Audiobooks narrated by Roger Davis

Meditations: A New Translation Audiobook

Nearly two thousand years after it was written, Meditations remains profoundly relevant for anyone seeking to lead a meaningful life. Few ancient works have been as influential as the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, philosopher and emperor of Rome (A.D. 161-180). A series of spiritual exercises filled with wisdom, practical guidance, and profound understanding of human behavior, it remains one of the greatest works of spiritual and ethical reflection ever written. Marcus's insights and advice-on everything from living in the world to coping with adversity and interacting with others-have made the Meditations required reading for statesmen and philosophers alike, while generations of ordinary readers have responded to the straightforward intimacy of his style. For anyone who struggles to reconcile the demands of leadership with a concern for personal integrity and spiritual well-being, the Meditations remains as relevant now as it was two thousand years ago. In Gregory Hays's new translation-the first in thirty-five years-Marcus's thoughts speak with a new immediacy. In fresh and unencumbered English, Hays vividly conveys the spareness and compression of the original Greek text. Never before have Marcus's insights been so directly and powerfully presented. With an Introduction that outlines Marcus's life and career, the essentials of Stoic doctrine, the style and construction of the Meditations, and the work's ongoing influence, this edition makes it possible to fully rediscover the thoughts of one of the most enlightened and intelligent leaders of any era.

Marcus Aurelius (Author), Roger Davis (Narrator)

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Pirate Enlightenment, or the Real Libertalia

Brought to you by Penguin. The Enlightenment did not begin in Europe. Its true origins lie thousands of miles away on the island of Madagascar, in the late seventeenth century, when it was home to several thousand pirates. This was the Golden Age of Piracy, a period of violent buccaneering and rollicking legends - but it was also, argues anthropologist David Graeber, a brief window of radical democracy, as the pirate settlers attempted to apply the egalitarian principles of their ships to a new society on land. For Graeber, Madagascar's lost pirate utopia represents some of the first stirrings of Enlightenment political thought. In this jewel of a book, he offers a way to 'decolonise the Enlightenment', demonstrating how this mixed community experimented with an alternative vision of human freedom, far from that being formulated in the salons and coffee houses of Europe. Its actors were Malagasy women, merchants and traders, philosopher kings and escaped slaves, exploring ideas that were ultimately to be put into practice in by Western revolutionary regimes a century later. Pirate Enlightenment is a retelling of Enlightenment myths. In their place comes a story about the magic, sea battles, purloined princesses, manhunts, make-believe kingdoms, fraudulent ambassadors, spies, jewel thieves, poisoners and devil worship that lie at the origins of modern freedom. © David Graeber 2023 (P) Penguin Audio 2023

David Graeber (Author), Roger Davis (Narrator)

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The Dream Cafe: Lessons in the Art of Radical Innovation

This is a book that deliberately defies logic. The Dream Cafe offers an introduction to the lessons that brand owners can learn from emulating the way that artists think and work. Utilizing a dip-in/dip-out approach in the form of an A to Z it argues that the kind of radical and edgy art that has historically served to provoke, challenge and disrupt the status quo evolved from illogical and irreverent ways of thinking and doing. The Dream Cafe argues that businesses need to emulate the Avant-Garde in order to survive and prosper, and shows how you can put Dream Cafe thinking into place and increase creativity and innovation in your work and around your brand.

Duncan Bruce, Geoff Crook (Author), Roger Davis (Narrator)

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Growing Up: Sex in the Sixties

Brought to you by Penguin. Was the 1960s really that great time of liberation, joyful experimentation and celebration of youth? Growing Up takes an unflinching look at the dark underbelly of the sexual revolution. No era in recent history has been both more celebrated and vilified than the 1960s. For some it was a time when music, fashion and drugs enabled young people to express their individuality and freedom, their hopes and dreams of a different, perhaps better, world. For others, the decade marked the advent of the permissive society, with its undermining of authority, family values and common decency. At the heart of this continuing controversy is sex. For this wide-ranging and eye-opening survey of the sexual landscape of the 1960s Peter Doggett has assembled a dozen little-known stories that reveal how the sexual revolution transformed people's lives. Growing Up provides an honest, often disturbing portrait of a constant battle between two forces: the urge to free the body from guilt and restraint; and the desire to control, cannibalise and exploit that liberation for profit or pleasure. It is a battle that divides opinion to this day. © Peter Doggett 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Peter Doggett (Author), Roger Davis (Narrator)

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Flee 9-5: Get 6 - 7 Figures and Do What You Love

Ben Angel is Australia's top personal branding and influence specialist. Entrepreneurs, companies, speakers, and famous authors look to him when they want to learn how to engage their target audiences and the media or build a highly influential personal brand. In this new book, Angel offers practical, actionable advice on how to ditch the nine-to-five life and do something that both inspires and enriches you. This book shows you how to discover what you want to do, crack the code of the new social media landscape, find the tipping point that makes your business go viral, and make money authentically, by doing what you love. - Shows you how to flee nine-to-five and turn your expertise and knowledge into a six- to seven-figure business in under six months - Find out ways to crack the code of the new world economy and shape the world we live in - Reveals how any business owner, individual, or entrepreneur can outsource their work and do what they love from anywhere in the world With this book in hand, you'll learn to use social media and modern marketing techniques to build a brand, create revenue streams, and earn a six- to seven-figure income.

Ben Angel (Author), Roger Davis (Narrator)

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The Game Changer: How to Use the Science of Motivation With the Power of Game Design to Shift Behavi

How do you motivate people to do great work? Its the quintessential question and there are 3 main ways you can go about it: 1. You can shift peoples attitudes and beliefs which takes a lot of effort 2. You can develop incentives and pay for performance which takes a lot of money 3. Or you can design the work to be inherently motivating which takes a lot of savvy This book shows you how to master #3 making work that motivates. Its the most desperately overlooked element of motivation, and the key to sustaining meaningful progress at work. What makes this book different is that it combines the best elements from three distinct elds into one practical, future-focused book: » motivation science » game design » agile management This book will show you how to take the best elements of motivation science and game design and apply them to shift motivational dynamics, unlock progress and make progress happen. In other words, its a literally a game changer.

Jason Fox (Author), Roger Davis (Narrator)

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Nuclear Folly: A New History of the Cuban Missile Crisis

Brought to you by Penguin. The definitive new history of the Cuban Missile Crisis from the author of Chernobyl: History of a Tragedy, winner of the Baillie Gifford Prize For more than four weeks in the autumn of 1962 the world teetered. The consequences of a misplaced step during the Cuban Missile Crisis could not have been more grave. Ash and cinder, famine and fallout; nuclear war between the two most-powerful nations on Earth. In Nuclear Folly, award-winning historian Serhii Plokhy tells the riveting story of those weeks, tracing the tortuous decision-making and calculated brinkmanship of John F. Kennedy, Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro, and of their advisors and commanders on the ground. More often than not, Plokhy argues, the Americans and Soviets simply misread each other, operating under mutual distrust, second-guesses and false information. Despite all of this, nuclear disaster was avoided thanks to one very human reason: fear. Drawing on an impressive array of primary sources, including recently declassified KGB files, Plokhy masterfully illustrates the drama of those tense days. Authoritative, fast-paced and unforgettable, this is the definitive new account of the Cold War's most perilous moment. © Serhii Plokhy 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

Serhii Plokhy (Author), Roger Davis (Narrator)

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Restoring the Wild: Sixty Years of Rewilding Our Skies, Woods and Waterways

The distinctive white-tailed sea eagle was driven to extinction in Britain more than 200 years ago, but this immense predator is making a return to our skies, thanks to Roy Dennis, an ornithologist, conservationist and arguably the driving force behind the UK’s reintroduction agenda. Roy was instrumental in returning the Osprey, red kite and golden eagle to the British Isles, but the road to reintroduction isn’t an easy one. In what will surely be the seminal book on British reintroductions, Roy details the painstaking process of returning the Goldeneye to Scotland, one duckling at a time, the die-hard determination needed to make a dazzling success of the red kite reintroduction and the leap of faith we will all need to make to accept sharing our forests and skies with large carnivores again. He also illustrates all that we have to gain by restoring our ecosystems to balance. Filled with a lifetime’s worth of stories from the front lines of conservation, Reintroduction offers an eye-opening insight into the complexities of reintroducing extinct animals to Britain. It’s also an intimate portrait of these apex predators and a reminder of why we need them.

Roy Dennis (Author), Roger Davis (Narrator)

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Jet Man: The Making and Breaking of Frank Whittle, Genius of the Jet Revolution

The story of Frank Whittle - RAF pilot, mathematician of genius, inventor of the jet engine and British hero. In 1929, a twenty-two-year-old maverick named Frank Whittle - a self-taught aeronautical obsessive and risk-takingly brilliant RAF pilot - presented a blueprint for a revolutionary, jet-powered aircraft engine to the Air Ministry. His idea had the potential to change the course of history, but it was summarily rejected. In this meticulously researched biography, Duncan Campbell-Smith charts Whittle's stoic efforts to build his jet engine in the interwar years, during which he was constantly frustrated to find his ground-breaking project impeded by bureaucratic inertia until the outbreak of war in 1939. Eventual recognition of the importance of his work by the British government came too late for Whittle's invention to play a major part in the Second World War, but after the war his dream of civilian jet powered aircraft was gradually realized - eventually transforming the entire world of air travel. Gripping in its narrative, authoritative in its technical detail and insightful in its judgements, Jet Man is the definitive telling of the life of an engineering icon and unjustly neglected British hero of the Second World War - and a tantalizing tale of 'what might have been'. Reviews for Jet Man: 'A very well-written and long overdue corrective account of an extraordinary man' James Hamilton-Paterson 'Highly readable, and based on thorough research, Jet Man casts new light on the intense, heroic character of Frank Whittle and his revolutionary invention. The tale of how he overcame all the obstacles in his path is a gripping one. What also makes Duncan Campbell-Smith's narrative compelling is the way the complex mechanics of jet propulsion are so clearly explained' Leo McKinstry

Duncan Campbell-Smith (Author), Roger Davis (Narrator)

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Invasive Aliens: The Plants and Animals From Over There That Are Over Here

A unique history of plant and animal invaders of the British isles spanning thousands of years of arrivals and escapes, as well as defences mounted and a look to the future. As Brits we pride ourselves as stoic defenders, boasting a record of resistance dating back to 1066. Yet, even a cursory examination of the natural world reveals that while interlopers of the human variety may have been kept at bay, our islands have been invaded, conquered and settled by an endless succession of animals, plants, fungi and other alien lifeforms that apparently belong elsewhere. Indeed it's often hard to work out what actually is native, and what is foreign. From early settlement of our islands, through the Roman and mediaeval period, to the age of exploration and globalisation, today's complement of alien species tells a story about our past.

Dan Eatherley (Author), Roger Davis (Narrator)

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The Making of Poetry: Coleridge, the Wordsworths and Their Year of Marvels

Wordsworth and Coleridge as you've never seen them before in this new book by Adam Nicolson, brimming with poetry, art and nature writing. Proof that poetry can change the world. It is the most famous year in English poetry. Out of it came The Ancient Mariner and 'Kubla Khan', as well as Coleridge's unmatched hymns to friendship and fatherhood, Wordsworth's revolutionary verses in Lyrical Ballads and the greatness of 'Tintern Abbey', his paean to the unity of soul and cosmos, love and understanding. Bestselling and award-winning writer Adam Nicolson tells the story, almost day by day, of the year in the late 1790s that Coleridge, Wordsworth, his sister Dorothy and an ever-shifting cast of friends, dependants and acolytes spent together in the Quantock Hills in Somerset. To a degree never shown before, The Making of Poetry explores the idea that these poems came from this place, and that only by experiencing the physical circumstances of the year, in all weathers and all seasons, at night and at dawn, in sunlit reverie and moonlit walks, can the genesis of the poetry start to be understood. What emerges is a portrait of these great figures as young people, troubled, ambitious, dreaming of a vision of wholeness, knowing they had greatness in them but still in urgent search of the paths towards it. The poetry they made was not from settled conclusions but from the adventure on which they were all embarked, seeing what they wrote as a way of stripping away all the dead matter, exfoliating consciousness, penetrating its depths. Poetry for them was not an ornament for civilisation but a challenge to it, a means of remaking the world.

Adam Nicolson (Author), Roger Davis (Narrator)

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Sugar: The World Corrupted from Slavery to Obesity

The modern successor to Sweetness and Power, James Walvin's Sugar is a rich and engaging work on a topic that continues to change our world. How did a simple commodity, once the prized monopoly of kings and princes, become an essential ingredient in the lives of millions, before mutating yet again into the cause of a global health epidemic? Prior to 1600, sugar was a costly luxury, the domain of the rich. But with the rise of the sugar colonies in the New World over the following century, sugar became cheap, ubiquitous and an everyday necessity. Less than fifty years ago, few people suggested that sugar posed a global health problem. And yet today, sugar is regularly denounced as a dangerous addiction, on a par with tobacco. While sugar consumption remains higher than ever--in some countries as high as 100lbs per head per year--some advertisements even proudly proclaim that their product contains no sugar. How did sugar grow from prize to pariah? Acclaimed historian James Walvin looks at the history of our collective sweet tooth, beginning with the sugar grown by enslaved people who had been uprooted and shipped vast distances to undertake the grueling labor on plantations. The combination of sugar and slavery would transform the tastes of the Western world. Masterfully insightful and probing, James Walvin reveals the relationship between society and sweetness over the past two centuries--and how it explains our conflicted relationship with sugar today.

James Walvin (Author), Roger Davis (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Roger Davis