As you listen to this recording, you will sense Graham’s growing pride and confidence as he talks about his plans for the future. And you will feel a twinge of sadness as you realise that he would never live to see any of them come to fruition. For, although he didn’t know it, Graham was already suffering from the cancer that would eventually claim his life, in October 1989.

 

But to dwell on that horrid fact is to do a disservice to him. Graham was a man who appreciated sentiment, but hated sentimentality. He wasn’t smiling on the outside while crying on the inside. So listen and enjoy and marvel instead at a man - a true loon - who lived his life as if on a tightrope, unafraid to fall and yet unwilling to climb down. It’s an unflinching portrait of a man who faced life head-on - clothing optional.

 

As Peter Sellers’ close friend and confidant over many years actor Graham Stark is in the unique position to record the real story of the man as well as the actor. Graham Stark appeared in thirteen films with Peter Sellers, including all the legendary Pink Panther movies, and their close personal and professional relationship led to the many extraordinary adventures chronicled in this lively and entertaining recording.

 

From the public house in London, where the Goon Shows were born, to the exclusive Sardi’s restaurant in New York where Sellers was the toast of the town; from the golden days of radio and variety to the truth behind his involvements with some of the world’s most glamorous women, this warm and intimate memoir is packed with personal anecdotes which reveal the many and often surprising sides of the chameleon Sellers, whose own character was as complex and diverse as the legendary screen characters he created.

 

Including a limited edition booklet containing rare photographs taken by he author, this candid account of a friendship which lasted from their first meeting in the RAF in 1945 to Sellers’ death in 1980, documents the life and times of a true comic genius.

As Peter Sellers’ close friend and confidant over many years actor Graham Stark is in the unique position to record the real story of the man as well as the actor. Graham Stark appeared in thirteen films with Peter Sellers, including all the legendary Pink Panther movies, and their close personal and professional relationship led to the many extraordinary adventures chronicled in this lively and entertaining recording.

 

From the public house in London, where the Goon Shows were born, to the exclusive Sardi’s restaurant in New York where Sellers was the toast of the town; from the golden days of radio and variety to the truth behind his involvements with some of the world’s most glamorous women, this warm and intimate memoir is packed with personal anecdotes which reveal the many and often surprising sides of the chameleon Sellers, whose own character was as complex and diverse as the legendary screen characters he created.

 

Including a limited edition booklet containing rare photographs taken by he author, this candid account of a friendship which lasted from their first meeting in the RAF in 1945 to Sellers’ death in 1980, documents the life and times of a true comic genius.

Graham Stark the youngest of three brothers was born in Wallasey, Merseyside in 1922. He made his first stage appearance at the age of 10 at Wallasey Grammar School. Graham’s first professional engagement was in pantomime at the Lyceum Theatre London, 1935, aged 13 years. In 1939 Graham enrolled into RADA and made his first movie appearance in ‘The Spy in Black’ which starred Conrad Veidt.

 

During the war years after volunteering for the RAF, Graham joined Ralph Reader’s RAF ‘Gang Show’ and thereafter entertained the troops in all theatres of war around the world, along with his fellow airmen Peter Sellers, Tony Hancock and Dick Emery, et al. Graham’s close friendship with Peter Sellers lasted until Peter’s untimely death in 1980. After the war Graham went on to make his name and appear in Theatre, Radio, Television and film.

 

Graham has appeared in 99 films and has also directed 2 films; ‘Simon Simon’ (British entry San Sebastian Film Festival 1970) and ‘The Magnificent Seven Deadly Sins’. Graham was also awarded the ‘Outspan Oscar’ for the best comic in summer season 1954.

As Peter Sellers' close friend and confidant over many years actor Graham Stark is in the unique position to record the real story of the man as well as the actor. Graham Stark appeared in thirteen films with Peter Sellers, including all the legendary Pink Panther movies, and their close personal and professional relationship led to the many extraordinary adventures chronicled in this lively and entertaining recording.

From the public house in London, where the Goon Shows were born, to the exclusive Sardi's restaurant in New York where Sellers was the toast of the town; from the golden days of radio and variety to the truth behind his invlovements with some of the world's most glamourous women, this warm and intimate memoir is packed with personal anecdotes which reveal the many and often surprising sides of the chameleon Sellers, whose own character was as complex as the legendary screen characters he created.

Now available in an abridged form on Compact Disc, this candid account of a friendship which lasted from their first meeting in the RAF in 1945 to Sellers' death in 1980, documents the life and times of a true comic genius.

A compelling story of one man's fight against corruption, set against the backdrop of the worldwide Mafia network. Stretching its tentaclesever wider, the Mafia controls a vast, global drug trade that reaches into every corner of society. Through the empire, the men and women who run today's organised crime not only operate the shadowy governments of many countries, but reach into the respectable world of finance, banking and Wall Street, devouring the savings of innocent people in pursuit of power and wealth. With a huge cast of characters, The Piranhas tells the story of the Mafia's unending greed and amorality and of one man's struggle, heroically, to swim against the tide.

Duration: 180 minutes - Abridged for Audio

8 STORIES: Mother Goose, The Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Puss In Boots, Toads And Diamonds, Cinderella, Ricky The Tuft, Little Thumbling

Duration: 2 hours (approx)

8 STORIES: The Tinderbox, The Ugly Duckling, The Fir Tree, Thumbelina, The Emperor's New Clothes, The Princess And The Pea, The Little Tin Soldier, The Little Mermaid

Duration: 2 hours (approx)

8 STORIES: The Goose Girl, Rumplestiltskin, Rapunzel, The Frog Prince, Snow White, The Fisherman & His Wife, Simeli Mountain, Hansel And Gretel

Duration: 2 hours (approx)

7 STORIES: The Flying Ship, The Frog Princess, The Strange Bridegroom, The Salt Mountain, The Little Duck, The Dragon Slayer, The Little Scarlet Flower

Duration: 2 hours (approx)

5 STORIES: The Nutcracker, The Little Fir Tree, Baboushka, The Good King, The Elves And The Shoemaker

Duration: 2 hours (approx)

8 STORIES: The Emperor's Dream, The Flight From Troy, Aeneas And Dido, The End Of The Voyage, Romulus And Remus, The Sabine Women, The Rock Of Tarpeia, How The Geese Saved Rome