A word in your ear

BOOKS on tape have their drawbacks. It's difficult - if not downright impossible - to return again and again to a favourite bit; and no matter how luscious the reader's voice, words in your ear just aren't as intimate as words on paper. But there are certain areas in which audiobooks excel. Sheer escapism is one - the joy of a story, without the need to focus on a printed page. The other is the joy of acquainting yourself, or re-acquainting yourself, with the sort of classic works you've always meant to read and have never had the courage to tackle.

In the classics department, two of the most attractive boxed sets currently on offer are Edward Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire and The Old Testament, both from Naxos and available on either cassettes (£14.99 in UK) or CDs (£15.99 in UK) for a marathon eight hours of listening time. Everyone knows that the Old Testament is poetic and. dramatic, but these excerpts bring its strong narrative qualities to the fore, and the addition of some beautifully-chosen choral music adds to the luxurious, ethereal ambience.

By contrast, Gibbon's muscular prose, with its offbeat details about odd corners of life under the emperors, is stalwart stuff of a more practical bent; Philip Madoc is the main reader for both, and a fine job he makes of it, too. I also enjoyed Geraldine McEwan's sparky Jane Austen highlights selection (Hodder, 2 tapes, 2 hrs, £7.99 in UK), Elizabeth McGovern's powerful reading of Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter (HarperCollins, 2 tapes, 3 hrs, £7.99 in UK) and a lusty collection of Canterbury Tales (Naxos, 3 tapes, 3 hrs, £7.99 in UK).

For those who want to brush up on contemporary fiction there were plenty of timely audio releases during 1996, from Julian Barnes's gently persuasive reading of some Anglo-French stories from his collection Cross Channel (Random House, 2 tapes, 3 hrs, 8.99 in UK) to Irvine Welsh's hilarious, manic delivery of his pre-Trainspotting pieces, The Acid House (Random House, 2 tapes, 3 hrs, £8.99 in UK). David Threfall did justice to Martin Amis's parody of literary life, The Information (HarperCollins, 2 tapes, 3 hrs, £7.99 in UK), while Patricia Hodge gave a sharp edge to the satirical pen of Fay Weldon in Wicked Women (HarperCollins, 2 tapes, 3 hrs, £7.99 in UK); and the grandaddy of all the literate, Samuel Beckett, was recalled with affection in Billie Whitelaw's memoir Billie Whitelaw - Who He? (Hodder, 2 tapes, 3 hrs, £7.99 in UK). The latest thriller from Ruth Rendell, meanwhile, The Keys to the Street, turned out to be curiously Martin Amis-ish, and Geraldine James negotiated its sinister pathways with ease (Random House, 2 tapes, 3 hrs, £8.99 in UK).

But if I had to choose just three from among the plethora of audiobooks which came my way in 1996, they would be Art Malik's brilliantly inventive reading of Salman Rushdie's wonderful The Moor's Last Sigh (Random House, 4 tapes, 6 hrs £12.99 in UK); Edward Asner's solemn orchestration of the chaos of Carl Hiaasen's Stormy Weather (Random House 2 tapes, 3 hrs, £8.99 in UK) - and absolutely anything by John le Carre, as long as it's read by himself and includes one of his illuminating introductory essays. Most of led Carre's oeuvre is now available on Hodder Headline Audio-books, including the recently-released Tailor of Panama (4 tapes, 6 hrs, £12.99 in UK).