The books you listen to

The book of Paulo Coelho's brief but brilliant destiny fable, The Alchemist, (HarperCollins, 3hrs, pounds 11.99), first translated into English last year, has sold over a million and a half copies. It's not too late to find out why. Like all proper stories, it works wonderfully well as an audiobook.

More destiny-questing occurs in Dante's Inferno (Naxos, 4hrs, pounds 8.99), the latest in Naxos Audio's intelligently abridged series of Great Epics. Benedict Flynn's translation, read with deep involvement by Heathcote Williams, is to my mind an improvement on the more famous terza rima of Dorothy Sayers.

Christina Hardyment