Showing results by narrator "Matthew Davies" in All Categories

Leave Your Phone at the Door embraces the OFFLINE philosophy, which is a celebration of the much-underrated virtues of randomness and serendipity. Whether sharing stories of unexpected encounters, alarming behavioral trends or the joys of quiet and contemplation, Howard Lewis encourages us to adopt an open mind and a generosity of spirit whenever we are confronted by the unfamiliar or surprising or different.

Jacob Montfield, regarded by the majority as a homeless eccentric, a nuisance by a few, had pushed a supermarket trolley around the city for years. However, one person regards him as a liability. Eccentric was correct, a nuisance, for sure, mad, plenty thought that, but few knew the truth, that Montfield is a brilliant man, once a research scientist.

An introspective novel of manners at once comic and tragic, The Longest Journey tells of a sensitive and intelligent young man with an intense imagination and a certain amount of literary talent. He sets out full of hope to become a writer, but gives up his aspirations for those of the conventional world, gradually sinking into a life of petty conformity and bitter disappointments.

A group of children play. Not far away, in the ditch on the other side of the farmyard, the body of a young woman. The nearby village hides as many secrets as the community at the farm, a disparate group of people looking for an alternative to their previous torturous lives. Their leader, idealistic and benevolent, espouses love and kindness, and somebody's not following his dictate. The second death, an old woman, seems unrelated to the first, but is it? Is it part of the tangled web that connects the farm to the village?

A Bronze-Age burial mound close to Stonehenge, an archaeological excavation. What they were looking for was an ancient body, historical artifacts. When they found a modern-day body, it was then that the police became interested. It's another case for Detective Inspector Tremayne and Sergeant Yarwood. The more recent of the two bodies, the brother of the mayor of Salisbury. The person responsible keeps leading back to the brother, the upright and serious-minded Clive Grantley. Tremayne's sure that it's him, but Clare Yarwood's not so sure. But is her belief based on evidence or personal hope?

himself threatened from all sides. First, his secret plans are stolen, then his son is kidnapped by a vengeful enemy from his past. At the same time, Dee’s wife, Jane, is sent by Queen Elizabeth I to console her cousin, Mary, Queen of Scots, whom court advisors are determined to try for treason. But Jane suspects her assignment is much more than a visit from a sympathetic cousin.

It’s hard to imagine things could get worse after one’s parents die in a greenhouse explosion. But that is precisely what happens to Basil and his younger sister, Dahlia. They escape from the social worker who wants to split them up to different foster homes by jumping off a moving train, only to find themselves wounded (Dahlia) and bedraggled (Basil) and without a soul to care for them. What’s more, they’re lost in the wilds of New York City.

Nobody liked Gloria Wiggins, a woman who regarded anyone who did not acquiesce to her jaundiced view of the world with disdain. James Baxter, the previous vicar, had been one of those, and her scurrilous outburst in the church one Sunday had hastened his death. And now, years later, the woman was dead, hanging from a beam in her garage. Detective Inspector Tremayne and Sergeant Clare Yarwood had seen the body, interviewed the woman's acquaintances, and those who had hated her.

In this sequel to From the Earth to the Moon, Barbicane, Ardan, and Nicholl have decided to take a trip around the moon. But first they have to get to the moon from Earth. Will their trip succeed as they attempt to dodge asteroids and realize that the scientists on Earth have miscalculated their trajectory towards the moon?

Inspector MacDonald of Scotland Yard arrives to 221B Baker Street with a case: a Mr. John Douglas has been found murdered at a remote English manor. As Holmes and Dr. Watson investigate, they uncover strange clues pointing to a shadowy secret society and a dark history that stretches across the Atlantic—all the way to a mining town in America. As the case deepens, so does the danger, testing the limits of both their wit and mettle.

One of Jules Verne's final books, The Master of the World, which was released in 1904, is a science fiction classic. The novel was written as Verne's health was deteriorating. The Master of the World is a "dark novel," full of dread and anxiety about the emergence of totalitarianism and tyrants, embodied by the novel's antagonist, Robur.

The Underground City is a novel about the fortunes of a mining community at Aberfoyle, Scotland. Miner James Starr, after receiving a letter from an old friend, leaves for the Aberfoyle mine. Although believed to be mined out a decade earlier, James Starr finds a mine overman, Simon Ford, along with his family living deep inside the mine. Simon Ford has found a large vein of coal in the mine but the characters must deal with mysterious and unexplainable happenings in and around the mine.

From the Earth to the Moon concerns a group of obsessive American Civil War veterans, members of the Baltimore Gun Club, who conceive the idea of creating an enormous cannon in order to shoot a “space-bullet” to the Moon from a site in Florida.

First published in the Forum in 1889, In the Year 2889 was published in France the next year. A humorous and insightful look into a future society, the novella is now believed to be chiefly if not entirely the work of Jules Verne's son, Michel Verne, albeit continuing the work of Jules Verne by echoing many of his much-visited themes and ideas.

A Ms. Mary Morstan arrives at 221B Baker Street with a case for Sherlock Holmes and his companion, Dr. John Watson. Some ten years prior, her father, Captain Arthur Morstan, returned to London while on leave from his post in India—only to go missing. Adding another layer to the mystery are six pearls in her possession, having received one per year since 1882. The sixth and most recently received pearl was accompanied by a letter asking for a meeting, claiming Ms. Morstan is a wronged woman.