A FOOL'S ALPHABET

By Sebastian Faulks

Synopsis

In twenty-six chapters, from A to Z, the story of Pietro Russell's life unfolds. His memories flicker back and forth as he tries to resolve conflicts in his life.

Sample Player

Narrator	Julian Glover
Length	10hrs 30mins
Catalogue No.	7215
Publisher	BBC Chivers

Other audiobooks by Sebastian Faulks

BIRDSONG

In the heat of the French summer, young Englishman Stephen Wraysford travels to France and falls in love with his host's wife, Isabelle Azaire. When the world stops, their affair falters, and Stephen signs up. In a maze of tunnels under the trenches, Stephen finds the courage this war demands from the men in his command. And it is here that he will fight for everything he has ever known and loved. A contemporary classic, Birdsong has moved millions of readers all over the world. It is an epic story of passion, survival and redemption from a master storyteller.

CHARLOTTE GRAY

In 1942 Charlotte Grey conceives a passion for an English airman. When he goes missing she travels to France on an errand to help the Resistance and to seek news of the airman. Some explicit sexual content.

DEVIL MAY CARE

Set during the Cold War and featuring all the glamour, thrills and excitement that one would expect from any adventure involving Bond, Faulks has written a continuation of the 'James Bond' legacy picking up from where Fleming left off in 1966.

THE FATAL ENGLISHMAN

The lives of three extraordinary men; an artist, a war pilot and a journalist, who all died young.

THE FATAL ENGLISHMAN: THREE SHORT LIVES

Christopher Wood, a beautiful young Englishman, decided to be the greatest painter the world had seen. He went to Paris in 1921. By day he studied, by night he attended the parties of the beau monde. He knew Picasso, worked for Diaghilev and was a friend of Cocteau. In the last months of his 29-year life, he fought a ravening opium addiction to succeed in claiming a place in history of English painting. Richard Hilary, confident, handsome and unprincipled, flew Spitfires in the Battle of Britain before being shot down and horribly burned. He underwent several operations by the legendary plastic surgeon, A H McIndoe. His account of his experiences, The Last Enemy, made him famous, but not happy. He begged to be allowed to return to flying, and died mysteriously in a night training operation, aged 23. Jeremy Wolfenden was born in 1936, the son of Jack, later Lord Wolfenden. Charming, generous and witty, he was the cleverest Englishman of his generation, but left All Souls to become a hack reporter. At the height of the Cold War, he was sent to Moscow where his louche private life made him the plaything of the intelligence services. A terrifying sequence of events ended in Washington where he died at the age of 31.

THE GIRL AT THE LION D'OR

Set in the 1930s, a powerful story of love and conscience which begins when a mysterious young woman takes up a post at the Hotel du Lion D'Or.

HUMAN TRACES

As young boys both Jacques Rebière and Thomas Midwinter become fascinated with trying to understand the human mind. As psychiatrists, their quest takes them from the squalor of the Victorian lunatic asylum to the crowded lecture halls of the renowned Professor Charcot in Paris; from the heights of the Sierra Madre in California to the plains of unexplored Africa. As the concerns of the old century fade and the First World War divides Europe, the two men's volatile relationship develops and changes, but is always tempered by one exceptional woman; Thomas's sister Sonia.

JEEVES AND THE WEDDING BELLS

Using P G Wodehouse’s much-loved characters, Jeeves and Wooster, the author evokes the sunlit days of a time gone by in this delightfully witty story. A gentle, witty story of mistaken identity, a midsummer village festival, a cricket match and love triumphant.

ON GREEN DOLPHIN STREET

A British couple, Mary and Charlie, have a carefree life in the diplomatic community of Washington in 1959. An American reporter dramatically enters their lives and through him Mary is forced to confront the terror of the Cold War.

PARIS ECHO

American researcher Hannah and runaway Moroccan teenager Tariq have little in common, yet both are susceptible to the daylight ghosts of Paris. Hannah listens to the extraordinary women who were present under the German Occupation; in her desire to understand their lives, she finds a city bursting with clues and connections. Out in the migrant suburbs, Tariq is searching for a mother he barely knew. For him in his innocence each boulevard, Métro station and street corner is a source of surprise.

PISTACHE (X Rated)

Sebastian Faulks entertains with pastiche and parody of writers varying from Thomas Hardy to Dan Brown. Many of the pieces were first heard on Radio 4’s The Write Stuff. X rated, contains explicit sex.

A POSSIBLE LIFE

Every atom links us. Every emotion binds us. Every thought connects us: Soldiers and lovers, parents and children, scientists and musicians risk their bodies and hearts in search of connection - some key to understanding the people we become.

THE SEVENTH SON

When a young American academic Talissa Adam offers to carry another woman's child, she has no idea of the life-changing consequences. Behind the doors of the Parn Institute, a billionaire entrepreneur plans to stretch the boundaries of ethics as never before. Through a series of IVF treatments, which they hope to keep secret, they propose an experiment that will upend the human race as we know it. Seth, the baby, is delivered to hopeful parents Mary and Alaric, but when his differences start to mark him out from his peers, he begins to attract unwanted attention. The Seventh Son is a spectacular examination of what it is to be human. It asks the question: just because you can do something, does it mean you should? Sweeping between New York, London, and the Scottish Highlands, this is an extraordinary novel about unrequited love and unearned power.

SNOW COUNTRY

1914: Young Anton Heideck has arrived in Vienna, eager to make his name as a journalist. While working part-time as a private tutor, he encounters Delphine, a woman who mixes startling candour with deep reserve. Entranced by the light of first love, Anton feels himself blessed. Until his country declares war on hers. 1927: For Lena, life with a drunken mother in a small town has been impoverished and cold. She is convinced she can amount to nothing until a young lawyer, Rudolf Plischke, spirits her away to Vienna. But the capital proves unforgiving. Lena leaves her metropolitan dream behind to take a menial job at the snow-bound sanatorium, the Schloss Seeblick. 1933: Still struggling to come terms with the loss of so many friends on the Eastern Front, Anton, now an established writer, is commissioned by a magazine to visit the mysterious Schloss Seeblick. In this place of healing, on the banks of a silvery lake, where the depths of human suffering and the chances of redemption are explored, two people will see each other as if for the first time.

A WEEK IN DECEMBER

It is the week before Christmas, 2007. Over seven days, we follow the lives of seven major characters and a Tube train driver whose Circle Line train joins their lives together in a daily loop. Greed and the fragmentation of society are pieced together with the complex patterns and crossings of modern urban life.

WHERE MY HEART USED TO BEAT

On a small island off the south coast of France, Robert Hendricks – an English doctor who has seen the best and the worst the twentieth century had to offer – is forced to confront the events that made up his life. His host is Alexander Pereira, a man who seems to know more about his guest than Hendricks himself does.