Showing results by narrator "Malk Williams" in All Categories

The world was wild for gold. After discovering the Americas, and under pressure to defend their vast dominion, the Habsburgs of Spain promoted gold and silver exploration in the New World with ruthless urgency. But, the great influx of wealth brought home by plundering conquistadors couldn’t compensate for the Spanish government’s extraordinary military spending, which would eventually bankrupt the country multiple times over and lead to the demise of the great empire.

In the third volume of Capital, Marx asserts that - regardless of the efforts of individual capitalists, public authorities or even generous philanthropists - any market economy is inevitably doomed to endure a series of worsening, explosive crises leading finally to complete collapse. But he also offers an inspirational and compelling prediction: that the end of capitalism will culminate, ultimately, in the birth of a far greater form of society.

When Professor Alan Tunbridge is discovered in his office with his throat slashed, the suspects start queuing up. The brilliant but unpleasant microbiologist had a genius for making enemies. For Warren Jones, newly appointed Detective Chief Inspector to the Middlesbury force, a high-profile murder is the ideal opportunity. He’s determined to run a thorough and professional investigation but political pressure to resolve the case quickly and tensions in the office and at home make life anything but easy.

A lifetime spent fighting other people’s wars had earned John Winter a comfortable early retirement. But when the CIA seizes his money, they quickly realise that their former employee is not a man you want to try to push around. When the former combat pilot and SAS man turned gun-for-hire gives Langley a deadline for its return, the agency think it holds all the cards. An F-4 Phantom jet fighter, an audacious plan to fly halfway round the world, and a threat to dramatically alter the balance of power in the Middle East says they don’t.

The Great Network is a place of drones and androids, maintenance spiders and Station Angels. The place of the thousand gates, where sentient trains crisscross the galaxy in a heartbeat. Zen Starling is a petty thief from Thunder City. So when mysterious stranger Raven sends Zen on a mission to infiltrate the emperor's train, he jumps at the chance to cross the galaxy in a heartbeat. But the Great Network is a dangerous place....

Heritage. Adaptation. Values. Flexibility. From the oldest pub in the world to the Liberty Bell and the origins of a nation, Established: Lessons from the World's Oldest Companies tells the stories of 12 businesses with a combined age of almost 5,000 years. They've survived war, plague, rebellion, boom, bust, depression and strange twists of fate. But how and what can we learn from them?

H. G. Wells was known as the father of science fiction, but his creative genius encompassed far more that a single literary genre. He was also a visionary, a satirist, a sociologist and an historian. This third audio anthology of H. G. Wells’ Short Stories produced by Raconteurs Audio in collaboration with Spoken Realms, brings together some his lesser known short stories.

A deeply insightful take on how hate and insecurity can be intertwined, and an endearing love letter to the natural world, ‘On the Purpose of Hating’ is one of the most renowned essays from the brilliant mind of William Hazlitt. In ‘On the Purpose of Hating’, Hazlitt explores the complexities of hatred. He compellingly argues that hatred can have a self-destructive edge, and can do just as much harm to the person who harbours it as the subject of it. At its heart, hatred is merely a coping mechanism to manage our own shortcomings.

Ezra Pound referred to 1922 as year one of a new era. It was the year that began with the publication of James Joyce's Ulysses and ended with the publication of TS Eliot's The Waste Land, two works that were arguably 'the sun and moon' of modernist literature, some would say of modernity itself. In Constellation of Genius, Kevin Jackson puts the titanic achievements of Joyce and Eliot in the context of the world in which their works first appeared.

Arnau de Vallbona and his fellow Templar Brother Ramon are bound for the Holy Land to take part in the great Crusade when fate intervenes. Delayed in Cyprus, they learn of a growing rift in Christendom: the crusading army has diverted from its course and threatens Rome's allies in the Byzantine Empire. Arnau and Ramon, alongside the irascible Preceptor Bochard, race to Constantinople, encountering a grand and crumbling world of alliances and betrayals, emperors and armies.

Dylan Thomas: A Centenary Celebration is a collection of specially commissioned essays celebrating the poet's life and work, and exploring his lasting legacy. Edited by his granddaughter, Hannah Ellis, the book is arranged thematically and includes a wealth of material: essays from noted biographers such as David Thomas and Clive Woosnam explore Thomas's lasting legacy both at home and abroad, and Welsh poet laurete Gillian Clark reflects on the impact of the seminal "play for voices", Under Milk Wood.

A customer has died in the brothel's VIP room. Worse still, he's an Arab financier, a guest of government, connected to a massive investment programme that could transform Hungary. It looks like a heart attack – but why has the brothel's CCTV footage been erased? Kovacs knows only too well the treacherous undercurrents that permeate life in Hungary's capital - the deadly intersection between the criminal underworld, the corridors of power and the ghosts of history.

The Red Swords came with the sunrise and took everything Shawna Llewan held dear. Her family massacred, her home destroyed, she escapes with nothing but her mother’s heirloom and the desire for vengeance. When she’s found by Dormael, a Warlock of the Conclave, she learns that her mother’s keepsake - the very reason her family was killed - holds the power to unleash boundless destruction.

A sweeping story about obsession, mysticism, art and earthly desire. At the centre of this story is the Cathedral. Its design and construction in the 13th and 14th centuries in the fictional town of Hagenburg unites a vast array of unforgettable characters whose fortunes are inseparable from the shifting political factions and economic interests vying for supremacy. From the bishop to his treasurer, from local merchants to lowly stonecutters, the fate of everyone, both Gentile and Jew, is affected by the slow rise of Hagenburg’s cathedral.

Budapest, January 2016. The Danube is grey and half-frozen, covered with ice, and the city seems to have gone into hibernation. But not for Detective Balthazar Kovacs. He has been called out to investigate the disappearance of a young Israeli historian, Elad Harari. Harari was working in the archives of the city's Jewish museum, researching what happened to the assets of the Hungarian Jews murdered in the Holocaust. His work could bring justice to the families of those who died, but it seems not everyone welcomed his probing into the country's darkest period.

In the depths of winter at an ancient German castle, high up in the mountains, a noble is found dead under mysterious circumstances. Back at Rourell, Arnau is taking on the responsibilities of a full Templar Knight. But when he is tasked with returning Brother LUtolf's papers to settle a legal dispute between his family and the Order, Arnau is unexpectedly drawn into the killing at the castle. Here he enters a dark game of knives and double-crosses.

Ninety crime writers from the world’s oldest and most famous crime writing network give tips and insights into successful crime and thriller fiction. Howdunit! offers a fresh perspective on the craft of crime writing from leading exponents of the genre, past and present. The book offers invaluable advice to people interested in writing crime fiction, but it also provides a fascinating picture of the way that the best crime writers have honed their skills over the years.

Trading with the elves used to be so simple. Every year Master Cheeser Jonathan Bing would send his very best cheeses downriver to traders who would eventually return with Elfin wonders for the people of Twombly Town. But no more. First the trading post at Willowood Station was mysteriously destroyed. Then a magical elfin airship began making forays overhead; Jonathan knew something was definitely amiss. So he set off downriver to deliver the cheeses himself, accompanied by the amazing Professor Wurzle, the irrepressible Dooly, and his faithful dog Ahab.

When a plane crashes in the icy Greenland desert with no passengers on board and no means of identification, Joe Martin is hired to fly to the scene of the crash by the insurance company involved and the beautiful widow of the dead pilot. But the routine mission spirals into hair-raising suspense when a priceless batch of emeralds are added to the mystery, and suddenly Joe finds himself in mortal danger.

In 1467, the Onin War ushered in a period of unparalleled conflict and rivalry in Japan that came to be called the Age of Warring States. In this book, Stephen Turnbull offers a masterly exposition of the wars, explaining what led to Japan’s disintegration into rival domains after more than a century of relative peace, the years of fighting that followed and the period of gradual fusion when the daimyo (great names) strove to reunite Japan under a new Shogun. Peace returned to Japan with the end of the Osaka War in 1615.