Audiobooks narrated by Christine Rendel

Camille Pissarro: The Audacity of Impressionism

From the acclaimed biographer and author of Balzac's Omelette, an engaging new work on the life of 'the father of Impressionism' and the role his Jewish background played in his artistic creativity. The celebrated painter Camille Pissarro (1830-1903) occupied a central place in the artistic scene of his time: a founding member of the new school of French painting, he was a close friend of Monet, a longtime associate in Degas's and Mary Cassatt's experimental work, a support to Cezanne and Gauguin, and a comfort to Van Gogh, and was backed by the great Parisian art dealer Paul Durand-Ruel throughout his career. Nevertheless, he felt a persistent sense of being set apart, different, and hard to classify. Settled in France from the age of twenty-five but born in the Caribbean, he was not French and what is more he was Jewish. Although a resolute atheist who never interjected political or religious messages in his art, he was fully aware of the consequences of his lineage. Drawing on Pissarro's considerable body of work and a vast collection of letters that show his unrestrained thoughts, Anka Muhlstein offers a nuanced, intimate portrait of the artist whose independent spirit fostered an environment of freedom and autonomy.

Anka Muhlstein (Author), Christine Rendel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Liberty's Dawn: A People's History of the Industrial Revolution

'Emma Griffin gives a new and powerful voice to the men and women whose blood and sweat greased the wheels of the Industrial Revolution' (Tim Hitchcock, author of Down and Out in Eighteenth-Century London). This 'provocative study' looks at hundreds of autobiographies penned between 1760 and 1900 to offer an intimate firsthand account of how the Industrial Revolution was experienced by the working class (the New Yorker). The era didn't just bring about misery and poverty. On the contrary, Emma Griffin shows how it raised incomes, improved literacy, and offered exciting opportunities for political action. For many, this was a period of new, and much valued, sexual and cultural freedom. This rich personal account focuses on the social impact of the Industrial Revolution, rather than its economic and political histories. In the tradition of bestselling books by Liza Picard, Judith Flanders, and Jerry White, Griffin gets under the skin of the period and creates a cast of colorful characters, including factory workers, miners, shoemakers, carpenters, servants, and farm laborers.

Emma Griffin (Author), Christine Rendel (Narrator)

Audiobook

When a Lady Deceives

London, 1890. In Victorian London, reporter Jennie Quinn employs deception as a weapon. Going undercover to seek justice for a murdered informant, she's drawn into a powerful criminal's seductive game of cat and mouse. Enigmatic former lawman Matthew Colton is as dangerous as he is clever, but the passion in his kiss is too tempting to resist. She aches to trust him, but she will not abandon her quest for the truth. Colton is a man with secrets of his own. Thirsting for vengeance, the disgraced Scotland Yard detective has infiltrated the criminal world he's vowed to destroy. Jennie intrigues him, even as she breaks down the barriers around his heart. He yearns to uncover her secrets-in and out of his bed. Driven to shield her, he'll risk everything to protect the woman whose love heals his soul. Contains mature themes.

Tara Kingston (Author), Christine Rendel (Narrator)

Audiobook

London and the 17th Century: The Making of the World’s Greatest City

The first comprehensive history of seventeenth-century London, told through the lives of those who experienced it The Gunpowder Plot, the Civil Wars, Charles I's execution, the Plague, the Great Fire, the Restoration, and then the Revolution of 1688: the seventeenth century was one of the most momentous times in the history of Britain, and Londoners took center stage. In this fascinating account, Margarette Lincoln charts the impact of national events on an ever-growing citizenry with its love of pageantry, spectacle, and enterprise. Lincoln looks at how religious, political, and financial tensions were fomented by commercial ambition, expansion, and hardship. In addition to events at court and in parliament, she evokes the remarkable figures of the period, including Shakespeare, Bacon, Pepys, and Newton, and draws on diaries, letters, and wills to trace the untold stories of ordinary Londoners. Through their eyes, we see how the nation emerged from a turbulent century poised to become a great maritime power with London at its heart-the greatest city of its time.

Margarette Lincoln (Author), Christine Rendel (Narrator)

Audiobook

River Kings: A New History of the Vikings from Scandinavia to the Silk Roads

An acclaimed bioarcheologist, Catrine Jarman has used cutting-edge forensic techniques to spark her investigation into the history of the Vikings who came to rest in British soil. By examining teeth that are now over one thousand years old, she can determine childhood diet-and thereby where a person was likely born. With radiocarbon dating, she can ascertain a death-date down to the range of a few years. And her research offers enlightening new visions of the roles of women and children in Viking culture. Three years ago, a Carnelian bead came into her temporary possession. River Kings sees her trace the path of this ancient piece of jewelry back to eighth-century Baghdad and India, discovering along the way that the Vikings' route was far more varied than we might think-that with them came people from the Middle East, not just Scandinavia, and that the reason for this unexpected integration between the Eastern and Western worlds may well have been a slave trade running through the Silk Road, all the way to Britain. Told as a riveting history of the Vikings and the methods we use to understand them, this is a major reassessment of the fierce, often-mythologized voyagers of the North-and of the global medieval world as we know it.

Cat Jarman (Author), Christine Rendel (Narrator)

Audiobook

The Rake's Daughter

Recently returned to England, Leo, the new Earl of Salcott, discovers he's been thrust into the role of guardian to an heiress, the daughter of a notorious rake. Even worse, his wealthy ward has brought her half-sister, the beautiful but penniless Isobel, with her. Leo must find Clarissa a suitable husband, but her illegitimate half sister, Izzy, is quite another matter. Her lowly birth makes her quite unacceptable in London's aristocratic circles. However, the girls are devoted to each other and despite the risk of scandal if Izzy's parentage is discovered, they refuse to be separated. To Leo's frustration, nothing will convince them otherwise. Even worse, sparks fly every time Leo and Izzy interact. Called away to his country estate, Leo instructs the young ladies to stay quietly at home. But when he returns, he's infuriated to discover that Izzy and Clarissa have launched themselves into society-with tremendous success! There's no going back. Now Leo must enter society to protect Clarissa from fortune hunters, and try not to be driven mad by the sharp-witted, rebellious, and intoxicating Izzy. Contains mature themes.

Anne Gracie (Author), Christine Rendel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Lady Molly of Scotland Yard

LADY MOLLY OF SCOTLAND YARD is a collection of short stories about Molly Robertson-Kirk, an early fictional female detective. First published in 1910, Orczy's female detective was the precursor of the lay sleuth who relies on brains rather than brawn. As well as being one of the first novels to feature a female detective as the main character, Orczy's outstandingly successful and brilliant police officer preceded her real-life female counterparts by a decade. Lady Molly, like her fictional contemporaries, most often succeeded because she recognized domestic clues foreign to male experience. Her shocking entry into the male domain of the police is forgivable when it is discovered that her motive is to save her fiancé from a false accusation. Once her superior intuition has triumphed, Lady Molly very properly marries and leaves the force. As narrated by her adoring sidekick, Mary Granard, Lady Molly's adventures are very much of their time but still great fun to read or listen to.

Baroness Orczy (Author), Christine Rendel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Human Resource Management: A Very Short Introduction

The way in which organizations manage their people has always been pivotal to their performance, long before formal human resource management coalesced into a definable and somewhat fashionable discipline in the mid-1980s. Earlier campaigns for worker welfare in the eighteenth and nineteenth century were driven by a mix of humanitarian, religious, philanthropic, and business motives, and sought workplace amenities such as medical care, housing, and libraries. At the same time functionaries and departments specializing in HR processes such as hiring, payroll, and record keeping emerged. This Very Short Introduction describes how the key players and watershed moments in labor history shaped the state of human resource management today. In our era of globalization human resource management has to contend with a number of new and increasingly complex factors, such as global sourcing, regional trade agreements and labor standards, remote working, strategic alliances, and innovation driven by competition. As traditional sources of competitive advantage such as access to capital, protected markets, or proprietary technologies evaporate, firms increasingly look to human resource management to offer a competitive edge. In the 'laboratory' of university departments or in the gritty and sweaty reality of the shop floor, there is no single model of human resource management. Instead human resource management today is as able to impact everything from small owner-managed shops in Brick Lane to the high tech behemoths of Silicon Valley. Adrian Wilkinson shows how human resource management covers the relations between employees and their employers, and explores the range of HR practices, processes, and line management activities.

Adrian Wilkinson (Author), Christine Rendel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Justice for Some: Law and the Question of Palestine

Justice in the Question of Palestine is often framed as a question of law. Yet none of the Israel-Palestinian conflict's most vexing challenges have been resolved by judicial intervention. Occupation law has failed to stem Israel's settlement enterprise. Laws of war have permitted killing and destruction during Israel's military offensives in the Gaza Strip. The Oslo Accord's two-state solution is now dead letter. Justice for Some offers a new approach to understanding the Palestinian struggle for freedom, told through the power and control of international law. Focusing on key junctures-from the Balfour Declaration in 1917 to present-day wars in Gaza-Noura Erakat shows how the strategic deployment of law has shaped current conditions. Over the past century, the law has done more to advance Israel's interests than the Palestinians'. But, Erakat argues, this outcome was never inevitable. Law is politics, and its meaning and application depend on the political intervention of states and people alike. Within the law, change is possible. International law can serve the cause of freedom when it is mobilized in support of a political movement. Presenting the promise and risk of international law, Justice for Some calls for renewed action and attention to the Question of Palestine.

Noura Erakat (Author), Christine Rendel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Daughters of Chivalry: The Forgotten Princesses of King Edward Longshanks

Virginal, chaste, humble, patiently waiting for rescue by brave knights and handsome princes: this idealized-and largely mythical-notion of the medieval noblewoman still lingers. Yet the reality was very different, as Kelcey Wilson-Lee shows in this vibrant account of the five daughters of Edward I, often known as Longshanks. The lives of these sisters-Eleanora, Joanna, Margaret, Mary, and Elizabeth-ran the gamut of experiences open to royal women in the Middle Ages. Edward's daughters were of course expected to cement alliances and secure lands and territory by making great dynastic marriages, or endow religious houses with royal favor. But they also skillfully managed enormous households, navigated choppy diplomatic waters, and promoted their family's cause throughout Europe-and had the courage to defy their royal father. They might never wear the crown in their own right, but they were utterly confident of their crucial role in the spectacle of medieval kingship. Drawing on a wide range of contemporary sources, Daughters of Chivalry offers a rich portrait of these formidable women, seeing them-at long last-shine from out of the shadows, revealing what it was to be a princess in the Age of Chivalry.

Kelcey Wilson-Lee (Author), Christine Rendel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Mary Sheridan's From Birth to Five Years: Children's Developmental Progress 5th Edition

This new edition of a classic is the go-to reference for anyone concerned with the developmental progress of pre-school children. It provides the knowledge required for understanding children's developmental progress with age and within each developmental domain. Including new sections on atypical development for each of the core domains of development and additional material on the development of attention and self-regulation, this fifth edition integrates findings from the latest research throughout. Fully aligned with current child development philosophies and practices, Mary Sheridan's From Birth to Five Years: Children's Developmental Progress is designed to support the wider group of practitioners-including those from health professions, social work, and early years-that are now required to take steps for promoting children's development as part of their assessment and management plans.

Ajay Sharma, Helen Cockerill, Lucy Sanctuary (Author), Christine Rendel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Stealing from the Saracens: How Islamic Architecture Shaped Europe

Against a backdrop of Islamophobia, Europeans are increasingly airbrushing from history their cultural debt to the Muslim world. But this legacy lives on in some of Europe's most recognizable buildings, from Notre-Dame Cathedral to the Houses of Parliament. This beautifully illustrated book reveals the Arab and Islamic roots of Europe's architectural heritage. Diana Darke traces ideas and styles from vibrant Middle Eastern centers like Damascus, Baghdad and Cairo, via Muslim Spain, Venice and Sicily into Europe. She describes how medieval crusaders, pilgrims and merchants encountered Arab Muslim culture on their way to the Holy Land; and explores more recent artistic interaction between Ottoman and Western cultures, including Sir Christopher Wren's inspirations in the 'Saracen' style of Gothic architecture. Recovering this long yet overlooked history of architectural 'borrowing,' Stealing from the Saracens is a rich tale of cultural exchange, shedding new light on Europe's greatest landmarks.

Diana Darke (Author), Christine Rendel (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks Narrated by Christine Rendel