Showing results by narrator "Alan" in All Categories

In 2009, Notts County FC were on the brink of bankruptcy when they were taken over by a mysterious company supposedly backed by the Bahraini royal family. The club was promised millions of pounds worth of investment and a list of marquee players, including Sol Campbell and Kasper Schmeichel were signed, in a recruitment drive led by former England manager Sven-Göran Eriksson, who was appointed to take the club all the way to the Premier League.

What would you sacrifice for a new life? Ambitious businesswoman Mae Yu runs Golden Oaks - a luxury retreat transforming the fertility industry - where women get the very best of everything, so long as they play by the rules. Jane is a young immigrant in search of a better future. Stuck living in a cramped dorm with her baby daughter and her shrewd aunt Ate, she sees an unmissable chance to change her life. But at what cost?

A strong emotional attachment to the memory of empire runs deep in British culture. In recent years, that memory has become a battleground in a long-drawn ideological war, inflecting debates on race, class, gender, culture, the UK’s future and its place in the world. This provocative and passionate book surveys the scene of the imperial memory wars in contemporary Britain, exploring how the myths that structure our views of empire came to be, and how they inform the present.

Charley Willis was 13 years old when her parents were killed in their family home and she was found hiding in a cupboard upstairs. Fifteen years later, Charley is marrying Seth Chambers. It should be the happiest day of their lives, a chance for Charley to put her past behind her, but just hours after the ceremony, she is missing. No one saw her leave. No one knows where she is. One thing is for certain…Seth is about to discover he doesn’t really know the woman he just married. And his nightmare is only just beginning.

Bloomsbury presents The Mime Order by Samantha Shannon, read by Alana Kerr Collins. A stunning new edition of the second novel in the bestselling Bone Season series with gorgeous new cover artwork and updated text, by the bestselling author of The Priory of the Orange Tree. Paige Mahoney has...

Ten full-cast dramas featuring some of the best known names in British comedy. In these ten witty, dark and disturbing episodes some of Britain’s best comedians come together to perform simultaneously hilarious and unsettling stories that will have you gripped. Sticky situations on ski slopes...

The new novel from Britain's favourite gardener and TV presenter Alan Titchmarsh is a sweeping story of love, danger, courage and betrayal, set in wartime London and Paris. As war rages across Europe, one young woman faces an impossible choice. Will she save her country... or the man she loves?...

First written down in the eighth century AD, these early Irish stories depict a far older world—part myth, part legend and part history. Rich with magic and achingly beautiful, they speak of a land of heroic battles, intense love and warrior ideals, in which the otherworld is explored and men...

One of the best-loved men in Britain, Alan Titchmarsh brilliantly recalls his childhood in 1950s Yorkshire. Alan Titchmarsh grew up and developed his passion for nature in the wild and beautiful landscape of Yorkshire. A real treat for his millions of fans, the ever-popular presenter vividly...

The Lord of the Rings trilogy has delighted millions of fans worldwide in book and movie form. With the theatrical release of the two-part film The Hobbit slated for 2012 and 2013, attention will once again turn to J. R. R. Tolkien's classic works. In a culture where truth is relative and morality is viewed as old-fashioned, we welcome the chance to view the world through hobbit eyes: we have free will, our choices matter, and living a morally heroic life is possible....

Actor, dramatist and founding member of Laurence Olivier’s National Theatre, Rod Beacham wrote over 15 plays for BBC Radio. This collection comprises seven crime dramas first broadcast on Radio 4’s ‘Saturday Night Theatre’ strand between 1980 and 1987, ranging in tone from tense whodunnits to light-hearted comedy thrillers.

Molly DeGorne is a woman on the run, wanted for murdering her abusive husband. She’s accused of setting him and their Seattle home on fire. Scared, alone, and with no one to trust, she runs to the only place she thinks is safe, her summer post as a fire lookout. Only it may not be as safe as she suspects. The only hope that she’s got is a drifter she just met, Jack Widow.

Someone is killing old spies. Retired and forgotten, these relics from the Cold War are being removed—quietly and brutally. And when “Section D” MI5 agent Tom Marlowe, on medical leave after a botched mission, learns his old mentor is one of the murdered ex-agents, he starts an investigation that threatens to cost him his career, his freedom…and even his life.

The most important issue in a gay man’s life is not “coming out”, but coming to terms with the invalidating past. Despite the progress made in recent years, many gay men still wonder, “Are we better off?” The byproduct of growing up gay in a straight world continues to be the internalization of shame, rejection, and anger - a toxic cocktail that can lead to drug abuse, promiscuity, alcoholism, depression, and suicide.

One of Russia's most iconic poets, Alexander Pushkin is often described as the 'father of Russian literature'. A gambler, playboy and social reformer, he was exiled by the Tsar for his controversial poetry and died aged 37 in a duel defending his wife's honour. This BBC Radio anthology includes dramatisations and readings of Pushkin's most famous works - plus biographical programmes and an original play based on his life.

With a career spanning 10 years inside the walls of Britain's most infamous prisons – Manchester’s Strangeways and London’s Wormwood Scrubs – John Sutton has experienced it all. Attacked by The Soho Vampire an insane killer, assaulted by The Cambridge Rapist, threatened by The IRA, beaten, persecuted and prosecuted by Freemason officers, John Sutton survived to reveal the hard-hitting truth in this jaw-dropping memoir.

FOR THE FIRST TIME UNABRIDGED IN AUDIO READ BY ALAN CUMMING and ANGUS KING WITH ARCHIVAL RECORDINGS FROM ALASDAIR GRAY HIMSELF 'Probably the greatest novel of the century' Observer Lanark, a modern vision of hell set in the disintegrating cities of Unthank and Glasgow, tells the interwoven...

“A diverse and glorious selection . . . a gift of imagination, wit, and wonder. The collection is filled with miniature masterpieces. . . . This must-have anthology is a treasure trove not to be missed.” —Library Journal (starred review) The prestigious annual story anthology, featuring...

Ten full-cast BBC Radio thrillers by Berkely Mather Berkely Mather (real name John Evan Weston-Davies) was a British author who wrote sixteen novels ranging from historical adventures to espionage fiction. A prolific writer for television and radio, he contributed scripts to TV series including...

In The Marshmallow Test, Mischel explains how self-control can be mastered and applied to challenges in everyday life - from weight control to quitting smoking, overcoming heartbreak, making major decisions, and planning for retirement. With profound implications for the choices we make in parenting, education, public policy and self-care, The Marshmallow Test will change the way you think about who we are and what we can be.