Showing results by narrator "John Curless" in All Categories

Having worked on numerous high-profile genetic investigations, including one focused on the famed Iceman of the Italian Alps, Bryan Sykes has become a premier authority on human genetics. In DNA USA, Sykes examines the unique fabric of the population of the United States - one of the world’s most genetically variegated countries. His fascinating discoveries offer new insights into the biological profile of the great melting pot.

Journalist Jason Roberts has won critical praise for A Sense of the World. His biography of "the blind traveler" has been named a Best Book of the Year by numerous publications, including the Washington Post, and has been nominated for the Guardian First Book Award. Although blinded as a young Naval lieutenant, James Holman became one of the world's most prolific and observant travelers.

Acclaimed historian and best-selling author Paul Johnson’s books have been translated into dozens of languages. In Socrates: A Man for Our Times, Johnson draws from little-known resources to construct a fascinating account of one of history’s greatest thinkers. Socrates transcended class limitations in Athens during the fifth century B.C. to develop ideas that still shape the way we think about the human body and soul, including the workings of the human mind.

Winter 1461: Richard, Duke of York, is dead - his ambitions in ruins, his head spiked on the wall of the city. King Henry VI is still held prisoner. His Lancastrian queen, Margaret of Anjou, rides south with an army of victorious Northerners, accompanied by painted warriors from the Scottish Highlands.

Mordecai Tremaine and Chief Inspector Jonathan Boyce are never pleased to have a promising game of chess interrupted - though when murder is the disrupting force, they are persuaded to make an exception. A quick stop at Scotland Yard to collect any detective's most trusted piece of equipment - the murder bag - the pair are spirited away to Bridgton. No sooner have they arrived than it becomes clear that the city harbors more than its fair share of passions and motives.

Barnabas Sackett was leaving England to make his fortune in the New World. But as he settled his affairs, he learned that a royal warrant had been sworn out against him and that men were searching for him in every port. At issue were some rare gold coins Sackett had sold to finance his first trip to the Americas—coins believed to be part of a great treasure lost by King John years before.

Warrior, lover, and scholar Kerbouchard is a daring seeker of knowledge and fortune bound on a journey of enormous challenge, danger, and revenge. Across Europe, over the Russian steppes, and through the Byzantine wonders of Constantinople, Kerbouchard is thrust into the treacheries, passions, violence, and dazzling wonders of a magnificent time.

Caesar Augustus has been called history's greatest emperor. It was said he found Rome made of clay and left it made of marble. With a senator for a father and Julius Caesar for a great-uncle, he ascended the ranks of Roman society with breathtaking speed. His courage in battle is still questioned yet his political savvy was second to none. He had a lifelong rival in Mark Antony and a 51-year companion in his wife, Livia. And his influence extended perhaps further than that of any ruler who has ever lived.

Central Europe is not just a space on a map but also a region of shared experience - of mutual borrowings, impositions and misapprehensions. From the Roman Empire onwards, it has been the target of invasion from the east. In the Middle Ages, Central Europeans cast their eastern foes as 'the dogmen'. They would later become the Turks, Swedes, Russians and Soviets, all of whom pulled the region apart and remade it according to their own vision.

Mordecai Tremaine's hobby of choice - crime detection - has left him in need of a holiday. A break away from that gruesome business of murder will be just the ticket, and the picturesque island of Moulin d'Or seems to be just the destination. Amid the sunshine and the sea air, Mordecai falls in with a band of fellow holidaymakers and tries to forget that such a thing as foul play exists. He should have been wiser, of course, because before too long, villainy rears its head, and a dead body is discovered.

On a trip into Winchester, former chief inspector Angus Sinclair learns of a tragedy that has taken place in the village he is staying in. Beloved church organist Greta Hartmann has slipped and fallen to her death in a shallow creek, and while investigations conclude it to be an accident, her friend and housemate, Vera, remains unconvinced. After learning that Greta was the widow of a prominent anti-Nazi German preacher, Sinclair meets with the distraught Vera, and he resolves to dig deeper into the story.

An authentic, gothic reimagining of Robert Louis Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, told from the villain' s perspective, that takes listeners deep into the seedy side of Victorian London and explores the nature of personality and of the subconscious. Mr. Hyde is trapped in Dr. Jekyll' s surgical cabinet, counting the days until he will face capture and be forced to make the ultimate choice about survival. Over the course of four days, he thinks back on what brought him to this moment, and he finally has the chance to tell the story of his brief but marvelous life.

In modern memory, Winston Churchill remains the man with the cigar and the equanimity among the ruins. Few can remember that at the age of 40 he was considered washed up, his best days behind him. In Young Titan, historian Michael Shelden has produced the first biography focused on Churchill’s early career, the years between 1901 and 1915 that both nearly undid him but also forged the character that would later triumph in the Second World War.

When Joe is traveling to stay with his mother and stepfather for Christmas, little does he imagine the excitement and magical intrigue that await him when he falls headfirst into an evil plot to rid England of witches. With great bravery and more than a little help from his half sister, Esme, and a new friend, Twiggy, he has to muster all his courage and ingenuity to solve the riddles surrounding him and save his newfound friends.

Once a legendary police inspector, Nicolas Lenoir is now a disillusioned and broken man who spends his days going through the motions and his evenings drinking away the nightmares of his past. Ten years ago, Lenoir barely escaped the grasp of the Darkwalker, a vengeful spirit who demands a terrible toll on those who have offended the dead. But the Darkwalker does not give up on his prey so easily, and Lenoir has always known his debt would come due one day. When Lenoir is assigned to a disturbing new case, he treats the job with his usual apathy- until his best informant, a street savvy orphan, is kidnapped.

Charles Darwin is arguably the most influential scientist of all time. His Origin of Species forever changed our concept of the world’s creation. Darwin’s revolutionary career is the perfect vehicle for historian Paul Johnson. Marked by the insightful observation, spectacular wit, and highly readable prose for which Johnson is so well regarded, Darwin brings the gentleman-scientist and his times brilliantly into focus. From Darwin’s birth into great fortune to his voyage aboard the Beagle, to the long-delayed publication of his masterpiece, Johnson delves into what made this Victorian gentleman into a visionary scientist.

There is no more profound, enduring, or fascinating question in all of science than that of how time, space, and matter began. Now John Barrow, who has been at the cutting edge of research in this area and has written extensively about it, guides us on a journey to the beginning of time, into a world of temperatures and densities so high that we cannot recreate them in a laboratory.

The Making of Martin Luther takes a provocative look at the intellectual emergence of one of the most original and influential minds of the 16th century. Richard Rex traces how, in a concentrated burst of creative energy in the few years surrounding his excommunication by Pope Leo X in 1521, this lecturer at an obscure German university developed a startling new interpretation of the Christian faith that brought to an end the dominance of the Catholic Church in Europe.

David Mark draws on his experience as a journalist to pen Original Skin, the sequel to his debut novel, The Dark Winter. Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy is a cop with a troubled past and a deep-seated need to see justice served. Here, he faces off against a new foe - a serial killer bent on revealing his victims’ darkest sins.

It's been three months since Detective Sergeant Aector McAvoy returned home, or to what was left of it after a horrific tragedy. All that remained was charred masonry, broken timbers, and dried blood - a crude reminder of the home invasion and explosion that tore his family apart. McAvoy's wife and daughter are safe, he's been assured; he just wishes he knew where they were. As McAvoy wrestles with his guilt, self-hatred, and helplessness, trouble persists in stormy Hull.