Audiobooks narrated by Peter Noble

Violence and the Sacred is Rene Girard's landmark study of human evil. Here Girard explores violence as it is represented and occurs throughout history, literature, and myth. Girard's forceful and thought-provoking analyses of Biblical narrative, Greek tragedy, and the lynchings and pogroms propagated by contemporary states illustrate his central argument that violence belongs to everyone and is at the heart of the sacred.

René Girard (Author), Peter Noble (Narrator)

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The Army That Never Was: D-Day and the Great Deception

The Army That Never Was: D-Day and the Great Deception tells the remarkable story of the deceptions, hoaxes and misdirections carried out by the Allies ahead of the most pivotal moment of the Second World War - the D-Day invasion. The most audacious of these schemes aimed to convince German forces that plans to storm Normandy were a mere sideshow, and featured a fictitious army led by General Patton and furnished with hundreds of real-world dummy landing craft, tanks and aircraft. New research reveals a hidden link with Britain's film industry, as the fascinating behind-the-scenes story of this dramatic gambit is explored in detail. Full of fascinating characters from the US, Britain and Germany, this compelling and propulsive narrative explores one of the most remarkable secret campaigns of the Second World War.

Taylor Downing (Author), Peter Noble (Narrator)

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The Man Who Saved Britain

Award-winning author Simon Winder takes us through the legacy of one of Britain's most influential and enduring cultural figures, James Bond. 'An entertaining romp through the literary and cinematic heartland of James Bond country' Sunday Times 'A hilarious blend of cultural history, biography and memoir' Guardian After victory in World War II, Britain was a relieved but also a profoundly traumatized country. Simon Winder, born into this nation of uncertain identity, fell in love (as many before and since) with the man created as the antidote, a quintessentially British figure of great cultural significance: James Bond. Written with passion, wit and a great deal of personal insight and affection, this book is his wildly amusing attempt to get to grips with Bond’s legacy and the difficult decades in which it really mattered. 'Read-aloud funny' Independent on Sunday 'Superb' Wall Street Journal

Simon Winder (Author), Peter Noble, TBD (Narrator)

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Germania

The Sunday Times Bestseller 'Entertaining and informative . . . Delightful' Independent There are many reasons to be fascinated by Germany: forests, architecture and fairy tales, not to mention its history and inhabitants’ penchant for very peculiar food. Our distant and often maligned cousin, this is a place in which innumerable strange characters have held power, in which a chaotic jigsaw of borders have moved about seemingly at random, and which at the dark heart of the 20th century fell into the hands of truly terrible forces. And now Simon Winder is here to tell us everything else there is to know about this mesmerizing, tortured and endlessly fascinating country. Germania is also a personal guide to the Germany that Simon Winder loves. In this startlingly vibrant account, Winder describes Germany’s past afresh, starting with the shaggy world of the ancient forests, all the way up to the present day – and in doing so, he sees and begins to understand a country much like our own: Protestant, aggressive and committed to betterment. Joining Danubia and Lotharingia in Winder’s endlessly fascinating retelling of European history, Germania is a brilliant, vivid and enthusiastic insight to the hidden wonders of Germany

Simon Winder (Author), Peter Noble, TBD (Narrator)

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Lotharingia: A Personal History of Europe's Lost Country

A Sunday Times History Book of the Year 2019 Shortlisted for The Stanford Dolman Travel Book of the Year Award 'No Briton has written better than Winder about Europe' - Sunday Times In AD 843, the three surviving grandsons of the great Emperor Charlemagne met at Verdun. After years of bitter squabbles over who would inherit the family land, they finally decided to divide the territory and go their separate ways. In a moment of staggering significance, one grandson inherited what became France, another Germany and the third Lotharingia: the chunk that initially divided the other two. The dynamic between these three great zones has dictated much of our subsequent fate. In this beguiling, hilarious and compelling book we retrace how both from west and from east any number of ambitious characters have tried and failed to grapple with these Lotharingians, who ultimately became Dutch, German, Belgian, French, Luxembourgers and Swiss. Over many centuries, not only has Lotharingia brought forth many of Europe's greatest artists, inventors and thinkers, but it has also reduced many a would-be conqueror to helpless tears of rage and frustration. Joining Germania and Danubia in Simon Winder's endlessly fascinating retelling of European history, Lotharingia is a personal, wonderful and gripping story.

Simon Winder (Author), Peter Noble, TBD (Narrator)

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Danubia

Longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2013 'Funny, erudite, frequently irritating . . . and never boring' Sarah Bakewell, Financial Times 'An excellent, rich and amusing read' The Times, Book of the Week For centuries much of Europe was in the hands of the very peculiar Habsburg family. An unstable mixture of wizards, obsessives, melancholics, bores, musicians and warriors, they saw off – through luck, guile and sheer mulishness – any number of rivals, until finally packing up in 1918. From their principal lairs along the Danube they ruled most of Central Europe and Germany and interfered everywhere – indeed the history of Europe hardly makes sense without them. Danubia plunges the reader into a maelstrom of alchemy, skeletons, jewels, bear-moats, unfortunate marriages and a guinea-pig village. Full of music, piracy, religion and fighting, it is the history of a dynasty, but it is at least as much about the people they ruled, who spoke many different languages, lived in a vast range of landscapes, believed in many rival gods and often showed a marked ingratitude towards their oddball ruler in Vienna. Joining Germania and Lotharingia in Simon Winder's endlessly fascinating retelling of European history, Danubia is a hilarious, eccentric and witty saga.

Simon Winder (Author), Peter Noble, TBD (Narrator)

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The Wide Wide Sea

Hampton Sides (Author), Peter Noble, TBD (Narrator)

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The Philosophy Collection: Meditations; Beyond Good and Evil; The Art of War; The Republic; & More

This collection, read by Audie award-winning narrators, includes unabridged recordings of 11 of the most renowned, widely-read, and essential philosophical works from Ancient Greece and Asia to 19th century America, including: - Meditations, by Marcus Aurelius - The Book of Five Rings, by Miyamoto Musashi - Self Reliance, by Ralph Waldo Emerson - Beyond Good and Evil, by Friedrich Nietzsche - Fear and Trembling, by Søren Kierkegaard - The Art of War, by Sun Tzu - The Enchiridion & Discourses, by Epictetus - The Analects of Confucius, by Confucius - The Republic, by Plato - On the Nature of Things, by Lucretius - Letters from a Stoic, by Seneca This audiobook is fully indexed. Once downloaded, each book and chapter will be listed so you can easily navigate to the individual section.

Confucius, Epictetus, Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, Lucretius, Marcus Aurelius, Miyamoto Musashi, Plato, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Seneca, Sun Tzu, Søren Kierkegaard (Author), Malk Williams, Peter Noble (Narrator)

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As Gods Among Men: A History of the Rich in the West

The rich have always fascinated, sometimes in problematic ways. Medieval thinkers feared that the super-rich would act 'as gods among men'; much more recently Thomas Piketty made wealth central to discussions of inequality. In this book, Guido Alfani offers a history of the rich and super-rich in the West, examining who they were, how they accumulated their wealth, and what role they played in society. Covering the last thousand years, with frequent incursions into antiquity, and integrating recent research on economic inequality, Alfani finds fundamental continuities in the behavior of the rich and public attitudes towards wealth across Western history. Alfani argues that the position of the rich and super-rich in Western society has always been intrinsically fragile; their very presence has inspired social unease. In the Middle Ages, an excessive accumulation of wealth was considered sinful; the rich were expected not to appear to be wealthy. Eventually, the rich were deemed useful when they used their wealth to help their communities in times of crisis. Yet in the twenty-first century, the rich and the super-rich have been exceptionally reluctant to contribute to the common good in times of crisis, rejecting even such stopgap measures as temporary tax increases. History suggests that this is a troubling development-for the rich, and for everyone else.

Guido Alfani (Author), Peter Noble (Narrator)

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Endless Flight: The Life of Joseph Roth

The mercurial, self-mythologizing novelist and journalist Joseph Roth, author of the twentieth-century masterpiece The Radetzky March, was the finest observer and chronicler of his age. Endless Flight travels with Roth from his childhood in the town of Brody on the eastern edge of the Austro-Hungarian Empire to an unsettled life spent roaming Europe between the wars, including spells in Vienna, Paris, and Berlin. His decline mirrored the collapse of civilized Europe: in his last peripatetic decade, he opposed Nazism in exile from Germany, his wife succumbed to schizophrenia, and he died an alcoholic on the eve of WWII. Exploring the role of Roth's absent father in his imaginings, his attitude to his Jewishness, and his restless search for home, Keiron Pim's gripping account of Roth's chaotic life speaks powerfully to us in our era of uncertainty, refugee crises, and rising ethno-nationalism. Published as Roth's works rapidly gain new listeners and recognition, Endless Flight delivers a visceral yet sensitive portrait of his quest for belonging, and a riveting understanding of the brilliance and beauty of his work.

Keiron Pim (Author), Peter Noble (Narrator)

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Fear and Trembling

Soren Kierkegaard was a Danish philosopher, theologian, and religious author interested in human psychology. He is regarded as a leading pioneer of existentialism and one of the greatest philosophers of the 19th Century. In Fear and Trembling, Kierkegaard aimed to understand the anxiety that must have been present in Abraham when God commanded him to offer his son as a human sacrifice. Abraham had a choice to complete the task or to forget it. He resigned himself to the loss of his son, acting according to his faith. In other words, one must be willing to give up all his or her earthly possessions in infinite resignation and must also be willing to give up whatever it is that he or she loves more than God. Abraham had passed the test -- his love for God proved greater than anything else in him. And because a good and just Creator would not want a father to kill his son, God intervened at the last moment to prevent the sacrifice.

Søren Kierkegaard (Author), Peter Noble (Narrator)

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Meditations

Written in Greek by the only Roman emperor who was also a philosopher, without any intention of publication, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. While the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation and encouragement, Aurelius also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a timeless collection that has been consulted and admired by statesmen, thinkers, and readers throughout the centuries.

Marcus Aurelius (Author), Peter Noble (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Peter Noble