Showing results by narrator "Adjoa Andoh" in All Categories

Jude lives in a henhouse with no roof, in the bankrupt Republic of Squanderland. Purchased for ten million euro at the height of the credit bubble, his henhouse has been rated the asset in Europe most likely to default. To solve this small but symbolic problem and restore confidence in the markets, Europe's leaders need a plan. Sadly, putting a roof on Jude's henhouse quickly escalates out of control. Soon they are committed to building a roof over the entire country, half a mile above the startled voters...

Meet Cloe Zhivago, 43 and definitely not counting. Married for what feels like all eternity to Greg, who tests his memory by hiding the kettle from himself in the drum of the washing machine, Chloe is a successful psychotherapist with two children and a Famous Friend from hell. She's got it all. So why does she want to rub her life out and start again? "Is this it?" she asks herself. "Will I never sleep with another man again?"

Three stories that explore the most evocative experience of summer - outdoor swimming. 'To Brixton Beach': A mysterious swimmer spends all day in the pool at Brockwell Lido. Written by Stella Duffy. Read by Adjoa Andoh. 'Lido Lover': An Englishwoman finds a kind of fulfilment on the Venetian Lido. Written by Michele Roberts. Read by Joanna Tope. 'The Horizon Pool': An unexpected swimming companion in the UK's northernmost outdoor pool - the Trinkie in Wick - may hold the key to recovery for a teenage boy. Written by Linda Cracknell. Read by Finn den Hertog.

Finnish teen eco-blogger, Ulli Earthgirl, wins a competition to join a low-carbon expedition to the North Pole by foot, to measure the melting ice. Blogging her way across the Arctic, she has to navigate deadly cracks in the ice, as well as the treacherous currents of environmental controversy in the blogosphere. Soon she's afloat in both worlds, as all her certainties begin to dissolve.

Ralph, Marnie and Oliver once knew each other as childhood friends. Now they meet again in Ralph's secluded cottage to share the precious days that Ralph has left.

In Jackie Kay’s first collection of stories, ordinary lives are transformed by secrets. Her world might seem familiar – sex, death and family cast long shadows – but the roles of mothers, daughters and lovers are imagined and revealed in the most surprising of ways. Jackie Kay sees the extraordinary in everyday life, and lights it up with humour and generosity in a way that is uniquely her own.

In these delightfully humorous tales of a decidedly blackish hue, 10 follysome toads can never change their beastly habits despite the efforts of goodly witch Madame Rana, who reminds them it's never too late to change. The Toad with Square Eyes develops mutant thumbs and fingers and finds himself on the other side of the screen; Cherry Oddfellow, the Dirty Little Toad, is part girl, part mudslide; and Jeremiah Bratson, the Spoiled Little Toad, finds himself face-to-face with a perfect robot replica.

Once upon a time, Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories - fantastical yarns of wondrous creatures in faraway places-bewitched children across the world. But times change. Today, Kipling's writing tells us a different tale; of a love of Empire, and the troubling legacy of British colonialism. In Not So Stories, writers of colour from around the world reclaim these stories and remake them into something new. Something different.

Alone Together: Love, Grief, and Comfort During the Time of COVID-19 is a collection of essays, poems, and interviews to serve as a lifeline for negotiating how to connect and thrive during this stressful time of isolation as well as a historical perspective that will remain relevant for years to come.

The eagerly anticipated follow-up to Fantastically Great Women Who Changed the World. Overflowing with wonderfully engaging facts, vibrant music and sound effects, it is a celebration of just some of the inspirational women who put their mark on the world we live in. Prepare to be inspired. List of women featured: Elizabeth Blackwell, Qiu Jin, Boudicca, Flora Drummond, Pocahontas, Noor Inayat Khan, Harriet Tubman, Valentina Tereshkova, Ada Lovelace, Sayyida al-Hurra, Hatshepsut, Josephine Baker, Mary Wollstonecraft and Mary Shelley.

Discover eye-opening facts about a collection of go-getting women who have pioneered careers in a kaleidoscope of different industries. Prepare yourself for a celebration of women who opened doors and made it possible for more women to achieve amazing things today. List of women featured: Junko Tabei, Sophie Blanchard, Maria Merian, Elizabeth Magie, the London Matchgirls, Rosa May Billinghurst, Katherine Johnson, Annette Kellerman, Katia Krafft, Rosalind Franklin, James Barry, Madam C.J. Walker and Lotte Reiniger.

From best-selling author and illustrator Kate Pankhurst, descendant of Emmeline Pankhurst, comes another 'smart, informative, inclusive and accessible' book about trail-blazing women. This time, it's women who have helped protect our natural world from way before it was on a political agenda. Discover their untold stories.

Maya grows up in Germany knowing that her parents are different: from one another, and from the rest of the world. Her reserved, studious father is distant; and her beautiful, volatile mother is a whirlwind, with a penchant for lavish shopping sprees and a mesmerising power for spinning stories of the family’s former glory - of what was had, and what was lost.

The second Civil War, the Sequel, came and went in the United States leaving radiation, sickness, and fractures too deep to mend. One faction, the Homestead Territories, dealt with the devastation by recruiting immigrants from Africa and beginning a new slave trade while the other two factions stood by and watched. Ji-ji Lottermule was bred and raised in captivity on one of the plantations in the Homestead Territories of the Disunited States to serve and breed more “muleseeds." There is only one way out—the annual Freedom Race. First prize, freedom.

Born in Ghana, West Africa, with one deformed leg, he was dismissed by most people - but not by his mother, who taught him to reach for his dreams. As a boy, Emmanuel hopped to school more than two miles each way, learned to play soccer, left home at age 13 to provide for his family, and, eventually, became a cyclist. He rode an astonishing 400 miles across Ghana in 2001, spreading his powerful message: Disability is not inability. Today, Emmanuel continues to work on behalf of the disabled.

Bessie Smith was born in Tennessee in 1894. Orphaned by the age of nine, she sang on street corners before becoming a big name in travelling shows. In 1923 she made her first recording for a new start-up called Columbia Records. It sold 780,000 copies and made her a star. Smith's life was notoriously difficult. As a young black girl growing up in Glasgow, Jackie Kay found in Bessie someone with whom she could identify and who she could idolise. In this remarkable book Kay mixes biography, fiction, poetry and prose to create an enthralling account of an extraordinary life.

Lee Mitchell is a 30-year-old barrister from a working-class Caribbean background: in the cut-throat environment of the courtroom, everything is stacked against her. After she takes on the high-profile case of notorious millionaire playboy Clive Omartian - arrested along with his father and stepbrother for eye-wateringly exorbitant fraud - the line between her personal and professional life becomes dangerously blurred.

Born into slavery on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat, Doll bought her freedom from her Irish planter father and built a legacy of wealth and power as an entrepreneur, merchant, hotelier, and planter that extended from the marketplaces and sugar plantations of Dominica and Barbados to a glittering luxury hotel in Demerara on the South American continent. Vanessa Riley’s novel brings Doll to vivid life as she rises above the harsh realities of slavery and colonialism by working the system and leveraging the competing attentions of the men in her life

Cinders, her talking dog, Sparks, a horse called Mouse, and Hansel (who accidentally - on purpose - ate some of a witch’s gingerbread house) continue their quest to find Fairyland. But even the bravest questers get hungry, and when the quartet stop at a market for lunch, calamity and chaos ensue. Cinders is kidnapped by a greedy goblin, Mouse is turned back into a mouse, and Cinders’ fairy godmother, Brian, pairs up with Prince Joderick to rescue her.

Cinders and her talking dog Sparks are on the run, in the Deep Dark Forest, after Cinders performed magic at the castle and made everyone think she was a witch. The hapless Hansel is on the run with them, but only because he ate some of an actual witch’s gingerbread house and she got cross. If they can reach Fairyland, maybe they’ll all be safe. In the forest they will find three bears, a multitude of ridiculous adventures and one woman called Rapunzel in a tower. But Rapunzel may not be what she seems. Will Hansel eat the three bears’ porridge?