A word in your ear: Embers Best Sellers: the Life and Times of Peter Sellers Last Letters Home

Sandor Maria's moral conundrum 'Embers', first published in Budapest in 1942, has become an international bestseller. It was a stroke of genius to get Paul Scofield to read, or rather live, inside the head of its narrator, a Hungarian general who has spent 40 years brooding on a terrible clash between honour, friendship and love which took place when he was 34. Marai's genius is to make us as sympathetic to the ruined lives of his silent listeners, one dead, one racked with remorse, as to the general himself.

Sandor Maria's moral conundrum Embers (Penguin,c.6 hrs, unabridged, £12.99), first published in Budapest in 1942, has become an international bestseller. It was a stroke of genius to get Paul Scofield to read, or rather live, inside the head of its narrator, a Hungarian general who has spent 40 years brooding on a terrible clash between honour, friendship and love which took place when he was 34. Marai's genius is to make us as sympathetic to the ruined lives of his silent listeners, one dead, one racked with remorse, as to the general himself.

Audio is the best possible format for Phill Jupitus's Best Sellers: the Life and Times of Peter Sellers (BBC, c.2hrs, £8.99). Sir Harry Secombe, Shirley MacLaine, David Lodge, Michael Palin and many others offer memories, and there are hilarious clips, some never before replayed, from the BBC and Sellers' own archives: The Goon Show of course, but also The Millionairess, the Pink Panther films and the spoof travelogue "Balham, Gateway to the South!"

I postponed hearing Tamsin Day-Lewis's anthology of wartime correspondence, Last Letters Home (Macmillan, 2hrs 30mins, £8.99), because its title suggests that all the writers died untimely. But though there are some heartbreakingly hopeful letters from soldiers later killed in action, most of the stories are tales of loyalty and love with happy endings and a powerful message. It takes adversity to make us recognise the value of the goods we have.