Showing results by narrator "Alix Dunmore" in All Categories

One rainy afternoon in Istanbul, a woman walks into a doctor's surgery. 'I need to have an abortion', she announces. She is 19 years old and unmarried. What happens that afternoon will change her life. Twenty years later, Asya Kazanci lives with her extended family in Istanbul. Due to a mysterious family curse, all the Kaznci men die in their early 40s, so it is a house of women, among them Asya's beautiful, rebellious mother Zeliha, who runs a tattoo parlour; Banu, who has newly discovered herself as clairvoyant; and Feride, a hypochondriac obsessed with impending disaster.

In traditional Japanese culture, people eat, sleep and wear the seasons, from kimono motifs to petal-shaped sweets, and festivals dedicated to nature’s spectacular displays. This mindful celebration of nature leads to a deep awareness of the seasons, called kisetsukan. This audiobook reveals the hidden depths of kisetsukan, and how its concepts can transform your life.

At the height of her career, the piano virtuoso Elsa M. Anderson—former child prodigy, now in her thirties—walks off the stage in Vienna, mid-performance. Now she is in Athens, watching an uncannily familiar woman purchase a pair of mechanical dancing horses at a flea market. Elsa wants the horses too, but there are no more for sale. She drifts to the ferry port, on the run from her talent and her history. So begins her journey across Europe, shadowed by the elusive woman who seems to be her double.

In The Position of Spoons, Deborah Levy invites the listener into the interiors of her world, sharing her most intimate thoughts and experiences, as she traces and measures her life against the backdrop of the literary and artistic muses that have shaped her. From Marguerite Duras to Colette and Ballard, and from Lee Miller to Francesca Woodman and Paula Rego, we can relish here the richness of their work and, in turn the richness of the author’s own.

Jessie wakes to darkness, cold, and the rain beating down on her. She reaches out, and her hands meet hard stone. Suddenly she knows where she is. Deep in the woods, far underground, at the bottom of the well where her best friend's lifeless body was found fifteen years ago. After returning to her hometown to investigate a new murder, she now finds herself poised to become the killer's next victim. Jessie gazes up to the circle of night sky above her, the relentless raindrops landing on her face.

A new work by the author of “In Defense of Witches” that seeks to redefine heterosexual relationships and give women back their voice.

A family from two nations, England and Greece, live a simple life on a tiny Greek island: Irini, Tasso and their daughter, sweet Chara, whose name means joy. Their life goes up in flames in a single day when one man starts a fire out of greed and indifference. Many are killed, homes are destroyed, and the island's natural beauty wiped out. In the wake of the fire, Chara bears deep scars across her back and arms. Tasso is frozen in trauma, devastated that he wasn't there when his family most needed him. And Irini is crippled by guilt at her part in the fate of the man who started the fire.

In the summer of 1973, teenage Ruth and her four friends are obsessed with pre-Raphaelite paintings and a little bit obsessed with each other. They spend the scorching summer days in the river by Ruth's grand family home, pretending to be the drowning Ophelia and recreating tableaus of other tragic mythical heroines. But by the end of the summer, real tragedy has found them. Twenty-four years later, Ruth is a wife and mother of three children and moves her family into her still-grand, but now somewhat dilapidated, childhood home following the death of her father.

A short feminist polemic that argues that the afterlife of the witch hunts continues today: the same reasons for which women were demonized in the past—being single, ageing, deciding to not have children—lead to them be persecuted now.

Debutante of the year. Able politician. Femme fatale. Just some of the many labels attached to the irrepressible, controversial Raine Spencer: Countess, socialite and stepmother to Diana, Princess of Wales. But who was the real Raine? What was hidden behind the immaculately manicured public façade and her overwhelmingly negative tabloid image? From her childhood days as daughter of romantic novelist powerhouse, Barbara Cartland, to Westminster councillor and wife of Earl Spencer, Three Times a Countess recounts Raine's compelling and glamorous life.

Worn out by poverty, Lettie Radley and her miner husband Tommy grasp at the offer of their very own smallholding - part of a Government scheme to put the unemployed back to work on the land. When she comes down to Essex to join him, it's not Tommy who greets her, but their new neighbours. Overbearing and unkempt, Jean and Adam Dell are everything that Lettie can't abide. But as Lettie settles in, she finds an unexpected joy in the rhythms of life. She's hopeful that her past, and the terrible secret Tommy has come to Foxash to escape, are far behind them. But the Dells have their own secrets.

In the summer of 1973, Ruth and her four friends were obsessed with pre-Raphaelite paintings—and a little bit obsessed with each other. Drawn to the cold depths of the river by Ruth’s house, the girls pretend to be the drowning Ophelia, with increasingly elaborate tableaus. But by the end of that fateful summer, real tragedy finds them along the banks.

Elsa M. Anderson is a classical piano virtuoso. In a flea market in Athens, she watches an enigmatic woman buy two mechanical dancing horses. Is it possible that the woman who is so enchanted with the horses is her living double? Is she also looking for reasons to live? Chasing their doubles across Europe, the two women grapple with their preconceived conceptions of the world and each other, culminating in a final encounter in a fateful summer rainstorm.

Steven is one unlucky closeted sixth former. Whenever he has a strong emotion, be that happiness or sadness, weird things happen. Like, potentially dangerous things. Recently, he kissed another boy for the first time and...the boy's head literally exploded. Steven flees to the miserable town of Grunsby-on-Sea, determined not to hurt anyone else with his "Emomancy". With a best friend as determined as Freya, it is impossible to stay hidden for long though, especially when she realises Steven might be in danger after a mysterious organisation called DEMA start asking questions about him.

Staring at the Sun charts the life of Jean Serjeant, from her beginning as a naive, carefree country girl before the war through to her wry and trenchant old age in the year 2020. We follow her bruising experience in marriage, her probing of male truths, and her adventures in motherhood and in China, and we cannot fail to be moved by the questions she asks of life and the often unsatisfactory answers it provides.

From the Siberian permafrost to balmy California, scientists across the globe are working to resurrect all kinds of extinct animals, from ones that just left us to those that have been gone for many thousands of years. Their tools in this hunt are both fossils and cutting-edge genetic technologies. Some of these scientists are driven by sheer curiosity; others view the lost species as a powerful weapon in the fight to preserve rapidly changing ecosystems. It seems certain that these animals will walk the earth again, but what world will that give us? And is any of this a good idea?

Kate Wareing is astonished when she secures a place in a televised dance competition. Especially as it means she’ll be paired with a professional dancer to compete for a life-changing cash prize. When she’s matched with gorgeous French dancer Merle, it quickly becomes clear that he’s just as keen to work on their chemistry as their routine. But when the competition is rocked by a scandal, Kate’s forced to switch to a new partner, Aleksis, who is just as devastatingly attractive as Merle – but seems to hate her.

In an age of social media and selfies, of pixel-perfect pictures and surgically enhanced celebrities, the pressure to change our bodies can often seem overwhelming. We are told we should conceal the signs of ageing and get our bodies back after pregnancy. We ought to perfect our complexions, build our biceps, trim our waistlines. More than ever before, we should contort our physical selves to prejudiced standards of beauty and acceptability. In this thought-provoking work, acclaimed political philosopher Clare Chambers argues that the unmodified body is a key principle of equality.

Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, Philippa Foot and Elizabeth Anscombe were philosophy students at Oxford during the Second World War when most male undergraduates (and many tutors) were conscripted. Taught by refugee scholars, women and conscientious objectors, the four friends developed a philosophy that could respond to the war's darkest revelations.

Millie loves her city life, her city friends and writing her true(ish) confessions column—but she’s starting to wonder if the grass really is greener on the other side, or if her heart really belongs back in Northumberland, with her mum who is struggling after the death of Millie’s dad.