By Arminta Wallace
Vernon God Little
D.B.C Pierre
Read by Ewen Bremner Faber/Penguin, 3 CDs, 3.5 hrs, £12.99
The Scottish actor Ewen Bremner - aka Spud from Trainspotting - might seem an unlikely choice to read DBC Pierre's Man Booker Prize-winning, Texas-based teenage romp-cum-
disaster movie, Vernon God Little. The result, however, is a triumph. Those who haven't read the book should prepare to be highly entertained by its Simpsons-like combination of whimsical observation and scathing social criticism: those who have will surely love Bremner's perfectly-pitched characterisations; the irredeemably glum eponymous anti-hero, his plethora of tormentors in the police and judicial systems, his mom's food-obsessed female friends.
Star of the Sea
Joseph O'Connor
Read by John Kavanagh
Random House Audio, 6 CDs, 6.5 hrs, £14.99
One of the most highly praised aspects of this highly-praised historical novel is its vivid realism: in audio format, reality is racketed up another few notches. You can virtually smell the unpalatable stenches of steerage, while the Atlantic breezes carry a soupçon of the dainty little culinary treats with which the toffs while away their days on deck as the Star of the Sea ferries her upstairs-downstairs cargo across the Atlantic to New York. The book's wider canvas encompasses famine-ravaged Ireland and the criminal underbelly of perfidious Albion: a tall order for just one reader, which is perhaps why, though John Kavanagh's main characters are immaculately drawn, when it comes to the lesser natives he resorts to shamelessly "top-o'-the-mornin" shenanigans, which wouldn't be outof place in The Quiet Man.The soundtrack, meanwhile, is a mish-mash of brutish come-all-ye ballads and semi-synthesised diddly-eyes; it is to O'Connor's credit that his robust storyline suffers not a jot from all this stage-Oirishry and keeps the listener enthralled to the end.
Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar Simon Sebag Montefiore,
Read by John Nettles
Orion, 6 tapes, 10 hrs, £19.99
"A dynamic, colourful cast of killers, fanatics, degenerates and adventurers" declares the cover note, as if this were some kind of bizarre fantasy thriller - which, in a way, it is. But no fiction writer would dare to create a villain as monstrous as this one. Sebag Montefiore begins with a single shocking event - the death of Stalin's wife - and lets its effects ripple outwards, moving from the dictator's daily dealings with his family and courtiers to the mass migrations and murders which devastated entire nations. In the process he unveils the human side of Stalin: which makes the crimes against humanity more shocking still. More compulsive than any thriller, this award-winning biography is read with unflagging verve by John Nettles.
Snobs
By Julian Fellowes
Read by author
Orion, 4 tapes, 5.5 hrs, £9.99
Bitchiness rules the waves in Snobs, a tale of true love among the British aristocracy - though love of what, exactly, is the question when an ineligible gel by the name of Edith Lavery reaches above her station to marry the extremely eligible Charles Broughton, heir to the Marquess of Uckfield, no less. Fellowes won an Oscar for his superb screenplay for Gosford Park; here he demonstrates an equal effortless skill with the novel form, using as his narrator a mildly successful middle-aged actor whose astringent portrait of the dreary, yet irresistibly privileged, lives of the huntin', shootin' brigade makes for a hugely entertaining couple of hours.
Das Boot
Lothar-Günther Buchheim,
Read by Wolf Kähler
Orion, 4 tapes, 7 hrs, £9.99
A mega-bestseller which mutated into an acclaimed film and TV series, Das Boot is narrated by a terrified but determinedly stiff upper-lipped naval war correspondent (recreated with relish, and unexpected charm, by Wolf Kähler). It opens with a lengthy description of a boorish drinking session and continues with a lengthy description of the U-boat itself. In fact everything in the book is lengthy, even its heart-stoppingly claustrophobic battle scenes. It's this stubborn otherness, and the occasional poetic observation of, say, moonlight on water, which makes it into something pretty special.