Showing results by narrator "Gildart Jackson" in All Categories

When George McCaffrey’s car plunges into a canal with his wife still inside, nobody knows whether George is to blame. Nobody, that is, except an Anglican priest who happened to witness the whole thing. And when George’s former teacher, the charismatic philosopher Rozanov, returns to town, George’s life begins to spin wildly out of control.

Farin, the gravedigger’s son, lives in the medieval village of Heap. The 18-year-old is an outsider who is bullied and ostracized by the villagers. His father has succumbed to a life of drinking, and the young man has no option but to take over the job of gravedigger. But Farin’s life takes a dramatic twist when the village witch dies. As he prepares her for burial, he finds an amulet hanging around her neck, and he can’t resist trying it on.

The Shadow World is the harrowing behind-the-scenes tale of the global arms trade, revealing the deadly collusion that all too often exists among senior politicians, weapons manufacturers, felonious arms dealers, and the military—a situation that compromises our security and undermines our democracy.

James de Vere has always insisted on being perfectly pragmatic and rational in all things. It seemed the only way to deal with his overdramatic, greedy family. When he falls ill and no doctor in London can diagnose him, he returns home to Grace Hill in search of a physician who can - or to set his affairs in order. Arriving at the doctor's home, he's surprised to encounter the doctor's daughter Laura, a young woman he last saw when he was warning her off an attachment with his cousin Graeme. Alas, the doctor is recently deceased and Laura is closing up the estate.

Alfred Hitchcock was a strange child. Fat, lonely, burning with fear and ambition, his childhood was an isolated one, scented with fish from his father's shop. Afraid to leave his bedroom, he would plan great voyages, using railway timetables to plot an exact imaginary route across Europe. So how did this fearful figure become one of the most respected film directors of the 20th century?

Auggie and his magical companions are tending to the Fabled Stables when the building shakes and shudders to make room for a new arrival: the Tattle-Tail. Auggie and friends travel through the portal to a town called Rainbow’s End in search of this mysterious creature. Auggie assumes that the Tattle-Tail is in danger, but he learns that it’s actually the town that needs rescuing...from an infestation of Tattle-Tails!

Long lost to the public in out-of-print pulp magazines, dusty Victorian anthologies, and the pages of now defunct newspapers, these vintage vampire stories have truly proved immortal. Resurrected now for the year 2011, this is a stunning collection of nineteenth-century vampire stories by heavyweights such as Sabine Baring-Gould and Bram Stoker. These rare stories are arranged in chronological order from 1846 to 1913 and are compiled by two of the world's leading vampire anthologists and experts.

Why have societies all across the world feared witchcraft? This book delves deeply into its context, beliefs, and origins in Europe's history. The witch came to prominence - and often a painful death - in early modern Europe, yet her origins are much more geographically diverse and historically deep. In this landmark book, Ronald Hutton traces witchcraft from the ancient world to the early modern state.

Since his second sight made him infamous for defeating powerful dark mages, Alex has been keeping his head down. But now he's discovered the resurgence of a forbidden ritual. Someone is harvesting the life-force of magical creatures-destroying them in the process. And draining humans is next on the agenda. Hired to investigate, Alex realizes that not everyone on the Council wants him delving any deeper.

England, 1346: For Thomas Blackstone, the choice is easy - dance on the end of a rope for a murder he did not commit, or take up his war bow and join the king's invasion of France. As he fights his way across Northern France, Blackstone will learn the brutal lessons of war - from the terror and confusion of his first taste of combat, to the savage realities of siege warfare. Vastly outnumbered, Edward III's army will finally confront the armored might of the French nobility on the field of Crecy.

North Korea is like no other tyranny on Earth. Its citizens are told their home is the greatest nation in the world, and Big Brother is always watching. It is Orwell's 1984 made reality. Huge factories with no staff or electricity, hospitals with no patients, uniformed child soldiers, and the world-famous and eerily empty DMZ - the Demilitarized Zone, where North Korea ends and South Korea begins - are all framed by a relentless flow of regime propaganda from omnipresent loudspeakers. Free speech is an illusion: one word out of line, and the gulag awaits.

Lights! Camera! Action! The latest book in the Big Book Series takes us behind the curtain to uncover the stories that became some of the greatest films of the silver screen. Among these are Robert Louis Stevenson's horrifying tale that was later turned into the iconic movie The Body Snatcher, starring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff; and "Cyclists' Raid", the short story that formed the basis for the legendary Brando film The Wild One.

Phantom Terror explores this troubled, fascinating period, when politicians and cultural leaders from Edmund Burke to Mary Shelley were forced to choose sides and either support or resist the counterrevolutionary spirit embodied in the newly omnipotent central states. The turbulent political situation that coalesced during this era would lead directly to the revolutions of 1848 and to the collapse of order in World War I.

Who controls reality? And how? Ask the timedivers who ride the paths of time, manipulate cultures, lift and cast down civilizations in their corner of the galaxy. They are the Temporal Guard at Quest, the single city of the Immortals of Query, that hidden planet circling a very ordinary yellow sun in a very ordinary galaxy. This is the story of the timediver Loki, and of the unending war for control of reality in that galaxy.

Alex Verus is still haunted by his time apprenticed to Richard Drakh. He's been free of him for many years, but now the only way to keep his friends from being harmed is to again work for Richard and his deadly ally. Even worse, he's forced to bring the Light mage Anne into this servitude as well. After weeks of being hunted and finally cornered into what he thought was his last stand, Alex never thought his life would be spared - and never anticipated at what price. This time, the diviner can see no way out.

It is a time of wars and revolutions, conflict and intrigue. New Crobuzon is being ripped apart from without and within. War with the shadowy city-state of Tesh and rioting on the streets at home are pushing the teeming city to the brink. A mysterious masked figure spurs strange rebellion, while treachery and violence incubate in unexpected places. In desperation, a small group of renegades escapes from the city and crosses strange and alien continents in the search for a lost hope.

Farin and his congenial demon stinker are concentrating on his attempt to become a good squire. A chance at fame comes with the Great Knight Tournament, but the gravedigger’s son learns the sad news of his father’s death and must travel back to his village to bury him. Meanwhile, the bounty on the escaped orphan Aross’ head is growing by the week, and she is being hunted down by the town watch of Hubstone. At the harbor, she strikes up a friendship with the artist Ki.

Already a BBC documentary miniseries and excerpted in the Guardian, We Bought a Zoo is a profoundly moving portrait of an unforgettable family living in the most extraordinary circumstances. This touching memoir is set to be a major motion picture starring Scarlett Johansson and Matt Damon, in theaters December 23, 2011.

When acclaimed science writer Stefan Klein asks Nobel Prize-winning chemist Roald Hoffmann what sets scientists apart, Hoffmann says, "First and foremost, curiosity." In this collection of intimate conversations with 19 of the world's best-known scientists (including three Nobel Laureates), Klein lets us listen in as today's leading minds reveal what they still hope to discover - and how their paradigm-changing work entwines with their lives outside the lab.

In this swashbuckling novel set in 15th-century England, young Richard Shelton discovers that he has been betrayed by the guardian who raised him - a man involved in the murder of his father. Seventeen-year-old Richard joins the fellowship of the Black Arrow to avenge the death, rescue the woman he loves, and participate in the struggle between the Yorks and Lancasters in the War of the Roses.