A choice of recent audio books

Even though Rudyard Kipling died 70 years ago, listeners to Plain Tales from the Hills are sure to gain the beloved storyteller some new followers. I’m certainly joining the fan club. Never engrossed by ‘Gunga Din’, ‘If’ or ‘the great grey-green greasy Limpopo River’, I was astounded how quickly I became hooked on these stories — I’ve listened to the majority more than once.

This is early Kipling — he was only 23 when commissioned to write them for the Civil and Military Gazette, a local English-language newspaper for the British in northern India. He certainly evokes the full spectrum of emotions — laughter in ‘False Dawn’ when Saumerez (‘a strange man’) proposes marriage to the wrong Miss Copleigh (‘repellent and unattractive’) during a blinding dust storm, thinking her to be her prettier sister. Or by total contrast the poignant ‘Thrown Away’ where an over-sensitive young soldier is parted from his parents for the first time when sent to serve in India.