Showing results by narrator "Andrew Wincott" in All Categories

Julian Barnes began writing about art with a chapter on Géricault's The Raft of the Medusa in his 1989 novel A History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters. Since then he has written a series of remarkable essays, chiefly about French artists, for a variety of journals and magazines. Gathering them for this book, he realised that he had unwittingly been retracing the story of how art made its way from Romanticism to Realism and into Modernism.

Three underhive fugitives shelter around a fire in the midst of a storm. They must be safe here, for the only one who could track them is Gor Half-Horn. And he's a myth, isn't he? Kaya, Gull and Vaughn are on the run. After a job gone wrong, the trio of hive-scum have a price on their head and aren't welcome in any reputable settlement. As they shelter from a hive-storm in an abandoned hab-unit in the deep sump, they're sure they're safe from any who might be seeking them. They are wrong. Gor Half-Horn is coming for them, and none escape the abhuman bounty hunter once he has their scent....

The 33rd Grand Battalion of the Iron Warriors, newly raised and seeing battle for the first time, have the honour of the primarch himself, Perturabo, leading them. But the Hammer of Olympia is there for more than just battle - he is evaluating his new officers and deciding their fates. And with a force of Imperial Fists allied to their cause, Perturabo sees the perfect opportunity to teach his new warriors the difference between the stone of the VII Legion and the Iron of his own.

'Dear Mama, I am having a lovely time here. We play football every day here. The beds have no springs....' So begins the first letter that nine-year-old Roald Dahl penned to his mother, Sofie Magdalene, under the watchful eye of his boarding school headmaster. For most of his life, Roald Dahl would continue to write weekly letters to his mother, chronicling his adventures, frustrations and opinions, from the delights of childhood to the excitements of flying as a World War II fighter pilot....

In the throes of crisis, Rome braces for change. Caesar, Rome’s greatest general and conqueror of Gaul, now faces being stripped of his command and dragged back to Italy for prosecution by his enemies. His former ally, Pompey, has sided with his opponents in the Senate and frustrates all efforts to find peace. With no alternatives, Caesar crosses the Rubicon and spearheads an invasion of Rome with Mark Antony at his side, throwing the empire into civil war. Will Antony rise to the heights of power or be executed as a traitor?

Autobiographical without being an autobiography, confessional without disclosing his private self, The Summing Up, written when Maugham was sixty-four, is an inimitable expression of a personal credo. It is not only a classic avowal of a professional author's ideas about style, literature, art, drama and philosophy, but also an illuminating insight into this great writer's craft.

Saudi Arabia is a country defined by paradox: it sits atop some of the richest oil deposits in the world, and yet the country's roiling disaffection produced 16 of the 19 hijackers on 9/11. It is a modern state, driven by contemporary technology, and yet its powerful religious establishment would have its customs and practices rolled back to match those of the Prophet Muhammad over a thousand years ago.

The California desert. A four-year-old boy disappears, plunging his parents into the public hell of a media witch-hunt. But the desert is inexplicable and miraculous, and the family's fate is bound up with that of all those who have travelled before them through this brutally powerful landscape. Multilayered and a compulsively readable, Gods Without Men is a heartfelt exploration of our search for pattern and meaning in a random and chaotic universe.

As the Ultramarines flagship Macragge's Honour comes under attack, Seargeant Ammon rushes to the quarters of Tarasha Euten, the primarch's chamberlain. Euten has been by Guilliman's side since he was a child and counselled him across the decades. Old in body but still sharp and wise, she gives the sergeant a lesson in leadership, using an example from the primarch's youth. Prepare to discover how young Roboute conquered the hill tribes and brought peace to Macragge...just not in the way the history books record.

Black Thursday. The day that will never be forgotten. The day that four passenger planes crash, at almost exactly the same moment, at four different points around the globe. There are only four survivors. Three are children, who emerge from the wreckage seemingly unhurt. But they are not unchanged. And the fourth is Pamela May Donald, who lives just long enough to record a voice message on her phone. A message that will change the world. The message is a warning.

Dennis Cooper is one of the few full-time resident National Trust curators in England and lives with his wife in the grounds of the spectacular Westbourne Gardens, which receives thousands of visitors each year. On the face of things, Dennis lives a perfect life and has a dream job, but this idyllic setting is riven with dark secrets, and it isn't long before foul play draws Lambert and Hook into this troubled Eden.

As the forces of the Warmaster close in on Terra, Endryd Haar leads his warband of renegade Blackshields into battle once more. With his forces battered in the wake of their raid on Xana, Haar finds himself in desperate need of warriors. Answering a distress call from an old friend, Haar seeks out the tithe-world of Duat, intent on plunder. But when he discovers what is hidden there, Haar is faced with a decision that will determine his fate - and perhaps that of Terra itself.

Ben Hatch is on the road again. Commissioned to write a guidebook about France (despite not speaking any French) he sets off with visions of relaxing chateaux and refined dining. Ten thousand miles later his family's been attacked by a donkey, had a run-in with a death-culti, and, after a near drowning and a calamitous wedding experience involving a British spy, his own marriage is in jeopardy.

Four friends have a pact: to meet up on the same day every year in their small hometown in southern Italy. Art, the charismatic leader of the group, has always been adamant about the pact. But this year, he doesn't show up. Searching for him, the friends make a worrying discovery: Art has been farming marijuana, a very dangerous activity in mafia-controlled country.

Using forbidden Marrangha magic and the three stolen vapours, the evil sorcerer Zharradan Marr has created a creature....but for what purpose?

A missing boy. A missing book. A missing husband. A woman who must find them all to find herself. On the night Bernadette finally has the courage to tell her domineering husband that she's leaving, he doesn't come home. Neither does Conor, the little boy she's befriended for the past five years. Also missing is his lifebook, the only thing that holds the answers.

From best-selling author of Tail-End Charlie and Tornado Down comes this powerful and deeply moving account of Bomber Command’s 1944 Nuremberg Raid – the RAF’s bloodiest night of the Second World War.

With Cast a Deadly Shadow Roger Granelli has followed his exciting series of Palermo Stories with a full-length novel that is a fast-moving tale of murder, betrayal and lust. Continuing their never-ending fight against the Mafia, detectives Carpanini and Bracchi have captured their longtime target, the gangster Bardolini, setting off a dramatic chain of events in which dangerous men of the Sicilian underworld get involved - each one with his own agenda.

Sir Ian McKellen is that rarest of characters: a celebrity whose distinguished political and social service has transcended his enormous fame and international stardom to reach far beyond the stage and screen. The breadth of his endeavour - professional, personal and political - has been truly staggering. Of some 400 stage and film roles, there are only three, in his own estimation, of which he has not been proud. Iconic roles have not been in short supply: Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings being perhaps the most universally recognised and well-loved.

A vicious rivalry threatens to cause chaos for Lord Westfield’s Men when the onstage duels between Owen Elias and Sebastian Carrick become ever more realistic. However, it is an axe that splits open Sebastian's head one night in a Clerkenwell alley. Company book holder Nicholas Bracewell, accustomed to damage control, begins to investigate the victim's death and learns that in life, he was prone to make enemies from his weakness for women and his unwillingness to settle his debts. A web of deception has in fact been spun that stretches all the way to the Virgin Queen.