Showing results by narrator "Peter Noble" in All Categories

'Decline of the English Murder' analyses the kinds of murders depicted in popular media during Orwell's life and why society of the time was obsessed with these grizzly crimes. Tribune published it on 15th February 1946, and Secker and Warburg republished it after his death in Shooting an Elephant and Other Essays in 1952.

Australia is different - a vast island continent with distances so great that the capital of Western Australia is closer to Singapore than it is to Sydney. The landscape embraces magnificent tropical rainforests and deserts the size of several European states; temperate areas that sustain a flourishing wine industry, making Australia the world's fourth largest wine exporter; and a 16,000-mile coastline of breathtaking beaches. Plus its unique fauna is testament to the country's down-underness.

Don Giovanni is a passionate lover of life. One night, the Commendatore of Calatrava catches him kissing his daughter, and challenges him to a duel. Don Giovanni wins the duel, which of course means that the Commendatore is slain and so begins the end for Don Giovanni...

Roald Dahl was one of the world's greatest storytellers. He conceived his vocation as one as intrepid as that of any explorer and, in his writing for children, he was able to tap into a child's viewpoint throughout his life. He crafted tales that were exotic in scenario, frequently invested with a moral, and filled with vibrant characters that endure in public imagination to the present day.

In a remote city, a renowned performance artist commits suicide on video; from a long-abandoned space station comes impossible footage of a dead body; and in an isolated outpost, a secretive cult believes they are communing with the ancient alien Masters. How are they connected? Inspector Keon is trying to investigate, but once again his life has been flipped upside down. His wife, Alysha, is alive. His long search is over. Or so he thinks.

The novel follows Jamie and Jenny through servitude, revolt, escape, and romantic entanglements-pawns in a deadly game. The two continue to cross paths with each other and with some of the leading figures of the era-the devious Lord Lovat, future novelist Henry Fielding, the artist William Hogarth, a young and ambitious George Washington, the doomed General James Wolfe, and the Lenape chief feared throughout the Ohio Valley as Shingas the Terrible.

Humanity has been split into three different species. Mutual incomprehension has fractured the globe. As humans race to be the first of their kind to reach the stars, another Great War looms. For you that means returning to Yorkshire and the town of your birth, where factories churn out the parts for gigantic spaceships. You're done with the pretentions of the capital and its unfathomable architecture. You're done with the people of the Bund, their easy superiority and unstoppable spread throughout the city of London and beyond.

It's a few days before Christmas in Versailles. Olivier has come to bury his mother, but the impending holidays and icy conditions have delayed the funeral. While trapped in limbo at his mother's flat, a chance encounter brings Olivier back in touch with childhood friend Jeanne and her blind brother, Rodolphe. Rodolphe suggests they have dinner together, along with a homeless man he's taken in. As the wine flows, dark secrets are spilled, and there's more than just hangovers to deal with the next morning...

In 1990, David Muller set sail to Mozambique with his wife and two young children, to fulfil a boyhood dream of sailing to the tropics on the yacht he had spent ten years building. The dream holiday came to a shocking end when the yacht ran aground on a beach near Bazaruto Islands. While waiting for high tide to refloat the yacht, a patrol of Renamo child soldiers, armed with AK47’s, arrive, along with two adult captives.

As modern empires rise and fall, ancient Rome becomes ever more significant. We yearn for Rome's power but fear Rome's ruin—will we turn out like the Romans, we wonder, or can we escape their fate? That question has obsessed centuries of historians and leaders, who have explored diverse political, religious, and economic forces to explain Roman decline. In New Rome, Paul Stephenson looks beyond traditional texts and well-known artifacts to offer a novel, scientifically minded interpretation of antiquity's end.

When Vince Treadwell spots a famous jewel thief in Soho one night and the next day reads about a daring robbery at the Ritz, he takes it upon himself to investigate the case as the missing jewels belong to the beautiful French movie star Capucine, with whom Vince is smitten. But it soon leads to...

Brian Aldiss has announced that this book, Finches of Mars, will be his final science fiction novel. And what a way to end one of the most illustrious careers in the genre. Set on the Red Planet, it follows a group of colonists and the problems they have in setting up a new society. Life can be sustained, but new life will not prosper - the women on the planet only ever give birth to stillborn children. Exploring many of the author’s classic themes, this is a landmark novel in any genre.

Philosopher Peter Godfrey-Smith dons a wet suit and journeys into the depths of consciousness in Other Minds Although mammals and birds are widely regarded as the smartest creatures on earth, it has lately become clear that a very distant branch of the tree of life has also sprouted higher...

"People are emotionally drawn to the supernatural. They actively want weird, spooky things to be true . . . Wiseman shows us a higher joy as he deftly skewers the paranormal charlatans, blows away the psychic fog and lets in the clear light of reason." Richard Dawkins Professor Richard Wiseman...

Doomed to die. And die again. Dark Diamond is the first in a high-octane space opera trilogy from Neal Asher, creator of the Polity universe. Captain Blite knows that someone, or something, is trying to kill him. But a device he possesses, known only as the dark diamond, won't let that happen...

The Departure is the first gripping book in Neal Asher's near-future, science fiction Owner series. The Argus Space Station looks down on a nightmarish Earth. And from this safe distance, the Committee enforces its despotic rule. There are too many people and too few resources, and they need...

Cowl is a high-octane time travel adventure from Britain's master of widescreen science fiction, Neal Asher. He's the nightmare you never imagined . . . In the far-future, the Heliothane Dominion triumphed after a bitter war. But some enemies escaped into the past, to wreak havoc across time...

Infinity Engine is the third and final novel in the Transformation series, by bestselling science fiction author Neal Asher, following Dark Intelligence and War Factory. A man battles for his life, two AIs vie for supremacy and a civilization hangs in the balance . . . Several forces now pursue...

Hilldiggers is a fast-paced standalone, following events in Neal Asher's Spatterjay trilogy. They have extraordinary power and aren’t afraid to use it . . . Two planets in the same solar system are locked in war, when some kind of cosmic super-string is discovered. It seems packed with alien...

Jupiter War is the third and final book in Neal Asher's near-future, science fiction Owner series, set upon an Earth ravaged by disaster. Alan Saul is now part human and part machine, and our solar system isn't big enough to hold him. He craves the stars, but can't leave yet. His sister Var is...