Showing results by narrator "John Cormack" in All Categories

There has never been a rugby player quite like Paul O'Connell. His name is synonymous with passion, heart and determination. But he is also the thinking man's rugby player, a legendary student of the game. As the heartbeat of Munster, British and Irish Lions captain in 2009 and captain of the first Ireland team to retain the Six Nations championship, O'Connell became the most beloved and respected of the golden generation of Irish rugby players - and was widely regarded as one of the very best players in the world.

In 1914, Willie Dunne, eighteen years old, leaves behind Dublin, his family, and the girl he plans to marry in order to enlist in the Allied forces and face the Germans on the Western Front. Once there, he encounters a horror of violence and gore he could not have imagined and sustains his spirit with only the words on the pages from home and the camaraderie of the mud-covered Irish boys who fight and die by his side. Dimly aware of the political tensions that have grown in Ireland in his absence, Willie returns on leave to find a world split and ravaged by forces closer to home.

With acclaimed works like The Whereabouts of Eneas McNulty, Irish author Sebastian Barry has earned a reputation as a "master storyteller" ( The Wall Street Journal). In A Long Long Way he has created an unforgettable portrait of the horrors of war through the story of Willie Dunne, a young man who leaves his native Dublin in 1914 to join the Allies on the Western Front.

1861, Donegal, Ireland. Ten years ago Declan Conaghan’s father died in the Great Famine, and since then, Declan has kept his promise to keep his family out of the workhouse. But all that is threatened with the arrival of new landlord, John Adair. Adair is quick to cause trouble and fear among his tenants. When he turns them off his land, Declan has no option but to break his promise. Declan is in despair until he receives a letter from America offering him the chance of a new life and salvation for his family. But it would mean signing up to the US Army and fighting for Lincoln.

This is the story of John McGahern's childhood - of his mother's death, his father's anger and bafflement, and of his own discovery of literature and his ambition to become a writer. At the heart of the book is an unembarrassed homage by a loving son to a woman who protected him and his sisters from his father's unpredictable moods. His joy in her presence is recovered with great lyrical tact.

Kennedy Marr is a novelist from the old school. Irish, acerbic, and a borderline alcoholic and sex addict, his mantra is drink hard, write hard and try to screw every woman you meet. He's writing film scripts in LA, fucking, drinking and insulting his way through Californian society but also suffering from writer's block and unpaid taxes. Then a solution presents itself - Marr is to be the unlikely recipient of the W. F. Bingham Prize for Outstanding Contribution to Modern Literature, an award worth half a million pounds.

Touchy Subjects is about things that make people wince: taboos, controversies, secrets, and lies. Some of the events that characters crash into are grand, tragic ones: miscarriage, overdose, missing persons. Other topics, like religion and money, are not inherently taboo, but they can cause acute discomfort because people disagree so vehemently. These stories are about the spectrum of feeling that runs from awkwardness through embarrassment to shame.

The Globalist is the first in-depth biography of an international power broker who was instrumental in shaping the global economy that we know today. Peter Sutherland played a defining role in world history over the past 25 years and was arguably the most influential Irish person ever to have lived. He was Ireland’s youngest ever attorney general; the youngest ever European Commissioner; UN special representative for migration; and special adviser to the Vatican.

Sailing across the Caribbean Hector Lynch falls into the hands of the notorious buccaneer, Captain John Coxon. Hector’s friends, Dan and Jacques, are released when Coxon mistakes Hector for the nephew of Sir Thomas Lynch, the Governor of Jamaica. But when Coxon delivers Hector to Sir Henry Morgan, the Governor’s bitter enemy, he is publicly humiliated when it is revealed that Hector is not Sir Thomas’s nephew.

Vincent Naylor is a professional thief; just 10 days out of jail and he's preparing his next robbery. But his plan is already unraveling. Maura Coady, a retired nun, calls Detective Sergeant Bob Tidey believing there's something suspicious happening in her Dublin backstreet. Maura's call inadvertently unleashes a storm of violence that will engulf Naylor and force Tidey to make a deadly choice.

A tabloid star is killed in a helicopter crash and three years later a young journalist is warned off the story. A private security contractor loses it in the Congo, with deadly consequences. In Ireland an ex-prime minister struggles to contain a dark secret from his time in office. A ferocious, paranoid thriller that explores the legacy of corruption in big business, the West’s fear of China, the role of back room political players, and the question of who controls what we know.

Hector Lynch's quest for the young Spanish woman, Maria, takes him on a nightmare passage around Cape Horn where they come across a warship, her only crew two skeleton. One corpse is the brother of a local Spanish govenor in Peru who, in gratitude for learning his brother's fate, tells Hector that Maria is in the Thief Islands. There Hector allies himself with the Chamorro to launch a raid on the Spanish fort.

Terence Strong takes the listener into a new and unchartered nightmare world. It is a world where the twin evils of today stalk side by side, creating the greatest peacetime menace ever known to civilised society: terrorism and hard drugs. No one will escape the nightmare. Not the former Royal Marine who dares to fight it. Not his wife and son for whom he risks everything. Nor past and future lovers. All will feel the tentacles of terror during the desperate struggle for freedom - and life itself.

Australia is the Lucky Country, and Joey Driscol knows it. It’s a far cry from his native Ireland, but he believes this is the place he and his wife can forget the troubles of the past. There’s a good life, a new house, regular work and, in time, they welcome their new son Marti into the world. Joey’s wife has been struggling, their marriage is on the rocks and suddenly, she disappears taking Marti with her.

When Aisling and Joe antagonise their tough new babysitter, she writes to Santa asking for them to be put on the 'naughty list'. Determined not to be denied their Christmas presents, they end up stealing the Santa List. After all, if Santa doesn't have the list, then he can't tell if you've been naughty or nice, can he? But when the kids have a change of heart, they face a race-against-time adventure to return the list to Mr Claus, before Christmas is ruined. And when they are stopped by someone who absolutely hates Christmas...the day may not be saved after all!

Diving for plunder in the Caribbean, Hector Lynch and his companions are spotted by a Spanish ship. Escaping capture by burning the vessel's sails - an act of piracy - they head for Tortuga, where Hector's wife Maria awaits. He longs for a better life for them both, on the right side of the law. But the crew run into Laurens de Graff - a renowned mercenary captain now in command of a royal French frigate - and after fleeing his clutches, they are cast away on a tiny desert island, Salt Tortuga.

Jockeys who earn a living race riding on racehorses are a remarkable group. They are fiercely competitive on the racecourse but enjoy a tribal kinship in the weighing room. This book celebrates these warriors on horseback, both old and new. The book takes a tour of Aintree's weighing room, tracks a day in the life of a Derby-winning jockey and investigates the twin challenges faced by jockeys: inevitable injuries and 24/7 weight management.

For Maggie Rayburn - wife, mother, and secretary at a munitions plant - life is pleasant, predictable, and, she assumes, secure. When she finds proof of a high-level cover-up on her boss' desk, she impulsively takes it, an act that turns her world and her worldview upside down. Propelled by a desire to do good - and by a newfound taste for excitement - Maggie starts to see injustice everywhere.

A Wall Street investment banker is shot dead while jogging in Central Park. Then one of the savviest hedge-fund managers in the city is gunned down outside an Upper West Side restaurant. Are these killings part of a coordinated terrorist attack, or just coincidence? Investigative journalist Ellen Dorsey has a hunch that it’s neither. When an attempt is made on the life of another CEO, the story blows wide open...

Dublin. Joshua Boyce watches a jewellers as he plans a job; Dixie Payton desperate for cash attempts a mugging; DI Synott calls on a rape suspect, convinced of his guilt; gangland boss Lar MacKendrick is getting back into shape after brothers Jo-Jo's murder. Criminals and police each have their own code, with both sides resorting to desperate measures as a means to an end.