Showing results by narrator "John Sackville"

Why can some birds sleep with only half of their brain? What really happens during REM sleep? Why do our sleep patterns change across a lifetime? Sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life, health and longevity. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep or what good it serves or why we suffer such devastating health consequences when it is absent. In this book, neuroscientist and sleep expert Matthew Walker charts 20 years of cutting-edge research.

Was there a beginning of time? Could time run backwards? Is the universe infinite, or does it have boundaries? These are just some of the questions considered in an internationally acclaimed masterpiece by one of the world's greatest thinkers. It begins by reviewing the great theories of the cosmos, from Newton to Einstein, before delving into the secrets which still lie at the heart of space and time, from the big bang to black holes, via spiral galaxies and strong theory.

Everything in the universe is made of them, including you. Like you, the elements have personalities, attitudes, talents, shortcomings, stories rich with meaning. Here you'll meet iron that rains from the heavens and noble gases that light the way to vice. You'll learn how lead can tell your future while zinc may one day line your coffin. You'll discover what connects the bones in your body with the Whitehouse in Washington, the glow of a streetlamp with the salt on your dinner table.

Margot Lewis is the agony aunt for The Cambridge Examiner. Her advice column, Dear Amy, gets all kinds of letters - but none like the one she's just received: 'Dear Amy, I don't know where I am. I've been kidnapped and am being held prisoner by a strange man. I'm afraid he'll kill me. Please help me soon, Bethan Avery.' Bethan Avery has been missing for nearly two decades. This is surely some cruel hoax. But as more letters arrive, they contain information that was never made public.

In this beautifully written book, Buddhist monk and Nobel Peace Prize nominee Thich Nhat Hanh explains how to acquire the skills of mindfulness. Once we have these skills, we can slow our lives down and discover how to live in the moment - even simple acts like washing the dishes or drinking a cup of tea may be transformed into acts of meditation. Thich Nhat Hanh's gentle anecdotes and practical exercises help us to arrive at greater self-understanding and peacefulness, whether we are beginners or advanced.

What if everything we thought we knew about history was wrong? From the global best-selling author of Empire, The Ascent of Money and Civilization, this is a whole new way of looking at the world. Most history is hierarchical: it's about popes, presidents, and prime ministers. But what if that's simply because they create the historical archives? What if we are missing equally powerful but less visible networks-leaving them to the conspiracy theorists, with their dreams of all-powerful Illuminati?

Late one evening towards the end of March, a teenager picked up a double-barrelled shotgun, walked into the forest, put the gun to someone else's forehead and pulled the trigger. This is the story of how we got there. Beartown is a small town in a large Swedish forest. For most of the year it is under a thick blanket of snow, experiencing the kind of cold and dark that brings people closer together - or pulls them apart. Its isolation means that Beartown has been slowly shrinking with each passing year.

Introducing Luke Carlton - ex-Special Boat Service commando and now under contract to MI6 for some of its most dangerous missions. Sent into the steaming Colombian jungle to investigate the murder of a British intelligence officer, Luke finds himself caught up in the coils of a plot that has terrifying international dimensions.

What is it really like to be a racer? What is it like to be swept along at 60kmh in the middle of the pack? How does it feel to be reeled in from a solo breakaway metres from the line? What happens to the body during a high-speed chute? What tactics must teams employ to win the day, the jersey, the grand tour? How does a domestique keep going to the end of a stage once his job is done and his body exhausted?

A small, broken town sits on the edge of a frozen lake surrounded by a forest, its wounds still raw from a tragedy that tore its fragile community in two. Beartown has lost its way. Now the cold and dark that surround the snowbound town creep in, and so do new conflicts and tensions. What was once a friendly rivalry with the neighbouring town is beginning to turn sinister and Beartown braces itself for another tragic blow. How far will the people of Beartown go to preserve their reputations for a second, deadly time? 

From the people who brought you the bestselling Confessions of a GP. From stampeding nudes to inebriated teenagers, young nurse Michael Alexander never really knew what he was getting himself into.

Shipcott in bleak mid-winter: a close knit community where no stranger goes unnoticed. So when an elderly woman is murdered in her bed, village policeman Jonas Holly is doubly shocked. How could someone have killed and left no trace? Jonas finds himself side-lined as the investigation is snatched away from him by an abrasive senior detective. Is his first murder investigation over before it’s begun?

How are chefs and companies planning to transform our dining experiences, and what can we learn from their cutting-edge insights to make memorable meals at home? These are just some of the ingredients of Gastrophysics, in which pioneering Oxford professor Charles Spence shows how our senses link up in the most extraordinary ways and reveals the importance of all the off-the-plate elements of a meal: the weight of cutlery, the placing on the plate, the background music and much more.

Penguin presents the unabridged downloadable audiobook edition of Turner by Franny Moyle, read by John Sackville. J. M. W. Turner is Britain's most famous landscape painter. Yet beyond his artistic achievements, little is known of the man himself and the events of his life: the tragic committal of his mother to a lunatic asylum, the personal sacrifices he made to effect his stratospheric rise and the bizarre double life he chose to lead in the last years of his life.

On a cold December morning in New York City, a man is found dead in Central Park. There are no knife or gunshot wounds to his body and no signs of violence. But beside the body is a box containing a cracked vial. Suspecting he died from some sort of biological attack, a lab team screen the body. What they find is deeply unsettling and terrifying.

In a hugely ambitious study that crosses continents, languages, and almost a century, Gregory Woods identifies the ways in which homosexuality has helped shape Western culture. Extending from the trials of Oscar Wilde to the gay liberation era, this book examines a period in which increased visibility made acceptance of homosexuality one of the measures of modernity.

As remarkable as Columbus and the conquistador expeditions, the history of Portuguese exploration is now almost forgotten. But Portugal's navigators cracked the code of the Atlantic winds, launched the expedition of Vasco da Gama to India and beat the Spanish to the spice kingdoms of the East - then set about creating the first long-range maritime empire.

Marking the centenary of the Titanic, A Shape of Ice is an utterly compelling exploration of the lives on board the most famous ship in history. The RMS Titanic was built as one of the world's largest and most luxurious liners. A marine Ritz, it was a 45,000 ton hotel of thin steel plates, travelling at a speed of 21 knots across the unforgiving ocean.On the night of 14 April 1912, the seemingly unsinkable ship hit an iceberg. It sustained a 300 feet gash and six compartments were wrenched open to the sea.

At the height of summer a dark shadow falls across Exmoor. Children are being stolen from cars. Each disappearance is marked only by a terse note – a brutal accusation. There are no explanations, no ransom demands... and no hope. Policeman Jonas Holly faces a precarious journey into the warped mind of the kidnapper if he's to stand any chance of catching him. But – still reeling from a personal tragedy – is Jonas really up to the task?

The Art of Stopping Time guides the listener through 100 practices to help busy people practice mindfulness and a slowing of time wherever they might be: in the shower, sitting in traffic, or dealing with an overflowing inbox. Our perception of the scarcity of time is coupled with the epidemic of stress in the modern world, and when we don't have a positive connection with the flow of time, we lack purpose as well as develop health problems.