You're Dead to Me - Cleopatra (Radio Edit)

Episode Date: September 20, 2024

Greg Jenner is joined by Dr Shushma Malik and comedian Thanyia Moore to learn about Cleopatra.Cleopatra – the seventh Ancient Egyptian Queen to bear that name – was born around 69 BCE and she’s seen by many historians as the final ruler of dynastic Egypt; a lineage that stretched back 3,000 years.From marrying and murdering her siblings to liaisons of love and political pragmatism with top Romans Julius Caesar and Mark Antony, Cleopatra led a very turbulent life. But when we strip back the modern myths and ancient interpretations, who was the real Cleopatra?This is a radio edit of the original podcast episode. For the full-length version, please look further back in the feed.Research by Aimee Hinds Scott Written by Emma Nagouse, Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow and Greg Jenner Produced by Emma Nagouse and Greg Jenner Assistant Producer: Emmie Rose Price-Goodfellow Project Management: Isla Matthews Audio Producer: Steve Hankey

This is the BBC. This podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK. This is history at its grubbiest and funniest. Enjoy the complete TV soundtracks of all four Blackadder series, starring Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. Got him with my subtle plan. I can't see any subtle plan. Well, Rick, you wouldn't see a subtle plan if it painted itself purple

and danced naked on top of a harpsichord, singing, subtle plans are here again. Start listening to Blackadder, the complete collected series from BBC Audiobooks, available to purchase wherever you get your audiobooks. audio books. BBC Sounds music radio podcasts. Hello and welcome to You're Dead to Me, the Radio 4 comedy podcast that takes history seriously. My name is Greg Jenner.

I'm a public historian, author and broadcaster. And today we are taking a pleasure cruise down the Nile and plunging into the life and afterlife of one of history's most famous women. That's right, it's Cleopatra coming at ya! And to help us we have two very special guests. In History Corner she's assistant professor of Classics and the Anasis Classics Fellow at Newnham College University of Cambridge. She specialises in the politics of imperial Rome and classical reception studies and you may remember her from our episode on the rise of Julius Caesar, sorry, Julius Kaiser. It's Dr. Shushma Malik, welcome back Shushma.

Hi Greg, it's lovely to be here, thanks for having me back again. And in Comedy Corner, she's an award-winning comedian, actor, writer and presenter. You might have seen her act in The Duchess on Netflix or Alma's Not Normal on the BBC or Watch to Being Funny on Mock the Week, Moe Gilligan's Black British and Funny. She's got loads going on, it's the terrific Tanya Moore. Welcome Tanya. You made me sound so great. Thanks Greg. You are great. Thank you. I was like wait is it me? Is it my turn?

Yeah, yeah it's your turn. Welcome to the show Tanya. I'm excited. What about Cleopatra? Do you know, I mean she's really famous as a name but do you know any of her story? I know that she's got a great name. I know that she's a she. You say Cleopatra and I think of the girl group. So that's where we are.

Oh, yeah. Nice reference. We're coming at you. That's how I feel. So what do you know? Well that brings us to the first segment of the podcast. This is called the So What Do You Know? This is where I have a go at guessing what our lovely listener might know about today's subject. And I'm certain that everyone out there knows Cleopatra as a name. She's

a global icon. You may be picturing a powerful, glamorous queen feigned for her beauty, her affairs with powerful Roman men. And when it comes to pop culture, there's hardly anything Cleopatra hasn't touched. She's in paintings, literature, operas, ballet, theatre productions, poetry through the centuries, Shakespeare with his play Antony and Cleopatra. And as Tanya mentioned, if you're of a certain age, Cleopatra coming at you is a fantastic pop song from the band Cleopatra. But why is she one of the most famous people in history? And what else do we need to know about her? Let's find out. Where and when is Cleopatra born and what's

the kind of family situation? So Cleopatra was probably born around 69 or 70 BCE, probably in one of the palaces in Alexandria which is in Egypt. Her father was Ptolemy the 12th and she was the eldest of five siblings. She had two sisters, Berenike the 4th and Arsinoe the 4th and two brothers as well, Ptolemy the 13th and Ptolemy the 14th. And even though we know her by the single name Cleopatra, she's actually the 7th in the Egyptian Ptolemaic dynasty. I feel like we should reach out to these ladies and let them know there are other names, you know? I'm sure somebody wanted to be Sharon.

Somebody wanted to be Sharon. So Cleopatra herself is an Egyptian pharaoh and she may have an Egyptian mother, we don't know, but she's of a Greek dynasty. What's that about? So she comes from the Ptolemaic dynasty who were Macedonian Greek and Ptolemy was a commander of Alexander the Great and so he was running Egypt before the death of Alexander and by the time Cleopatra was born, we sort of see the Ptolemaic dynasty being in a period where the rulership of Egypt is becoming a little bit more difficult

in relationship to Rome. And Rome, on the other hand, is quite powerful during this period, particularly in its Mediterranean setting. So it's expanded its empire. And Tanya, what do you think Cleopatra's childhood was like? Are you thinking Disney Princess, or are you thinking Game of Thrones serious political violence? I feel like it's Game of Thrones. Maybe it starts as Disney Princess because she's the first girl, first born, you said Sushma? Eldest girl, yes. So the first born always starts out in a Disney phase. So she came and she was doing Disney

and then she got a sister and her sister's name isn't Cleopatra. Then she got angry, Game of Thrones, done. That's how it goes. Good family psychoanalysis there. Shushma, I think Tanya's right in the Game of Thrones vibes quite quickly supplanting the Disney vibes because it's quite a difficult childhood really isn't it? She was probably raised in Alexandria until she was about 11 years old, we think, and she was well educated in what we might call Greek high culture. We think she spoke probably somewhere around nine languages.

Wow. She was, though, part of a court that had plenty of intrigue in it. In 58 BCE, for example, her father Ptolemy XII left Alexandria for Rome, claiming that he had been exiled. Her sister, or probably half-sister if depending on of course who her mother is, Berenice IV was named Queen and she co-ruled with another Cleopatra. A different Cleopatra, good, yeah, okay. Yes. Ptolemy returned in about 55 BCE and had his daughter Berenike IV executed. Oh, wow.

So Cleopatra's half-sister has already been murdered by her dad. So that's a tricky childhood. How does Cleopatra end up as the Queen of Egypt? Ptolemy XII, when he died, he leaves joint rulership to Cleopatra on the one hand as the eldest, but also his son, Ptolemy XII, when he died, he leaves joint rulership to Cleopatra on the one hand as the eldest, but also his son Ptolemy XIII. So they co-rule. And we actually have an inscription from around 52 BCE, where Cleopatra VII and her brother Ptolemy XIII are referred to as the new sibling-loving gods. Wow.

It gets a little bit odd because they're married, Tanya. Huh? Yeah. Wait, hold on. They're siblings and they're married? Yeah. And they're king and queen? Yep.

Do they have babies? No. Thankfully. And Ptolemy's probably like 11. Huh? What? Sorry, hold on. Yeah, a lot of klaxons are going off right now.

Yeah my head's, hold on a minute, so how old is she at this point marrying the 11 year old? 17 or 18, yep somewhere around there. This is how disrespectful men have continued to be to women because at 18 she could never rule it alone, she had to have a man next to her even if the man didn't know how to go toilet alone yet. Cleopatra sort of agrees. For the first couple of years or so she just sort of removes him from all the records. Good girl. He's not keen on being pushed into the background, Tanya, and he sort of asserts his power I guess when he's about 12 or 13 maybe,

Shushma, and suddenly he's back in the public record and this time his name's going first. Yes, that's right. So this happens in somewhere around 50 BCE, but in around 49 or 48 BCE Cleopatra and her sister Arsinoe leave Alexandria to raise an army and get the throne back essentially or assert their dominance. They're not particularly successful though and they have to flee to Syria. That doesn't last for long either. So in September, we think around there 58 BCE, the Roman statesman Pompey arrived in Egypt because he'd been beaten by his rival in Rome, Julius Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalus and that's part of the Roman Civil War context. Julius Caesar at the Battle of Pharsalus and Julius Caesar, yes, Julius Caesar, yeah, exactly,

part of the Roman Civil War context. Pompeius Magnus, if we will, thank you, good, his full name as well, is hoping to find some allies in Egypt and instead actually the opposite happens and he gets his head chopped off by allies of Ptolemy XIII because they think this will work very well with Julius Caesar. Wow. So they just chop his head off and then they send it to Caesar in a basket. What a lovely hamper. Wow.

How do you think Julius Caesar takes this? Do you think he's happy? Of course he is. He doesn't have to... He's won the war. You think he's happy to get the head and the hamper? He's furious Tanya. He is outraged. Why? Oh my God. He's won the war. You think he's happy to get the head in the hamper? He's furious, Tanya. He is outraged.

He's appalled. I mean, Shushma, why is he angry? The point is a Roman citizen has been killed by the Egyptians rather than doing what they should have done, which is sending him back to Caesar for punishment. Oh. So Julius Caesar, he wades in, he shows up in Egypt to come and adjudicate. I mean Cleopatra, Ptolemy XIII, I'm going to sort this out and this is where we get

a really fun story. Cleopatra needs to figure out a way of getting face to face with Caesar. She knows she needs to convince him Tanya. But she can't get into her old palace because she's in Syria and if she goes to the palace she'll be arrested and killed. So how is she going to sneak in to meet Caesar? Oh. She must know a back door for her own palace. You know when there's that one window that isn't locked,

but nobody knows unless you know the house that that one window isn't locked. Find the window, babe. Stop being weird. Shushma, I mean Hollywood will tell us that she rolls out of a carpet. Like she's rolled up in a carpet and then unfurled in a carpet. Now the Latin or the Greek, perhaps, doesn't say carpet. Bedsheets? Bedding? Laundry bag? What are we going with? Yeah, something like a laundry bag or a bed sheet. So something where you would have to take it out and it would have to be cleaned and then comes back in so it's in a way that people wouldn't be immediately suspectful of.

This is giving Shawshank redemption and I love that for all of us. I love this for all of us. Thank you. And she sort of bursts out and goes, tada! Hello, I'm Cleopatra. Nice to meet you. He's 52 years old. She's 19 years old. He's sort of top dog, she wants to be top dog.

There's going to be some chemistry possibly, Shushma? Yeah, so the idea is that she seduces him. So before Antony- What is happening in history? That's part of the way that political alliances are made in antiquity and beyond as well. Caesar though then declares that he's going to enforce Ptolemy the 12th's will, saying they should rule together, and he reinstates Ptolemy the 13th and Cleopatra as joint rulers.

What?! So Julius Caesar's plan to solve this civil war between two siblings who hate each other is to just get on with it. Just co-rule. After being seduced. Yeah, so Ptolemy is furious. Cleopatra and Ptolemy have to sort of share. And you're not going to be shocked to learn here, Tanya, that Ptolemy orders his forces to attack Caesar. So his army now goes to war against Caesar's army. Yeah. Caesar is trapped in the palace. There's a naval battle. It's Caesar versus Ptolemy. Ptolemy loses.

He tries to escape by jumping into the Nile to swim away and he drowns in his armor. So Ptolemy 13th, he's dead. So he's dead at 15. Ptolemy's out, he's gone. That's a pretty intense life, 15 years. Yes. That is intense.

Cleopatra has one remaining brother left, Ptolemy the 14th. He's a child. What do you think she does to him, Tanya? I'm gonna say off with his head. It's the other way. She marries him! What is happening?! But exactly at the same time, she's now hooking up with Julius Caesar, who of course is married. Of course he is! He's 53 years old, he's got a wife back in Rome,

but he's now having a lovely time on holiday with Cleopatra, and they get pregnant. They have a baby. I mean, the baby's called Ptolemy mini Caesar. Is this a scandal for Caesar? It's not a huge scandal because he never really officially accepted paternity. So although everyone in Rome seems to know that he's had a child with Cleopatra. So we have a letter, for example, from Cicero to his friend Atticus that suggests that Caesarian was widely accepted to be Caesar's child. Caesar had actually left Egypt by the time Caesarian was born

and probably only first met him in about 46 BCE when Cleopatra traveled to Rome, along with her husband of the time, Ptolemy XIV. Ay, ay, ay. So she needed two child seats. The Senate thankfully did recognize Cleopatra and Ptolemy XIV as legitimate rulers of Egypt and also friends to Rome as well. Is Cleopatra popular in Rome? Cleopatra has come with her husband, which would be much more awkward if she hadn't, let's put it that way.

To be honest, it's difficult to know what the long-term repercussions would have been because actually we're heading now into 44 BCE, the Ides of March and the death of Julius Caesar. That Roman political assassination in 44 puts a fairly swift end to this slightly awkward dynamic in any case. Yes. I mean, Caesar is stabbed 23 times, something like that. Wow. So Cleopatra, she has to do a runner from Rome because her boyfriend's just been murdered. So she runs back to Egypt and within a couple of months, Ptolemy XIV, Brosbund, he's dead too, in suspicious circumstances, question mark?

Yes, that's right. We are Roman historians do love a suspicious circumstance when it comes to women and their husbands. So one of our historians, Josephus, who is a historian of the mid first century CE, so about 100 years or so later than these events are happening. He says that Cleopatra poisoned her husband, but this really is a very familiar accusation, so we need to read it with that in mind as well. But Cleopatra did make her son Caesarian, a co-ruler at this point. This is also about her own protection because despite everything she's done, the reason why she probably married Ptolemy XIV is it is very difficult for a woman to rule alone quite simply in antiquity.

So making her infant son a co-ruler sets her up as a kind of regent figure. She's like 25 at this point. She's not old. Wow! She's really a young woman. She's only 25. That's a lot for like mid to late 20s. Mid to late 20s now, they're just trying to figure out how to wear their eyebrows. Do you know what I mean?

It's very different energy. She's done a lot of work. You know, we started off a bit rocky. We were chopping off people's heads and marrying children, but now we're locked in. The path is clear. She's mature. I love this.

Yeah. There's the legacy of the glamour. I mean, Cleopatra is renowned through history for her glamour. Cleopatra later wins a bet with her future Roman boyfriend, Mark Antony. The bet is who can host the most expensive meal? Do you want to guess what Cleopatra eats

that is so pricey? Another sibling. I mean, at this point. The story goes, she has a pearl earring that is priceless and she dissolves it in a glass of wine. She glugs it down, wins the bet. And we've mentioned Mark Antony so I guess we should do this romance now come on. How are they hooking up? Who is contacting who?

What's the opening line? Mark Antony is a Roman politician in this period and he's also very famous for being a particularly effective military commander. And in the aftermath of Caesar's death, he's one of the three men who share power in Rome. This is a relationship known as the Triumvirate and those three men are Octavian, who is the adopted son of Julius Caesar, and another man named Marcus Lepidus, who is the least famous, I suppose, of the three. No one cares about him. And Octavian, of course, is the one who's going to go on and become Augustus, the first

emperor. So spoiler alert, sorry. Anthony needed to know basically where the support of Egypt lay and whether he could count on it. And she also wanted to impress him because of ongoing Roman protection. So according to Plutarch, she traveled by pleasure boat, dressed up to evoke Aphrodite, the goddess. And when Antony invited her to dinner, she refused instead requesting that he should join her. Ooh, power move.

Ooh, Cleo. I love this. It's giving, he went down on one knee and she was like, no, get up. And she went down on one knee. I love that. But we get a sense here, there's passion. This is not a kind of boring relationship of necessity. And what do they do in their free time? How are they hanging out? So again, this is something that Hollywood depictions of Anthony and Cleopatra, of course,

really like to take hold of and run with the idea that they were genuinely in love. So they spend a lot of time together in Alexandria, enjoying things like plays and music, dance as well, philosophy, hunting. They also have twins, Cleopatra Selene and Alexandra Helios in 40 BCE. So Selene means moon and Helios means sun right? Yes. That's so nice. No more Cleopatra's, we like that as well.

Well Cleopatra Selene. Oh damn it. Don't break with the brand Tanya, come on. Oh sorry, sorry. Okay so they've got twin kids, so they've got twins, a girl and the boy. Which is good for dynastic aspects to have not only Caesarian but also the twins as well. And also Mark Anthony, he's got himself in some hot water because he's married to Octavian's sister.

He's married to the sister of the guy who he needs to keep on side, but he's also having a two-timing relationship with Cleopatra. Cleo doesn't mind stealing people's man. She's out of order. And then Anthony's off to have some wars with the Parthians in, I guess what we'd call Iran now, Persia, that kind of world. It's a disaster, right Shushma?

It is a disaster. But it's okay, cause he runs home to Alexandria and they have another child with Cleopatra and they call this one Tanya. Cleopatra the 57th. They call it Ptolemy. Oh, why do I keep getting this wrong? What am I not checking into?

They call it Ptolemy Philadelphus. So like his granddad, his great granddad. So another Ptolemy. So that's five Ptolemies in one episode, a new record for us, hooray for us. So So Mark Antony is leading a cushy double life. He's got two women either side of the Mediterranean. Cleopatra in Egypt, Octavia back in Rome. He's married to his buddy's sister. It's very awkward and tense. He's cheating on her. He's got two sets of kids either side of the Mediterranean. He's making enemies back in Rome. And I'm

surprised, Sushma, because Cleopatra up to this point is super savvy, super smart in playing the game and knowing how to, you know, keep everyone on side. But here she's tied herself to Marc Anthony, who is losing all his support back in Rome. This is going to go wrong, right? Yes. I guess the important thing though is that Anthony and Cleopatra try and make it seem like things are going well. Marc Antony has a triumphal parade and orchestrate an elaborate ceremony that is tied to this new sort of dynastic element with the children. This is called the donations of Alexandria so basically what it means is that Cleopatra was declared the Queen of Kings.

Her status is put in relation to her son Caesarean in particular. Caesarean, who's now about 13 years old, is declared as joint ruler and her other children receive titles and territories. But there are still these growing tensions between Antony and Octavian and actually our sources tend to blame these on Cleopatra in part. She has seduced Antony and she has caused him to forget his Roman values and he's a Roman citizen he should know better and so forth. So this is the root of a lot of the sort of negative stories we hear about Cleopatra. By about 33, end of 33 BCE,

the Triumvirate was pretty much over and Antony was politically exiled now away from Rome. And that's quite important because Octavian is in Rome, he's able to influence from the centre, whereas Antony is in Alexandria. And that's a very big part of the political rhetoric that Octavian can use to turn essentially the Roman people off of Antony and make them loyal to him. Yeah, and now it's going to go really rather wrong because Octavian is like, you're going to be married to my sister. And Mark Antony is like, oh, sorry, don't worry, I'll sort it. I'll divorce her. And he's like, no, that's not what I was looking for. Yeah, that wasn't the angle.

No. So he dumps the sister, shacks up with Cleopatra. They go on a lovely tour of Greece and go and see the sights. And Octavian is like, fine, let's go to war then. So now Rome is at war with Egypt and we get the very famous battle in history called the Battle of Actium, which sounds like a yogurt that's good for digestion. But it's not. Actium is a big naval battle and it just goes really wrong, Shushma. It goes wrong for Mark Anthony and Cleopatra. The Romans are coming for them. It's end game now. And obviously Shakespeare does this very famously, but how does this famous love story end tragically? Yeah, so I'm a bit concerned because Tanya looks like she's a little bit traumatised. Yeah, I'm emotional. We've been on a journey, guys. We've been on a journey.

She started out as a princess. She ended up being a warrior, now she's gonna die a princess. That's emotional. Oh well I'm sorry but in about in about 30 BCE, so just after the Battle of Actium, Octavian decided that he was going to attack Egypt directly. So even though Antony was sort of ready to counter this and was planning something quite ambitious, most of Cleopatra's ships really surrendered. Cleopatra went to her mausoleum and sealed herself inside and again our sources for these things are quite a lot later but Plutarch and Cassius Dio, who were both writing quite a long time after these events happened, they report that she told her attendants to tell Anthony that she was dead and this report prompted Anthony to stab himself.

It obviously goes very sadly because Anthony doesn't die instantly, he regains consciousness. Cleopatra has him brought into the mausoleum to die by her side. She stays in the tomb grieving for a week. Octavian shows up and they drag her out through a window and take her prisoner. What happens now for Cleopatra? Cleopatra is allowed to sort of oversee Antony's funeral arrangements, but she also falls ill. Octavian did say that Cleopatra would let her live, but that would mean of course going to Rome as a prisoner of war, which would mean going as part of a triumph, which is a very, very humiliating process, parading her as a prisoner of war and particularly, you know, a royal prisoner of war as well.

So she goes back to the palace, sends a letter to Octavian. We're told she has a bath, she gets dressed, she eats her last meal meal and then she locks herself away with two attendants and she dies by her own hand and her attendants then make sure that she's properly laid out for when she's found and Octavian then orders her to be interred in her mausoleum with Antony. Yeah, I mean their attendants also and their own life as well so it's very sad. So Mark Antony has died by suicide, Cleopatra has died by suicide and so have her attendance. It's a tragic end to the story It's a lot to take in Tanya and she's only 30 Yeah, about 40 just coming up to 40. Okay. Well, I couldn't even bring maths to the podcast. Sorry

For many historians we would classify this as the end of dynastic Egyptian history. 3000 years of pharaohs and Cleopatra's the last. The nuance window! It's time now for the nuance window. This is where Tanya and I let Professor Shushma talk for two uninterrupted minutes about something we need to know. So when you're ready, can we have the nuance window please? So one of the most fascinating things I think about Cleopatra is her legacy, the idea of Cleopatra in the myth that she has become, the idea of this femme fatale seductress, her name becomes synonymous with figures from history like Matahari or famous women who were seen as double crossers and temptresses

and seducers. And we really need to be quite aware that these stories are based on foundations that have to do with trying to understand how a woman like Cleopatra was able to wield the kind of power that she did. She does have, of of course the roots through marriage with different members of the Ptolemies and then also ruling as a regent for her

son, but she really was quite extraordinary in the kind of power and the kind of role in Mediterranean history that she was able to wield. And when our sources are trying to make sense of this they often want to figure this woman as being something extraordinary and superhuman and that really has made its way into the kinds of myth that we tell about her and the kinds of ways that we conceptualize female power in in male dominated scenarios we're used to understanding Rome as only inhabited by very powerful men. And here we have this very powerful woman.

So part of the way that I think when we look at a film like Liz Taylor's Cleopatra or any of the representations that we have, we just need to think about how this woman would have had a very difficult life, was in a position of considerable power, but was trying, probably it seems, to do what was best for Egypt. And again, possibly as someone who was part of the Egyptian culture and heritage, not only through being a queen of that region, but possibly a descendant from people in those regions as well. So this is really an important story about how we understand women in power in patriarchal societies. Amazing. Thank you so much, Shushma. That's fascinating. Tanya, you started coming in not knowing anything about Cleopatra. Where do you stand on her now?

I feel like she's my sister. Actually, no, because I'm like that. She's my neighbour. Very careful being Cleopatra's sister. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, thank you so much Tanya and thank you Shushma as well. And listener, if after today's episode you want more from Shushma, you can check out our episode on the rise of Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar to you and me. And for more Egyptian pharaohs, we've got episodes on Hatshepsut, another fantastic queen, and of course Ramesses the Great.

What a guy he was. And remember, if you've enjoyed the podcast, please leave a review, share the show with friends, make sure to subscribe to Your Dead to Me on BBC Sounds so you never miss an episode. All that's left for me to say is a huge thank you to our guests in History Corner. We had the amazing Shushma Malik from the University of Cambridge. Thank you Shushma. Thanks so much Greg. And in Comedy Corner, we had the truly terrific Tanya Moore.

Thank you Tanya. Thank you. Thank you all. And to you lovely listener, join me next time as we unroll another historical carpet to see what falls out. But for now, I'm off to go and marry my brother and then maybe poison him.

Sorry Seb, bye. ["The Last Supper"] ["The Last Supper"] Imagine a scrap of data that could help rescue a man lost at sea. That far north most people aren't found. This is a race against the clock. Or expose staggering financial fraud. All the Swiss banks, the British banks, the French banks. What I was looking at was a horror show.

Or uncover a medical breakthrough. Within 10 years, the whole world was convinced that he was right. 10 extraordinary adventures of data and discovery. Uncharted with me, Hannah Fry, on Radio 4, now available on BBC Sounds. This is history at its grubbiest and funniest. Enjoy the complete TV soundtracks of all four Blackadder series starring Rowan Atkinson, Tony Robinson, Miranda Richardson, Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie. Got him with my subtle plan. I can't see any subtle plan.

Well, Rick, you wouldn't see a subtle plan if it painted itself purple and danced naked on top of a harpsichord, singing, subtle plans are here again. Start listening to Blackadder, the complete collected series from BBC Audio Books. Available to purchase wherever you get your audio books.