There's nothing like the issue of evolution to get under the skin of academics. Especially when those same academics are by chance or bad judgement deposited at a critical evolutionary turning point when one wrong move could have catastrophic results for the future.

This audiobook, read by Tony Robinson, is the 26th novel in Terry Pratchett's Discworld series, and comes complete with a full supporting cast of heroes and villains, yetis, martial artists and Ronnie, the fifth horseman of the apocalypse (who left before they became famous).

After tales from the USA and Britain, Bill Bryson turns his roving eye to Australia, the only island that is also a continent and the only continent that is also a country. He tries to find out why Aussies are so cool, digging up a past that reveals convicts, explorers, gold diggers and outlaws.

It was a sudden strange fancy, and now Polly Perks, in her brother's clothes and her hair cut off, has joined up to fight for her country. But who is the enemy? What is she really fighting for? War teaches you a lot, she finds, when it turns out that you joined the Monstrous Regiment.

In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was: Hey, you! For Brutha, the novice is the Chosen One. He wants peace and justice and brotherly love. He also wants the Inquisition to stop torturing him, now, please.

Other children get given xylophones. Susan just had to ask her grandfather to take his vest off. Yes. There's a death in the family. It's hard to grow up normally when grandfather rides a white horse and wields a scythe, especially when you have to take over the family business, and everyone mistakes you for the Tooth Fairy.

Rebecca Bloomwood has the perfect job, the perfect man - gorgeous Luke Brandon - and now ... the perfect wedding. Her parents are just assuming that the wedding will be at home. But Luke's mother has very different ideas - a huge affair in New York in a forest glade setting - or perhaps a Venetian Ball, or a fin de siecle extravagance.

Becky thought being married to Luke Brandon would be one big Tiffany box of happiness. But the trouble started on honeymoon, when she told Luke the tiniest little fib, about the teeniest little purchase. Now she's on a strict budget and, she doesn't have a job. Then she receives some incredible news. She has a long-lost sister.

Be a MAN in the City Watch! The City Watch needs MEN! And they need all the help they can get, because they only have twenty-four hours to clean up the town and this is Ankh-Morpork we're talking about . . .

Sam Vimes is a man on the run. Yesterday he was a duke, a chief of police and the ambassador to the mysterious, fat-rich country of Uberwald. Now he has nothing but his native wit, and if he can't make it through the forest to civilization, there's going to be a terrible war. But there are werewolves on his trail - and they're catching up.

The Opera House, Ankh-Morpork, is a huge, rambling building, where innocent young sopranos are lured to their destiny by an evil mastermind in a hideously deformed evening dress. But Granny Weatherwax, Discworld's most famous witch, is in the audience and she doesn't hold with that sort of thing.

Football has come to the city of Ankh-Morpork - not the old fashioned, grubby pushing and shoving, but the new, fast football with pointy hats for goalposts and balls that go gloing when you drop them. And now, the wizards of Unseen University must win a football match, without using magic, so they're in the mood for trying everything else.