Just Reads
Episodes
Bob Monkhouse - Book of Days
02 Jan 2025
Contributed by Lukas
An aged compendium of events in history published in 1981 with even older jokes.BookBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podca...
Dan Snow - On This Day In History
31 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On which day was history's shortest war waged and won (in roughly 40 minutes)? How was Napoleon bested by a group of rabbits in 1807? Why did a disput...
Charles Dickens - The Signalman
25 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"The Signal-Man" is a horror mystery story by Charles Dickens, first published as part of the Mugby Junction collection in the 1866 Christmas edition ...
Christmas Ghost Stories - J. K. Bangs - Ghosts that have haunted me
24 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
New York-born John Kendrick Bangs was associate editor and then editor of Life and Harper magazines, eventually finding his way into the Humour depart...
R.L. Stevenson - The Bodysnatchers
23 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
"The Body Snatcher" is a short story by the Scottish author Robert Louis Stevenson. First published in The Pall Mall Gazette in December 1884, its cha...
Christmas Ghost Stories - W.W. Jacobs - The Monkey's Paw
22 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
As one of the Christmas Ghost Stories, here is W.W.Jacobs tale of horror and fate, the Money's PawBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spre...
Christmas Ghost Stories - M.R. James - The Mezzotint
21 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
M.R. James' Classic tale of an engraving which is more than just a picture.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-r...
Christmas Ghost Stories - Edgar Allan Poe - The Silence
20 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A man remembers his encounter with an ancient demon who tells him a chilling story out of old Arabian Libya.Become a supporter of this podcast: https:...
Christmas Stories - The story of the youth who went forth to learn what fear was
20 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Grimm Brothers The story of the youth who went forth to learn what fear wasBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/ju...
Pete Sawyer (and others) - Gotcha
19 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
On Easter Monday 1983 armed robbers got into the supposedly impregnable Security Express depot in Shoreditch, neatly capturing the guards and holding ...
Christmas Stories - Briar Rose
19 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A reading of the Grimm tale, Briar Rose.This was the first one I did so it's probably not all that.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spr...
Christmas Stories - The Blue Light
18 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A reading of 'The Blue Light/ Blue Lantern' by The Brothers GrimmBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173...
Val McDermid - Forensice - The Anatomy of Crime
17 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The dead talk. To the right listener, they tell us all about themselves: where they came from, how they lived, how they died - and who killed them. Fo...
Christmas Stories - The Frog Prince
17 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The classic Brothers Grimm tale of the Frog-PrinceBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support.
Christmas Stories - Rumpelstiltskin
16 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Over Xmas I thought I would do some reads.This is the classic Grimm story of RumpelstiltskinBecome a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.c...
Les Dawson - A Clown Too Many
10 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Les Dawson was many things - slum kid, soldier, boxer, insurance agent, vacuum-cleaner salesman and one of Britain's best-loved comedians. In this aut...
Fred Dinage - Reg And Ron Kray: Our Story
05 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Kray twins were Britain's most notorious gangsters. Ruling London's underworld for more than a decade, as gang lords they were among the most powe...
Garth Marenghi's Terrortome
03 Dec 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When horror writer Nick Steen gets sucked into a cursed typewriter by the terrifying Type-Face, Dark Lord of the Prolix, the hellish visions inside hi...
H.G. Wells - The Invisible Man
28 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Invisible Man by H.G. Wells is a clever, short novella that describes the exploits of the “Invisible Man.” The man, whose real name is Griffin...
George Grossmith & Weedon Grossmith - Diary of a Nobody
26 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Mr Pooter is a man of modest ambitions, content with his ordinary life. Yet he always seems to be troubled by disagreeable tradesmen, impertinent youn...
PJ O'Rouke - All the Trouble In the World
19 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
With All the Trouble in the World, P. J. O'Rourke once again landed on best-seller lists around the country, confirming his reputation as the pre-emin...
Monty Python - Just the Words
14 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Monty Python's Flying Circus was first broadcast in October 1969. This newly originated volume contains the complete unexpurgated scripts of the origi...
Book of General Ignorance
12 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
An indispensable compendium of popular misconceptions, misunderstandings and common mistakes culled from the hit BBC show, QI.From the bestselling au...
Mary L. Trump - Too Much and Never Enough (Repeat)
08 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
In light of recent events, I thought it might be apposite to republish this, which is probably the best book on the motivations, psychology and back s...
Simon Mayo - Worst of the Radio 1 Confessions
08 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
These tell-all tales are from Radio 1FM's listener's slot - the "Breakfast Show". Pillars of society - doctors, teachers, vicars, vets and generally t...
Woody Allen - Side Effects
05 Nov 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Woody Allen's first of three short narrative collections.A humor classic by one of the funniest writers today, SIDE EFFECTS is a treat for all those w...
Steve Martin - Pure Drivel
31 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
'A mix of urbane wit and surreal extrapolations - Douglas Adams meets Flann O'Brien' IndependentWho else but Steve Martin could combine irrefutable ev...
Charles Bronson - My Journey Into Hell
29 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Broadmoor: My Journey into Hell documents the story of long-term prisoner Charlie Bronson and his five-year stay at Britain's most notorious mental ho...
Ronnie Barker - All I Ever Wrote
24 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Ronnie Barker has long been known as one of Britain’s greatest comedy performers. But he was also responsible for writing much of the material he pe...
Neil Brandwood - Victoria Wood The Biography
22 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Victoria Wood's wit and humour endeared her to millions of TV viewers for over four decades. Writer, producer and actress of television shows such as ...
Douglas Adams - Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy
17 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researc...
Stephen Fry - Making History
15 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Young is a brilliant young history student whose life is changed when he meets Leo Zuckerman, an ageing physicist with a theory that can chang...
Kerry Jamieson - The Golden Door
10 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
1930, New York. In the unbearable heat of summer, Irish immigrant Will Carthy works as a riveter on the tallest skyscraper in the world, spending his ...
Paul Britton - Jigsaw Man
08 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The autobiography of Paul Britton, one of the foremost offender profilers in the world. What he searches for at the scene of a crime are not fingerpri...
Cynthia True - American Scream
03 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
He was a radical stand up who dared to question the values of small town America and the evils of American foreign policy. Ruthlessly honest, a voice ...
James Thurber - My Life and Hard Times
01 Oct 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Widely hailed as one of the finest humorist of the twentieth century, James Thurber looks back at his own life growing up in Columbus, Ohio, with the ...
Miriam Margoyles - This Much is true
26 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
BAFTA-winning actor, voice of everything from Monkey to the Cadbury's Caramel Rabbit, creator of a myriad of unforgettable characters from Lady Whit...
Thomas Burke - Short Story - The Hollow Man
24 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A short story called the Hollow Man by Thomas BurkeGood stuff.This selection of 42 stories written between 1829 and 1968 is the first to present the f...
Jean-François Marmion - The psychology of stupidity
24 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Stupidity is all around us, from the colleagues who won't stop hitting 'reply all' to the former school friends posting conspiracy theories on Faceboo...
The Onion's Finest News Reporting - Vol1
19 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The creators of The Onion present a collection of hilariously subversive news stories from their popular humor website, including such topical and tim...
JFK - The Unspeakable - James Douglas
17 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The acclaimed book Oliver Stone called "the best account I have read of this tragedy and its significance," JFK and the Unspeakable details not just h...
Hugh Lloyd - Thank God For A Funny Face
12 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Funnyman Hugh Lloyd's autobiography provides a light-hearted history of more than 60 years of high-profile showbusiness. His was a world populated by ...
Bob Mortimer - And Away
10 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Bob Mortimer’s life was trundling along happily until, suddenly in 2015, he was diagnosed with a heart condition that required immediate surgery and...
Peter Cook - Tragically I was an only twin
05 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
For his many friends and fans, Peter Cook was quite simply the funniest man they'd ever encountered. And nearly eight years since his death, his statu...
Flann O'Brien - Myles Away From Dublin
03 Sep 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Flann O’Brien (Brian O’Nolan, aka Myles na Gopaleen) adopted not only a new name (George Knowall) for these rarely seen pieces, but also a new per...
Medieval Bodies - Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages
31 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Dripping with blood and gold, fetishized and tortured, gateway to earthly delights and point of contact with the divine, forcibly divided and powerful...
The Haunting of Alma Fielding - A True Ghost Story
29 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
London, 1938. Alma Fielding, an ordinary young woman, begins to experience supernatural events in her suburban home.Nandor Fodor - a Jewish Hungarian ...
The World As I See It by Albert Einstein: Albert Einstein's Philosophical Reflections on Life and Humanity
22 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Embark on a journey through the brilliant mind of one of history's greatest thinkers with the thought-provoking book "The World As I See It" by the ic...
Bryan Jackson - Why the Titanic was doomed
20 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Titanic - the most magnificent ocean liner of her time - was doomed and destined for disaster before she ever left the docks at Southampton. Doomed by...
The Meaning of Liff - Douglas Adams and John Lloyd
08 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
The Meaning of Liff has sold hundreds of thousands of copies since it was first published in 1983, and remains a much-loved humour classic. This editi...
Why the Titanic was Doomed: A Disaster of Circumstance
06 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Titanic - the most magnificent ocean liner of her time - was doomed and destined for disaster before she ever left the docks at Southampton. Doomed by...
Complete Sherlock Holmes by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
02 Aug 2024
Contributed by Lukas
When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle introduced the world to Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson in 1887's A Study in Scarlet, a true icon of literature was born. Si...
Flann O'Brien - At Swim Two Birds
29 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A wildly comic send-up of Irish literature and culture, At Swim-Two-Birds is the story of a young, lazy, and frequently drunk Irish college student wh...
Sleeping with Psychopaths = A chilling study of the innocent lovers of savage murderers -
11 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Bestselling writer and criminologist Christopher Berry-Dee turns his attention to a new kind of victim: the wives or partners of serial murderers who ...
The Master And Margarita by Mikhail Bulgakov -
09 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Written in secret during the darkest days of Stalin's reign, The Master and Margarita became an overnight literary phenomenon when it was finally pu...
Out of Thin Air - A True Story of Impossible Murder in Iceland
04 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Every Icelander knows about the Gudmundur and Geirfinnur disappearances. 1974. In two separate incidents, two men vanished into thin air. Then, out o...
Oxford Book of Humourous Prose
02 Jul 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Starting with Caxton in 1477 Frank Muir shows how humorous writing has developed and refined through five centuries by such practitioners and innovato...
Nothing but the Truth: The Memoir of an Unlikely Lawyer
27 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Just how do you become a barrister? Why do only 1 per cent of those who study law succeed in joining this mysteriously opaque profession? And why migh...
Forensics by Dr Zakaria Erzinclioglu
25 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Review of this excellent guide lifting the lid on Forensic science and basics of investigations.BookCheaper HereMr. Erzinclioglu provided all that we ...
Alan Partridge books - We need to talk about, Nomad and Big Beacon
20 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Quick review of all three of the Alan Partridge booksWe need to talk about AlanNomadBig BeaconYou can also try Abebooks, who have links to thousands o...
Wilfred Bramble - You dirty Old Man
18 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Wilfrid Brambell was one of Britain’s most loved and complex character actors. As Albert Ladysmith Steptoe, the unscrupulous rag-and-bone man with q...
Jack and the Thames Torso Murders
13 Jun 2024
Contributed by Lukas
A sensational new theory – and an insight into the late Victorian city through an intensively researched social history. Between May 1887 and Februa...
REVIEW : Mary L. Trump - Too Much and Never Enough
16 May 2024
Contributed by Lukas
Mary Trump spent much of her childhood in her grandparents’ large, imposing house in New York with Donald and his four siblings. She describes a nig...