Showing results by narrator "Leighton Pugh" in All Categories

From the Paleozoic volcanoes that stained its soil, to the Saxons who occupied it, to the Tudors who traded its wool, to the Land Girls of wartime, John Lewis-Stempel charts a sweeping, lyrical history of Woodston: the quintessential English farm. With his combined skills of farmer and historian, Lewis-Stempel digs deep into written records, the memories of relatives and the landscape itself to celebrate the farmland his family have been bound to for millennia.

A crossed telephone wire causes a call from the president of the United States to his ambassador in London to be overheard by geologist Tom Bartlett. Tom, preoccupied with thoughts of the conference he is to attend in Israel, puts the incident from his mind, unaware that he might not have been the only person listening in. He has not been in Tel Aviv a day, however, before the first attempt is made on his life. As Arab, Israeli, Russian and American agents begin to converge on him, it’s clear that someone wants Tom’s briefcase—and will stop at nothing to obtain it.

Berlin, 1962. Morale is at rock bottom in East Germany, thrown into chaos by the new Berlin Wall. The Ministry for State Security is hunting for a new weapon in the war against capitalism - and their solution is stranger than fiction. Rather than guns, tanks or bombs, the Stasi resolve to fight the enemy through rhyme and verse, winning the Culture Wars through poetry - and the result is the most bizarre book club in history.

For many years a farmer in England, John Lewis-Stempel yearned once again to live in a landscape where turtle doves purr and nightingales sing, as they did almost everywhere in his childhood. He wanted to be self-sufficient, to make his own wine and learn the secrets of truffle farming. And so, buying an old honey-coloured limestone house with bright blue shutters, the Lewis-Stempels began their new life as peasant farmers.

Hamburg, 1946: Thousands remain displaced in what is now the British Occupied Zone. Charged with overseeing the rebuilding of this devastated city and the de-Nazification of its defeated people, Colonel Lewis Morgan has requisitioned a fine house on the banks of the Elbe, where he will be joined by his grieving wife, Rachael, and only remaining son, Edmund. But rather than force its owners, a German widower and his traumatised daughter, to leave their home, Lewis insists that the two families live together.

Felix Mendelssohn was a child prodigy to rival Mozart and achieved great fame during his lifetime, fêted across Europe, and composing in the widest possible range of musical genres. However, his music has also been denigrated for its elegance, charm and symmetry. This insightful biography explores the breadth of his achievements, the complexities of his privileged upbringing, and the reasons for the fluctuating nature of his reputation. Musical excerpts include the Violin Concerto, String Octet and Elijah, as well as his choral works, symphonies, sonatas and songs.

Russia has been locked into a winter of authoritarian rule at home and military adventures abroad under Vladimir Putin. In Kremlin Winter, Robert Service, one of our finest historians of Russia, plots the seasonal shifts in events since 2012 and those that may be expected in the immediate future. When Mikhail Gorbachëv introduced perestroika in the mid-1980s, the USSR went through a springtime of growth and release.

For four years John Lewis-Stempel managed the wood. He coppiced the trees and raised cows and pigs who roamed free there. This is the diary of the last year, by which time he had come to know it from the bottom of its beech roots to the tip of its oaks and to know all the animals that lived there - the fox, the pheasants, the wood mice, the tawny owl - and where the best bluebells grew. For many fauna and flora, woods like Cockshutt are the last refuge. It proves a sanctuary for John, too.

When Singapore fell to the Japanese in December 1941, Captain Freddie Spencer Chapman chose to take the fight to the enemy. Trekking deep behind enemy lines into the jungle, this veteran explorer turned special forces operative unleashed a one-man commando campaign of such destructive power and lethal ferocity that the Japanese deployed a Regiment of four thousand men in a desperate effort to hunt him down.

A new pupil, Augustin Meaulnes, arrives at a rural school, and his bravado and charisma make an immediate impact on all those around him, including the 15-year-old François Seurel. The newcomer suddenly disappears for several days, during which time he stumbles across a mysterious manor house, which is home to a beautiful girl, Yvonne de Galais. After returning, ‘Le Grand Meaulnes’ embarks on a search to find again the lost manor and the happiness he found there.

In November 1943, with the outcome of the Second World War hanging in the balance, the Allies needed a new plan. The Americans' audacious suggestion to the Soviets was to open a second air front, with the US Air Force establishing bases in Soviet-controlled territory. Despite Stalin's obvious reservations about the presence of foreign troops in Russia, he was persuaded, and in early 1944 and Operation Baseball and then Frantic were initiated as B-17 Superfortresses were flown from bases in Italy to the Poltova region in today's Ukraine.

This audiobook includes unabridged recordings of all George Orwell's six novels: 1984; Animal Farm; Burmese Days; Coming Up For Air; Keep the Aspidistra Flying; and A Clergyman's Daughter.

What does it mean to be lucky? How might we mitigate the effects of bad luck and maximise those of good? Is there actually such a thing as ‘luck’—some force that intervenes between desire and its consummation, that impedes or hastens it? To answer these questions, David Flusfeder sets out on a search for the definition of luck.

Between 1918 and 1921, over a hundred thousand Jews were murdered in Ukraine by peasants, townsmen, and soldiers who blamed the Jews for the turmoil of the Russian Revolution. In hundreds of separate incidents, ordinary people robbed their Jewish neighbors with impunity, burned down their houses, ripped apart their Torah scrolls, sexually assaulted them, and killed them. Largely forgotten today, these pogroms–ethnic riots–dominated headlines and international affairs in their time. Aid workers warned that six million Jews were in danger of complete extermination.

Jungle tells the remarkable story of the world's tropical forests, from the arrival of the first plants millions of years ago to the role of tropical forests in the evolution of the world's atmosphere, the dinosaurs, the first mammals and even our own species and ancestors. Highlighting provocative new evidence garnered from cutting-edge research, Dr Roberts shows, for example, that our view of humans as 'savannah specialists' is wildly wrong, and that the 'Anthropocene' began not with the Industrial Revolution, but potentially as early as 6,000 years ago in the tropics.

James Marlowe puts in long alcohol- and cocaine-fuelled hours as an advertising director. As his life disintegrates around him, he comes to despise his clients, the corporate world, and himself. Now his imagination is fired by a set of characters he calls The Zoo. They lead him into a world crazier than the one that's thrown him out. The way back to sanity might lie behind the fantasy.

The political upheaval of the mid-17th century has no parallel in English history. Other events have changed the occupancy and the powers of the throne, but the conflict of 1640-60 was more dramatic: the monarchy and the House of Lords were abolished, to be replaced by a republic and military rule. In this thoroughly enjoyable account, Blair Worden explores the events of this period and their origins.

Brimming with gluttony, booze and lust, Roger Micheldene is loose in America. Supposedly visiting Budweiser University to make deals for his publishing firm in England, Roger instead sets out to offend all he meets and to seduce every woman he encounters. But his American hosts seem made of sterner stuff. Who will be Roger's undoing? Irving Macher, the young author of an annoyingly brilliant first novel? Father Colgate, the priest who suggests that Roger's soul is in torment? Or will it be his married ex-lover Helene? One thing is certain - Roger is heading for a terrible fall.

Sultan Gadaffi has escaped from Libya with a fistful of dangerous secrets. The British Government want ex-Special Forces operative Steve Range, the go-to man for any Black-Ops missions, to lead an ultra-covert mercenary group to seize him from his near-impregnable desert stronghold. Saed is defended by Tuareg warriors armed to the teeth with stolen NATO hardware. If Range's team can somehow overcome them, then they will earn themselves gold bullion worth $500 million.

Welcome to Borley Rectory, the most haunted house in England. It's 1926. Sarah Grey has a new job - assistant to Harry Price, London's most infamous ghost hunter. Harry has devoted his life to exposing the truth behind England's 'false hauntings', and never has he left a case unsolved. They are invited to Borley Rectory - a house so haunted that objects fly through the air. But when night falls, they're forced to confront an uncomfortable possibility: the ghost of Borley Rectory may be real.