Reviews of Marina Lewycka’s books are mixed. However, as I see it, and her sales confirm, she is a great comic novelist, up there with Stella Gibbons, Douglas Adams, Terry Pratchett and P. G. Wodehouse. Her latest book, We Are all Made of Glue (Penguin, 4 CDs, £13; Buy this book), draws a disgusting but enchantingly outrageous crone struggling to survive in a decrepit mansion through the eyes of a wannabe chick-lit novelist whose marriage is on the rocks. The glue of the title is the common humanity that bonds us together, whether we are Palestinian handymen or an Israeli in search of roots, an angst-ridden teenager or estate agents on the make, social workers fair and foul. The ambitiously varied cast is voiced with endless resource by Sian Thomas.

With Fast Beats my Heart (Edward Thomas Fellowship, 1 CD, £10 inc p&p from edward-thomas-fellowship.org.uk ; for details click on “news and events”) Chris Brown has created a unique anthology of the poems and prose writings of Edward Thomas to celebrate the rich awareness of the natural world that he gained from his life at Steep, near Petersfield. Heard aloud, we realise how right Thomas’s mentor, the poet Robert Frost, was when, having read his prose, he advised Thomas to try poetry. Alastair Danson and Harriet Gransby read Thomas’s work with a straightforward lack of pretension.

Listen to audio samples at timesonline.co.uk/books

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