Meet Clare Barker, the social worker who likes nothing more than sorting out other people's problems (while failing to deal with her own). Wracked with guilt over being white, middle-class and heterosexual, she has a dedicated social conscience (unless it's inconvenient for her) and lives to interfere in other people's lives—both on a personal and professional basis. Bearing the brunt of her control freakery and lack of self-awareness are her family, colleagues and long-suffering teacher partner, Brian—all of whom have their own frustrations, disappointments and dramas.

Well-meaning do-gooder Clare Barker is back, and dealing with more office politics, troublesome clients and domestic dramas. Secretly regarding herself as a cross between Mother Theresa and Wonder Woman, she's got all the right jargon for every problem, but never any practical solutions. However, in today's 'Big Society' there are plenty of challenges out there for an involved, caring social worker (or even Clare). These six series find her struggling once again to control both her professional and private life.

In Unruly, David Mitchell explores how early England’s monarchs, while acting as feared rulers firmly guiding their subjects’ destinies, were in reality a bunch of lucky bastards who were mostly as silly and weird in real life as they appear today in their portraits.

Ramesh has built his shop up over the course of 30 years, and it is a firmly entrenched feature of the local area. He is ably assisted by Dave, a 40-something underachiever who shares Ramesh's love of the art of shopkeeping, even if he is treated like a slave. Then, of course, there are Ramesh's sons, both surly and not particularly keen on old-school shopkeeping. However, they are the natural successors to the business, and Ramesh is keen to pass all his worldly wisdom on to them - whether they like it or not....

For three decades, Rupert Hardacre was one of the big beasts of advertising: he worked hard, played hard, and lived hard. But he fell harder. Driven out of every reputable agency in town for drinking all their whiskey and sleeping with all their wives, he used the remains of his fortune to found Hardacre's, the best (and only) advertising agency on the M25. Now he's so confident that his name alone will take him back to the top, he's happy to leave all the actual work to the creative department.

Separated by 10 years, 3,000 miles, and the unrelenting stresses of adulthood, best friends Janet and Serena plan a 40th birthday girls’ trip to reconnect. But after a massive crash, they’re the only survivors to wash ashore on an uncharted Caribbean Island. Armed with only the clothes on their backs and zero survival skills, they fight to overcome hunger, thirst, deadly wildlife—and most terrifyingly—decades of accrued resentment. Can they find their way home, or will they kill each other first?

A bad best man’s speech can ruin a wedding. Why do we plan every detail of a perfect day and then give the groom’s idiot best friend five minutes of total power? Enter Nate (Glen Powell), a speechwriter-for-hire who helps people write incredible best man speeches. To keep the best man from embarrassing himself (and the newlyweds), Nate uses his list of don’ts: Don’t mention the exes, don’t be rated R, and don’t bum everyone out. Nate’s system never fails. That is, until he meets Dan (Nicholas Braun).

In this award-winning Audible Studios production, Trevor Noah tells his wild coming-of-age tale during the twilight of apartheid in South Africa. It’s a story that begins with his mother throwing him from a moving van to save him from a potentially fatal dispute with gangsters, then follows the budding comedian’s path to self-discovery through episodes both poignant and comical.

The True Story of The Coward Brothers follows two musical brothers – one English, one American, both the illegitimate sons of dubious parentage who may, as they claim to be, "one and half-brothers" – perhaps a reference to the disparity in their height and relative talents.

Traumatized by the bombing of Dresden at the time he had been imprisoned, Pilgrim drifts through all events and history, sometimes deeply implicated, sometimes a witness. He is surrounded by Vonnegut's usual large cast of continuing characters (notably here the hack science fiction writer Kilgore Trout and the alien Tralfamadorians, who oversee his life and remind him constantly that there is no causation, no order, no motive to existence).

Alice's journey begins as all good journeys do: hitting on the sales guy at REI. After a tumultuous breakup, a quick career transition, family upheaval, and a sobriety journey that didn't fix her life quite as much as she expected it to, Alice decides that the only way to solve all her problems is to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. But as she begins preparing for the months-long quest, she realizes the answers she's seeking might not be on top of a snow-covered mountain. Especially since she just learned there was snow in California.

Superstar comedian and Hollywood box-office star Kevin Hart turns his immense talent to the written word by writing some words. Some of those words include: the, a, for, above, and even even. Put them together and you have the funniest, most heartfelt, and most inspirational memoir on survival, success, and the importance of believing in yourself since Old Yeller.

Patrick Bateman moves among the young and trendy in 1980s Manhattan. Young, handsome, and well educated, Bateman earns his fortune on Wall Street by day while spending his nights in ways we cannot begin to fathom. Expressing his true self through torture and murder, Bateman prefigures an apocalyptic horror that no society could bear to confront.

Jenna Jones, former It-girl fashion editor, is broke and desperate for a second chance. When she’s dumped by her longtime fiancé and fired from Darling magazine, she begs for a job from her old arch nemesis, Darcy Vale. The beyond-bitchy publisher of StyleZine.com, Darcy agrees to hire her rival - only because her fashion site needs a jolt from Jenna’s old school cred. But Jenna soon realizes she’s in over her head.

Ziwe made a name for herself by asking guests like Alyssa Milano, Fran Lebowitz, and Chet Hanks direct questions. In Black Friend, she turns her incisive perspective on both herself and the culture at large. Throughout the book, Ziwe combines pop-culture commentary and personal stories that grapple with her own (mis)understanding of identity. From a hilarious case of mistaken identity via a jumbotron to a terrifying fight-or-flight encounter in the woods, Ziwe raises difficult questions for comedic relief.