Showing results by narrator "Graeme Malcolm" in All Categories

In 2010 Clive James was diagnosed with terminal leukemia. Deciding that "if you don't know the exact moment when the lights will go out, you might as well read until they do", James moved his library to his house in Cambridge, where he would "live, read, and perhaps even write". James is the award-winning author of dozens of works of literary criticism, poetry, and history, and this volume contains his reflections on what may well be his last reading list.

Our guide to the life of the Bard is an actor called Pickleherring, who asserts that as a boy he was an original member of Shakespeare's acting troupe. In an attic above a brothel in Restoration London - a half century after Shakespeare has departed the stage - Pickleherring, now an old man, sits down to write the full story of his former friend, mentor, and master. Fond, faithful Pickleherring has forgotten nothing over the years, and using sources both firsthand and far-fetched he means to set the record straight.

Arthur Charles gives a personal account of his time as a POW on Java, including the use of secret radios and how he survived a firing squad. He depicts amazing resilience, resourcefulness, and even moments of humour amid the horror of captivity, where he suffered terrible mistreatment and deliberate efforts to humiliate. He managed to learn skills from other POWs such as contract bridge, chess, shorthand, and even English law.

Rescue offers riveting stories about what happens when things go terribly wrong in some of the world's most perilous places: Himalayan peaks, African plains, vast oceans, remote Arctic wilderness. The result is a collection of first-rate prose read by masterful narrators that makes for compulsive listening.

In the morning you should think You might not last unto the night In the evening you should think You might not last unto the morn Boy has survived the terrors of life with the magician Valerian, dark magic, and deadly chases, but he is still on the run. Now, as the City lies frozen, he is...

“I can’t imagine reading this book without being challenged and instructed, amused, amazed and aroused, and ultimately delighted.” —John Simon, New York Times Book Review Milan Kundera’s brilliant collection of essays is a passionate defense of art in an era that, he argues, no longer...

Stories of wartime France, present-day England, a Nazi criminal, and a dying woman intersect in this elegant literary thriller.

The Freedom Years is an upbeat and humorous look at some of the challenges and opportunities presented as you move from work to retirement. Most people don’t give much thought to how they’ll adjust and don’t have a clue what’s going to hit them, but this witty and inspirational guide is all you need to convince you that the best is yet to come.

Kundera brilliantly examines the work of such important and diverse figures as Rabelais, Cervantes, Sterne, Diderot, Flaubert, Tolstoy and Musil. He is especially penetrating on Hermann Broch, and his exploration of the world of Kafka's novels vividly reveals the comic terror of Kafka's bureaucratized universe. Kundera's discussion of his own work includes his views on the role of historical events in fiction, the meaning of action and the creation of character in the postpsychological novel.

The Night Guard walk the streets of the old kingdom of Bialta seeking out threats that are beyond the abilities of the common soldier. Nial is one such threat - a girl changed into something "other" and on the hunt for human souls. Salt, a sailor recently rescued by the Night Guard, has been inducted into their ranks. He's a quick study, but as new threats multiply all around them, will he have what it takes to survive?

In this thought-provoking, endlessly enlightening and entertaining essay on the art of the novel, renowned author Milan Kundera suggests that 'the curtain' represents a ready-made perception of the world that each of us has - a pre-interpreted world. The job of the novelist, he argues, is to rip through the curtain and reveal what it hides. Here an incomparable literary artist cleverly sketches out his personal view of the history and value of the novel in Western civilization.

From New York Times bestselling author Philip Kerr, comes a story of a young man growing up in colonial America. No one knows when "something infernal" crept into the heart of young Master Edgar, a well-bred British orphan in the hands of a cool stepfather in 19th century Richmond, Virginia, and...

In "The Problem of Thor Bridge", Neil Gibson, who has earned the nickname the Gold King for his status as the world's greatest gold-mining magnate, seeks Sherlock Holmes' help in finding his wife's real killer. His governess, Miss Dunbar, has been convicted of the crime due to an abundance of evidence against her - including a gun in her wardrobe - but Gibson believes her innocent. A few enlightening revelations, including the unhappy state of the Gibsons' marriage, lead Holmes and Watson down the path toward the truth.

Dr. Watson arrives at 221B Baker Street to find his old friend and colleague keen on a case. Holmes has taken it upon himself to find the missing Crown diamond, the Mazarin stone, which has been stolen by swarthy big-game hunter Count Negretto Sylvius. When the count pays Holmes a visit, the brilliant detective must rely on his cleverness to learn the jewel's location and wrap up the case.

Want to know how to garden with lobsters? How to sober up? Grow a beard? Or simply how to make a perfect omelet? Look no further. Rather, look backward. Based on the popular blog, Ask the Past is full of the wisdom of the ages--as well as the fad diets, zany pickup lines, and bacon Band-Aids of...

A multilayered international thrill ride at breakneck pace, reminiscent of The Rule of Four The Arctic, 1897: Nils Strindberg crashes his hydrogen balloon during the mysterious Andrée Expedition to the North Pole. Germany, 1942: Gruesome and inexplicable experiments are performed on...

Love and Fatigue in America records an Englishman’s decade-long journey through his newly adopted country in the company of a mystifying illness and a charismatic dog. When he receives an unexpected invitation from an unfamiliar American university, he embraces it as a triumphant new beginning. Instead, on arrival, he is stricken with a persistent inability to stand up or think straight, and things quickly go wrong. Diagnosed with chronic fatigue syndrome he moves from state to state, woman to woman, and eccentric doctor to eccentric doctor.

What happens when a reactionary, retired British brigadier general comes to Los Angeles looking for his missing goddaughter? Comic chaos, that's what, with California beach babes, Jamaican drug gangs, and other colorful characters feuding, fighting, but not quite fornicating, in a mad search and rescue operation.

"They", published in 1905, is a somber short story that recalls a tragedy of Kipling's own life - the sudden death of his daughter, Josephine.

Over more than a quarter of a century, John Paul II has firmly set his stamp on the billion-member strong Catholic Church for future generations and he has become one of the most influential political figures in the world. His key role in the downfall of communism in Europe, as well as his...