A Very English Pastime and Other Stories
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A Very English Pastime and Other Stories
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Narrated by:
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Jennifer M. Dixon
About this listen
Five excellent short stories all with an intriguing "twist" in their tails!
Expertly written, these shorts will entertain and surprise!
Christopher J. F. Gibson was shortlisted in 2015 for BBC Radio Four Opening Lines Drama award.
©2015 Christopher J. F. Gibson (P)2016 Christopher J. F. GibsonListeners also enjoyed...
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- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 130
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 115
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Story4 out of 5 stars 119
Lionel Asbo, a terrifying yet weirdly loyal thug (self-named after England's notorious "Anti-Social Behaviour Order"), has always looked out for his ward and nephew, the orphaned Desmond Pepperdine. He provides him with fatherly career advice (always carry a knife, for example) and is determined they should share the joys of pit bulls (fed with lots of Tabasco sauce), Internet porn, and all manner of more serious criminality. Des, on the other hand, desires nothing more than books to read and a girl to love .
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4 out of 5 stars
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Jēz...us! Just don't buy it for your Grans.
- By Darwin8u on 01-03-13
By: Martin Amis
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Crooked Heart
- A Novel
- By: Lissa Evans
- Narrated by: Karen Cass
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 127
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 114
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 115
When Noel Bostock - aged 10, no family - is evacuated from London to escape the Nazi bombardment, he lands in a suburb northwest of the city with Vera Sedge - a 36-year-old widow drowning in debts and dependents. Always desperate for money, she's unscrupulous about how she gets it.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Surviving The Blitz In WWII Great Britain
- By Sara on 04-24-16
By: Lissa Evans
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The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel
- A Novel
- By: Deborah Moggach
- Narrated by: Juliet Mills
- Length: 11 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 266
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 231
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Story4 out of 5 stars 230
When Ravi Kapoor, an overworked London doctor, reaches the breaking point with his difficult father-in-law, he asks his wife: “Can’t we just send him away somewhere? Somewhere far, far away.” His prayer is seemingly answered when Ravi’s entrepreneurial cousin sets up a retirement home in India, hoping to re-create in Bangalore an elegant lost corner of England. Several retirees are enticed by the promise of indulgent living at a bargain price, but upon arriving, they are dismayed to find that restoration of the once sophisiticated hotel has stalled....
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3 out of 5 stars
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Screenwriters Changed it for the Better
- By Carole T. on 06-05-12
By: Deborah Moggach
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Single & Single
- By: John le Carré
- Narrated by: Michael Jayston
- Length: 12 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 325
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 290
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 288
A lawyer from the London finance house of Single & Single is shot dead on a Turkish hillside by people with whom he thought he was in business. A children's magician is asked by his bank to explain the unsolicited arrival of more than five million pounds sterling in his young daughter's modest trust. A freighter bound for Liverpool is boarded by Russian coast guards in the Black Sea. The celebrated London merchant venturer "Tiger" Single disappears into thin air.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The spy who came back to the bank
- By Darwin8u on 03-12-14
By: John le Carré
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Trumpet
- By: Jackie Kay
- Narrated by: Cathleen McCarron
- Length: 9 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 73
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 66
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 67
The death of legendary jazz trumpeter Joss Moody exposes an extraordinary secret. Unbeknown to all but his wife Millie, Joss was a woman living as a man. The discovery is most devastating for their adopted son, Colman, whose bewildered fury brings the press to the doorstep and sends his grieving mother to the sanctuary of a remote Scottish village. Winner of the Guardian Fiction Prize, Trumpet by Jackie Kay is a starkly beautiful modern classic about the lengths to which people will go for love.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Beautiful and True
- By Colin on 05-24-17
By: Jackie Kay
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Their Finest
- A Novel
- By: Lissa Evans
- Narrated by: Peter Wickham
- Length: 12 hrs and 46 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 38
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
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Story4 out of 5 stars 35
It is 1940. France has fallen, and only a narrow strip of sea lies between Great Britain and invasion. The war could go either way, and everyone must do their bit. Young copywriter Catrin Cole is drafted into the Ministry of Information to help write women into propaganda films - something that the men aren't very good at. She is quickly seconded to the ministry's latest endeavor: a heartwarming tale of bravery and rescue at Dunkirk. It's all completely fabricated, of course, but what does that matter when the nation's morale is at stake?
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5 out of 5 stars
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Love the "dry" British humor.
- By Colleen Farrar on 04-11-17
By: Lissa Evans
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Behind the Scenes at the Museum
- A Novel
- By: Kate Atkinson
- Narrated by: Pearl Hewitt
- Length: 12 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 475
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 416
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 415
Ruby Lennox begins narrating her life at the moment of conception, and from there takes us on a whirlwind tour of the 20th century as seen through the eyes of an English girl determined to learn about her family and its secrets.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Another Kate Atkinson multi-generational story
- By Satisfied Customer on 11-08-18
By: Kate Atkinson
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Standing by the Wall
- The Collected Slough House Novellas
- By: Mick Herron
- Narrated by: Gerard Doyle
- Length: 8 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 170
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 142
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 142
Espionage. Blackmail. Revenge. Cunning. Slapstick. State secrets dating back to the fall of the Berlin Wall. All this and more in a tight package of five novellas by Mick Herron, CWA Gold Dagger-winning author of Slow Horses.
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5 out of 5 stars
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More Please
- By Katy on 01-27-23
By: Mick Herron
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The Guards
- By: Ken Bruen
- Narrated by: Gerry O'Brien
- Length: 4 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 320
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 280
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Story4 out of 5 stars 280
Still stinging from his unceremonious ouster from the Garda Siochana, and staring at the world through the smoky bottom of his beer mug, Jack Taylor is stuck in Galway with nothing to look forward to. He is teetering on the brink of his life's sharpest edges, his memories of the past cutting deep into his soul and his prospects for the future non-existent.
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5 out of 5 stars
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This is literature, not just crime fiction
- By John on 08-09-13
By: Ken Bruen
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Lights Out Liverpool
- By: Maureen Lee
- Narrated by: Maggie Ollerenshaw
- Length: 13 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 45
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
As Britain stands alone against a monstrous enemy, the inhabitants of Pearl Street face hardship and heartbreak with courage and humour. The war touches each of them in a different way: for Annie Poulson, a widow, it means never-ending worry when her twin boys are called up and sent to France; Sheila Reilly's husband, Cal, faces the terror of U-Boat attacks; Eileen Costello is liberated from a bitter, loveless marriage when her husband is sent to Egypt.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful
- By Tansy Adderley on 10-03-18
By: Maureen Lee
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The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole, Aged 13 3/4
- Adrian Mole, Book 1
- By: Sue Townsend
- Narrated by: Isaac Rouse
- Length: 4 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall0 out of 5 stars 0
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Performance0 out of 5 stars 0
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Story0 out of 5 stars 0
Meet Adrian Mole, a hapless teenager providing an unabashed, pimples-and-all glimpse into adolescent life. Writing candidly about his parents' marital troubles, the dog, his life as a tortured poet and 'misunderstood intellectual', Adrian's painfully honest diary is still hilarious and compelling thirty years after it first appeared.
By: Sue Townsend
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The Irish Inheritance
- Jayne Sinclair Genealogical Mystery Series, Book 1
- By: M. J. Lee
- Narrated by: Lucy Rayner
- Length: 10 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 129
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 111
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Story4 out of 5 stars 110
July 8, 1921. Ireland. A British Officer is shot dead on a remote hillside south of Dublin. November 22, 2015. United Kingdom. Former police detective Jayne Sinclair, now working as a genealogical investigator, receives a phone call from an adopted American billionaire asking her to discover the identity of his real father. How are the two events linked? Jayne Sinclair has only three clues to help her: a photocopied birth certificate, a stolen book, and an old photograph.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Why the foul language?
- By Tim Delaney on 06-19-17
By: M. J. Lee
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East of the Sun
- By: Julia Gregson
- Narrated by: Tania Rodrigues
- Length: 19 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 161
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 112
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Story4 out of 5 stars 113
Autumn 1928. Three young women are on their way to India, each with a new life in mind. Rose, a beautiful but naive bride-to-be, is anxious about leaving her family and marrying a man she hardly knows. Victoria, her bridesmaid couldn't be happier to get away from her overbearing mother, and is determined to find herself a husband. And Viva, their inexperienced chaperone, is in search of the India of her childhood, ghosts from the past and freedom.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Indian history takes a back seat to 3 young women
- By Richard on 05-24-16
By: Julia Gregson