Showing results by narrator "George" in All Categories

Another year, another prime minister - how many have we been through now? In the face of all the nonsense that has spewed forth from Westminster over the past two years, John Crace's brilliantly lacerating political sketches have provided the nation with some desperately needed relief. In Depraved New World, Crace introduces a worryingly funny selection of his finest work.

As Constantinople is being pillaged and burned in April 1204, a young man, Baudolino, manages to save a historian and a high court official from certain death at the hands of crusading warriors. Born a simple peasant, Baudolino has two gifts: his ability to learn languages and to lie. A young man, he is adopted by a foreign commander who sends him to university in Paris. After he allies with a group of fearless and adventurous fellow students, they go in search of a vast kingdom to the East.

Stephen King's epic fantasy series, The Dark Tower, is being made into a major movie starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey. Due in cinemas February 17, 2017 USA. In this first novel in his epic fantasy masterpiece, Stephen King introduces listeners to one of his most enigmatic heroes, Roland of Gilead, the Last Gunslinger. He is a haunting figure, a loner, on a spellbinding journey into good and evil, in a desolate world which frighteningly echoes our own.

Jerusalem and the Sinai desert, AD 55. In the turbulent aftermath of the crucifixion of Jesus, agents of the Roman Empire receive information about a pilgrim bearing an incendiary letter from a religious fanatic calling himself Paul the Apostle to insurrectionists in Corinth. What's in the letter could bring down an empire. The Romans hire a former legionary, a solitary man-at-arms named Telamon to intercept the letter and destroy the courier. But once he meets the courier, Telamon experiences an extraordinary conversion.

England 1928. Mystery writer Marius Quin receives alarming news from his sleuthing partner Lady Bella Montague that their childhood friends are in danger. Back in their charming village of Hurtwood, the three Heaton cousins have all been sent identical death threats. When the local constable refuses to help, it’s up to Marius and Bella to stop the would-be killer. But they arrive too late, and Marius finds his former best friend dead in his kitchen with a knife through the heart.

For some people, trouble just finds them. Thirty years ago, Vincent King became a killer. Now, he's been released from prison and is back in his hometown of Cape Haven, California. Not everyone is pleased to see him. Like Star Radley, his ex-girlfriend and sister of the girl he killed. Duchess Radley, Star's 13-year-old daughter, is part-carer, part-protector to her younger brother, Robin - and to her deeply troubled mother.

Quasimodo was born disfigured, hunchbacked and lame, and years spent ringing the bells of the Cathedral of Notre Dame have left him deaf, but also spared him the taunts of the cruel mobs of Paris. Now Quasimodo has fallen in love with the lovely Gypsy girl Esmeralda, the only person who ever showed pity on him - but she faces a death sentence, and only Quasimodo's pure spirit can save her. Or can he?

Lord Edgington and his grandson (along with a surprising number of servants) are going on a summer holiday. Setting off in their convoy of luxury cars, there are wonders to behold and mysteries to uncover. But when they arrive at the Lake District for a reunion with old friends, a tragedy from decades earlier hangs over the dilapidated Chandos Grove estate. After a member of the party is murdered, it will take the legendary investigator's every last wit to catch the killer and solve a mystery that has haunted him for fifty years.

The Tower of London: Impenetrable. Well protected. Secure. Home to the most valuable jewels on earth. But once a year, the Metropolitan Police must execute the most secret operation in their armoury when they transport the Crown Jewels across London. For four years, Chief Superindendent William Warwick – together with his second-in-command Inspector Ross Hogan – has been in charge of the operation. And for four years it’s run like clockwork. But this year, everything is about to change.

Newly promoted, Detective Sergeant William Warwick has been reassigned to the drugs squad. His first case: to investigate a notorious south London drug lord known as the Viper. But as William and his team close the net around a criminal network unlike any they have ever encountered, he is also faced with an old enemy, Miles Faulkner. It will take all of William’s cunning to devise a means to bring both men to justice; a trap neither will expect, one that is hidden in plain sight....

England, 1925. After years shut away from the world, former detective Lord Edgington of Cranley Hall plans a grand ball to celebrate his seventy-fifth birthday. But when someone starts bumping off members of his scheming family, the old man enlists his teenage grandson to help find the killer, before one of them is next.

In the bizarre world of Franz Kafka, salesmen turn into giant bugs, apes give lectures at college academies, and nightmares probe the mysteries of modern humanity’s unhappiness. More than any other modern writer in world literature, Kafka captures the loneliness and misery that fill the lives of 20th-century humanity.

In David Ignatius' gripping new novel, spies don' t bother to steal information...they change it, permanently and invisibly. Graham Weber has been director of the CIA for less than a week when a Swiss kid in a dirty T-shirt walks into the American consulate in Hamburg and says the agency has been hacked, and he has a list of agents' names to prove it. This is the moment a CIA director most dreads. Weber isn' t sure where to turn until he meets a charismatic (and unstable) young man named James Morris who runs the Internet Operations Center.

Ex-reporter Joe Winder had been working in the public relations department of a sleazy family entertainment park, The Amazing Kingdom of Thrills, when he chanced upon a news-breaking story inspired by the disappearance of two blue-tongued voles and the bizarre death of Orky, the killer whale.

When a pair of young lovers abscond from a Puritan colony, little do they know that their humble cabin in the woods will become the home of an extraordinary succession of human and inhuman characters alike. In his transcendent fourth novel, Pulitzer Prize finalist Daniel Mason delivers a magisterial and highly inventive tale brimming with love and madness, humor and hope. Following the cycles of history, nature and even language, North Woods shows the myriad, magical ways in which we're connected to our environment, to history and to each other.

For 21 years, Paul Merson played professional football. He won two First Division titles with Arsenal and was one of the finest players of his generation. But for 30 years, Paul Merson has also been an addict. Alcohol, drugs, gambling: a desperately unenviable cocktail of addictions and depression which has plagued his entire adult life and driven him to the verge of suicide.

If Max Brod had obeyed Franz Kafka's dying request, Kafka's unpublished manuscripts would have been burned, unread. Fortunately, Brod ignored his friend's wishes and published The Trial, which became the author's most famous work. Now Kafka's enigmatic novel regains its humor and stylistic elegance in a new translation based on the restored original manuscript.

December 1927. Mystery-writer Marius Quin has one previous bestseller, endless looming mortgage payments, and no idea how to write his next book. When his childhood friend Lady Isabella Montague invites him to an intimate New Year’s Eve party hosted by a narcissistic actor, Marius seizes upon the distraction. With his perpetually glum Basset hound along for the ride, he navigates the snowy lanes to the opulent estate of Everham Hall. As the celebrations begin, fireworks light up the sky, champagne corks pop, and then the host is murdered…

Stephen King's epic fantasy series, The Dark Tower, is being made into a major movie starring Idris Elba and Matthew McConaughey. Due in cinemas February 17, 2017 USA. The pivotal sixth instalment in King's best-selling epic fantasy saga provides the key to the quest that defines Roland's life.

London, 1988. Royal fever sweeps the nation as Britain falls in love with the ‘people’s princess’. Which means for Scotland Yard, the focus is on the elite Royalty Protection Command, and its commanding officer. Entrusted with protecting the most famous family on earth, they quite simply have to be the best. A weak link could spell disaster.