Audiobooks: High Fidelity read by Nigel Carrington Great Speeches in History

Nick Hornby's High Fidelity (Isis, 7hrs 45mins, pounds 20.09) takes apart the self-obsessed world of a thirty-something unreconstructed bachelor pop addict with wit, pathos and a gloriously happy ending. Nigel Carrington reads this excellent first novel with energy and zest.

Not all the readers in Great Speeches in History (Naxos, 2hrs 38 mins, pounds 6.49) have enough oratorical oomph to project the rolling periods of history's greatest talkers, but there are abundant delights in a collection featuring Cicero, Elizabeth I, William Pitt, and, most moving, the 1802 pre-execution speech of the 22-year-old Irish Nationalist, Robert Emmett.

Christina Hardyment