Audiobooks narrated by Simon Schama

Foreign Bodies: Pandemics, Vaccines and the Health of Nations

'This splendid and often moving work of history… Schama has a gift for combining novelistically colourful detail, serious analysis and wryly amusing asides' Daily Telegraph 'Superb' Observer 'Extraordinary… A meticulous retelling of a terrible yet scientifically innovative period… Makes an urgent case for building a better future on our toxic past' Guardian 'This is history of the best sort - humanly engaged but never sentimental' Mail on Sunday Cities and countries engulfed by panic and death, desperate for vaccines but fearful of what inoculation may bring. This is what the world has just gone through with Covid-19. But as Simon Schama shows in his epic history of vulnerable humanity caught between the terror of contagion and the ingenuity of science, it has happened before. Characteristically, with Schama the message is delivered through gripping, page-turning stories set in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: smallpox strikes London; cholera hits Paris; plague comes to India. Threading through the scenes of terror, suffering and hope - in hospitals and prisons, palaces and slums - are an unforgettable cast of characters: a philosopher-playwright burning up with smallpox in a country chateau; a vaccinating doctor paying house calls in Halifax; a woman doctor in south India driving her inoculator-carriage through the stricken streets as dead monkeys drop from the trees. But we are also in the labs when great, life-saving breakthroughs happen, in Paris, Hong Kong and Mumbai. At the heart of it all, an unsung hero: Waldemar Haffkine. A gun-toting Jewish student in Odesa turned microbiologist at the Pasteur Institute, hailed in England as 'the saviour of mankind' for vaccinating millions against cholera and bubonic plague in British India while being cold-shouldered by the medical establishment of the Raj. Creator of the world's first mass production line of vaccines in Mumbai, he is tragically brought down in an act of shocking injustice. Foreign Bodies crosses borders between east and west, Asia and Europe, the worlds of rich and poor, politics and science. Its thrilling story carries with it the credo of its author on the interconnectedness of humanity and nature; of the powerful and the people. Ultimately, Schama says, as we face the challenges of our times together, 'there are no foreigners, only familiars'.

Simon Schama (Author), Simon Schama (Narrator)

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Wordy

'Wordy is about the intoxication of writing; my sense of playful versatility; different voices for different matters: the polemical voice for political columns; the sharp-eyed descriptive take for profiles; poetic precision in grappling with the hard task of translating art into words; lyrical recall for memory pieces. And informing everything a rich sense of the human comedy and the ways it plays through historical time. It's also a reflection on writers who have been shamelessly gloried in verbal abundance; the performing tumble of language - those who have especially inspired me - Dickens and Melville; Joyce and Marquez.' Simon Schama Sir Simon Schama has been at the forefront of the arts, political commentary, social analysis and historical study for over forty years. As a teacher of Art History and an award-winning television presenter of iconic history-based programming, Simon is equally a prolific bestselling writer and award-winning columnist for many of the world's foremost publishers, broadsheet newspapers, periodicals and magazines. His commissioned subjects over the years have been numerous and wide ranging - from the music of Tom Waits, to the works of Sir Quentin Blake; the history of the colour blue, to discussing what skills an actor needs to create a unique performance of Falstaff. Schama's tastes are wide-ranging as they are eloquent, incisive, witty and thought provoking and have entertained and educated the readers of some of the world's most respected publications - the Times, the Guardian, the New Yorker, Harper's Bazaar and Rolling Stone magazine. Wordy is a celebration of one of the world's foremost writers. This collection of fifty essays chosen by the man himself stretches across four decades and is a treasure trove for all those who have a passion for the arts, politics, food and life.

Simon Schama (Author), Gareth Armstrong, Simon Schama (Narrator)

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The Face of Britain: The Nation through Its Portraits

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable, audiobook edition of The Face of Britain by Simon Schma, read by Simon Schama and Roy McMillian. Churchill and his painter locked in a struggle of stares and glares; Gainsborough watching his daughters run after a butterfly; a naked John Lennon five hours before his death. Simon Schama has written a tour de force about British portraits over the centuries in which the image-maker, the subject and everyone else looking on are brought unforgettably to life. Mesmerising in its extraordinary storytelling, and beautifully illustrated, The Face of Britain will change the way we see our past -- and ourselves.

Simon Schama (Author), Roy McMillan, Simon Schama (Narrator)

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King James Bible, The Readings And Documentaries From BBC Radio

2011 marks the 400th anniversary of the King James Bible, a seminal text that remains the most widely published and influential book in the English language. Once described as 'the noblest monument of English prose', it has been recognised for centuries as both a religious and a literary classic. This compilation features James Naughtie's acclaimed three-part documentary series 'The Story of the King James Bible' - a fascinating exploration of how a new translation of the Bible came to be produced and the impact it has had since. In addition, there are 28 readings from the work itself, encompassing some of the most powerful and awe-inspiring passages narrated by well-known actors such as Samuel West, Emilia Fox, Hugh Bonneville, Niamh Cusack and Bill Paterson and introduced by eminent figures from the worlds of history, literature and religion such as Simon Schama, David Lodge, Will Self and Dr Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. Enlightening and inspiring, this is a thrilling tribute to one of the greatest works ever produced in English.

James Naughtie (Author), Emilia Fox, Hugh Bonneville, Rowan Williams, Samuel West, Simon Schama, Various Artists (Narrator)

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Audiobooks Narrated by Simon Schama