To take on the bet - to go around the world in eighty days, faster than anyone had gone before - was madness. If Phileas Fogg missed a single connection, he would lose £20,000.

Phileas Fogg was an eccentric Englishmen who lived a quiet ordered life and believed that with technology and planning, nothing was unforseeable. But he could not plan for the ebullient nature of his French servant, Passepartout, for the adventures that crop up on their journey and for the totally unexpected collision with romance. The humour and freshness of Verne's writing - vivid despatches from a newly accessible world - make Around The World In Eighty Days an ideal subject for audiobook. Jules Verne would have approved.