Showing results by narrator "Steven Crossley" in All Categories

Iran and Iraq served as the first WWII theater in which the US, the UK, and the USSR fought alongside each other. Historian Ashley Jackson charts the intense Allied military activity in Iran and Iraq and reveals how deeply the war impacted common people's lives. He also provides revelations about the true nature of Anglo-American relations in the region, the beginnings of the Cold War, and the continuing corrosive legacy of Western influence in these lands.

The birth of the Royal Air Force marked a pivotal moment in military history. World War I was frozen in the bloody stalemate of trench warfare, which gave strategic urgency to any means of directly attacking enemy resources and morale. The new technologies of air power held promise, and by 1917 German bombers had begun attacking British cities.

J.M. Coetzee is not only one of the most acclaimed fiction writers in the world, he is also an accomplished and insightful literary critic. In Late Essays, a thought-provoking collection of 22 pieces, he examines the work of some of the world's greatest writers - from Daniel Defoe and Samuel Beckett to Irene Nemirovsky and Goethe. Challenging yet accessible, literary master Coetzee writes these essays with great clarity and precision, offering listeners an illuminating and profound analysis of a remarkable list of writers and their works.

Julian Treslove and Sam Finkler are old school friends. Despite a prickly relationship and very different lives, they've never quite lost touch with each other - or with their former teacher, Libor Sevick. Now all three are recently widowed, in their own way, and spend sweetly painful evenings together reminiscing. Until an unexpected violent attack brings everything they thought they knew into question.

When award-winning journalist Nick Davies decided to break Fleet Street's unwritten rule by investigating his own colleagues, he found that the business of reporting the truth had been slowly subverted by the mass production of ignorance.

Where is 'home'? For Amartya Sen home has been many places - Dhaka in modern Bangladesh, where he grew up; the village of Santiniketan, where he was raised by his grandparents as much as by his parents; Calcutta, where he first studied economics and was active in student movements and Trinity College, Cambridge, to which he came aged 19. Sen brilliantly recreates the atmosphere in each of these.

An internationally best-selling author, Carole Mortimer has penned over 150 romance novels in her remarkable career. The Duke’s Cinderella Bride stars brooding Hawk St. Claire, Duke of Stourbridge and seemingly plain servant girl Jane Smith. After a chance encounter Jane pays the price for their inappropriate behavior when she is removed from her household. Soon the duke takes in this genteel lass and makes her his ward.

Ramage, finally reunited with his beloved Sarah, hopes to spend at least a few quiet weeks with her. Instead, he is summoned by Admiral Nelson himself. His orders: Ramage is to join Nelson's fleet blockading the combined French and Spanish navies in the port of Cadiz. But Nelson's plan is not merely to blockade the enemy's fleet. He intends to confront it head-on in the biggest naval battle the world has ever seen.

Questions of what happens after death were vital in Shakespeare's time, as it is today. And, like today, the answers were by no means universally agreed upon. Exploring how particular texts and characters answer these questions, Shakespeare and the Afterlife showcases the vitality and originality of the author's language and thinking. We encounter characters with very personal visions of what awaits them after death, and these visions reveal new insights into these individuals' motivations and concerns as they navigate the world of the living.

His daily discontent is nothing compared to the affliction of hearing loss, which is a constant source of domestic friction and social embarrassment. In the popular imagination, he observes, deafness is comic, as blindness is tragic, but for the deaf person himself it is no joke. It is through his deafness that Desmond inadvertently gets involved with a young woman whose wayward and unpredictable behavior threatens to destabilize his life completely.

British soldier Peter Lennox, a POW in an Italian prison camp, is still fighting his own war. An artist in civilian life, his hands bear the scars of wounds received during his capture at the fall of Tobruk, and he suspects he will never paint again. The only thing that sustains him is plotting his escapes, no matter how many times he is recaptured. But in September 1943 the Italians surrender to the Allies, and Lennox is free.

Oscar Hopkins, the hydrophobic, noisy-kneed son of a preacher, renounces his father's stern religion in favour of the Anglican Church. Lucinda Leplastrier, a frizzy-haired heiress, impulsively buys a glass factory with the inheritance forced on her by a well-intentioned adviser. When the two finally meet, on board a ship to New South Wales, Australia, they are bound by their affinity for gambling and risk, their loneliness and their awkwardly blossoming mutual affection.

Cambridge, 1924 in early summertime. May Balls, punting, flirting and dancing the tango are the preoccupations of bright young people, but bright young Detective Inspector John Redfyre finds himself mired in multiple murders. One morning, his dog discovers a corpse neatly laid on a tombstone in the graveyard adjoining St. Bede's College. An army greatcoat and well-worn boots suggest the dead man may have been a former soldier, though the empty bottle of brandy and a card bearing the words "An Invitation to Dine" on the victim ring a discordant note.

The year is 1962. Young Lieutenant Tromp Kramer of the Trekkersburg Murder and Robbery Squad has been ordered up to Jafini, a small, dusty town in northern Zululand, to investigate the "hero’s death" of the town’s chief detective, Maaties Kritzinger - another Afrikaner maverick, and one with many secrets. Kramer finds himself increasingly identifying with the victim as the investigation proceeds. And then his path crosses that of Bantu Detective Sergeant Mickey Zondi, who is trying to locate a multiple killer whose summary execution will quiet the spirits of his ancestors. Despite the racial differences, the two men sense a kinship.…

Long ago, in a land by the sea, 12-year-old Aaron lives with his mother in the wooded countryside. Because the boy is mute, he depends on his mother completely. But when a sudden blizzard strands his mother in a distant town, Aaron finds himself alone for the first time in his life. Setting out in the snow to look for his mother, the boy embarks on a perilous, silent journey that will carry him to the eerie Half-a-Moon Inn. There, held captive by the sharp-eyed Miss Grackle, Aaron will discover her wicked powers.

Secret agent Mr. Adolph Verloc operates from a seedy Soho shop, where he deals in pornography and espionage. Idle, treacherous, and self-righteous, he makes the life of his wife, Winnie, one of silent misery. When Verloc is assigned to plant a bomb at Greenwich Observatory, his plans go terribly awry, and his family has to deal with the tragic repercussions of his actions. Joseph Conrad's dark satire on English society, while rooted in the Edwardian period, remains strikingly contemporary.

Myrddion Merlinus is a product of a brutal rape, and in the second book of this epic trilogy, he embarks on a quest to uncover his father’s identity and sets sail from Celtic Briton with his band of loyal companions. Their journey through war-ravaged France, Rome, and Ravenna to Constantinople will test their skills and strength to the limit. Roman control over Europe is weakening. Attila’s barbaric army is causing death and destruction and, bound by a healer’s oath to relieve suffering, Merlin must serve under General Flavius Aetius at the Battle of the Catalaunian Plains.

Sung in moments of personal isolation or on state occasions watched by millions, “Amazing Grace” has become an unparalleled anthem for humankind. How did a simple Christian hymn, written in a remote English vicarage in 1772, come to hold such sway in all corners of the modern world? With this short, engaging cultural history, James Walvin offers an explanation.

Someone is trying to kill leading British Shakespearean actor, husband, father, ladies' man, and soon-to-be knight of the realm Winstanley Fortescue. The actor, rehearsing his starring role in the forthcoming play Serpent in the Heather, is conked on the head backstage. He falls off a ladder and lands on the resident pest-control officer, Montmorency D. Mousa (otherwise known as Monty), the company cat. When Fortescue comes to, he finds, to his horror, that he has become trapped in Monty's body.

It is 1537, a time of revolution that sees the greatest changes in England since 1066. Henry VIII has proclaimed himself Supreme Head of the Church. The country is waking up to savage new laws, rigged trials and the greatest network of informers ever seen. And under the orders of Thomas Cromwell, a team of commissioners is sent throughout the country to investigate the monasteries.