検索キーワード： ナレーター "Peter Noble" すべてのカテゴリー

Why do bookshops matter? How do they filter our ideas and literature? In this inventive and highly entertaining extended essay, Jorge Carrion takes his listeners on a journey around the world via its bookshops. His travels take him to Shakespeare & Co in Paris, Wells in Winchester, Green Apple Books in San Francisco, Librairie des Colonnes in Tangier and the Strand Book Store in New York and provoke encounters with thinkers, poets, dreamers, revolutionaries and readers.

1950's Bordeaux. Even now, the Second World War is never far from people's memories, particularly in a city where the scars of collaboration and resistance are more keenly felt than ever. But another war has already begun. A war without a name, far away across the sea, in Algeria, where young men are sent to fight in a brutal conflict. Daniel knows what awaits him. He's heard stories. Patrols, ambushes, reprisals, massacres, mutilations, all beneath a burning North African sun.

One night in autumn 1944, a gunshot echoes through the alleyways of a small town in occupied Poland. An SS officer is shot dead by a young Polish Jew, Margarita Ejzenstain. In retaliation his commander orders the execution of 37 Poles - one for every year of the dead man's life. First hidden by a German couple, Margarita must then flee the brutal advance of the Soviet army with her newborn baby. So begins a thrilling panorama of intermingled destinies and events that reverberate from that single act of defiance.

In 2017, Leonardo da Vinci’s small oil painting the Salvator Mundi was sold at auction. In the words of its discoverer, the image of Christ as savior of the world is “the rarest thing on the planet.” Its $450 million sale price also makes it the world’s most expensive painting. For two centuries, art dealers had searched in vain for the Holy Grail of art history: a portrait of Christ as the Salvator Mundi by Leonardo da Vinci. Many similar paintings of greatly varying quality had been executed by Leonardo’s assistants in the early 16th century.

In this hilarious, fascinating and insightful expose, industry insider Peter Smith reveals the massive blunders and dodgy dealings taking place around the world as private companies and public-sector bodies buy goods and services. A recent report showed that over 90 per cent of procurement projects fail. So, why are so many billions wasted on ineptitude, mismanagement and, in some cases, fraud?

The idea that people are basically driven by individualism and economic incentives and that prosperity and good societies come from top-down leadership has dominated politics for the last 30 years (from some perspectives, much longer). This book shows that the age of homo economicus and centralisation is coming to an end. Instead, Collier and Kay argue that community and mutuality will be the drivers of successful societies in the future - as they are already in some parts of the world.

A terrifying vision of scientific progress without moral limits, Mary Shelley's Frankenstein leads the listener on an unsettling journey from the sublime beauty of the Swiss alps to the desolate waste of the arctic circle. Obsessed with the idea of creating life itself, Victor Frankenstein plunders graveyards for the material with which to fashion a new being, shocking his creation to life with electricity. But this botched creature, rejected by its creator and denied human companionship, sets out to destroy Frankenstein and all that he holds dear.

On the morning of August 13, 1961, the residents of East Berlin found themselves cut off from family, friends, and jobs in the West by a tangle of barbed wire that ruthlessly split a city of four million in two. Within days the barbed-wire entanglement would undergo an extraordinary metamorphosis: It became an imposing 103-mile-long wall guarded by 300 watchtowers. A physical manifestation of the struggle between Soviet Communism and American capitalism that stood for nearly 30 years, the Berlin Wall was the high-risk fault line between East and West.

The attack on Nazi Germany’s dams on May 17, 1943, was one of the most remarkable feats in military history. The absurdly young men of the Royal Air Force’s 617 Squadron set forth in cold blood and darkness, without benefit of electronic aids, to fly lumbering heavy bombers straight and level towards a target at a height above the water less than the length of a bowling alley. Yet this story has never been told in full. Max Hastings takes us back to the May 1943 raid to reveal how the truth of that night is considerably different from the popularized account most people know.

While Britain is obsessed with the newest hit true-crime television show, Fact, or Fable? detectives Ruth Lake and Greg Carver are tormented by a fiendish flesh-and-blood killer on the loose. Lured to a “crime scene” by a mysterious digital invitation, Ruth Lake is horrified by what she finds: a bizarre and gruesome tableau surrounded by a crowd of gawkers. The deadly work is the latest “art installation” designed by a diabolical criminal dubbed the Ferryman. Not only is this criminal cold-blooded; he’s a narcissistic exhibitionist desperate for an audience.

From world-renowned economist Paul Collier, a candid diagnosis of the failures of capitalism and a pragmatic and realistic vision for how we can repair it.

Best friends Noah Sadler and Abdi Mahad have always been inseparable. But when Noah is found floating unconscious in Bristol's Feeder Canal, Abdi can't - or won't - tell anyone what happened. Just back from a mandatory leave following his last case, Detective Jim Clemo is now assigned to look into this unfortunate accident. But tragedy strikes, and what looked like the simple case of a prank gone wrong soon ignites into a public battle. Noah is British. Abdi is a Somali refugee. And social tensions have been rising rapidly in Bristol.

Dov and Yitzhak live in a small village in the mountains of Hungary. But one day in 1944, everything changes. The Nazis storm the homes of the Jewish villagers and inform them they have one hour before the train will take them to Auschwitz. Six decades later, from the safety of their living rooms, the brothers finally break their silence to a friend who will never let their stories be forgotten.

From ambitious scientists rising above the clouds to analyse the air to war generals floating across enemy lines, Richard Holmes takes to the air in this heart-lifting history of pioneer balloonists. Falling Upwards asks why they risked their lives, and how their flights revealed the secrets of our planet. The stories range from early ballooning rivals to the long-distance voyages of American entrepreneurs; from the legendary balloon escape from the Prussian siege of Paris to dauntless James Glaisher, who in the 1860s flew seven miles above the earth - without oxygen.

GCHQ is the largest and most secretive intelligence organisation in the UK, and has existed for 100 years - but we still know next to nothing about it. In this ground-breaking book - the first and most definitive history of the organisation ever published - intelligence expert Richard Aldrich traces GCHQ’s development from a wartime code-breaking operation based in the Bedfordshire countryside into one of the world leading espionage organisations.

In the aftermath of World War II, the Earth’s population was devastated by an alien virus. Those who survived were changed forever. Some, known as jokers, were cursed with bizarre mental and physical mutations, others, granted superhuman abilities, became the lucky few known as aces. Queen Margaret, who came to the English throne after the death of her sister, Elizabeth, now lies on her death-bed. Summoning the joker ace Alan Turing, she urges him to seek the true heir: Elizabeth's lost son. He was rumoured to have died as a baby but, having been born a joker, was sent into hiding.

The greatest World War Two story of all time is not over.... By the end of 1943, all evidence of the abortive German attempt to assassinate Winston Churchill has been carefully buried in an unmarked grave in the Norfolk village of Studley Constable. But two of the most wanted ringleaders are still alive.... In the fourth hard winter of war, British Intelligence pick up disturbing reports from Heinrich Himmler’s power base in Wewelsburg Castle. The mission is not yet accomplished. For the Fatherland, the Reichsfuhrer is demanding the Eagle’s return....

A KGB-trained IRA assassin has gone rogue and is hellbent on killing the pope. The IRA, KGB and British Secret Service are all after him, but can Liam Devlin get there first? Classic Jack Higgins for the new generation. Operating in Ireland to keep the cycle of violence between the IRA and British Intelligence at a fever pitch, hit man Cuchulain targets the pope as his ultimate victim, and two enemies become the only people who can stop him. The third book in the Liam Devlin series, hero of The Eagle Has Landed.

Classic adventure from the million copy best seller Jack Higgins. If there’s such a thing as a grade A terrorist then his name is Frank Barry. His ideology is money, and his track record is flawless. When the Russians want review copies of the latest NATO missile system, Barry’s the man to deliver them. Stopping him will be near enough impossible, but one man knows all the moves. Martin Brosnan is a poet, scholar and trained killer. A graduate of Vietnam and polished in the ranks of the IRA, he could be the key to ending Barry’s reign.

An inspiring selection of hand-picked adventures, chosen by Ed Stafford. For those who don’t mind a bit of discomfort in order to experience the wilder side of our amazing planet. Open your mind and reboot your soul with these unforgettable adventures.