A more recent American road classic, Bill Bryson’s The Lost Continent, has also been published on MP3CD (BBC £19.99, 10 hours 18 minutes, unabridged). William Roberts reads Bryson’s chatty, evocative and extremely funny observations — the jumbo fatties in their shorts and halter tops in his local shopping mall look like “elephants in children’s clothes” — on a 1980s journey from his native city (“I come from Des Moines — somebody had to”) through the unfashionable bits of middle America. The BBC also publishes a two-hour production, on tapes (£10.99) or CDs (£12.99), read by Kerry Shale, but that might run out well before your journey is over.

Every six hours, the shipping forecast is broadcast on the radio, telling sailors of weather conditions around the British coast. Apparently, the tone the readers adopt — lively or soothing — varies with the time of day: just one of the fascinating facts that Charlie Connelly unearths in Attention All Shipping (Time Warner £12.99, CDs/tapes, 4 hours, abridged), his investigation of that familiar yet baffling litany. Alex Jennings reads Connelly’s account of trying to visit each of the 31 sea areas that gets a namecheck in that “strangely poetic mantra” — at least, those that include a bit of dry land. A well-researched and gently amusing travelogue takes him from Scandinavia to France via the delightful-sounding Georgian gem that is Cromarty, but the true significance of the phrase “Rain later. Good,” remains opaque to the non-seafaring listener.

Paul West, the hero of A Year in the Merde by Stephen Clarke (Random House £16.99, CDs, 4 hours, abridged), ventures no further than Paris, but he finds plenty there to baffle and annoy him. Attempting to impose dynamic Anglo-Saxon working methods on his new Parisian colleagues, he comes up against all manner of culture shocks — while engaging in a constant battle to keep his shoes free of the ubiquitous dog-mess that besmears the pavements of the French capital. But that’s not the only kind of merde in which the hapless Englisman gets embroiled — his boss tries to involve him in a dodgy property deal, and his Parisian girlfriends both enchant and enrage him. There’s a fair bit of anti-Gallic cliche here, but it is leavened by enough original observations. And Michael Praed’s French accents — especially the chap who learnt his English in the American South — are hilarious.

If you have read Alexander McCall Smith’s stories about Mma Precious Ramotswe, proprietress of Gaberone’s No 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, you could be forgiven for thinking you now have a pretty good idea of daily life in the capital of Botswana. However, if he takes the same playful fantasy approach to daily life in Botswana as he does to his home city of Edinburgh in 44 Scotland Street (Time Warner £14.99, CDs/tapes, 6 hours, abridged) then you should not be so sure. We meet a five-year-old who understands the West Lothian question, an artist who is the object of a “wee free fatwah”, attend a Conservative gala ball with a total of six guests and enjoy the spectacle of real-life Edinburgh writer Ian Rankin in his hot tub. The novel can be exasperatingly implausible at times, but there’s lashings of community feeling and human warmth, reminiscent of Maeve Binchy’s blockbuster tales of interlinked Irish lives. Blythe Duff warms up from her customary tough-gal role of DS Jackie Reid in Taggart to help McCall Smith thaw the chill of Edinburgh stone.

Time travel demands some pretty advanced technology, so it’s appropriate that the boffins at BBC audiobooks have devoted their multi-media efforts to Doctor Who. Anyone who is missing their Saturday teatime fix can fill the gap with Death Comes to Time, starring Sylvester McCoy, Sophie Aldred and Stephen Fry, either as a simple three-hour audio drama (CD £16.99) or with added computer CDRom effects including animation, cast interviews and even spoofs (MP3CD £19.99).

All available at Sunday Times Books First prices plus p&p on 0870 165 8585 and www.timesonline.co.uk/booksfirstbuy

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