Audiobooks by Sinclair McKay

Dresden: The Fire and the Darkness Audiobook

Brought to by Penguin. In February 1945 the Allies obliterated Dresden, the 'Florence of the Elbe'. Explosive bombs weighing over 1,000 lbs fell every seven and a half seconds and an estimated 25,000 people were killed. Was Dresden a legitimate military target or was the bombing a last act of atavistic mass murder in a war already won? From the history of the city to the attack itself, conveyed in a minute-by-minute account from the first of the flares to the flames reaching almost a mile high - the wind so searingly hot that the lungs of those in its path were instantly scorched - through the eerie period of reconstruction, bestselling author Sinclair McKay creates a vast canvas and brings it alive with touching human detail. Along the way we encounter, for example, a Jewish woman who thought the English bombs had been sent from heaven, novelist Kurt Vonnegut who wrote that the smouldering landscape was like walking on the surface of the moon, and 15-year-old Winfried Bielss, who, having spent the evening ushering refugees, wanted to get home to his stamp collection. He was not to know that there was not enough time. Impeccably researched and deeply moving, McKay uses never-before-seen sources to relate the untold stories of civilians and vividly conveys the texture of life in a decimated city. Dresden is invoked as a byword for the illimitable cruelties of war, but with the ever-lengthening distance of time, it is now possible to approach this subject with a much clearer gaze, less occluded with the weight of prejudice in either direction, and with a keener interest in the sorts of lives that ordinary people lived and lost, or tried to rebuild. From general and individual morality in war to the raw, primal instinct for survival, through the seemingly unstoppable gravity of mass destruction and the manipulation of memory, this is a master historian at work. 'Extraordinary . . . a remarkably faithful account' Guardian on The Secret Life of Bletchley Park 'Painstakingly researched and fascinating' John Harding, Daily Mail on The Secret Listeners 'Lucid, well-researched and rich in detail' John Preston, Daily Mail on The Spies of Winter 'Fascinating, riveting, unsettling, and wonderfully rich in period detail' Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday on Mile End Murder © Sinclair McKay 2020 (P) Penguin Audio 2020

Sinclair McKay, Sinclair Mckay (Author), Leighton Pugh (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Secret Lives of Codebreakers: The Men and Women Who Cracked the Enigma Code at Bletchley Park

A remarkable look at day-to-day life of the codebreakers whose clandestine efforts helped win World War II Bletchley Park looked like any other sprawling country estate. In reality, however, it was the top-secret headquarters of Britain's Government Code and Cypher School-and the site where Germany's legendary Enigma code was finally cracked. There, the nation's most brilliant mathematical minds-including Alan Turing, whose discoveries at Bletchley would fuel the birth of modern computing-toiled alongside debutantes, factory workers, and students on projects of international importance. Until now, little has been revealed about ordinary life at this extraordinary facility. Drawing on remarkable first-hand interviews, The Secret Lives of Codebreakers reveals the entertainments, pastimes, and furtive romances that helped ease the incredible pressures faced by these covert operatives as they worked to turn the tide of World War II.

Sinclair McKay (Author), Walter Dixon (Narrator)

Audiobook

Ramble On

A history of walking and our relationship with the British countryside. On the afternoon of Sunday April 24, 1932, a group of approximately five hundred men and women set out for the summit of Kinder Scout, the highest point in Derbyshire's Peak District. They were not here to take in the fresh air and breathtaking vistas: they were here to make a stand. Kinder Scout, like almost every other site of natural beauty in Britain at that time, was privately owned and fiercely guarded. This wild, open landscape was one that they had absolutely no right to visit. Ramble On tells the story of how country walks and rambling were transformed from a small and often illegal pastime to the most popular recreational activity in the country. But the story of rambling is not so much about parliamentary acts as it is about the remarkable people who campaigned for (and in some cases against) the pastime. There was a Lancastrian town council accountant called Alfred Wainwright, who in the 1950s changed his life, and the lives of many others, when he popularised walking in the Lake District with his series of guides. And any history of rambling would be incomplete without mentioning the resistant landowners - from the notorious Nicholas Van Hoogstraten to celebrities such as Madonna and Jeremy Clarkson - who have done their level best (and worst) to keep walkers off their land. Above all, this tale is about the exhilaration of a gusty hill-top path; the curious unease that a labyrinthine dark forest floor can induce; the feel of different soil, peat and rock; the sight of alternating sunlight and shadow sweeping across vast valleys. Both a biography of Britain's favourite outdoor pursuit and a celebration of our wonderful countryside, Ramble On is for anyone who has ever pulled on a pair of walking boots or is partial to the taste of Kendal mintcake.

Sinclair McKay (Author), Jonathan Oliver (Narrator)

Audiobook

Berlin: Life and Loss in the City That Shaped The Century

Brought to you by Penguin. Throughout the twentieth century, Berlin stood at the centre of a convulsing world. This history is often viewed as separate acts: the suffering of the First World War, the cosmopolitan city of science, culture and sexual freedom Berlin became, steep economic plunges, the rise of the Nazis, the destruction of the Second World War, the psychosis of genocide, and a city rent in two by competing ideologies. But people do not live their lives in fixed eras. An epoch ends, yet the people continue - or try to continue - much as they did before. Berlin tells the story of the city as seen through the eyes not of its rulers, but of those who walked its streets. In this magisterial biography of a city and its inhabitants, bestselling historian Sinclair McKay sheds new light on well-known characters - from idealistic scientist Albert Einstein to Nazi architect Albert Speer - and draws on never-before-seen first-person accounts to introduce us to people of all walks of Berlin life. For example, we meet office worker Mechtild Evers, who in her efforts to escape an oncoming army runs into even more appalling jeopardy, and Reinhart Cruger, a 12-year-old boy in 1941 who witnesses with horror the Gestapo coming for each of his Jewish neighbours in turn. How did those ideologies - fascism and communism - come to flower so fully here? And how did their repercussions continue to be felt throughout Europe and the West right up until that extraordinary night in the autumn of 1989 when the Wall - that final expression of totalitarian oppression - was at last breached? You cannot understand the twentieth century without understanding Berlin; and you cannot understand Berlin without understanding the experiences of its people. McKay's latest masterpiece shows us this hypnotic city as never before. © Sinclair McKay 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Sinclair McKay, Sinclair Mckay (Author), Leighton Pugh (Narrator)

Audiobook