THE CEMENT GARDEN

By Ian McEwan

Synopsis

Four orphaned children bury their mother in the basement to avoid being taken into care. As they attempt to carry on a normal life an incestuous relationship develops between the two eldest children.

Sample Player

Narrator	Julian Rhind-Tutt
Length	4hrs 20mins
Catalogue No.	7682
Publisher	BBC/ Chivers Audio

Other audiobooks by Ian McEwan

AMSTERDAM

Two old friends meet to pay their last respects to Molly Lane. In the days after the funeral Clive and Vernon make a pact that has unforeseen consequences. Man Booker Prize Winner.

ATONEMENT

In 1935 an innocent man is wrongly convicted of a crime on the say so of a 13 year old girl who misinterprets what she sees. Years later the girl seeks to atone her guilt by working as a nurse during World War II.

BLACK DOGS

In 1946, a young couple set off on their honeymoon. Fired by their ideals and passion for one another, they plan an idyllic holiday, only to encounter an experience of darkness so terrifying it alters their lives for ever.

THE CHILD IN TIME

Stephen Lewis,a successful author of children's books, takes his three-year-old daughter on a routine Saturday morning trip to the supermarket. While queueing at the checkout, his attention is distracted and the little girl is kidnapped. Lewis spirals into a grief which affects every aspect of his life.

THE CHILDREN ACT

Fiona Maye, a leading High Court judge, is called on to try an urgent case. For religious reasons, a seventeen-year-old boy is refusing the medical treatment that could save his life. It is Fiona who must ultimately decide whether he lives or dies and her judgement will have momentous consequences for them both.

ENDURING LOVE

When Joe tried to help at a freak, tragic accident, he had little idea of the outcome of his actions. Another helper, hardly noticed by Joe at the time, became instantly obsessed by Joe, and started to actively engineer contact with him!

THE INNOCENT (X Rated)

It is 1955 and in post-war Berlin a young British Post Office technician, Leonard Marnham, begins a descent into the echelons of electronic surveillance beneath the city's surface. At the same time he is lovingly initiated by a beautiful young German called Maria. As his personal and professional worlds claim him, he senses his life is about to change. X rated, contains graphic violence and offensive language.

LESSONS

While the world is still counting the cost of the Second World War and the Iron Curtain has descended, young Roland Baines's life is turned upside down. Stranded at boarding school, his vulnerability attracts his piano teacher, Miriam Cornell, leaving scars as well as a memory of love that will never fade. Twenty-five years later, as the radiation from the Chernobyl disaster spreads across Europe, Roland's wife mysteriously vanishes and he is forced to confront the reality of his rootless existence and look for answers in his family history. His journey raises important questions. Can we take full charge of the course of our lives without damage to others? How do global events beyond our control shape us and our memories? What role do chance and contingency play in our existence? And what can we learn from the traumas of the past?

MACHINES LIKE ME

In an alternative 1980s London, Charlie, drifting through life, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda’s assistance, he co-designs Adam’s personality. This near-perfect human is beautiful, strong and clever – a love triangle soon forms. These three beings will confront a profound moral dilemma.

NUTSHELL

Trudy has betrayed her husband, John. She's still in the marital home – a dilapidated, priceless London townhouse – but not with John. Instead, she's with his brother, the profoundly banal Claude, and the two of them have a plan. But there is a witness to their plot: the inquisitive, nine-month-old resident of Trudy's womb.

ON CHESIL BEACH

In a hotel on the Dorset coast, overlooking Chesil Beach, Edward and Florence, who got married that morning, are sitting in their room, neither entirely able to suppress their anxieties about the wedding night to come...This is a story about how the entire course of a life can be changed by a gesture not made or a word not spoken.

SATURDAY (X Rated)

February 15th 2003. A successful, happily married neurosurgeon, Henry Perowne is drawn into a confrontation with Baxter, a small-time thug, following a minor motor vehicle accident on the way to his regular squash game. The encounter has savage consequences when Baxter, believing that the doctor has humiliated him, visits the Perowne home that evening during a family reunion. X rated, contains offensive language and explicit sex.

SOLAR

Michael Beard is a Nobel prize-winning physicist whose best work is behind him. When Beard's professional and personal worlds collide in a freak accident, an opportunity presents itself for him to extricate himself from his marital mess, reinvigorate his career and save the world from environmental disaster.

SWEET TOOTH

Serena Frome, the beautiful daughter of an Anglican bishop, has a brief affair with an older man during her final year at Cambridge, and finds herself being groomed for the intelligence services. Serena, a compulsive reader of novels, is sent on a mission which brings her into the literary world of Tom Healey.