Showing results by narrator "Rupert Degas" in All Categories

A Zoo in My Luggage is the colorful, first-hand account of Gerald Durrell's six-month animal-collecting trip in British Cameroon, and his attempts to create his own zoo. Motivated by a passion for wildlife, and a desire to save endangered species from extinction, Durrell assembles a glorious panoply of exotic animals - including a female baboon called Georgina, who later runs amok in a department store; a black-eared squirrel, who tries to bury nuts in his ear; and a gentlemanly chimpanzee named Chumly, who greets him with an outstretched hand.

Married couple Mark and Cecilia seem to have it all—looks, wealth, love. But behind closed doors, things are very different—they live in silent resentment, their marriage broken by the shattering loss of the child they so desperately wanted. Enter Alice: Mark’s idea of the perfect woman. She appears from nowhere and offers Mark the chance of a new life filled with love, passion, and, finally, the joys of parenthood—everything he’s ever dreamed of. But there’s a catch.

Combine an offbeat cast of characters with Murakami's idiosyncratic prose, and the result is the remarkable story Dance Dance Dance: high-class call girls billed to MasterCard, a psychic 13-year-old dropout has a passion for talking heads, and meet a hunky matinee idol doomed to play dentists and teachers. Don’t forget the one-armed beach-combing poet, an uptight hotel clerk and one very bemused narrator caught in the web of advanced capitalist mayhem.

Phineas Donovan is possessed of a sharp intellect. Fresh from Cambridge, he obtains a generous live-in position as tutor for the son of the wealthy Lord Bettencourt. If he can prove his value, he has hopes of being given the patronage of his employer, allowing him to take up a position as vicar. There, he can pursue his intellectual endeavors in peace and relative financial comfort.

An advertising executive receives a postcard from a friend and casually appropriates the image for an advertisement. What he doesn’t realize is that included in the scene is a mutant sheep with a star on its back, and in using this photo he has unwittingly captured the attention of a man who offers a menacing ultimatum: find the sheep or face dire consequences.

The fifth volume in CSA Word's massively popular complete and unabridged ‘Short Stories’ collection is bound to please. With something for everyone this collection of classic stories read by only the best-suited and most established readers will delight the ears as a vintage wine excites the gullet; The Vintage Collection is audible gold. Features eye-catching typographical series design.

When Ted Simon rode 64,000 miles round the world on his 500c Triumph Tiger, he inspired thousands of motorcyclists to begin their own adventures, including Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman, who chronicled their travels in Long Way Round. Nearly 30 years later, Ted Simon took to the road again to retrace the epic journey he made in his 40s. He meets up with old friends and acquaintances, revisits old landmarks and locations, and rediscovers himself, as well as the world, along the way.

When Rebecca Russell’s brother marries, she finally has the opportunity she has been dreaming of: to leave the seclusion of her reclusive grandfather’s home and enter into society. But when her inexperience has her making blunders and courting embarrassment, help comes from an unexpected source: the brooding, irritable brother of her chaperone.

H.H. Munro (Saki) is one of the undisputed masters of the short story. In this complete compendium, the full gamut of his subjects and themes is experienced. His stories are imbued with humorous satire, biting irony, and often the macabre, all of which have one target: the stupidities and hypocrisies of Edwardian upper-class society.

In the southwestern desert, a mysterious cult prays for the return of the Visitors. Only one creature can derail that grand and glorious event: An evil entity, known as the Duad, can keep the Visitors from arriving and prevent the transfiguration to come. Daley, who lives nearby, has a far more serious problem: an alien consciousness that has taken up residence in her head.

The Oblivion Order is falling apart, and the time line is beginning to unravel. Dalton's obsession with the Djinn threatens to bring down the continuum and the only way to stop him is to resolve the riddles of the Eschaton Cascade and find Josh's father. Follow Caitlin and Josh as they discover the origins of the Order and the future that the founder was aiming to avoid.

All good things come to an end. And this is it: the last stand of the Ketty Jay and her intrepid crew. They've been shot down, set up, double-crossed and ripped off. They've stolen priceless treasures, destroyed a 10,000-year-old Azryx city and sort-of-accidentally blew up the son of the Archduke. Now they've gone and started a civil war. This time, they're really in trouble.

In early 1933, Rowland Sinclair and his companions are ensconced in the superlative luxury of The Hydro Majestic; trouble seems very distant indeed...until Harry Simpson vanishes. Croquet and pre-dinner cocktails are abandoned as Rowland begins the hunt. Stockmen, gangsters and a belligerent writer all gather to the fray, as the investigation becomes embroiled with a much darker conspiracy.

Following on from the events in A Zoo in My Luggage, The Whispering Land sees Gerald Durrell and his wife Jacquie travel to Argentina to collect animals for their newly established zoo. With rare insight and unique charm, Durrell pulls the listener into the tropical landscape of Patagonia, where he witnesses magical moments with penguins, seals and ocelots, and encounters a hilarious cast of characters, including a swearing parrot and a belching guanaco.

On October 6, 1973, Ted Simon knew there was no going back. He loaded up his 500cc Triumph Tiger in the pouring rain and said good-bye to London. Over four years he rode 64,000 miles round the world. Breakdowns, revolutions, war, a spell in prison, and a Californian commune were all part of his experience, which was colored variously by utter despair and unimaginable joy. He was treated as a spy, a god, a welcome stranger and a curiosity

When the notorious Lord Tracy Belmanoir, duke of Andover and also the infamous Black Moth, is caught attempting to abduct the dark-haired Diana Beauleigh by estranged Jack Carstares, the rightful earl of Wyncham, he's sent scurrying after a thrilling sword fight. Injured in battle, Jack relies on Diana to nurse his wounds and, as their feelings for each other blossom, realizes that he must return to Wyncham, clear his name of previous accusations, and rightly take over as earl. But the Black Moth waits patiently to take what he wants - and he is relentless.

It’s 1932, a time of crisis and doubt. Returning home on a luxury ocean liner after months abroad, Rowland Sinclair and his companions dine with a suffragette, a Bishop and a retired World Prophet. The Church encounters less orthodox religion in the Aquitania’s chandeliered ballroom, where men of God rub shoulders with mystics in dinner suits. The elegant atmosphere on board is charged with tension, but civility prevails...until people start to die.

Felix Pink is retired. Widowed for more than a decade and a painfully literal thinker, he has led a life of routine. He occupies himself volunteering as an Exiteer - someone who sits with terminally ill people as they die by suicide, assisting with logistics and lending moral support. When Felix lets himself into Number 3 Black Lane, he’s there to keep a dying man company as he takes his final breath. But just 15 minutes later, Felix is on the run from the police. Now he must discover whether what went wrong was a simple mistake - or deliberate, a murder.

The year is 2033. The world has been reduced to rubble. Humanity is nearly extinct and the half-destroyed cities have become uninhabitable through radiation. Beyond their boundaries, they say, lie endless burned-out deserts and the remains of splintered forests. Survivors still remember the past greatness of humankind, but the last remains of civilisation have already become a distant memory. Man has handed over stewardship of the earth to new life-forms.

For Hannah Shapiro, a beautiful young American student, this particular nightmare began eight years ago in Los Angeles, when Jack Morgan, owner of Private—the world's most exclusive detective agency—saved her from a horrific death. She has fled her country, but can't flee her past. The terror has followed her to London, and now it is down to former Royal Military Police Sergeant Dan Carter, head of Private London, to save her all over again.