Sam Dastor has narrated 27 audiobooks on Listento.it by 15 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.6★ across 111 ratings. The most-rated is The Satanic Verses.
The Satanic Verses
Summary
Inextricably linked with the fatwa called against its author in the wake of the novel’s publication, The Satanic Verses is, beyond that, a rich showcase for Salman Rushdie’s comic sensibilities, cultural observations, and unparalleled mastery of language. The tale of an Indian film star and a Bombay expatriate, Rushdie’s masterpiece was deservedly honored with the Whitbread Prize. The story begins with a bang: the terrorist bombing of a London-bound jet in midflight. Two Indian actors of opposing sensibilities fall to earth, transformed into living symbols of what is angelic and evil. This is just the initial act in a magnificent odyssey that seamlessly merges the actual with the imagined. A book whose importance is eclipsed only by its quality, The Satanic Verses is a key work of our times.
©1988 Salman Rushdie (P)2011 Recorded Books, LLC
A House for Mr. Biswas
Summary
A House for Mr. Biswas, by Nobel and Booker Prize-winning author V. S. Naipaul, is a powerful novel about one man's struggle for identity and belonging. Born into poverty, then trapped in the shackles of charity and gratitude, Mr. Biswas longs for a house he can call his own. He loathes his wife and her wealthy family, upon whom he is dependent. Finding himself a mere accessory on their estate, his constant rebellion is motivated by the one thing that can symbolize his independence. The book is striking in its lush and sensual descriptions of Trinidad and was listed as one of Time magazine's 100 Best English-Language Novels from 1923 to 2005.
©1969 V.S. Naipaul (P)2017 Naxos AudioBooks
A Passage to India
Summary
Exclusively from Audible Dr. Aziz is a young Muslim physician in the British Indian town of Chandrapore. One evening he comes across an English woman, Mrs. Moore, in the courtyard of a local mosque; she and her younger travelling companion Adela are disappointed by claustrophobic British colonial culture and wish to see something of the 'real' India. But when Aziz kindly offers to take them on a tour of the Marabar caves with his close friend Cyril Fielding, the trip results in a shocking accusation that throws Chandrapore into a fever of racial tension. Set against the backdrop of the British Raj and the Indian independence movement in the 1920s it deals with the common racial tensions and prejudices between Indians and the British who ruled India. Many of Forster's novels observed class difference and hypocrisy in early 20th-century British society including A Passage to India, the novel which brought him his greatest success. A secular humanist, Forster showed concern for social, political, and spiritual divisions in the world. Nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 16 different years, the prize managed to elude him. Time magazine included A Passage to India in its All-Time 100 Novels list and it was selected as one of the 100 great works of 20th century English literature by the Modern Library. Directed by David Lean, a film adaptation was released in 1984 that won numerous awards including two Oscars.
Public Domain (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
The Case of the Reincarnated Client
Summary
A client claiming she was murdered in a past life is a novel dilemma even for Vish Puri, India’s most private investigator. When a young woman comes forward saying she’s the reincarnation of Riya Kaur, a wife and mother who vanished during the bloody 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Puri is dismissive. He’s busy enough dealing with an irate matrimonial client whose daughter is complaining about her groom’s thunderous snoring. Puri’s indomitable Mummy-ji, however, is adamant the client is genuine. How else could she so accurately describe under hypnosis Riya Kaur’s life and final hours? Driven by a sense of duty - the original case was his late father’s - Puri manages to acquire the police file only to find that someone powerful has orchestrated a cover-up. Forced into an alliance with his mother that tests his beliefs and high blood pressure as never before, it’s only by delving into the past the help of his reincarnated client that Puri can hope to unlock the truth.
©2019 Sacred Cow Media, Ltd. (P)2020 Blackstone Publishing
The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken
Summary
Dubbed “a wonderfully engaging P.I.” (The Times, London), Tarquin Hall’s irresistible protagonist Vish Puri has become an international favorite through a series that "splendidly evokes the color and bustle of Delhi and the tang of contemporary India" (The Seattle Times). Now the gormandizing, spectacularly mustachioed sleuth finds himself facing down his greatest fears in an explosive case involving the Indian and Pakistani mafias. When the elderly father of a top Pakistani cricketer playing in the multi-million-dollar Indian Premier League dies during a post-match dinner, it’s not a simple case of Delhi Belly. His butter chicken has been poisoned. To solve the case, Puri must penetrate the region’s organized crime, following a trail that leads deep into Pakistan - the country in which many members of the P.I.’s family were massacred during the 1947 partition of India. The last piece of the puzzle, however, turns up closer to home when Puri learns of the one person who can identify the killer. Unfortunately it is the one woman in the world with whom he has sworn never to work: his Mummy-ji.
©2012 Sacred Cow Media, Ltd. (P)2012 AudioGO
The Case of the Love Commandos
Summary
In this contemporary Romeo and Juliet story set within India's caste system, private investigator Vish Puri faces his most difficult challenge to date - a high-stakes mystery involving one of India's most controversial commodities: love. When Ram and Tulsi fall in love, the young woman's parents are dead set against the union. She's from a high-caste family, but her boyfriend is an untouchable from the lowest strata of Indian society. Young Tulsi's father locks her up and promises to hunt down and kill the "lover boydog." Fortunately, India's Love Commandos, a real-life group of volunteers dedicated to helping mixed-caste couples, come to the rescue. They successfully free Tulsi, but Ram has gone missing. The task of finding him falls to India's "most private investigator." Unfortunately, Vish Puri is not having a good month. He's already failed to recover the millions stolen from the First National Bank of Punjab; his wallet has been stolen; and worst of all, his arch rival, investigator Hari Kumar, is also trying to locate Ram. To solve the case and reunite the star-crossed lovers, Puri and his team of misfit assistants must infiltrate Ram's village and navigate the caste politics shaped by millennia-old prejudices. Critics hailed the The Case of the Deadly Butter Chicken, the last installment in the Vish Puri Mysteries, as Tarquin Hall's best yet, saying that each audiobook is "more complicated and dangerous than the one before." (HuffingtonPost). Now, with The Case of the Love Commandos, Hall keeps raising the stakes, delivering more twists, turns, and surprises than ever before.
©2013 Tarquin Hall (P)2013 AudioGO
Kim
Summary
Exclusively from Audible Kipling's masterpiece Kim is his final and most famous work and one of the first and greatest espionage stories ever written. It explores the life of Kimball O'Hara, an Irish orphan who spends his childhood as a vagrant in Lahore. When he befriends an aged Tibetan lama his life is transformed as he is requested to accompany him on a mysterious quest to find the legendary River of the Arrow and achieve Enlightenment. The pilgrimage will take them across the vast continent, across rivers, and up the Himalayas. While Kim wishes to take part in the imperialistic Great Game, learning espionage from the British secret service, he feels spiritually bound to the lama. Kim has a difficult choice to make: his companion or his country? A rich and colourful depiction of India's exotic landscape and culture in the imperialistic world of the late 19th century, this audiobook celebrates their friendship and explores a young man's quest for identity. Rudyard Kipling was an English journalist, short-story writer, poet, and novelist who was the first English language author to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. Some of his most memorable works include The Jungle Book and Just So Stories. In 1998 Kim was ranked at Number 78 on the Modern Library's list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. In 2003 it was listed on the BBC's The Big Read poll of the UK's 'best-loved novel'. Narrator Biography A Cambridge graduate who trained at RADA under the direction of Sir Laurence Olivier, Sam Dastor has long featured on screen and stage. He is best known for The Life and Death of Peter Sellers (2004) and for twice portraying Gandhi in both Lord Mountbatten: The Last Viceroy (1986), and Jinnah (1998).Sam Dastor has starred in many West End productions with roles such as Ariel in The Tempest, and Orlando in As You Like It. His most recent work has included starring on stage at the Wolsey Theatre in A Midsummer Night’s Dream (2016). He has narrated a large catalogue of audiobooks including V.S. Naipaul’s A House for Mr Biswas.
Public Domain (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
The Story of India
Summary
A companion to the major six-part BBC TV series, written by Michael Wood and read by Sam Dastor. Michael Wood weaves a spellbinding narrative out of the 10,000-year history of India. Home today to more than a fifth of the world's population, the subcontinent gave birth to the oldest and most influential civilization on Earth, to four world religions, and to the world's largest democracy. Now, as India bids to become a global giant, Michael sets out to trace the roots of India's present in the incredible riches of her past.
©2007 Michael Wood (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Joseph Anton
Summary
On February 14, 1989, Valentine's Day, Salman Rushdie was telephoned by a BBC journalist and told that he had been "sentenced to death" by the Ayatollah Khomeini. For the first time he heard the word fatwa. His crime? To have written a novel called The Satanic Verses, which was accused of being "against Islam, the Prophet and the Quran". So begins the extraordinary story of how a writer was forced underground, moving from house to house, with the constant presence of an armed police protection team. He was asked to choose an alias that the police could call him by. He thought of writers he loved and combinations of their names; then it came to him: Conrad and Chekhov - Joseph Anton. How do a writer and his family live with the threat of murder for more than nine years? How does he go on working? How does he fall in and out of love? How does despair shape his thoughts and actions, how and why does he stumble, how does he learn to fight back? In this remarkable memoir Rushdie tells that story for the first time; the story of one of the crucial battles, in our time, for freedom of speech. He talks about the sometimes grim, sometimes comic realities of living with armed policemen, and of the close bonds he formed with his protectors; of his struggle for support and understanding from governments, intelligence chiefs, publishers, journalists, and fellow writers; and of how he regained his freedom. It is a book of exceptional frankness and honesty, compelling, provocative, moving, and of vital importance. Because what happened to Salman Rushdie was the first act of a drama that is still unfolding somewhere in the world every day. This audiobook includes a prologue read by the author.
©2012 Salmon Rushdie (P)2012 Random House Audio
The Iron Horse
Summary
Derby Day at Epsom Downs and a multitude of people crowd to watch the races: dukes and dustmen, bishops and beggars, privileged ladies and prostitutes. The gamut of Victorian society, though, is also a hotbed for crime and crooks of all kinds. With the country a-flutter in the run-up to this national occasion, events reach fever pitch when a disembodied head is discovered on a passenger train at Crewe; the first in a murky course of events that takes in murder, fraud and race-fixing. Detective Robert Colbeck and his assistant are assigned to the case and are soon snarled up in a web of skulduggery stretching across the country. Soon, however, they are forced to ask themselves: just what is someone prepared to do in order to win?
©2007 Edward Marston (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Inspector Ghote Goes by Train
Summary
The assignment was routine - to bring a notorious confidence trickster, arrested in Calcutta, back to Bombay for trial. But Inspector Ghote devised a plan to make it almost a holiday - but Ghote's fellow passengers soon prove anything but restful.
©2014 Audible, Inc.; 1989 H.R.F. Keating
The Excursion Train
Summary
On the shocking discovery of a passenger's body on the Great Western Railway excursion train, Detective Inspector Robert Colbeck and his assistant, Sergeant Victor Leeming, are dispatched to the scene. Faced with what initially appears to be a motiveless murder, Colbeck is intrigued by the murder weapon - a noose. When it emerges that the victim had worked as a public executioner, Colbeck realises that this must be intrinsically linked to the killer's choice of weapon. However, the further he delves into the case, the more mysterious it becomes. And when a second man is strangled by a noose on a train, Colbeck knows that he must act quickly. Can he catch the murderer before more lives are lost? Set in Victorian England and rich in historical detail, The Excursion Train will hold you captivated from the beginning to the end of its journey.
©2006 Edward Marston (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Inspector Ghote Trusts the Heart
Summary
Some crooks have tried to snatch the plump son of a business tycoon, and have accidentally made off with his playmate instead. But they're not changing their plan: a payment is to be delivered to them or a small corpse is to be delivered to Inspector Ghote. But what kind of ransom can a mere tailor's boy demand? And, as something more unpleasant than just a ransom note arrives from the kidnappers, are the police helping to keep the boy in one piece?
©1972 H. R. F. Keating (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
The Bankster
Summary
Best-selling author Ravi Subramanian, a master storyteller of financial crime and winner of the Golden Quill Readers Choice Award, returns with his most gripping thriller yet. Bankers build their careers on trust, or so everyone thinks, till a series of murders threaten to destroy the reputation that the Greater Boston Global Bank (GB2) has built over the years. Who is behind these killings, and what is their motive? When Karan Panjabi, press reporter and ex-banker, digs deeper, he realizes that he has stumbled upon a global conspiracy with far-reaching ramifications - a secret that could not only destroy the bank but also cast a shadow on the entire nation. With only 36 hours at his disposal, he must fight the clock and trust no one if he is to stay alive and uncover the truth.
©2012 Ravi Subramanian (P)2016 Audible, Inc.
The Hamilton Case
Summary
The place is Ceylon, the time the 1930s. Set amid tea plantations, decay and corruption, this sinuous, subtle, surprising novel is a masterly evocation of time and place, of colonialism and the backwash of empire. It is the story of an embittered Ceylonese lawyer, Sam Obeysekere himself a product of empire - 'obey' by name and by nature - and of a family that once had wealth and influence but starts to crack open when Sam's charismatic father dies leaving gambling debts, an ex-beauty of a wife, an unstable daughter and an inadequate son. But the writing has been on the wall for a generation, ever since another sibling died in his cot- And at the heart of the novel is the Hamilton Case, a 'White Mischief' murder scandal that shakes the upper echelons of the island's society. Sam's involvement in it makes his name but paradoxically ensures that he will never achieve his ambition. A miracle of delicacy and restraint, full of volte faces, and narrated with perfect pitch in a voice that catches both the tragedy and comedy of their situation, this is a gripping, nuanced tale of the end of an era, suffused with 'the unbearable thought that everything might have turned out differently'.
©2003 Michelle de Kretser (P)2011 Random House Audio Go
Murder on the Brighton Express
Summary
When the engines finally met, there was a deafening clash and the Brighton Express twisted and buckled, tipping its carriages on to the other line. It was a scene of utter devastation. October 1854. As crowds of passengers rush to make the departure of the London to Brighton Express, a man watches from the shadows nearby, grimly satisfied as the train pulls out of the station. Chaos, fatalities and unbelievable destruction are the scene soon after when the train derails on the last leg of its journey. Could it simply be a case of driver error? Detective Inspector Colbeck thinks not.
©2008 Edward Marston (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Inspector Ghote's First Case
Summary
Newly promoted Inspector Ghote is thrilled to be granted casual leave until he takes up his post, as it allows him to spend time with his heavily pregnant wife, who is desperate to watch a showing of Hamlet at the cinema. Their plans are ruined, however, since Sir Rustom Engineer requires Ghote to investigate the suicide of his friend's wife. Worried about his wife's imminent delivery, Ghote nevertheless travels to the home of Mr. Dawkins, where he is unconvinced by the story of Iris Dawkins' death. Especially when he recognises the officer in charge, Darrani, well known for his close-mindedness. Ghote is determined to investigate further, with a Hamlet-esque awareness of how deceiving appearances can really be....
©2008 H. R. F. Keating (P)2014 Audible, Ltd
Inspector Ghote Hunts the Peacock
Summary
Inspector Ghote comes to London. The Indian police inspector is to attend an international conference on drug smuggling, and in cold, drizzling London he is faced with his first case outside India - and it's a very odd case.
©1988 H.R.F. Keating (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Inspector Ghote Caught in Meshes
Summary
An American visitor to India is killed on the road from Bombay to Poona. Called in to investigate the murder, Inspector Ghote soon makes the acquaintance of the victim's brother, Professor Gregory Strongbow. But the professor is both stubborn and evasive, refusing to tell Ghote what he knows about the events leading up to Hector's death. Soon Ghote finds his own life in danger, as he is faced with a conspiracy that reaches to the very highest levels of Indian politics... This is the third book in the hugely popular Inspector Ghote series from H.R.F. Keating.
©1967 H.R.F. Keating (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Inspector Ghote Plays a Joker
Summary
Inspector Ghote embarks on one of his strangest cases when he is ordered to prevent a murder - the killing of a precious flamingo in the Bombay zoo. And then there is the racehorse fancied to win the local Derby, which gets replaced by a donkey... Ghote finds things going disastrously as bit by bit he unearths the traces of a monstrous practical joker. But then the fun stops - and Inspector Ghote has a more serious murder on his hands.
©1971 H.R.F. Keating (P)2014 Audible, Inc.