E.M. Forster

E.M. Forster's A Room with a View is close to purpose-built for bedtime. The plot turns on a hotel room in Florence, a kiss in a field of violets, and the question of whom Lucy Honeychurch will marry, and every scene is upholstered in Edwardian politeness. Tension exists, but it is the tension of a raised eyebrow. Two readings exist, Andrew Bond's on Send Me To Sleep and Elizabeth Grace's on The Sleepy Bookshelf, so regular listeners of either show can stay home.

E.M. Forster's Short Stories is the stranger companion. This is the quieter, odder fiction Forster wrote before his novels made him famous, and the tales sit closer to fable than to drawing-room comedy. Andrew Bond reads them. Take the novel first; come back for the stories when you know his voice on the page and want to hear where it started.