Showing results by author "Os Swift" in All Categories

Nobody is more surprised than Billy when he finds himself bleeding out onto his new linoleum floor, a kitchen knife in his chest. Rose, his wife, and Born2Rock, her lover, are leaving for a night on the town. They're sure he'll be dead in no time. So is he. With the help of Consuela, the house keeper, Billy makes it to the hospital. After a short stint in the ICU, he returns to the scene of the crime, home, where he takes up residence in the attic. From this vantage point, Billy watches and waits and plots his revenge.

A small force of peasants from the forest regions surrounding Lake Lucerne, rise up against their Austrian overlords in the 14th century. Outnumbered seven-to-one by the battle-hardened Habsburg army, they have little hope. A daring moonlight raid leaves the outlaw Noll Melchthal in possession of an Austrian fortress. In the north, an outraged Leopold of Habsburg assembles the ultimate punitive force: a great army, thousands strong, boasting the best knights and soldiers the Holy Roman Empire has to offer.

Gulliver's Travels is renowned as a playful and comic children's classic. The book itself, rather than the bowdlerized versions that have been derived from it, is a savage, rude and brilliant satire, timeless in its appeal and unerringly accurate.

Women of Scotland is a thematic time trip through Scottish history, and the important part women have played in its past. From the humble to the great, Scottish women have been at the forefront and background of events. Here are the fisherwomen, the warriors, the great writers, the Jacobites, the martyrs, and the mill girls. Without them, Scotland would not have existed. Join a great journey from the Dark Ages to the 21st century, and learn about the women who have been the driving force behind this small, yet dynamic nation.

The Ultimate Essays Collection is a wide-ranging collection of 30 classic essays analysing everything from war to love, journalism to race, travel to nature, and much more, read by an award-winning cast of narrators. Included here are essays by some of the greatest writers of all time, including George Orwell; Thomas Paine; Fyodor Dostoyevsky; Henry David Thoreau; Virigina Woolf; Sigmund Freud; Zorea Neale Huston; Langston Hughes; Jack London, and more.

The Irish Classics Collection is a wide-ranging collection of 9 classic works of fiction and poetry by Irish authors, read by an award-winning cast of narrators. Included here are stories by some of the greatest writers of all time, including James Joyce; Bram Stoker; Oscar Wilde; W.B. Yeats; Elizabeth Bowen; and more.

England, 1942: Having fled Germany after her father was captured by the Nazis, Lilli Bergen is desperate to do something pro-active for the Allies. So when she’s approached by the Political Warfare Executive, Lilli jumps at the chance. She’s recruited as a singer for a radio station broadcasting propaganda to German soldiers – a shadow network. But Lilli’s world is flipped upside down when her ex-boyfriend, Bren Murphy, appears at her workplace; the very man she thinks betrayed her father to the Nazis.

Behave: The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst (2017) explains the numerous biological, cultural, and evolutionary factors that shape human behavior. Neurobiologist Robert M. Sapolsky uses studies from various scientific disciplines, including neurology, psychology, sociology, and anthropology, to explore why humans exhibit variable responses to both provocative and mundane situations.... (Disclaimer: This is NOT the original book. If you’re looking for the original book, it is available from Amazon and Audible.)

Big Debt Crises (2018) by Ray Dalio is an economic primer based on the proprietary decision-making system used at the author’s hugely successful hedge fund, Bridgewater Associates. Financial crises across history tend to share certain features....Listen to this in-depth summary by Swift Reads to learn more.

A bumper audio collection featuring four favourite springtime adventure stories about Peggy the pug.

A bumper audio collection featuring four favourite festive stories about Peggy the pug.

At 22 years old, Robyn feels she is fast becoming an old maid. There are some eligible men in rural Midlothian, but Robyn has some competition from her particular friend, Amy. Already engaged to a man she no longer loves, Robyn sets out to hunt for a husband in a countryside racked by social unrest. Could her man be the collier hunted by the police - or the tall golfer? And who is the messenger who seems to appear just when he's not wanted?

This is a summary of Michael E. Gerber's The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It (2001), which explores the question of why so many small businesses don’t survive. The answer is simple, yet profound: because they don’t understand the work of running a business....

Adelaide Rechnov. Wealthy socialite and granddaughter of the Architect, she spends her time in pointless luxury, rebelling against her family in a series of jaded social extravagances and scandals until her twin brother disappears in mysterious circumstances. Vikram Bai. He lives in the Western Quarter, home to the poor descendants of storm refugees and effectively quarantined from the wealthy elite. Can Adelaide and Vikram bridge the divide at the heart of Osiris before conspiracies bring them to the edge of disaster?

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 comes close to destroying his granddaughter Sophie. Ten years later, Harry, now working in aerial photography, and Sophie, visiting an analyst in New York, remain scarred and divided by the event. Around their broken relationship and Harry’s memories of his truncated career and his father, the novel builds a story that is acutely private, yet sweepingly public.

On a June night, Paula, a successful art dealer, lies awake. Mike, her husband of 25 years, is asleep beside her. In nearby rooms, their twin teenage children, Nick and Kate, sleep, too. The next day, Paula knows, will define all their lives. As dawn approaches, Paula recalls the years before and after her children were born. Her story is both a celebration of love possessed and a moving acknowledgement of the fear of loss, of the fragility on which even our most inward sense of who we are can rest.

Brother Foulques de Villaret just wants to stay in Acre and perform his sworn duties. Instead, the young Hospitaller Knight of Saint John must undertake a dangerous journey from the Holy Land to a remote village nestled in the Alps, the 'Spine of the World'. His mission: buy 500 peasant boys and return them to Acre to be trained as soldiers of Christ.

In der faszinierenden Welt der Abenteuerliteratur entfalten sich Geschichten voller Entdeckergeist und Sehnsucht nach Freiheit, jede Erzählung nimmt die Hörer:innen mit auf eine packende Reise. Eine Hörbuchbox voller Abenteuerlust, spannend und mitreißend interpretiert von Rufus Beck, Max Urlacher, Hans-Helmut Dickow u.v.a.

Swift's allegorical satire about religion and politics follows the lives of three brothers, Martin, Peter, and Jack, each of who represents a faction of the Christian faith - Anglicanism, Roman Catholicism, and the dissenting faiths, respectively. Each brother inherits a coat (representing religious practice) from their father (God) on the condition that they do not change it. But instead the three quarrelsome youths disobey their father and change their coats beyond recognition.

Peggy the pug is going on holiday to the seaside! Her special friend Chloe is excited, too, and hopes that she'll see a mermaid. But even though Chloe and Peggy search the beach, they can't find a mermaid anywhere. Not wanting her friend to be disappointed, Peggy decides that she'll just have to become a mermaid herself! But that means that she's going to have to learn how to doggy paddle.