Showing results by narrator "David Shaw Parker" in All Categories

Loved and appreciated by all with whom he works, Harding lives an ordered, regular life in his protected religious environment. Then one day, a young reformer feels he has uncovered a mismanagement of funds and Harding is held to blame. The accusation comes as a shock not only to Harding himself but also to the cathedral community. It then comes to wider notice when the cause is taken up by a national newspaper.

A gripping collection of stories of human criminality at its most bizarre.

These unusual, sensational murders recall not only gruesome historical crimes, but also touch on shocking and macabre modern murders. Included are details of groundbreaking advances in crime detection, law enforcement, and forensic science. This is the top-secret report on the most grisly, and unusual, criminal activity of our time.

Catching all the fascination and humour of travel in out-of-the-way places, One's Company is Peter Fleming's account of his journey through Russia and Manchuria to China when he was Special Correspondent to The Times in the 1930s. Fleming spent seven months with the "object of investigating the Communist situation in South China" at a time when, as far as he knew, "no previous journey had been made to the anti-communist front by a foreigner", and on its publication in 1934, One's Company won widespread critical acclaim.

There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Most religions also have 3 this and 3 that and, of course, in these more modern times, three’s a crowd may be too many, except when it’s a ménage à trois. It seems good things usually come in threes. Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating.

There is something about the number 3. The Ancient Greeks believed 3 was the perfect number, and in China 3 has always been a lucky number, and they know a thing or two. Most religions also have 3 this and 3 that and, of course, in these more modern times, three’s a crowd may be too many, except when it’s a ménage à trois. It seems good things usually come in threes. Whatever history and culture says WE think 3, a hat-trick of stories, is a great number to explore themes and literary avenues that classic authors were so adept at creating.

Bridging the gap between Game of Thrones and Bernard Cornwell comes the third chapter in James Wilde's epic adventure of betrayal, battle and bloodshed. For all the darkness in the land, there is hope. And it rests with one man. Lucanus - the one they call the Wolf - is a warrior. He wears the ancient crown of the great war leader, Pendragon, and he wields a sword bestowed upon him by the druids.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Thomas Hardy by Claire Tomalin, read by Jill Balcon and David Shaw Parker. Paradox ruled Thomas Hardy's life. His birth was almost his death; he became one of the great Victorian novelists and reinvented himself as one of the 20th-century's greatest poets; he was an unhappy husband and a desolate widower; and he wrote bitter attacks on the English class system yet prized the friendship of aristocrats.

Before Sir Florian Eustace dies, he gives his beloved wife Lizzie a beautiful and expensive diamond necklace valued over £10,000. Dispute soon rages between the Eustace family and the manipulative and conniving Lizzie: it's claimed that the diamonds are a precious family heirloom, but Lizzie argues they were a gift. Is she lying? As the family's lawyer determines to reunite them with the jewels, Lizzie resorts to increasingly desperate measures, until one day the jewels are stolen. Who is responsible? The Eustace Diamonds is a wonderfully absorbing blend of cynicism and humor.

Packed with out-of-this-world information from NASA and ESA missions, kids will explore our Universe as never before. With exclusive interviews coupled with incredible facts, Space A Children's Encyclopedia will teach children everything they need to know about space. This incredible space audiobook is perfect for space enthusiasts and budding astronomers. It contains everything you ever wanted to know about space.

Here is the beginning of a legend. Long before Camelot rose, a hundred years before the myth of King Arthur was half formed, at the start of the Red Century, the world was slipping into a dark age.... It is AD 367. In a frozen forest beyond Hadrian's Wall, six scouts of the Roman army are found murdered. For Lucanus, known as the Wolf and leader of elite unit called the Arcani, this chilling ritual killing is a sign of a greater threat. But to the Wolf the far north is a foreign land, a place where daemons and the old gods live on.

The Dowells, a wealthy American couple, have been close friends with the Ashburnhams for years. Edward Ashburnham, a first-rate soldier, seems to be the perfect English gentleman and Leonora his perfect wife, but beneath the surface their marriage seethes with unhappiness and deception. Our only window on the strange tangle of events surrounding Edward is provided by John Dowell, the husband he deceives. Gradually Dowell unfolds a devastating story, in which everyone's honesty is in doubt.

It is AD 367, and Roman Britain has fallen to the vast barbarian horde which has invaded from the north. Towns burn, the land is ravaged and the few survivors flee. The army of Rome - once the most effective fighting force in the world - has been broken, its spirit lost and its remaining troops shattered. Yet for all the darkness, there is hope. And it rests with one man. His name is Lucanus, whom they call the Wolf. He is a warrior, and he wears the ancient crown of the great war leader Pendragon, and he wields a sword bestowed upon him by the druids.

For 300 years, The Pilgrim's Progress has remained perhaps the best-loved and most read of devotional fictions. In plain yet powerful and moving language, Bunyan tells the story of Christian's struggle to attain salvation and the Gates of Heaven. He must pass through the Slough of Despond, ward off the temptations of Vanity Fair, and fight the monstrous Apollyon. In Part II, his wife and children follow the same path, helped and protected by Great-heart, until for them, too, "the trumpets sound on the other side."

The Politics Book makes government and politics easy to understand by explaining the big ideas simply. The key events in political history are outlined from the origins of political thinking by Confucius and Aristotle to modern-day activists such as Martin Luther King and Nelson Mandela. This audiobook breaks down their important concepts into bite-size chunks to make the subject accessible to students of politics and anyone with an interest in how government works.

When Hedda Hellberg fails to return from a retreat in Italy where she has recently been grieving for her dead father, her husband discovers that her life is tangled in mystery. Hedda never left Oslo, the retreat has no record of her and, what's more, she appears to be connected to the murder of an old man gunned down on the first day of the hunting season in the depths of the Swedish forests....

Someone has to die.... Henning Juul sits in a boat on a dark lake. A man with a gun sits opposite him. At the man's feet is a body that will be soon be dumped into the water. Henning knows that the same fate awaits him. And he knows that it's his own fault. Who started the fire that killed Henning's young son? How is his sister, Trine, involved? Most importantly, who can be trusted?

The Way We Live Now is a complex and compulsive tale that traces the career of Augustus Melmotte, a strange and mysterious financier who bursts into London society like a guided missile. In setting up a dubious scheme based on speculative money and stock market gambles, Melmotte manages to lure in several members of the English aristocracy, for whom money is the summum bonum. The world is at his feet - until the corruption catches up with him.

In The Last Chronicle of Barset, Trollope concludes his saga of ecclesiastical life. At the heart of the novel is the plight of Josiah Crawley, a proud, impoverished clergyman who faces difficult legal circumstances. Caught amid poverty, Josiah appears to have stolen a check and is forced to stand trial - despite the fact that he cannot remember its origins. To make matters worse, his daughter, Grace, desperately seeks the approval of Archdeacon Grantly, whose son she intends to marry.

In Framley Parsonage, the fourth novel of Trollope's Chronicles of Barsetshire, the author leaves the confines of Barchester and looks to the countryside, where he relates the moral difficulties of Mark Robarts, the young clergyman who has recently been appointed Vicar of Framley. Desperate to keep up with the local aristocracy, the country parson is persuaded to underwrite the debts of Sowerby, a well-respected peer.

Phineas Finn, a handsome young man of 23, comes to England to make his fortune in parliamentary politics. But despite all his aspirations, Finn is haunted by ethical questions as his personal convictions conflict with his duty towards his party. Loyalty versus honor, love versus money, and privacy versus prominence: our eponymous hero faces a variety of dilemmas as he navigates his way through the House of Commons.