Audiobooks narrated by Ric Jerrom

Workers' Tales: Socialist Fairy Tales, Fables, and Allegories from Great Britain

A collection of political tales-first published in British workers' magazines-selected and introduced by acclaimed critic and author Michael Rosen In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, unique tales inspired by traditional literary forms appeared frequently in socialist-leaning British periodicals, such as the Clarion, Labour Leader, and Social Democrat. Based on familiar genres-the fairy tale, fable, allegory, parable, and moral tale-and penned by a range of lesser-known and celebrated authors, including Schalom Asch, Charles Allen Clarke, Frederick James Gould, and William Morris, these stories were meant to entertain readers of all ages-and some challenged the conventional values promoted in children's literature for the middle class. In Workers' Tales, acclaimed critic and author Michael Rosen brings together more than forty of the best and most enduring examples of these stories in one beautiful volume. Throughout, the tales in this collection exemplify themes and ideas related to work and the class system, sometimes in wish-fulfilling ways. In "Tom Hickathrift," a little, poor person gets the better of a gigantic, wealthy one. In "The Man Without a Heart," a man learns about the value of basic labor after testing out more privileged lives. And in "The Political Economist and the Flowers," two contrasting gardeners highlight the cold heart of Darwinian competition. Rosen's informative introduction describes how such tales advocated for contemporary progressive causes and countered the dominant celebration of Britain's imperial values. The book includes archival illustrations, biographical notes about the writers, and details about the periodicals where the tales first appeared. Provocative and enlightening, Workers' Tales presents voices of resistance that are more relevant than ever before.

Michael J. Rosen, Michael Rosen, Michael Rosen - Editor (Author), John Telfer, Lisa Coleman, Michael J. Rosen, Michael Rosen, Miriam Margolyes, Peter Kenny, Ric Jerrom, Samuel West (Narrator)

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Visible Learning Guide to Student Achievement: Schools Edition

'Visible Learning Guide to Student Achievement critically examines the major influences shaping student achievement today. A revision of the International Guide to Student Achievement, this updated edition provides readers with a more accessible compendium of research summaries - with a particular focus on the school sector. As educators throughout the world seek to enhance learning, the information contained in this book provides practitioners and policymakers with relevant material and research-based instructional strategies that can be readily applied in classrooms and schools to maximize achievement. Rich in information and empirically supported research, it contains seven sections, each of which begins with an insightful synthesis of major findings and relevant updates from the literature since the publication of the first Guide. These are followed by key entries, all of which have been recently revised by the authors to reflect research developments. The sections conclude with user-friendly tables that succinctly identify the main influences on achievement and practical implications for educators. Written by world-renowned bestselling authors John Hattie and Eric M. Anderman, this book is an indispensable reference for any teacher, school leader and parent wanting to maximize learning in our schools.' 2020 selection and editorial matter, John Hattie and Eric M. Anderman; individual chapters, the contributors

Eric M. Anderman, John Hattie (Author), Eric M. Anderman, Ric Jerrom (Narrator)

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Unfabling the East: The Enlightenment's Encounter with Asia

How Enlightenment Europe rediscovered its identity by measuring itself against the great civilizations of Asia During the long eighteenth century, Europe's travelers, scholars, and intellectuals looked to Asia in a spirit of puzzlement, irony, and openness. In this panoramic and colorful book, Jürgen Osterhammel tells the story of the European Enlightenment's nuanced encounter with the great civilizations of the East, from the Ottoman Empire and India to China and Japan. Here is the acclaimed book that challenges the notion that Europe's formative engagement with the non-European world was invariably marred by an imperial gaze and presumptions of Western superiority. Osterhammel shows how major figures such as Leibniz, Voltaire, Gibbon, and Hegel took a keen interest in Asian culture and history, and introduces lesser-known scientific travelers, colonial administrators, Jesuit missionaries, and adventurers who returned home from Asia bearing manuscripts in many exotic languages, huge collections of ethnographic data, and stories that sometimes defied belief. Osterhammel brings the sights and sounds of this tumultuous age vividly to life, from the salons of Paris and the lecture halls of Edinburgh to the deserts of Arabia, the steppes of Siberia, and the sumptuous courts of Asian princes. He demonstrates how Europe discovered its own identity anew by measuring itself against its more senior continent, and how it was only toward the end of this period that cruder forms of Eurocentrism--and condescension toward Asia-prevailed. A momentous work by one of Europe's most eminent historians, Unfabling the East takes readers on a thrilling voyage to the farthest shores, bringing back vital insights for our own multicultural age.

Jürgen Osterhammel (Author), Ric Jerrom (Narrator)

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The Ravenscar Dynasty

Barbara Taylor Bradford introduced the illustrious Harte family in her blockbuster A Woman of Substance. Now she has created an unforgettable new dynasty: the Deravenels. On a bitterly cold day in 1904, the Deravenel family's future changes forever. When Cecily Deravenel tells her eighteen-year-old son Edward of the death of his father, brother, uncle, and cousin in a fire, a part of him dies as well. Edward and his cousin Neville Watkins are suspicious of the deaths. They vow to seek the truth, avenge the deaths, and retake control of their family's business empire. As he grows into a handsome, charismatic man, Edward is torn between duty and desire. There are women in his life for whom he'll risk everything-and one woman who might destroy him. But madness and secrecy lie at the heart of the family, and Edward's enemies are far more ruthless than he knows. He will need his strength more than ever when the house of Deravenel is fatally rocked by betrayal from within. Who will become the ultimate ruler of the Deravenels? Power and money, passion and adultery, ambition and treachery all illuminate a dramatic epic saga that brings to life the glittering Edwardian Era. The Ravenscar Dynasty is based on the familial factions of England's Wars of the Roses, brought to life by the magical, memorable storytelling power that is Barbara Taylor Bradford.

Barbara Taylor Bradford (Author), Ric Jerrom (Narrator)

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The Psychology of Climate Change

'What explains our attitudes towards the environment? Why do so many climate change initiatives fail? How can we do more to prevent humans damaging the environment? The Psychology of Climate Change explores the evidence for our changing environment, and suggests that there are significant cognitive biases in how we think about, and act on climate change. The authors examine how organisations have attempted to mobilise the public in the fight against climate change, but these initiatives have often failed due to the public's unwillingness to adapt their behaviour. The book also explores why some people deny climate change altogether, and the influence that these climate change deniers can have on global action to mitigate further damage. By analysing our attitudes to the environment, The Psychology of Climate Change argues that we must think differently about climate change to protect our planet, as a matter of great urgency.'

Geoffrey Beattie, Laura Mcguire (Author), Ric Jerrom (Narrator)

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The Line of Polity

The Line of Polity is the second novel in Neal Asher's popular Agent Cormac series. Outlink station Miranda has been destroyed by a nanomycelium, and the very nature of this sabotage suggests that the alien bioconstruct Dragon - a creature as untrustworthy as it is gigantic - is somehow involved. Sent out on a titanic Polity dreadnought, the Occam Razor, agent Cormac must investigate the disaster. Meanwhile, on the remote planet Masada, the long-term rebellion can never rise above-ground, as the slave population is subjugated by orbital laser arrays controlled by the Theocracy in their cylinder worlds, and by the fact that they cannot safely leave their labour compounds. For the wilderness of Masada lacks breathable air . . . and out there roam monstrous predators called hooders and siluroynes, not to mention the weird and terrible gabbleducks.

Neal Asher (Author), Ric Jerrom (Narrator)

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The Last Photograph

He walks into the living room and June is dead. He centres her, checking the light. Focusing, he clicks the shutter. He'll ask himself later, if he knew. It's easy to say that he had acted without thinking, out of instinct. Rook Henderson is an award-winning photographer, still carrying the hidden scars of war. Now, suddenly, he is also a widower. Leaving his son Ralph to pick up the pieces, Rook flies to Vietnam for the first time in fifty years, escaping to the landscape of a place he once knew so well. But when Ralph follows him out there, seeking answers from the father he barely knows, Rook is forced to unwind his past: his childhood in Yorkshire, his life in London in the 1960s and his marriage to the unforgettable June - and to ask himself what price he has paid for a life behind the lens . . . Gripping, evocative and unforgettable, The Last Photograph is a story of a life shaped by trauma and love - and the secrets that make us who we are.

Emma Chapman (Author), Ric Jerrom (Narrator)

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The Girl Next Door: A Novel

In this psychologically explosive story from "one of the most remarkable novelists of her generation" (People), the discovery of bones in a tin box sends shockwaves across a group of long-time friends.In the waning months of the second World War, a group of children discover an earthen tunnel in their neighborhood outside London. Throughout the summer of 1944-until one father forbids it-the subterranean space becomes their "secret garden," where the friends play games and tell stories. Six decades later, beneath a house on the same land, construction workers uncover a tin box containing two skeletal hands, one male and one female. As the discovery makes national news, the friends come together once again, to recall their days in the tunnel for the detective investigating the case. Is the truth buried among these aging friends and their memories? This impromptu reunion causes long-simmering feelings to bubble to the surface. Alan, stuck in a passionless marriage, begins flirting with Daphne, a glamorous widow. Michael considers contacting his estranged father, who sent Michael to live with an aunt after his mother vanished in 1944. Lewis begins remembering details about his Uncle James, an army private who once accompanied the children into the tunnels, and who later disappeared. In The Girl Next Door Rendell brilliantly shatters the assumptions about age, showing that the choices people make-and the emotions behind them-remain as potent in late life as they were in youth.

Ruth Rendell (Author), Ric Jerrom (Narrator)

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The Gabble - And Other Stories

'What has six arms, a large beak, looks like a pyramid, has more eyes than you'd expect and talks nonsense? If you don't know the answer to that, then 1) you should and 2) you haven't been reading Neal Asher (see point 1)' Jon Courtenay Grimwood Neal Asher has firmly established himself as one of the leading British writers of Science Fiction. Most of his stories are set in a galactic future-scape called 'The Polity', and with The Gabble - And Other Stories, a collection of marvellously inventive and action-packed short stories, he takes us further into the manifold diversities of that amazing universe. No one does monsters better than Neal Asher, so be prepared to discover the lives and lifestyles of such favourites as the gabbleduck and the hooder, to savour alien poisons, the walking dead, the Sea of Death, and the putrefactor symbiont.

Neal Asher (Author), Ric Jerrom (Narrator)

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The Canterbury Tales

Beyond its importance as a literary work of unvarnished genius, Geoffrey Chaucer’s unfinished epic poem is also one of the most beloved works in the English language—and for good reason: it is lively, absorbing, perceptive, and outrageously funny. But despite the brilliance of Chaucer’s work, the continual evolution of our language has rendered his words unfamiliar to many of us. Esteemed poet, translator, and scholar Burton Raffel’s magnificent new unabridged translation brings Chaucer’s poetry back to life, ensuring that none of the original’s wit, wisdom, or humanity is lost to the modern reader. This edition also features an introduction by the widely influential medievalist and author John Miles Foley that discusses Chaucer’s work as well as his life and times. “Chaucer’s blend of humour, realism, philosophical depth, poetic virtuosity, and masterful control of dialogue and character was never matched…As a storyteller, he is supreme.”--Cambridge Guide to Literature in English

Geoffrey Chaucer (Author), Bill Wallace, Cameron Stewart, Kim Hicks, Maggie Ollerenshaw, Mark Meadows, Ric Jerrom, Various Narrators (Narrator)

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Soldiers: Great Stories of War and Peace

‘A gripping new collection from Max Hastings that puts you at the heart of the battle … Compelling’ Daily Mail ‘An unmissable read’ Sunday Times Soldiers is a very personal gathering of sparkling, gripping tales by many writers, about men and women who have borne arms, reflecting bestselling historian Max Hastings’s lifetime of studying war. It rings the changes through the centuries, between the heroic, tragic and comic; the famous and the humble. The nearly 350 stories illustrate vividly what it is like to fight in wars, to live and die as a warrior, from Greek and Roman times through to recent conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan. Here you will meet Jewish heroes of the Bible, Rome’s captain of the gate, Queen Boudicca, Joan of Arc, Cromwell, Wellington, Napoleon’s marshals, Ulysses S. Grant, George S. Patton and the modern SAS. There are tales of great writers who served in uniform including Cobbett and Tolstoy, Edward Gibbon and Siegfried Sassoon, Marcel Proust and Evelyn Waugh, George Orwell and George MacDonald Fraser. Here are also stories of the female ‘abosi’ fighters of Dahomey and heroic ambulance drivers of World War I, together with the new-age women soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. The stories reflect a change of mood towards warfare through the ages: though nations and movements continue to inflict terrible violence upon each other, most of humankind has retreated from the old notion of war as a sport or pastime, to acknowledge it as the supreme tragedy. This is a book to inspire in turn fascination, excitement, horror, amazement, occasionally laughter. Max Hastings mingles respect for the courage of those who fight with compassion for those who become their victims, above all civilians, and especially in the twenty-first century, which some are already calling ‘the Post-Heroic Age’.

Max Hastings (Author), Ric Jerrom (Narrator)

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Shadow of the Scorpion

Ian Cormac was raised to adulthood during the end of the war between the human Polity and the vicious arthropoid race, the Prador. In Neal Asher's Shadow of the Scorpion, Cormac is haunted by childhood memories of a sinister scorpion-shaped war drone and the burden of losses he doesn't remember. In the years following the war he signs up with Earth Central Security, and is sent out to help either restore or simply maintain order on worlds devastated by Prador bombardment. There he discovers that though the old enemy remains as murderous as ever, it is not anywhere near as perfidious or dangerous as some of his fellow humans, some of them closer to him than he would like. Amidst the ruins left by wartime genocides, he discovers in himself a cold capacity for violence, learns some horrible truths about his own past and, set upon a course of vengeance, tries merely to stay alive.

Neal Asher (Author), Ric Jerrom (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Ric Jerrom