Books: Spoken word

Claire Tomalin's Jane Austen: a life (Penguin, c 4hrs, pounds 8.99) is an exquisitely woven tapestry that forms an indispensable backdrop to the novels. Uneventful? Nonsense, says Tomalin: Jane's life was full of trauma. Death, debt and disappointment dogged her family, and Jane knew too well the realities of being a poor relation, crossed in love, and deciding to follow her art rather than her heart.

Six years after Jane Austen died of cancer in 1817, Maria Bronte did the same, aged 38. She left six toddlers for her parson husband to raise. Juliet Barker's elegantly constructed The Brontes: a life in letters (Penguin, c 4hrs, pounds 8.99) opens with a letter from the forlorn husband and ends with the even more forlorn father burying Charlotte, who died in childbirth - also in her 39th year. Full of wonderfully vivid insights.