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Audiobooks Narrated by Richard Trinder
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The true story of an airman's audacious escape from occupied France in World War Two.
Perfect for fans of The Great Escape, The 21 Escapes of Lt Alastair Cram, and The Wooden Horse.
Sir Basil Embry's Blenheim bomber was shot down in the summer of 1940.
During the course of his time in enemy territory he broke out from a column of prisoners while having a Nazi machine gun aimed at him, fought against his captors with stolen weapons, hid in stinking manure, and even posed as a member of the Irish Republican Army in order to throw his captors off the scent of his true identity.
In total he was captured three times and three times he refused to submit. Only through sheer courage and wit did he make his way back to Britain to fight and fly again. This is his remarkable story.
Anthony Richardson served as Adjutant in the same squadron as Embry later in the war and was told about these astounding exploits first-hand. This book will undoubtedly amaze all interested in moments of amazing fortitude in the face of overwhelming odds.
Why did England's one experiment in republican rule fail?
Oliver Cromwell's death in 1658 sparked a period of unrivaled turmoil and confusion in English history. In less than two years, there were close to ten changes of government; rival armies of Englishmen faced each other across the Scottish border; and the Long Parliament was finally dissolved after two decades. Why was this period so turbulent, and why did the republic, backed by a formidable standing army, come crashing down in such spectacular fashion?
In this fascinating history, Henry Reece explores the full story of the English republic's downfall. Questioning the accepted version of events, Reece argues that the restoration of the monarchy was far from inevitable-and that the republican regime could have survived long term. Richard Cromwell's Protectorate had deep roots in the political nation, the Rump Parliament mobilized its supporters impressively, and the country showed little interest in returning to the old order until the republic had collapsed. This is a compelling account that transforms our understanding of England's short-lived period of republican rule.
When the Nazis invaded, they did not intend to govern fairly. Instead they stripped defeated nations of their treasures, industry and natural resources, with the aim of asserting German supremacy and imposing Hitler's New Order in Europe.
Paul Roland tells the story of daily life under Nazi rule - in France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Poland, Italy, Czechoslovakia, Austria, Denmark, Norway, Guernsey and the Channel Islands- to be brought to heel by bribery and brutality, rape and torture, inducement and intimidation as the Germans carried out their vile policies.
We hear of quislings and collaborators who conspired with their captors, the 'enemies of the Reich' including Jewish citizens who were rounded up and exterminated, as well as stories of incredible courage by individuals who struck back against the Führer.
Between 1987 and 1989, Paul Bowles, at the suggestion of a friend, kept a journal to record the daily events of his life. What emerges is not only just a record of the meals, conversations, and health concerns of the author of The Sheltering Sky but also a fascinating look at an artist at work in a new medium. Characterized by a refreshing informality, clear-sightedness, and passages of exquisite prose, these pages record with equal fascination the behavior of an itinerant spider, a brutal episode of violence in a Tangier marketplace, and the pageantry and excess of Malcolm Forbes's seventieth birthday party. In Days, a master observer of the foreign and obscure turns his attentions toward his own daily existence, giving us a startlingly candid portrait of his life in late twentieth-century Tangier.
‘Exhilarating and whip-smart’ THE SUNDAY TIMESFrom award-winning writer Edward Wilson-Lee, this is a thrilling true historical detective story set in sixteenth-century Portugal.
A History of Water follows the interconnected lives of two men across the Renaissance globe. One of them – an aficionado of mermen and Ethiopian culture, an art collector, historian and expert on water-music – returns home from witnessing the birth of the modern age to die in a mysterious incident, apparently the victim of a grisly and curious murder. The other – a ruffian, vagabond and braggart, chased across the globe from Mozambique to Japan – ends up as the national poet of Portugal.
The stories of Damião de Góis and Luís de Camões capture the extraordinary wonders that awaited Europeans on their arrival in India and China, the challenges these marvels presented to longstanding beliefs, and the vast conspiracy to silence the questions these posed about the nature of history and of human life.
Like all good mysteries, everyone has their own version of events.
For decades, biology has been dominated by the study of genetic information. Information is important, but it is only part of what makes us alive. Our inheritance also includes our living metabolic network, a flame passed from generation to generation, right back to the origin of life. In Transformer, biochemist Nick Lane reveals a scientific renaissance that is hiding in plain sight-how the same simple chemistry gives rise to life and causes our demise.
Lane is among the vanguard of researchers asking why the Krebs cycle, the 'perfect circle' at the heart of metabolism, remains so elusive more than eighty years after its discovery. Transformer is Lane's voyage, as a biochemist, to find the inner meaning of the Krebs cycle-why it is still spinning at the heart of life and death today.
Transformer unites the story of our planet with the story of our cells-what makes us the way we are, and how it connects us to the origin of life. Enlivened by Lane's talent for distilling and humanizing complex research, Transformer is a must-listen for anyone fascinated by biology's great mysteries. Life is at root a chemical phenomenon: this is its deep logic.
The great forces of population change – the balance of births, deaths and migrations – have made the world what it is today. They have determined which countries are superpowers and which languish in relative obscurity, which economies top the international league tables and which are at best also-rans.
The same forces that have shaped our past and present are shaping our future. Illustrating this through ten illuminating indicators, from the fertility rate in Singapore (one) to the median age in Catalonia (forty-three), Paul Morland shows how demography is both a powerful and an under-appreciated lens through which to view the global transformations that are currently underway.
Tomorrow’s People ranges from the countries of West Africa where the tendency towards large families is combining with falling infant mortality to create the greatest population explosion ever witnessed, to the countries of East Asia and Southern Europe where generations of low birth-rate and rising life expectancy are creating the oldest populations in history. Morland explores the geographical movements of peoples that are already under way – portents for still larger migrations ahead – which are radically changing the cultural, ethnic and religious composition of many societies across the globe, and in their turn creating political reaction that can be observed from Brexit to the rise of Donald Trump. Finally, he looks at the two underlying motors of change – remarkable rises in levels of education and burgeoning food production – which have made all these epochal developments possible.
Tomorrow’s People provides a fascinating, illuminating and thought-provoking tour of an emerging new world. Nobody who wants to understand that world should be without it.
Ever been tempted to try a marathon? Maybe you’ve just started running, perhaps you’re gaining confidence, or are you already well on your way to conquering the iconic distance? Whatever stage you’re at on your journey, join marathon man Vassos Alexander as he shows us why we shouldn’t be afraid of the big 26.2.
Every marathon runner’s journey is different. You might have caught the bug after experiencing that adrenaline rush of completing your first 5k; it might be a desire to finally cross something off your bucket list; or, perhaps it was a bit of an absentminded afterthought while watching TV, crisps in hand, and a niggling voice saying ‘maybe I could do that’ – it was for Vassos, at least. However far along you are in your journey, How to Run A Marathon shows us that absolutely anyone can take those first steps to defeating the distance. In fact, you’ll probably end up enjoying it a lot more than you think.
Including inspiring interviews with runners from all walks of life, delightful tales of remarkable marathons all over the world, crucial training and nutrition tips and so much more, Vassos shares all the lessons he’s learnt — from start line to finisher’s medal.
Funny, candid and motivating, this book will not only help you succeed in your marathon quest but empower you to complete the distance any way you want. Whether that’s achieving a particular time or simply finishing in one piece, How to Run a Marathon will guide you through.
The sinking of the White Ship on the 25th November 1120 is one of the greatest disasters that England has ever suffered. Its repercussions would change English and European history for ever.
The sinking of the White Ship on the 25th November 1120 is one of the greatest disasters that England has ever suffered. Its repercussions would change English and European history for ever.
King Henry I was sailing for England in triumph after four years of fighting the French. Congregating with the king at the port of Barfleur on that freezing November night was the cream of Anglo-Norman society: three of his children, including the only legitimate male heir to the throne, as well as the flower of the aristocracy, famous knights, and mighty courtiers. By 1120, Henry was perhaps the most formidable ruler in Europe, with an enviable record on the battlefield, immense lands and wealth, and unprecedented authority in his kingdoms. Everything he had worked so hard for was finally achieved, and he was ready to hand it on to his beloved son and heir, William Ætheling.
Henry I and his retinue set out first. The White Ship – considered the fastest afloat – would follow, carrying the young prince. Spoilt and arrogant, William had plied his comrades and crew with drink from the minute he stepped aboard. It was the middle of the night when the drunken helmsman rammed the ship into rocks. There would be only one survivor from the gilded roll call of passengers…
Written to commemorate the 900th anniversary of the shipwreck, Charles Spencer evokes the harsh and brutal story of the Normans from Conquest to Anarchy. With their heir dead, a civil war of untold violence erupted, a game of thrones which saw families turned in on each other with English and Norman barons, rebellious Welsh princes and the Scottish king all playing a part in a bloody, desperate scrum for power.
