Showing results by narrator "Steven Crossley" in All Categories

The Evolution of Everything is about bottom-up order and its enemy, the top-down twitch - the endless fascination human beings have with design rather than evolution, with direction rather than emergence. Drawing on anecdotes from science, economics, history, politics, and philosophy, Matt Ridley's wide-ranging, highly opinionated opus demolishes conventional assumptions that major scientific and social imperatives are dictated by those on high.

England in the Age of Chivalry … and Awful Diseases covers the events, personages, and ideas most commonly known as “medieval.” This includes Geoffrey Chaucer, the peasants revolt, the Scottish Wars of Independence, the Great Famine of 1315, the Black Death, and the 100 Years War. Central to this time is King Edward III, who started the 100 Years War and defined the concept of chivalry, including England’s order of the garter. His legacy continues to shape our view of England’s history and is crucial in understanding the development of Europe.

Machines Like Me occurs in an alternative 1980s London. Britain has lost the Falklands War, Margaret Thatcher battles Tony Benn for power, and Alan Turing achieves a breakthrough in artificial intelligence. Meanwhile, two lovers will be tested beyond their understanding. Charlie, drifting through life and dodging full-time employment, is in love with Miranda, a bright student who lives with a terrible secret. When Charlie comes into money, he buys Adam, one of the first batch of synthetic humans. With Miranda's assistance, he co-designs Adam's personality.

The most famous date in history is 1066, and with good reason, since no battle in medieval history had such a devastating effect on its losers as the Battle of Hastings, which altered the entire course of English history.

It is the autumn of 1367. Master Hugh de Singleton is enjoying the peaceful life of Bampton when a badly beaten man is found under the porch of St. Andrew’s Chapel. The dying man is a chapman - a traveling merchant. Before he is buried in the chapel grounds an ancient, corroded coin is found in the man’s mouth. Master Hugh’s quest for the chapman’s assailants, and his search for the origin of the coin, makes steady progress - but there are men of wealth and power who wish to halt his search, and an old nemesis, Sir Simon Trillowe, is in league with them.

In the span of fifteen years, Dr. Thomas Neill Cream murdered as many as ten people in the United States, Britain, and Canada, a death toll with almost no precedent. Poison was his weapon of choice. Largely forgotten today, this villain was as brazen as the notorious Jack the Ripper. The Case of the Murderous Dr. Cream exposes the blind trust given to medical practitioners, as well as the flawed detection methods, bungled investigations, corrupt officials, and stifling morality of Victorian society that allowed Dr. Cream to prey on vulnerable and desperate women.

At the outbreak of the Second World War D. M. Crook, of No. 609 Squadron AAF, was at Yeadon, still undergoing his training; by the winter of 1939-40, he had his wings. Successfully applying to return to his Squadron, then on defense duties in northern England, Crook began to familiarize himself with their new fighter: the Spitfire. Soon they were posted to RAF Northolt, and it was at this time that Crook, much to his chagrin, was left grounded, undergoing knee surgery as they flew over Dunkirk.

The vicious mutineers aboard the British ship Jocasta had surrendered their vessel to Spain. Sailing aboard the frigate Calypso, Captain Lord Ramage receives Admiralty orders to recover her by any means.

This panoramic book shows how the Greek Revolution was a demographic upheaval more consequential than the overthrow of a ruler. Drawing on Ottoman sources together with archival evidence from Greece, Britain, France, Russia, and Switzerland, the book reframes the birth of modern Greece within the imperial history of the global nineteenth century.

Captain Lord Ramage's honeymoon in France is interrupted by a sudden end to the Peace of Amiens. Finding themselves on unfriendly soil just hours before hostilities commence, Ramage and his bride elude the grasp of Napoleon's secret police.

In late 1945, the fate of Adolf Hitler was a complete mystery. Missing for four months, he had simply vanished. Hugh Trevor-Roper, a British intelligence officer, was given the task of solving the mystery. With access to American counterintelligence files and German prisoners, his brilliant detective work proved finally that Hitler had killed himself in Berlin. It also produced one of the most fascinating history books ever written.

From his many years on the high seas as a mariner, mate, and captain, Joseph Conrad created unique works, including Heart of Darkness, that have left an indelible mark on world literature. First published in 1899, his haunting novel Lord Jim is both a riveting sea adventure and a fascinating portrait of a unique outcast from civilization.

Winner of the CWA Ellis Peters Historical Dagger Award, Dark Fire revisits acclaimed master of historical fiction C. J. Sansom's colorful and rapier-witted lawyer, Matthew Shardlake. Set in 1540, this beguiling tale of murder and mayhem is set against a rich backdrop of medieval London. Here, hunchbacked Matthew Shardlake is called upon to investigate the peculiar case of a young woman accused of murder.

A new killer is stalking the streets of London’s East End. Though newspapers have dubbed him 'the Torso Killer’, this murderer’s work is overshadowed by the hysteria surrounding Jack the Ripper’s Whitechapel crimes. The victims are women too, but their dismembered bodies, wrapped in rags and tied up with string, are pulled out of the Thames - and the heads are missing….

The future of Britain is at stake. In the turbulent times of the Dark Ages, the despotic Uther Pendragon, High King of Celtic Britain, is nearing death, and his kingdom is being torn apart by the squabbling of minor kings. But only one man can bring the Celts together as a nation and restore peace - King Arthur. Artorex (Arthur) doesn't yet seem like the great man he will grow into. We meet him as a shy, subservient twelve-year-old living in the foster home of Lord Ector, who took in Artorex as a babe to protect him from murderous kin.

As World War I drew to a close, change reverberated through the halls of England's country homes. As the sun set slowly on the British Empire, the shadows lengthened on the lawns of a thousand stately homes. In The Long Weekend, historian Adrian Tinniswood introduces us to the tumultuous, scandalous, and glamorous history of English country houses during the years between world wars.

In Behind the Throne, historian Adrian Tinniswood uncovers the reality of five centuries of life at the English court, taking the listener on a remarkable journey from one Queen Elizabeth to another and exploring life as it was lived by clerks and courtiers and clowns and crowned heads: the power struggles and petty rivalries, the tension between duty and desire, the practicalities of cooking dinner for thousands and of ensuring the king always won when he played a game of tennis.

Following a scalding row with her mother, 15-year-old Holly Sykes slams the door on her old life. But Holly is no typical teenage runaway: A sensitive child once contacted by voices she knew only as "the radio people," Holly is a lightning rod for psychic phenomena. Now, as she wanders deeper into the English countryside, visions and coincidences reorder her reality until they assume the aura of a nightmare brought to life.

In the 17th installment in Peter Lovesey's timeless British detective series, Peter Diamond digs deep into Bath history to ferret out the secrets of one of its most famous (and scandalous) icons: Richard "Beau" Nash, who might have been the victim of a centuries-old murder.

James, Lord Kirkland, owns a shipping fleet, half a London gaming house, and is a ruthlessly effective spymaster. He is seldom self-indulgent… except when it comes to the gentle, indomitable beauty who was once his wife. Laurel Herbert gave James her heart as an innocent young girl - until she saw him perform an act of shocking violence before her very eyes. That night she left her husband, and he let her go without a word of protest.