Showing results by author "Os Swift" in All Categories

An amazing sight met my eyes. All around me were dozens of human creatures a little less than six inches high, chattering together in high-pitched voices in a strange language. When Lemuel Gulliver is shipwrecked in the Indian Ocean, it's the start of a series of adventures stranger than he could possibly have imagined. After the tiny inhabitants of Lilliput become suspicious of Gulliver, they plan to kill their huge visitor. What deadly scheme do they come up with?

Through the eyes of Lemuel Gulliver, Swift’s unforgettable satire takes listeners into worlds formerly unimagined. Visit four strange and remarkable lands: Lilliput, where Gulliver seems a giant among a race of tiny people; Brobdingnag, the opposite, where the natives are giants and Gulliver puny; the ruined yet magical country of Laputa; and the home of the Houyhnhnms, gentle horses far superior to the ugly humanoid Yahoos who share their universe.

Gulliver's Travels is a classic tale, originally a satire meant for adults, and yet a fascinating fable of magical and unusual events that even children can and will enjoy. First published in 1726, it remain a comic masterpiece popular even today.

Maggie and Ibby make up a happy - if unconventional - family. After meeting at university, they now live in the village of Applecroft in the West Country. Okay, so Ibby’s gay and prone to disastrous dates, while couples’ counsellor Maggie spends her days helping people with their relationship problems despite having no sex life of her own. Nevertheless, they’re devoted to bringing up teenage daughter Amelia – the result of a drunken one-night stand when they were students. Until a face from the past disrupts their quiet lives.

London 1666. Elizabeth 'Bird' Carpenter has a wonderful singing voice, and music is her passion. When her father persuades her to marry horse-dealer Christopher Knepp, she suspects she is marrying beneath her station, but nothing prepares her for the reality of life with Knepp. He is a tyrant and a bully and will allow Bird no life of her own. When Knepp goes away, she makes a secret visit to the theatre. Entranced, she falls in love with the theatre and is determined to forge a path of her own as an actress.

The Great Plague has London in its grip. As the summer heat rises, red crosses mark the doors, wealthy citizens flee, and only the poor remain to face the march of death. Ambitious and attractive, Bess Bagwell is determined her carpenter husband, Will, should make a name for himself and schemes to meet Samuel Pepys, diarist, friend of the King and an important man in the Navy shipyards. But Pepys has his own motive for cultivating Bess, and it’s certainly not to benefit her husband. With pestilence rife in the city, all trade ceases.

A Modest Proposal is a satirical essay by Jonathan Swift written in 1729. It's a social commentary on British society's treatment of the poor. Saying more than this would be a spoiler! Please enjoy this unabridged and crisply narrated rendition of Swift's greatest work.

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY, reissued for the first time in Scribner In 1972, Robert Beech, First World War veteran and prominent figure in the arms industry, is killed by a car bomb. The event cuts short the career of his son Harry, a news photographer, and...

FROM THE BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF LAST ORDERS AND MOTHERING SUNDAY, reissued for the first time in Scribner Bill Unwin, an academic of dubious status, has never recovered from the death of his famous actress wife and is now convalescing from a recent brush with his own mortality. He has two tales...

Celtic Poets breathes vitality into the works of Swift, Burns, Wilde, and more. Cosham's finely honed delivery brings verdant valleys, quaint villages, and drunkards' and maidens' conversations to listeners' ears. What is not to love?

Gulliver’s Travels takes listeners on an adventure to fictional and real places in the world, with fantastical elements such as a society of tiny people, flying cities, and the ghosts of ancient world leaders. Gulliver’s adventure takes him all over, and each location is uniquely themed and satirizes themes from our real world.

In one of the most well-known works of satire, Jonathan Swift puts forth a “modest proposal”. Swift begins by outlining the suffering that the starving beggars in Ireland experience daily. He paints a grim picture of the plight these people face to help the listener relate to the situation before turning the tables and suggesting that to alleviate the economic troubles of the poor, their children could be sold as food to the upper class. The shock from this sudden change is expounded by Swift’s continued explanation of the proposal.

We are academics who teach health care professionals all about research and quality improvement. In this podcast we talk to researchers exploring all health-related issues about their work and use this to tell you about research methods in the widest sense. We hope to do this with a humorous slant most of the time and we hope you enjoy the show.

Noodles and Leila are best friends and desk buddies at school. They like each other’s company so much that they play and do homework together, even after school. When Leila visits this time, neither of them is in the mood for homework. “I have an idea!” Noodles says after they have some sweet treats her mom made. They will play dress-up!

Noodles has always loved animals. She has the biggest fish tank in the neighborhood, a pet rabbit, a pet hamster, and her favorite pet, a poodle with fluffy white fur called Tiny! Her family had two dogs before Tiny, but when their last dog Brandy fell ill, mom got Noodles Tiny to cheer her up. Noodles loves taking her to the dog park, and Tiny is so good at climbing ramps that it almost seems like she’s showing off.

Noodles can’t wait to go to the countryside! She never gets bored there. There’s plenty of space, and she can play with her poodle, Tiny, all day long. This time, it’s snowed, and all she wants to do is make snow angels and build a snowman with her dad. As soon as she opens the car door, Tiny rushes out like lightning.

Autumn 1624 Europe is deeply embroiled in what will become the Thirty Years' War. A young Philip Lord, once favoured at King James' court, has vanished without a trace, under the shadow of treason. Outside the besieged city of Breda, Captain Matthew Rider faces the brutal reality of wintering his cavalry in the siege lines, until he crosses paths with Filippo Schiavono, a young man whose courage and skill could change everything.

In this volume we bring together men of the cloth, those people of faith who spent most of their lives in devotional duties in the service of one so they could, in their spare time, serve another.

Little Blacknose is a charming children’s tale about the historic steam locomotive DeWitt Clinton, presented in a storytelling style that brings history to life. The narrative is told from the train’s perspective and follows its journey from creation to its early days of service on the tracks. As “Little Blacknose,” the locomotive faces challenges and doubts, but perseveres through determination, pride, and a sense of purpose.

'A fast-paced, beautifully written, and moving story. Refreshing to read a book set in a different theatre of war. Wartime Shanghai jumped off the page' CLARE FLYNN 'I loved The Enemy’s Wife – a gripping, fast-paced and evocative story' ANN BENNETT A poignant story of the impossible choices...