A Word In Your Ear: Hitchiker's 'trilogy; History of the Conquest of Mexico

From the moment when Ford Prefect saves Arthur Dent from certain death in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy to the Vogon's final tick in Mostly Harmless, Douglas Adams' "trilogy in five parts" never flags. The unabridged BBC Word for Word recordings were read by Adams. Some will prefer the multi-voiced radio series, but the Word for Word versions are an appropriate homage to the writer who died at 49 in May 2001. You can buy each separately (c. 6 hrs, tapes £14.99, CDs £24.99) or splash out on a boxed set (c. 30 hrs, tapes £69.99, CDs £139.99). The Aztec exhibition at the Royal Academy makes the audio version of the great 19th-century New England historian W H Prescott's History of the Conquest of Mexico (Naxos, c. 5 hrs, tapes £11.99, CDs £16.99) very timely. Reader Kerry Shale gives it full wellie, and Prescott writes with remarkable objectivity.