Showing results by narrator "Mike Grady" in All Categories

Tom Karen is the Vimp, an Aircruiser and a Water Line Ship; he's a 'Big Fat Peace Bomb', a Bond Bug and the Marble Run; he's the Chopper bike and the 'man that designed the 1970s'; he's every one of his thousands of sketches contained in London's Victoria & Albert Museum - each a testament to a lifetime of artistry and creativity. He's also a living embodiment of a life immersed in inventiveness, imagination and thought.

The Armstrongs are both predator and prey, hunting for clues to help them fight the Darkening King while constantly watching their backs. This time it’s not just the world of the Hidden searching for them: the Josser world is intent on capturing the family, too. Leading the search is the curious Mr Fox and his agents in grey, and they’ve found an ally who knows Ned’s every move.

Whales are among the largest, most intelligent, deepest diving species to have ever lived on our planet. We have hunted them for thousands of years and scratched their icons into our mythologies. They simultaneously fill us with waves of terror, awe and affection - yet we know hardly anything about them. Whales tend to enter our awareness only when they die, struck by a ship or stranded in the surf. They evolved from land-roaming, doglike creatures into animals that move like fish and breathe like us and can grow to 300,000 pounds, live 200 years and roam entire ocean basins. Yet despite centuries of observing whales, we know little about their evolutionary past.

The second book in the spellbinding, epic adventure series from 'the Godmother of Fantasy', Diana Wynne Jones. For centuries Dalemark has been a land divided by the warring earldoms of the North and South. Now, with the help of the Undying, the mysterious gods of Dalemark, four extraordinary young people must join forces to reunify their beloved land. After his father mysteriously goes missing, Mitt joins a group of freedom fighters plotting to overthrow the tyrannical ruler of Holand.

The fifth collection of gripping short stories from the most acclaimed Science Fiction author of any generation.

Set in 2276, Imperial Earth is the fascinating odyssey of Duncan Makenzie, travelling from Titan, a moon of Saturn, to Earth, as a diplomatic guest of the United States. Duncan’s initial challenge is to prepare for the 500-million-mile trip to Earth. Once there, he is caught up in a sweep of new experiences - including the social whirl of Washington, a strange visit to a carefully preserved ancient city, and a search for the woman he loves.

Drawing upon a lifetime of scientific expertise and an abiding love of nature, Richard Fortey uses his small wood to tell a wider story of the ever-changing British landscape, human influence on the countryside over many centuries and the vital interactions between flora, fauna and fungi. The trees provide a majestic stage for woodland animals and plants to reveal their own stories.

In 1992, after being fired from a secret nuclear facility, a KGB agent buried a nuclear suitcase. Sixteen years later he has found a buyer for it. Travelling to the exchange point with the buyer is an undercover policeman. But as their journey begins, it becomes clear that the agent may be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, putting the lives of millions across Europe at risk...

Ash spewed into the sky. All eyes were on Vesuvius. Pliny the Elder sailed towards the phenomenon. A teenage Pliny the Younger waited. His uncle did not come back. In a dazzling new literary biography, Daisy Dunn introduces Pliny the Younger, the survivor who became a Roman lawyer, senator, poet, collector of villas, curator of drains, and representative of the Emperor. He was confidant and friend to the great and good, an unparalleled chronicler of the Vesuvius catastrophe, and eyewitness to the terror of Emperor Domitian.

Could modernity be an illness? Umbrella follows the story of Audrey Dearth, who fell victim to the encephalitis lethargic sleeping sickness epidemic at the end of the First World War and has been in a coma ever since. Arriving at the asylum she still lingers in, maverick psychiatrist Zack Busner becomes involved in an attempt to bring her back to life - with wholly unforeseen consequences.

A magisterial life of Ted Hughes - identified recently as the only English poet since the First World War with a claim to true greatness and one of Britain's most important writers - to be published on National Poetry Day by prize-winning biographer Jonathan Bate. Ted Hughes, Poet Laureate, was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He is one of Britain's most important poets, a poet of claws and cages: Jaguar, Hawk and Crow. Event and animal are turned to myth in his work.

In his beloved book The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben revealed astonishing discoveries about the social networks of trees and how they communicate. Now, in The Power of Trees, he turns to their future, with a searing critique of forestry management, tree planting and the exploitation of old growth forests.

The galaxy is at war and Jake Cutler is at the heart of it. With his friends and allies captured, it's up to teenage space pirate, Jake, to go into battle and take down the corrupt Interstellar Government once and for all. But in order to win this battle, Jake must find his father and confront secrets from his own past.

A personal narrative blended with beautiful descriptions of gardening and the pleasures of losing yourself in the horticultural, Plot 29 weaves together memoir and memory from the author's childhood to the present day.

It is no small matter, after all, to create something - to make it so only by setting down the words. We forget the magnitude, sometimes, of that miracle. Mr. Crowe was once the toast of the finest salons. A man of learning and means, he travelled the world, enthralling all who met him. Now Mr. Crowe devotes himself to earthly pleasures. He has retreated to his sprawling country estate, where he lives with Clara, his mysterious young ward, and Eustace, his faithful manservant.

Trees can survive without humans, but we can't live without trees. Even if human-caused climate change devastates our planet, the trees will return – as they do, always and everywhere, even after ice ages, catastrophic fires, destructive storms and deforestation. It would just be nice if we could be around to see them flourish. A love letter to the forest and a passionate argument for protecting nature's boundless diversity – not only for the trees, but also for ourselves, The Power of Trees is forester Peter Wohlleben's follow-up to The Hidden Life of Trees.

Before May 2011 the top demographics experts of the United Nations had suggested that world population would peak at 9.1 billion in 2100, and then fall to 8.5 billion people by 2150. In contrast, the 2011 revision suggested that 9.1 billion would be achieved much earlier, maybe by 2050 or before, and by 2100 there would be 10.1 billion of us. What's more, they implied that global human population might still be slightly rising in our total numbers a century from now. So what shall we do?

The first unpublished novel from the historical fiction legend George Macdonald Fraser, featuring the unscrupulous and brilliantly entertaining pirate Calico Jack Rackham. New Providence, 1720s. When infamous pirate Captain 'Calico' Jack Rackham returns from the high seas to ask Governor Woodes Rogers for a royal pardon, the Governor sees his chance to put his own devious plans into action.

In Footprints, David Farrier explores what traces we will leave for the very deep future. From long-lived materials like plastic and nuclear waste, to the 50 million kilometres of roads spanning the planet, in modern times we have created numerous objects and landscapes with the potential to endure through deep time. Our carbon could linger in the atmosphere for 100,000 years, and the remains of our cities will still exist millions of years from now as a layer in the rock.

Cream teas! School dinners! Satanic surfers! Join our heroes as they follow up The Norfolk Mystery with a bad case of...Death in Devon. Swanton Morley, the People's Professor, sets off for Devon to continue his history of England, The County Guides. Morley's daughter, Miriam, and his assistant, Stephen Sefton, pack up the Lagonda for a trip to the English Riviera. Morley has been invited to give the Founder's Day speech at All Souls School in Rousdon.