. Stormy Weather, by Carl Hiaasen, read by Edward Asher (Random House, 2 tapes, 3 hrs, £8.99 in UK)
Thank goodness for Carl Hiaasen. Who else could take a natural disaster - namely, a hurricane in Southern Florida - and turn it into a picaresque voyage through the detritus of contemporary American society? His command of his craft is awesome. You want characters? Casually, he assembles a bunch of dishevelled and seriously weird individuals. You want plot? His stories writhe and flick like a whip in the hands of a hyperactive psychopath. You want images? Here's the baddie, his face pressed up against the streaming window of a Land Rover in the pouring rain; "his bent nose and misshapen mouth made him look like a gargoyle". Politicians grow beards and hide in the swamps, Miami crooks jump off bridges and pose as Cuban immigrants in order to escape a growing heap of woes, a honeymoon wife decides her husband is a waste of space; your sympathies blow this way and that as the hurricane rages. Edward Asner, aka Lou Grant, reads with gravelly gravity. Superb entertainment.
. The X Files: Ground Zero, by Kevin J. Anderson, read by Gillian Anderson (HarperCollins, 2 tapes, 3 hrs, £7.99 in UK)
Must be an idea whose time has come, The X Files, at any rate, it seems to have turned into something of an industry, with the TV series available on all channels at all hours and the books jamming the bestseller lists from one month to the next. Having listened to this dreary, dated story about nuclear scientists being fried to a radioactive frazzle by the vengeful psycho ghosts of a gentle atoll dwelling tribe who had themselves been fried to a frazzle during a top secret nuclear test - yes, I know it's hard to stay awake, and it gets worse; the main characters all have names like Meriel and Bear (Bear?) and the whole thing is read in a glum monotone, with a down turn at the end of every sentence, by the woman who plays FBI agent Dana Scully in the TV series I have to admit that I find the whole phenomenon totally baffling.
. The Canterbury Tales, by Geoffrey Chaucer, read by Philip Madoc, Edward de Souza, Anthony Donovan, Clive Merrison, Clive Swift and Anton Lesser (Naxos, 3 tapes, 3 hrs, £7.99 in UK)
"He was a very perfect, gentle Knight Ah, yes, the liquid rhythms and mercurial wit of Chaucer. Just the thing for spring - a time when, as we all know, right thinking folk start perusing the travel brochures in search of a suitable destination for a merry pilgrimage. Here we have the Prologue and five of the tales, read with a sparkling vigour which is reinforced by lusty blasts of virtuoso dance music from the time of Boccaccio's Decamerone. In truth there isn't a dull moment, but special mention must be made of Edward de Souza's beautifully modulated reading of The Knight's Tale and Anthony Donovan's hilarious, crudities and all rendition of The Miller's Tale; the voice he, uses for the wanton wife must be one of the funniest ever heard on audiobook.
. The Republic of Love, by Carol Shields, read by Connie Booth (Reed Audio, 2 tapes, 3 hrs, £7.99 in UK)
Does love at first sight translate into a successful marriage? Fay and Tom, the heroine and hero of Carol Shield's nicely understated study, would be the first to say, "no, it doesn't", being folk of a certain age and veterans of more than one relationship battle. He is the presenter of a late night radio show; she is a researcher into folk history with a special interest in mermaids; they are neighbours for years but meet by accident at a child's birthday party. It sounds hideous, I admit, but Fay and Tom are immensely likeable and I found myself gunning for them against all the odds. Connie (Fawlty Towers) Booth reads with a suitably dry, wry calm.
. The Commitments, by Roddy Doyle read by Aidan Gillen (Reed Audio, 2 tapes, 3 hrs, £7.99 in UK)
Paddy Clarke Ha Ha Ha appeared on audiotape ages and ages ago; don't know what delayed The Commitments, but here it is, complete with bands by the name of And And And, and read by a relaxed Aidan Gillen, who curls his tongue around the dialogue with obvious relish.
. Tony Robinson's Musical Tales, read by Tony Robinson (Hodder, 2 tapes, 2 hrs, £7.99 in UK)
Children's audioboks being an independent republic, and a spacious one at that, this column tends to ignore them for, as the saying goes, "reasons of space" - but this is brilliant. Hailed as "a perfect introduction to classical music for young people" by no less a person than Sir Georg Solti, here's how it works: Robinson delivers a series of snappy, cleverly syncopated stories as the music pulses away in the background. Shock! Horror! In the background? Yes, and it works, thanks to the cheerful irreverence of the script, the choice of pieces - hoary old kiddie numbers like The Nutcracker and Scheherazade allied to the unexpected, like The Magic Flute and The Firebird and glorious music making from the likes of Herbert Van Karajan and Charles Dutoit. OK, so you don't hear it all, but you hear the important bits at just the right point in the story, and you get the feel of the piece.
. The Glass Lake, by Maeve Binchy, read by Kate Binchy (Hodder, 4 tapes, 6 hrs, £12.99 in UK)
The polished calm of Maeve Binchy's easy going prose, as smooth as the surface of the lake in the title, is given precisely the right lilting emphasis in this charming performance by Kate Binchy, whose face - if not her voice - will be familiar to fans of the TV police drama series The Bill. No sullen drug dealers or graffiti laden walls here; it's sunny territory where ducks wander unconcerned through kitchen doorways and children skip happily to school.
. The Shakespeare Collection, read by Simon Callow, Lindsay Duncan, Paul Rhys and Harriet Walter (Hodder, 2 tapes, 1 1/2 hrs, £7.99 in UK)
Disembodied voices act out scenes from Shakespeare's Greatest Hits: put it on and see how quickly you can identify each play (bet you get stuck on Cymbeline, too). There are muted sound effects - a hooting owl in Macbeth, chirping crickets in Romeo and Juliet, the murmur of the merrie regulars in the pub at Windsor, a bit of innocuous harping here and there - but by and large the Bard's text is pleasantly centre stage and rendered with plenty of passion by a fine quartet of plummy voices. Lindsay Duncan steals the show, however, as a succession of feisty heroines among them a sensuous Olivia and a gender bending Beatrice. "I would I were a man," she rages. Doublet and hose coming up, m'lady.
