Showing results by narrator "Mark Meadows" in All Categories

Hanns Alexander was the son of a wealthy German family who fled Berlin for London in the 1930s. Rudolf Höss was a farmer and soldier who became Kommandant of Auschwitz and oversaw the deaths of over a million people. In the aftermath of World War II, the first British War Crimes Investigation Team is assembled to hunt down the senior Nazi officials responsible for the greatest atrocities the world has ever seen.

An eclectic mix of exciting stories every surfer will love. This eclectic mix has something for everyone, from classic tales of monster waves and epic battles to stories of when life among the breakers goes wrong. There are accounts of death and disaster, as well as bravery and triumph. The bizarre and the extreme rub shoulders with perfect breaks and beautiful beaches. Be thrilled by legendary surfers like Laird Hamilton and Shane Dorian as well as learning about local heroes who never made the headlines.

A night patrol finds a wealthy merchant hanged and set ablaze in the city’s main square. More than mere murder, this killing is intended to put the fear of God into Florence. Forty years earlier, puritanical monk Girolamo Savonarola was executed the same way. Does this new killing mean his fanatical disciples are reviving the monk’s regime of holy terror? Cesare Aldo is busy hunting thieves in the Tuscan countryside, leaving Constable Carlo Strocchi to investigate the ritual killing.

Two deaths - the suicide of a recently fired worker and the murder of an unscrupulous businessman - lead Inspector Montalbano to the Halcyon, a mysterious ship that visits Vigàta's port each day. With very few crewmen, no passengers and a stern large enough to land a helicopter, it piques the Inspector's interest straight away. And whilst all this is going on, a rare trip to Genoa to visit Livia ends with the Vigàta police department in disarray, and Inspector Montalbano's position as the head of the commissariat in jeopardy. It will be up to Montalbano to fix the damage done.

Summer, 1943. Daniel Berkåk works as a courier for the Press and Military Office in Stockholm. On his last cross-border mission to Norway, he carries a rucksack full of coded documents and newspapers, but before he has a chance to deliver anything he is shot and killed and the contents of his rucksack are missing. The Norwegian government, currently exiled in London, wants to know what happened, and the job goes to writer Jomar Kraby, whose first suspect is a Norwegian refugee living in Sweden, whose past that is as horrifying as the events still to come.

Western Australia, 1928. Out on the Tolhurst farmstead, Detective Constable Hartley is working on his very first assignment, looking into reports of a mysterious prowler. Suddenly he is startled by three gunshots ringing out. Investigating the noise, he discovers the corpse of family patriarch Fred O'Donnell, shot in the chest - alone in a room that has been locked from the inside. The dead man was almost universally despised, which doesn't help Hartley narrow down his pool of potential suspects.

James Rhodes' passion for music has been his absolute lifeline. It has been the thread that has held him together through a life that has encompassed pain, conflict and turmoil. Listening to Rachmaninov on a loop as a traumatised teenager or discovering an adagio by Bach while in a hospital ward - such exquisite miracles of musical genius have helped him survive his demons and, along with a chance encounter with a stranger, inspired him to become the renowned concert pianist he is today.

Things are not going well for Inspector Montalbano. His long-distance relationship with Livia is on the rocks, he feels himself getting even older and he's growing tired of the violence in his job. Then the dead body of a young woman is found in an illegal dump, with half her face missing. Her identity at first is unknown; a tattoo of a sphinx moth on her left shoulder links her with three other girls bearing the same mark, all recent Russian immigrants to Italy.

This collection of narratives from autistic adults is structured around their decades of experience of life, covering 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60 and 70s+. These are varied and diverse, spanning different continents, genders, sexualities and ethnicities, yet the author highlights the common themes that unite them and skilfully draws out these threads. Each chapter is based on accounts from one age group and includes accounts from people of that age, giving an insight into the history of autism and signifying how gaining a diagnosis (or not) has changed people's lives over time.

Nick Paleologus is summoned to the unyielding bosom of his family to help resolve a dispute which threatens to set his brothers and sisters against their aged and irascible father. Michael Paleologus, retired archaeologist and supposed descendant of the last Emperors of Byzantium, lives alone at Trennor, a remote and rambling house on the Cornish bank of the Tamar. A ridiculously generous offer has been made for the house, but he refuses to sell despite the urgings of his children, for whom the proceeds would solve a variety of problems.

Thomas Geve was just 15 years old when he was liberated from Buchenwald concentration camp on 11th April 1945. It was the third concentration camp he had survived. Upon arrival at Auschwitz-Birkenau, Thomas was separated from his mother and left to fend for himself in the men’s camp of Auschwitz I, at the age of 13. During the 22 months he was imprisoned, he was subjected to and forced to observe first-hand the inhumane world of Nazi concentration camps.

Michael Bromley, Duke of Woriton, has a passion, but it’s not for chasing ladies or gambling till dawn. No, his is the far more dangerous pursuit of the science of chemistry. But he’s certainly capable of taking care of his aunt’s perfectly behaved poodle, Lancelot, while she’s on holiday. Elizabeth “Bitsy” Dockering, third daughter of a viscount, is enjoying her second spectacular Season in London. She is a Diamond of the Season and is adored by all—and especially by her precious black poodle, Galahad. But none of them can plan for a chaotic encounter in the park.

The Victorian era has dominated the popular imagination like no other period, but these myths and stories also give a very distorted view of the 19th century. The early Victorians were much stranger than we usually imagine, and their world would have felt very different from our own. It was only during the long reign of the Queen that a modern society emerged in unexpected ways.

Who was the real King Arthur? What do the historical documents tell us about the Knight of the Round Temple? It is just a chivalric fantasy? The story of Arthur has been handed down to us by medieval poets and legends - but what if he actually existed and was in fact a great king in the early years of Britain's story? Mike Ashley visits the source material and uncovers unexpected new insights into the legend: There is clear evidence that the Arthurian legends arose from the exploits of not just one man, but at least three originating in Wales, Scotland, and Brittany.

Exploding the tired stereotypes of autism, Daniel Tammet - an autistic savant himself - reaches across the divides of age, gender, sexuality and nationality to draw out the inner worlds of his subjects. Portraying a range of experiences as richly diverse as the spectrum itself, this illuminating, life-affirming work of narrative nonfiction celebrates the power and beauty of the neurodivergent mind, and the daring freedom with which these people have built their lives.

Elisabetta, a feisty beauty who dreams of becoming a novelist, Marco, the brash and athletic son of professional cyclists, and Sandro, a kind-hearted and thoughtful Jewish mathematics prodigy, grow up best of friends. Their friendship blossoms to love, with both Sandro and Marco hoping to win Elisabetta's heart. But in the autumn of 1937, everything changes as Mussolini asserts his power, aligning Italy's Fascists with Hitler's Nazis. Soon, everything that they hold dear is tested in ways they never could have imagined.

What we consume has become the defining feature of our lives: our economies live or die by spending, we are treated more as consumers than workers and even public services are presented to us as products in a supermarket. In this monumental study, acclaimed historian Frank Trentmann unfolds the extraordinary history that has shaped our material world, from late Ming China, Renaissance Italy and the British Empire to the present.

It took little more than a single generation for the centuries-old Roman Empire to fall. In those critical decades, while Christians and pagans, legions and barbarians, generals and politicians squabbled over dwindling scraps of power, two men—former comrades on the battlefield—rose to prominence on opposite sides of the great game of empire. Roman general Flavius Stilicho, the man behind the Roman throne, dedicated himself to restoring imperial glory, only to find himself struggling for his life against political foes.

In the early 1800s Lehmann Gluckstein and his family escaped the pogroms of Eastern Europe and made their way to Whitechapel in the East End of London. There, starting with nothing, they worked tirelessly to pull themselves out of poverty, creating a small tobacco factory that quickly grew to become the largest catering company in the world: J. Lyons. For over a century, Lyons was everywhere. Its restaurants and corner houses were on every high street, its coffee and tea in every cup, its products in every home. The company transformed the way we eat, drink and are entertained.

Philip Noble is an eleven-year-old in crisis. His pub landlord father has died in a road accident, and his mother is succumbing to the greasy charms of her dead husband's brother, Uncle Alan. The remaining certainties of Philip's life crumble away when his father's ghost appears in the pub and declares Uncle Alan murdered him. Arming himself with weapons from the school chemistry cupboard, Philip vows to carry out the ghost's relentless demands for revenge.