A word in your ear

Ludovic Kennedy wrote Pursuit: The Sinking of The Bismarck (Chivers, unabridged, 8hrs 25 mins, £16.99, mail order 0800 1369191), his famous account of the destruction of the Bismarck, in 1974 and it remains one of the most generous and perceptive of war stories, giving the German navy full credit for skill and gallantry and characterising the personalities on both sides with impartiality. The effect of this evenhandedness is to increase both the suspense and the tragedy of the story – the death toll on HMS Hood, blown up in Arctic waters by shelling through her decks, was as terrible as that on Bismarck, disabled by Fleet Air Arm attacks and then finally sunk off Brest. What makes the release of this military classic (revised in 2001) on spoken word really special is that Kennedy, who was 22 when he witnessed the event in 1941 and is now 82, reads it himself, with remarkable energy and grace.

Joanne Harris is a sensual writer, alive to touch, colour, feel and taste, who creates memorable images with extraordinary economy. Her latest novel to be released on spoken word, Blackberry Wine (Hodder Headline, 3hrs, £9.99), a shade overshaven in the abridging, is one of parallel lives of the same person: a successful writer who impulse-buys a French chateau, and himself when young. The stories twine in and out of each other until the child truly becomes father of the man. Derek Jacobi savours every morsel, reading with elegant variations of tempo and ending with a smile that you can almost hear.