Showing results by narrator "Charlie Anson" in All Categories

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of George VI: The Dutiful King by Philip Ziegler, read by Charlie Anson. If Ethelred was notoriously 'Unready' and Alfred 'Great', King George VI should bear the designation of 'George the Dutiful'. Throughout his life he dedicated himself to the pursuit of what he thought he ought to be doing rather than what he wanted to do. Inarticulate and loathing any sort of public appearances, he accepted that it was his destiny to figure regularly and conspicuously in the public eye, gritted his teeth, largely conquered his crippling stammer and got on with it.

Your body is teeming with tens of trillions of microbes. It's an entire world, a colony full of life. In other words, you contain multitudes. These microscopic companions sculpt our organs, protect us from diseases, guide our behaviour and bombard us with their genes. They also hold the key to understanding all life on earth. In I Contain Multitudes, Ed Yong opens our eyes and invites us to marvel at ourselves and other animals in a new light, less as individuals and more as thriving ecosystems.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Licence to be Bad by Jonathan Alred. Over the past 50 years, the way we value what is 'good' and 'right' has changed dramatically. Behaviour that to our grandparents' generation might have seemed stupid, harmful or simply wicked now seems rational, natural, woven into the very logic of things. And, asserts Jonathan Aldred in this revelatory new book, it's economics that's to blame.

While marooned at his banking job in the bewilderingly damp and insular realm known as Ireland, Claude Martingale, is approached by a down-on-his-luck author, Paul, looking for his next great subject. Claude finds that his life gets steadily more exciting under Paul's fictionalizing influence; he even falls in love with a beautiful waitress. But Paul's plan is not what it seems-and neither is Claude's employer, the Bank of Torabundo, which inflates through dodgy takeovers and derivatives-trading until-well, you can probably guess how that shakes out.

The journeys of Paul Theroux take place not only in exotic, unexpected places of the world but in the thoughts, reading, and emotions of the writer himself. A gathering of people, places, and ideas in fifty glittering pieces of gold.

On 13 July 2014, World Cup Final, the last ten minutes of extra time: Germany forward Mario Götze, receiving a floated pass from his international teammate André Schürrle, jumps slightly to meet the ball and cushion it with his chest. Landing on his left foot, he takes a step with his right, swivels, and in one fluid motion, without the ball touching the ground, volleys it past the onrushing Argentine goalkeeper....

Laurie is pretty sure love at first sight doesn't exist. After all, life isn't a scene from the movies, is it? But then, through a misted-up bus window one snowy December day, she sees a man whom she knows instantly is the one. Their eyes meet, there's a moment of pure magic...and then her bus drives away. Laurie thinks she'll never see the boy from the bus again. But at their Christmas party a year later, her best friend, Sarah, introduces her to the new love of her life. Who is, of course, the boy from the bus.

Brazilian-born doctor André Cabral is living in London when one day he receives a letter from his home country, which he left nearly 30 years ago. A letter he keeps in his pocket for weeks but tells no one about. The letter prompts André to remember the days of his youth - torrid afternoons on Ipanema beach with his listless teenage friends, parties in elegant Rio apartments, his after-school job at his father's plastic surgery practice and, above all, his secret infatuation with the daughter of his family's maid.

For six years, Alec Milius has escaped the past. In Madrid, he has rebuilt his life but remains in exile and in danger. Slightly older, and much wiser, than the young spy who first impressed MI6, he has kept his fatal attraction to secrets. So when a prominent politician mysteriously disappears, Alec is lured back into the spying game. Only this time he operates without the protection of any official agency, isolated and expendable, with nobody to turn to if things go wrong. And they soon do.

Harry Silver has it all. A successful job in TV, a gorgeous wife, a lovely child. But in one moment of madness, he chucks it all away. A modern classic, Man and Boy is a hilarious and touching novel about how Harry comes to terms with his life, brings up his son alone and, gradually, learns what words like love and family really mean.

Manchester, 2018: Pep Guardiola and José Mourinho lead their teams out to face each other in the 175th Manchester derby. They are first and second in the Premier League, but today only one man can come out on top. It is merely the latest instalment in a rivalry that has contested titles, traded insults and crossed a continent but which can be traced back to a friendship that began almost 25 years ago.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Only Human by Sylvain Neuvel, read by a returning cast. We always thought the biggest threat to humanity would come from the outside. We were wrong. As the human race picks up the pieces of destruction left behind, a new world order emerges. New alliances are formed. Old divisions are strengthened. And, with a power struggle fuelled by the threat of mutually assured destruction, nothing is certain.

An unknown vessel, not of this world, materialises in London. A colossal figure towering over the city, it makes no move. Is this a peaceful first contact or the prelude to an invasion? Every child has nightmares. But the only thing scarier than little Eva Reyes' dreams - apocalyptic visions of death and destruction - is the habit they have of coming true. Scientist Dr Rose Franklin has no memory of the last few years. The strangers she works with say she died, and was brought back to life. The question is not just how...but why?

Successful novelist Kit Carradine has grown restless. So when British Intelligence invites him to enter the secret world of espionage, he willingly takes a leap into the unknown. But the glamour of being a spy is soon tainted by fear and betrayal, as Carradine finds himself in Morocco on the trail of Lara Bartok - a mysterious fugitive with links to international terrorism.

For all fans of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy comes this master class in suspense about a spy caught up in his own web of deception.... Alec Milius is young, smart and ambitious - with a talent for deception. When a chance encounter opens the door to a career with MI6, he is desperate to make his mark. But life as a spy begins to take a terrible toll on himself and those around him, and soon Alec is chasing not just success but survival.

After narrowly escaping the fall of Rossarb, Princess Catherine leads a rag-tag group of survivors into the barren wasteland of the Northern Plateau. With the Brigantine army snapping at their heels, Edyon and Ambrose become separated from the group, while demon hunter Tash leads Catherine and March to an unlikely refuge - the hidden tunnels of the demon world itself.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Chronicles: On Our Troubled Times by Thomas Piketty, narrated by Charlie Anson. The return of the best-selling, award-winning economist extraordinaire. With the same powerful evidence and range of reference as his global best seller Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Chronicles sets out Thomas Piketty's analysis of the financial crisis, what has happened since and where we should go from here.

Paul Theroux's first collection of essays and articles devoted entirely to travel writing, Fresh Air Fiend touches down on five continents and floats through most seas in between to deliver a literary adventure of the first order, with the incomparable Paul Theroux as a guide. From the crisp quiet of a solitary week spent in the snowbound Maine woods to the expectant chaos of Hong Kong on the eve of the Hand-over, Theroux demonstrates how the traveling life and the writing life are intimately connected.

A young man wakes up at dawn to drive to the Andes, to climb the Cerro Bonete - a mountain untouched by ice axes and climbers, one of the planet's final mountains to be conquered - as an act of heroic bravado - or foolishness. But instead he finds himself dragged by the undertow of memory to Esplanada, the neighborhood he grew up in, to the brotherhood of his old friends, and to the clearing in the woods where he witnessed an act that has run like a scar through the rest of his life.

As war spreads like wildfire, the Smoke Thieves face their greatest challenges yet. With her father tightening his grip on the Northern Plateau, Catherine sends her loyal bodyguard Ambrose into the dragon's den on a desperate mission to disrupt the supply of smoke. In Calidor, Edyon and March face a future divided while, trapped in the demon world, Tash wrestles with the price of her past. But as the battle for the human kingdoms reaches its climax, the demon realm reveals a final, terrible secret.