Showing results by narrator "Jamie Parker" in All Categories

The Arctic Treeline - the northern limit of the boreal forest that encircles the globe in an almost unbroken green ring - is the second largest biome on our planet. At this little-known frontline of climate change, the trees have been creeping towards the pole for 50 years already. Six of the tree species that populate these forests (larch, spruce, mountain ash, downy birch, balsam poplar and Scots pine) form the central protagonists of Ben Rawlence's story. 

Tom Brown's Schooldays is the story of an energetic, good-hearted boy and his adventures at public school. Based on the author's own childhood, the novel presents us with a snapshot of life at Victorian public school as we follow Tom's development from a boy to a young man. Tom must fend off his archenemy, the bully Flashman, and take a younger boy under his wing - through which he learns loyalty, courage, and brotherhood.

As the Cold War faded into history, it appeared to have been replaced by a new conflict—between Islam and the West. Or so we are told. After the events of 9/11 and the advent of the 'war on terror', this narrative seemed prophetic. But, as Peter Oborne reveals in this masterful new analysis, the concept of an existential clash between the two is a dangerous and destructive fantasy.

Isabel Aird is aghast when her husband is appointed doctor to an extraordinary waterworks being built miles from the city. But Isabel, denied the motherhood role that is expected of her by a succession of miscarriages, finds unexpected consolations in a place where she can feel the presence of her unborn children and begin to work out what her life in Victorian society is for.     

For a century Bram Stoker's Dracula has reigned supreme as the undisputed masterpiece of horror writing. We have all grown up under the shadow of the elegant Count, at once an attractive, brutal, and erotic creature of the night.

Upon inheriting the Moonstone, a huge and priceless diamond, Rachel Verinder's delight turns to dismay when the gem suddenly disappears. But this is no ordinary theft. Sergeant Cuff of Scotland Yard is called in and immediately suspects an intricate plot. However, not even his powers of detection can penetrate fully the mysteries surrounding the diamond.

In Leningrad: Siege and Symphony, Brian Moynahan sets the composition of Shostakovich's most famous work against the tragic canvas of the siege itself and the years of repression and terror that preceded it. Drawing on extensive primary research in archives as well as personal letters and diaries, he vividly tells the story of the cruelties heaped by the twin monsters of the 20th century, Stalin and Hitler, on a city of exquisite beauty, and of its no less remarkable survival.

Childe Harold's Pilgrimage is a fascinating portrait of 19th-century Europe - disillusioned and ravaged by the wars of the postrevolutionary and Napoleonic eras. Our protagonist, whose breathtaking journey eerily echoes Byron's own life story, forgoes his destiny back home for the exciting unknown - the nature of humanity and the transformative effects of travel burst through the pages in four powerful cantos of Spenserian stanzas. Here is the poem that set Byron on his meteoric rise to fame in London society.

Berlin is Europe’s most fascinating and exciting city. It is and always has been a city on the edge – geographically, culturally, politically and morally. The great movements that have shaken Europe, from the Reformation to Marxism have their origins in Berlin’s streets. The long-time capital of Prussia and of the Hohenzollern dynasty it has never, paradoxically, been a Prussian city. Instead it has always been a city of immigrants, a city that accepts everyone and turns them into Berliners. A typical Berliner, it is said, is someone who has just arrived at the railway station.

With superb skill and feeling, Graham Greene retraces the experiences and encounters of his extraordinary life. His restlessness is legendary; as if seeking out danger, Greene travelled to Haiti during the nightmare rule of Papa Doc, Vietnam in the last days of the French, Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion. With ironic delight he recalls his time in the British Secret Service in Africa and his brief involvement in Hollywood. He writes, as only he can, about people and places, faith, doubt, fear and not least, the trials and craft of writing.

Soviet Union, 1956: Stalin is dead. With his passing, a violent regime is beginning to fracture—leaving behind a society where the police are the criminals, and the criminals are innocent. The catalyst comes when a secret manifesto composed by Stalin's successor Khrushchev is distributed to the entire nation. Its message: Stalin was a tyrant and a murderer. Its promise: The Soviet Union will transform. But there are forces at work that are unable to forgive or forget Stalin's tyranny so easily, that demand revenge of the most appalling nature.

With Glow, Ned Beauman has reinvented the international conspiracy thriller for a new generation. A hostage exchange outside a police station in Pakistan. A botched defection in an airport hotel in New Jersey. A test of loyalty at an abandoned resort in the Burmese jungle. A boy and a girl locking eyes at a rave in a South London laundrette... For the first time, Britain's most exciting young novelist turns his attention to the present day, as a conspiracy with global repercussions converges on one small flat above a dentist's office in Camberwell.

For sixteen years, DS Adam Tyler has been searching for answers to his father, Richard’s, death. Convinced it wasn’t suicide, he has been investigating the case in secret. When a body is found in a frozen lake, linked to a cold case from 2002, it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with the death of his father—except Tyler knows Richard was investigating the same case shortly before he died. And Tyler doesn’t believe in coincidences.

When an anonymous tip lands on his desk, DS Adam Tyler is intrigued in spite of himself. A tantalizing new lead in a 24-year-old unsolved disappearance is something he just can’t ignore, even while juggling a new boss, a heavy caseload and the early days of a fledgling relationship. But the letter triggers more than just a fresh investigation, and a shocking chain of events soon leaves him fighting for his life.

Sheffield’s beautiful Botanical Gardens - an oasis of peace in a world filled with sorrow, confusion and pain. And then, one morning, a body is found in the Gardens. A young woman, dead from a stab wound, buried in a quiet corner. Police quickly determine that the body’s been there for months. It would have gone undiscovered for years - but someone just sneaked into the Gardens and dug it up. Who is the victim? Who killed her and hid her body? Who dug her up? And who left a macabre marker on the body?

Left reeling from the disappearance of his daughter and ex-wife, Staff Sergeant Dom Riley is a haunted man. After spending months investigating, he has exhausted nearly all leads in his hunt for answers. As Riley decides to make one final push for the truth, it emerges that multiple bombs are on board a civilian cruise ship and he is sent in to neutralise the threat. The mission is perilous before it’s even begun, requiring a low-altitude parachute jump, a manoeuvre he has only completed in training - but it’s not the journey, nor the bombs themselves, that pose the real threat.

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge) has been described as an anti-novel. It is set in Paris in the period just before the First World War, but it presents a bleaker milieu than that described by Proust. The language is terse, the atmosphere painful, the images uncompromising. Rilke drew on the short period he spent in Paris in 1903 where, in contrast to the rural circumstances in which he had lived before, he found the underbelly of urban life distressing.

As war continues to ravage the galaxy, the new Age of Darkness sees whole systems simply lost and countless battles forgotten. Surely there can be no hope for peace, forgiveness or respite in such times, and all that will be left are the dying warp-echoes of supreme galactic ruin....

When Nick Wychwood loses his wife Elise in a shocking accident, he is left to bring up their daughter Lucy on his own. A move from Cornwall to the Cotswolds should give them the fresh start that they need, a tranquil setting where they can put tragedy behind them and forge new friendships. But Lucy, as a teenager, is fragile, vulnerable, easily led… She is shy and hesitant. When someone offers her their shoulder, the warmth and understanding, even love, that she thinks she needs, she is readily accepting. But this ‘someone’ is online, cajoling, manipulative, and setting a devastating trap.

When Compton Valance and his best friend Bryan Nylon discover the world's first time machine (aka a mouldy, thirteen-week-old-cheese-and-pickled-egg sandwich), they become the most powerful boys in the universe. But how will Compton and Bryan decide to use their incredible new time-travelling powers? Will they use them for good or evil? Or will they just focus their efforts on perfecting a formula for the world's first pair of custard trousers?