It has become tradition for Audible to bring out the big guns in the run-up to Christmas and deliver star-studded adaptations of well-known novels; the last few years have brought terrific productions of Dickens’s Oliver Twist, Bleak House and David Copperfield.

Now attention has turned to younger listeners with a new, full-cast recording of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, the first of the Potter books in which the orphaned Harry, consigned to sleep in a cupboard in his aunt and uncle’s house, learns he is a wizard and is to attend Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The Good Wife’s Cush Jumbo is our narrator, steering the story alongside a cast including Hugh Laurie as venerable wizard-in-chief Albus Dumbledore; Michelle Gomez as Professor McGonagall; Riz Ahmed as Professor Snape; Mark Addy as Hagrid; Matthew Macfadyen as Lord Voldemort; and newcomers Frankie Treadaway, Max Lester and Arabella Stanton as young wizards Harry, Ron Weasley and Hermione Granger.

With a TV adaptation currently in production courtesy of HBO, a new audio series might seem superfluous. But there is much to enjoy in this unabridged version which feels fresh, lively and well-paced. Gomez’s imperious Professor McGonagall is a match for the late Maggie Smith in the films, while Laurie is full of twinkly mischief as Dumbledore. And as we’ve come to expect from these big-budget productions, the sound design is excellent, replicating the whoosh of an owl coming in to land and the chug and whistle of the Hogwarts Express as it wends its way through the countryside, carrying Harry and his cohorts towards a magical adventure.

Available via Audible 8hr 41min

Further listening

I Want to Talk to You: And Other Conversations
Diana Evans, Penguin Audio, 8hr 30min
A collection of 30 nonfiction works spanning 20 years by the Ordinary People author. These features and essays, which appeared in publications including Pride and Time magazine, tackle themes of literature, music, friendship and race.

The Quiet Ear
Raymond Antrobus, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 6hr 21min
This revealing and lyrical memoir from the British poet examines race, deafness and identity as he tells stories from his life, blending them with accounts of pioneering teachers and artists who have experienced hearing loss.