During the Second World War Eric Lomax was forced to work on the notorious Burma-Siam Railway and was tortured by the Japanese for making a crude radio.Left emotionally scarred and unable to form normal relationships, Lomax suffered for years until, with the help of his wife, Patti Lomax, and of the Medical Foundation for the Care of Victims of Torture, he came terms with what happened. Fifty years after the terrible events, he was able to meet one of his tormentors.The...

A naive young man, a railway enthusiast and radio buff, was caught up in the fall of the British Empire at Singapore in 1942. He was put to work on the 'Railway of Death' - the Japanese line from Thailand to Burma. Exhaustively and brutally tortured by the Japanese for making a crude radio, Lomax was emotionally ruined by his experiences. Almost 50 years after the war, however, his life was changed by the discovery that his interrogator, the Japanese interpreter, was still alive - their re...

Now a major film starring Judi Dench and Steve CooganFalling pregnant as a teenager in 1952, Philomena Lee was sent to the convent in Co. Tipperary to be looked after as a fallen woman. She cared for her baby for three years until the Church took him and sold him, like countless others, to America for adoption. She spent the next fifty years secretly searching for him, unaware that he was searching for her from across the Atlantic.A compelling and deeply moving true story o...

The four Latimer sisters were famous throughout New South Wales for their beauty, wit and sisterly love. But then they left home to train as nurses, swapping their feather beds for the bunks of nursing accommodation. And now, as the Depression casts its shadow across Australia, they must confront their own secret desires. Will the sisters find the independence they crave? Or is life - like love - always bittersweet?

A darkly satirical novel of love, revenge, and 1950s haute couture—now a major motion picture starring Kate Winslet, Judy Davis, Liam Hemsworth, and Hugo WeavingAfter twenty years spent mastering the art of dressmaking at couture houses in Paris, Tilly Dunnage returns to the small Australian town she was banished from as a child. She plans only to check on her ailing mother and leave. But Tilly decides to stay, and though she is still an outcast, her lush, exquisit...

**BBC Between the Covers Book Club pick!Set against Iceland's stark landscape, Hannah Kent brings to vivid life the story of Agnes, who is charged with the brutal murder of her former master.Inspired by a true story, Burial Rites is perfect for fans of Alias Grace by Margaret Atwood and The Wonder by Emma Donoghue**- The Women's Prize for Fiction Shortlist- The Guardian First Book Award Shortlist

The unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Anna Funder's All That I Am, a powerful love story that tells the heroic and tragic true story of the German resistance. Read by Judy Bennett and Saul Reichlin.One September morning, elderly Ruth Wesemann wakes to the sound of a parcel being delivered to her door. Inside she finds a tattered little notebook. Opening its delicate pages she meets with a flood of memories...It's 1933 and she is back in...

Now a major motion picture starring Jude Dench, Bill Nighy, Dev Patel, Tom Wilkinson, and Maggie Smith.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. Se...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The “superb [and] intensely readable” (The Washington Post) untold story of one of the greatest deceptions of World War II and the extraordinary spies who achieved it—from the bestselling author of Prisoners of the Castle“Not since Ian Fleming and John le Carré has a spy writer so captivated readers.”—The Hollywood ReporterOn June 6, 1944, 150,000 Allied troops landed on the be...

Farideh's husband is a corporal in the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, entrapped by MI6 for interrogation. His job as a driver to a top general has left him with potentially valuable knowledge, but he won't talk unless Farideh is brought out of Iran. The SAS say it's too dangerous, but the director of the operation doesn't want to lose his prize. He assembles a little team of three ex-soldiers and one student drop-out who knows the language and smuggles them into Tehran…

Maggie Smith stars in this BBC radio adaptation of Alan Bennett's highly acclaimed autobiographical stage playAn eccentric old lady moves into a quiet street in Camden Town. There she remains, installed in her van in glorious self-sufficiency, until the council instructs her to move on. Then a kind homeowner invites her to move her van into his garden – where she stays for the next fifteen years. This is the fascinating story of the genteel vagrant who found a unique place in Alan ...

The last collection of true-life nursing stories from the No.1 bestselling author of the CALL THE MIDWIFE series, soon to be a major BBC TV series.Jennifer Worth's bestselling memoirs of her time as a midwife have inspired and moved readers of all ages.Now, in IN THE MIDST OF LIFE she documents her experiences as a nurse and ward sister, treating patients who were nearing the end of their lives. Interspersed with these stories from Jennifer's post-midwife c...