“While I was researching Outcast, I spent time around Lake Storsjön in northern Sweden. There I was lucky enough to hear elk bellowing as I wandered the springtime forest, and to find a whole clearing and dam system made by beavers. I also got muzzle to muzzle with some elk at an elk refuge, including some adorable five-day-old calves and a mournful yearling who’d just been abandoned by his truly enormous mother.

To get the feel of snakes, I met some at Longleat where I handled a very beautiful cornsnake and two regal, curious and extremely strong royal pythons. I hadn’t understood just how beautiful and fascinating snakes can be until I held one, and felt the flicker of her tongue on my face as she inspected me.”

The nation's favourite, adrenaline junkie, T.V. personality, sex symbol and car crash survivor, returns to tell all in his first biography.

Touching on the momentous moment he nearly died, with his wife, Mindy, picking up the story at the times he was unable, Richard moves on quickly to weave in hilarious early memories, stunts and dodgy haircuts, with the wry, humour and honesty that we have all come to love.

Orion Audiobooks were delighted when they got rights to publish the first abridged versions of Miss Read’s classic Chronicles of Fairacre. The author also invited them into her home for an exclusive interview.

Listen to Miss Read talking about her beloved Fairacre and Thrush Green novels and English rural life.

“Hitchens adopts a calm, mannered reading style – as if intent on exuding rationality and reason and avoiding the unabashed zeal of the religious fanatics he is so scathing about. An elegant burst of opening Mozart piano sonata sets this purportedly unruffled tone.

But Hitchens’ fury radiates through his words. For him, all religion ‘...is violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry...’ This discrepancy between narration style and content creates a peculiar tension. A fascinating listen.” Financial Times

A new edition of Dead Souls, the 10th Inspector Rebus novel, read by Bill Paterson and featuring an exclusive introduction read by Ian Rankin. Also see the Rebus Box Set with over 38 hours of listening.

Sally Gardner’s parents were both lawyers – her mother was the second-ever woman judge – and she grew up in 4 Raymond Buildings, Grays Inn, where Dickens once worked as a clerk. Here the streets were still lit with gas-lamps, and when the fog came down, the past seemed only a fingertip away. Surrounded by so much history and so many stories, it is not surprising that she chose to set her first novel, I, Coriander, in Seventeenth Century London. She won Nestle Children’s Book Award for this book.

Sally has severe dyslexia, which was not diagnosed until she was 12. She did not learn to read or write until she was 14, by which time she had been thrown out of several schools, told she had a brain like a sieve, was classed as unteachable and sent to a school for maladjusted children. Despite this she gained a first class degree at Central St Martin’s School of Art and then won an Arts Council scholarship to the University Theatre in Newcastle. At the tender age of 22, she designed her first West End show, The Good Woman of Szechuan at the Royal Court, and went on to work with, among others, Alan Ayckbourn, Derek Jacobi, Frances de la Tour and Robert Stephens. Although she was a successful set designer, she was hampered by her dyslexia, and it was this that led her to specialize in costume design where it was less noticeable.

Sally had been telling stories all her life, but had never thought it possible to write about them, believing that only people who knew grammar and spelling could call themselves writers. But after the birth of her twin daughters and a son, she decided to start illustrating and an extraordinary thing happened. She was fortunate enough to meet a publisher who saw no problem with her being dyslexic, and realised that Sally had a voice and stories to tell, first through drawing, then, with encouragement, through words. She says, “I feel it is a miracle that through all this I have found that my greatest love is writing, and that in a world where words are king, dyslexia, far from being a handicap, was to prove the making of me.” Sally sees dyslexia as a gift and as the key to creativity.

Sally lives London and has three grown-up children. Her second novel, The Red Necklace is set during the French Revolution, its sequel is due for publication in Autumn 2008.

Now the clocks have gone back and the nights are drawing in, it's only a matter of time before we see some proper snow! Horrid Henry likes the snow, especially when he gets to throw a giant snowball right in Moody Margaret's face! In Horrid Henry and the Abominable Snowman, he battles against Moody Margaret to see who can build the biggest and beastliest snowman.

Horrid Henry's creator, Francesca Simon, grew up in Los Angeles in the USA, where its always nice and sunny so there wasn't much snow to make snowmen with. Francesca now lives in London with her husband and sun, and has made plenty of snowmen since!

Following his bestselling autobiography, Mustn't Grumble, in 2006, Terry Wogan returns with a chronicle of bemusings about the twelve months from August 2006 to July 2007.

The Rebus audio box set contains the first 10 audiobooks in the Rebus series, all with brand new introductions written and read by Ian Rankin. This 32 CD box set has over 38 hours of listening and a Rebus souvenir beer mat.

Exit Music is the brilliant new Rebus novel from the master of British crime.

With the launch of The Roman Mysteries on TV, a new direction was decided for the audiobooks of the series.

“I first heard Nigel Anthony while visiting my sister in California a year or so ago. She was listening to him reading the audiobook of Ruth Rendell's The Rottweiler. I said to myself, if they ever resume the audiobooks, I want HIM! A year later I was invited to submit names for a new reader and my first choice was Nigel. Joy of joys! He was available! I went into the studio earlier this week to meet him and hear him read. He is wonderful! I could listen to him all day long. You are really going to enjoy his renditions of my books.”

Caroline Lawrence, 8 June 2006

Translated into Braille so that the remarkable Sharon Neill would be able to read her own words for the audio, this is a captivating account of one of the most trusted psychics in the UK.

Watch an interview with Nick Griffiths
author of Dalek I Loved You

With an update from Duncan Bannatyne about his new successes since writing the hardback, this audiobook has plenty to keep budding entrepreneurs – or those who merely want to hear how he managed it all – interested and impressed!

Specially selected by the author, the ten stories on this CD (Waterstones Audiobook of the month in April 2007) are brought to vivid life by the author as well as the talents of Paul McGann and Clive Mantle.

“Although I had almost lived at our local public library, I had never had a thought of writing a book and only began my writing career when the youngest of our four children went off to university. I'd always wanted to be a teacher.”

“Fishing is an act of faith – or it jolly well is in this country! If you go to Russia or Alaska you can’t avoid catching salmon every 10 minutes, but in this country you can’t see the fish a lot of the time. It might be there or it might be 10 miles away, but you fish away anyway.”

Salmon Fishing in the Yemen is the first audiobook which OrionAudio are producing in a multi-voice format, and as both abridged and unabridged audio. With a stellar cast – John Sessions, Samantha Bond, Fenella Woolgar, Andrew Sachs and Andrew Marr to name a few. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen by Paul Torday promises to be one of the stand out audiobooks of 2007.

“When I set out to write, I aim for pure balls-to-the-wall adventure, pure escape and entertainment. I follow the three M’s of storytelling: murder, magic, and mayhem. But with that said, I don’t think any adventure story will work unless you do indeed engage the reader on a level deeper than pure popcorn-entertainment. He/She must care about the characters or why join you on this journey? I strongly believe that character and plot must be tightly interwoven, especially in adventure fiction. One will not work without the other.”

From www.jamesrollins.com

Working closely with the producer to create a spiritual guide – including a specially formulated lectio divina featuring music from the monks of Worth Abbey – for those wishing to find sanctuary in modern life, Abbot Christopher Jamison’s reading of his work is inspiring, caring, and draws the reader down the spiritual path he lays out.

“I always wanted to illustrate children's books and I always told stories, but I honestly never thought it would be possible to write a book because of my dyslexia.”

With an exclusive author interview by Paul Blezard, this audio, read by 'Sir Terry' as he insists on his family calling him, has that little something extra.