Showing results by narrator "Pippa Bennett-Warner" in All Categories

Zadie Smith's White Teeth is a classic international best seller and an unforgettable portrait of London. One of the most talked about fictional debuts ever, White Teeth is a funny, generous, big-hearted novel, adored by critics and readers alike. Dealing - among many other things - with friendship, love, war, three cultures and three families over three generations, one brown mouse and the tricky way the past has of coming back and biting you on the ankle, it is a life-affirming, riotous must-listen.

Dazzlingly energetic and deeply human, Swing Time is a story about friendship and music and true identity, how they shape us and how we can survive them. Moving from Northwest London to West Africa, it is an exuberant dance to the music of time. Two brown girls dream of being dancers - but only one, Tracey, has talent. The other has ideas: about rhythm and time, about black bodies and black music, what constitutes a tribe or makes a person truly free.

Taken from the poverty of her parents' home in Portsmouth, Fanny Price is brought up with her rich cousins at Mansfield Park, acutely aware of her humble rank, and with her cousin Edmund Bertram as her sole ally. When her uncle Sir Thomas Birtram travels to Antigua, siblings Mary and Henry Crawford arrive in the neighbourhood, bringing with them the glamour of London life and a reckless taste for flirtation. 

The narrator of Assembly is a Black British woman. She is preparing to attend a lavish garden party at her boyfriend's family estate, set deep in the English countryside. At the same time, she is considering the carefully assembled pieces of herself. As the minutes tick down and the future beckons, she can't escape the question: is it time to take it all apart? 

1539. Anne of Cleves wins the dangerous prize of becoming Henry VIII’s fourth wife. From the start, Anne’s royal blood, education and fierce intelligence count for nothing as the king pursues young Katherine Howard. Katherine is a pawn in the political manoeuvres of her ambitious family; unprepared for the dangers that await, she steps into their trap. At her side is kinswoman Jane Boleyn, who has served - and betrayed - one queen already: her sister-in-law Anne, who died on Henry’s scaffold. Will Jane betray a second queen to the headsman?  

The revolutionary writings of Audre Lorde gave voice to those 'outside the circle of this society's definition of acceptable women'. Uncompromising, angry and yet full of hope, this collection of her essential prose - essays, speeches, letters, interviews - explores race, sexuality, poetry, friendship, the erotic and the need for female solidarity and includes her landmark piece 'The Master's Tools Will Never Dismantle the Master's House'.

On Brazzaville Beach, on the edge of Africa, Hope Clearwater ponders the strange circumstances that led her to leave her husband, John, and his mathematical obsessions in England and venture to Africa to help world-renowned scientist Eugene Mallabar with his studies of wild chimps. But the more Hope studies Mallabar, the more she comes to believe that something isn't right. That behind Mallabar and his obsessive work there lies another more sinister truth: one that might also help explain Hope's reasons for leaving England.

It's 2116, and Bernard Marx and Helmholtz Watson are token rebels in an irretrievably corrupted society where promiscuity is the norm, eugenics a respectable science, and morality turned upside down. There is no poverty, crime or sickness - but no creativity, art or culture either. Human beings are merely docile citizens: divided into castes, brainwashed and controlled by the state and dependent on the drug soma for superficial gratification.

Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tennessee Williams is one of the three most important American dramatists of the 20th century, alongside Arthur Miller and Eugene O'Neill. Acclaimed for their lyrical language, dark themes and vivid portrayal of the American South, his works have spawned several Oscar-winning films and been translated and performed worldwide. Collected here are some of the best, beginning with the play that launched Williams' career: The Glass Menagerie. 

One of the great Jacobean playwrights and a contemporary of William Shakespeare, John Webster is best known for his classic revenge tragedies based on real events in Renaissance Italy, The Duchess of Malfi and The White Devil. Both are included here, along with two insightful programmes putting the plays in their historical context and probing the life of their mysterious author - a shadowy character about whom very little is known.

The books that make up the life and times of Maya Angelou are some of the best, most beautiful and haunting pieces of autobiography written. They run the gamut from life affirming to tragedy and back again with a tone that is a joyous, direct and searingly honest and are an extraordinary portrait of 20th century black America.

A princess, a traitor, a soldier, a hunter and a thief. Five teenagers with the fate of the world in their hands. Five nations destined for conflict. As alliances shift and shatter and old certainties are overturned, our five heroes find their past lives transformed and their futures inextricably linked by the unpredictable tides of magic and war. Who will rise and who will fall? And who will claim the ultimate prize?

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Feminists Don't Wear Pink (and Other Lies) curated and read by Scarlett Curtis with a cast of fierce women. We asked 52 women: what does the F word mean to you? The result is extraordinary. Curated by journalist and activist Scarlett Curtis, with incredible pieces by Emma Watson, Zoe Sugg, Keira Knightley, Gemma Arterton, Bridget Jones (by Helen Fielding), Saoirse Ronan, Liv Little, Dolly Alderton, Karen Gillan, Alicia Garza, Jameela Jamil, Kat Dennings, Nimco Ali, Beanie Feldstein, Olivia Perez, Amika George, Evanna Lynch, Akilah Hughes and others.

London, 1946. Struggling to cope with the idea of raising her daughter in a hostile environment, African Caribbean nurse Hope makes the difficult decision to entrust her precious baby to her best friend, Eunice, to take back home to Antigua. But their plan goes disastrously wrong. In the decades that follow, all of them will witness - and play a part in - the seismic changes rocking the British Isles, as the old establishment crumbles, immigration builds and the country adjusts to the realities of a post-war, post-colonial future.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Twelve Angels Weeping written and read by Dave Rudden, with additional narration from Pippa Bennett-Warner and Nicholas Briggs. On every planet that has existed or will exist, there is a winter.... Many of the peoples of Old Earth celebrated a winter festival. A time to huddle together against the cold; a time to celebrate being halfway out of the dark. But shadows are everywhere, and there are some corners of the universe which have bred the most terrible things, lurking in the cold between the stars. 

After narrowly escaping the fall of Rossarb, Princess Catherine leads a rag-tag group of survivors into the barren wasteland of the Northern Plateau. With the Brigantine army snapping at their heels, Edyon and Ambrose become separated from the group, while demon hunter Tash leads Catherine and March to an unlikely refuge - the hidden tunnels of the demon world itself.

A companion: explores time and space with the Doctor, gets into trouble with the Doctor, fights enemies with the Doctor...and - more often than not - has to save his life. Here are four fantastic new adventures with the Doctor, starring Rose, Sarah-Jane, Clara and Bill.

A deliciously black satirical comedy about the dinner party from hell. The fastidious host, Paige, decides to throw a dinner party in honour of her husband, Lars, who is celebrating the success of his pop psychology book, Beyond Belief. She carefully plans a surprise menu that will mark the occasion and anxiously checks with the waiter she has employed to make sure that everything is perfectly prepared. Her lucky guests include a postfeminist vegetarian artist, a distinguished microbiologist, a TV journalist and an uninvited guest who ends up staying for dinner. But it soon becomes apparent that the meal may contain some rather nasty surprises....

Allie Esiri’s anthology, A Poet for Every Day of the Year, is the perfect introduction to 366 of the world’s greatest ever verse writers. Perfect for listening and sharing with all the family, it is bursting at the seams with familiar favourites and exciting new discoveries. Shakespeare, William Wordsworth, Christina Rossetti and Emily Bronte sit alongside Roger McGough, Wendy Cope, Imtiaz Dharker, Leonard Cohen, Sylvia Plath and Ocean Vuong.

Brighton Beach, 1993. Teenagers Nell and Jude find the body of a young woman, and when no one comes to claim her, she becomes known as the Brighton Mermaid. Nell is still struggling to move on when, three weeks later, Jude disappears. Twenty-five years on, Nell is forced to quit her job to find out who the Brighton Mermaid really was - and what happened to her best friend that summer. But as Nell edges closer to the truth, dangerous things start to happen. Someone seems to be watching her every move, and soon she starts to wonder who in her life she can actually trust....