Audiobook roundup

Short Stories by Anton Chekhov. Read by Max Bollinger Sovereign £16.10, 64mins These six unabridged stories in the faithful Constance Garnett translation are presented with fine flourish by the Russian-born narrator. The poignant, everyday dramas of Imperial Russia are here, from jolting carriages across boundless taiga, to a tragic actor and a French tutor insulted by his boastful employer. The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. Read by John Sessions Naxos £10.99, 2hrs 36mins The many films of the Jekyll and Hyde story make you overlook what a cracking good writer Stevenson was. Read with gothic gusto, this tragic tale of the intellectually curious Dr Jekyll overpowered by his murderous alter ego is still horrifying. Our Mutual Friend by Charles Dickens. Read by David Timson Naxos £32.99, 11hrs 51 mins The real protagonist of Dickens's murder-mystery novel is the befouled River Thames, which gives up its dead to the scavenging Hexham. Timson's voices for the kaleidoscope of characters, from the dolls' dressmaker to the false friends of the moneyed Veneerings, are the best of the best.