Showing results by narrator "David Timson" in All Categories

A Swedish crime writer as thrilling as Mankell, a detective as compelling as Wallander . . . Håkan Nesser's The Inspector and Silence is the fifth gripping crime novel in the Van Veeteren series. In the heart of summer, the country swelters in a fug of heat. In the beautiful forested lake-town...

The 6th historical thriller featuring Matthew Hawkwood, Bow Street Runner and Spy, now hunting a killer on the loose in Regency London. London, 1813: Bow Street Runner Matthew Hawkwood is summoned to a burial ground and finds the corpse of a young woman, murdered and cast into an open grave. At...

Why do bookshops matter? How do they filter our ideas and literature? In this inventive and highly entertaining extended essay, Jorge Carrion takes his listeners on a journey around the world via its bookshops. His travels take him to Shakespeare & Co in Paris, Wells in Winchester, Green Apple Books in San Francisco, Librairie des Colonnes in Tangier and the Strand Book Store in New York and provoke encounters with thinkers, poets, dreamers, revolutionaries and readers.

This is a story from The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, Volume I collection. These six cases are among the last undertaken by Sherlock Holmes before he retired to the Sussex downs. However, the problems facing the sleuth are as diverse and challenging as ever.

The rich life Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930) is featured here: His work as a doctor, his novels and journalistic writings, his support of Spiritualism and his defense of fairies. This is a unique set for the 150th anniversary of his birth. After his early years in medicine, the writing talents of Arthur Conan Doyle took over. Sherlock Holmes and Professor Challenger were among his successes.

Puccini’s swansong has a claim to being the last great popular opera. Its melodies have enchanted audiences since its posthumous premiere in 1926, two years after Puccini’s death. It involves a chilling story of love and cruelty, an intriguing cast of characters against the exotic backdrop of Imperial China, magnificent choruses and ensembles, and dazzling orchestration in an exotic score that comprises a string of remarkable arias - among which the great tenor aria "Nessun dorma" is the jewel. It is more than Puccini’s last opera: It is the last word, in every sense, on Italian opera.

Out of the dust-heaps and dirty streets of mid-Victorian London, Dickens creates a classic murder-mystery tale. A dead man is fished out of the Thames by a scavenger and his daughter. Who is he, and how did he get there? The man's death affects members of all levels of a society permeated with greed. Dickens presents an array of characters both touching and humorous, from Mr. Boffin, the "Golden" Dustman, to Jenny Wren, the lame doll-dressmaker. It is a story enriched by disguise and intrigue.

The Flying Dutchman is the perfect opera with which to approach the operatic mountain that is Richard Wagner. It is short, has a great story (the legend of the Dutch captain doomed to sail forever unless redeemed through love), and the striking score has many pre-echoes of Wagner's later great music dramas. It contains wonderful tunes in its arias, ensembles, and big choruses, and the orchestral writing - from the gale that blows out of the Overture to the final theme of "Redemption through Love" - will "blow you away".

The Sherlock Holmes series read in unabridged form, by David Timson for Naxos AudioBooks, is widely regarded as one of the finest. Here, Timson brings his remarkable performance skills to one of Doyle’s full-length novels. Holmes and his faithful Dr Watson are summoned to a country house by a coded message. They arrive too late to save a life and then pursue the trail which leads to the unmasking of the murderer.

In "The Final Problem", perhaps the greatest of the short stories of Sherlock Holmes, the English detective encounters his most formidable rival, Professor Moriarty. 'The Napoleon of Crime' is how Holmes describes his adversary to his faithful companion, Dr Watson, as they move to the ultimate confrontation at the Reichenbach Falls.

No case is too slight for the mental powers of the Great Detective, in this second selection from The Return of Sherlock Holmes.

Luck plays an important part in the careers of writers. In this book, David Lodge explores how his work was inspired and affected by unpredictable events in his life. In 1976, Lodge was pursuing a ‘twin-track career’ as novelist and academic. As a literary critic, he made serious contributions to the subject before carnivalising it in his comic-satiric novel Small World. The balancing act between his two professions was increasingly difficult to maintain, and he became a full-time writer just before he published his best-selling novel Nice Work.

In this memoir of his life, David Lodge looks back over his childhood and youth, including his undergraduate years at University College London. After National Service and two years’ postgraduate research, married at last and soon a father, he struggles to make a start as both novelist and academic. Candid, witty and insightful, Quite a Good Time to Be Born gives a fascinating picture of the evolution of a writer who has become a classic in his own lifetime.

La Traviata owes its enduring popularity to a superb story of young love and fatal sacrifice, set to music by Italy’s master melodist at the peak of his powers. Interest and poignancy are added by the fact that this is a true story - the baritone ‘heavy’ is Alexander Dumas who wrote The Count of Monte Cristo. But it is the central figure, the heroine Violetta, the archetypal ‘whore with the heart of gold’ who dominates the piece. It is her opera and we love her for it.

The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists is the classic working-class novel. It was written in 1906 by an impoverished house painter, Robert Tressell, and within its framework contains a manifesto for socialism. It tells of the appalling working conditions of a group of painters and decorators and their struggle to survive at the most basic level. It is moving, grimly humorous and tragic. It has sold over six million copies worldwide since it was published, and it has the power to change lives.

Charles Dickens was a prolific writer of letters throughout his life. There are extant more than 13,000 letters that he wrote to friends, family, fellow authors, and actors as well as many letters written to people involved in good causes he espoused. In the hands of actor and writer Simon Callow, one of the most prominent Dickens interpreters of our time, this informative and entertaining selection shows Dickens in his many guises. We know Charles Dickens the author, but these letters offer a fascinating glimpse into Charles Dickens the man.

At the end of the 18th century, two brilliant and eccentric young scientists set out to measure the world. Measuring the World recreates the parallel but contrasting lives of two geniuses of the German Enlightenment - the naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt and the mathematician and physicist Carl Friedrich Gauss.

'An unsettling, haunting story...memorable, atmospheric and tense' THE LADY 'Well-written, well-crafted and constantly gripping' DAILY MAIL 'A disquieting and atmospheric psychological novel' DAILY EXPRESS 'A grippingly dark thriller...Great writing from a master storyteller' RED MAGAZINE Norman...

Chief of the Intelligence Department Sir Leonard Wallace - bearing always the hallmark of coolness and wit - is up to his earlobes in trouble. Summoned by the Viceroy of India, he makes a rapid flight to India to investigate the mysterious death of British officer Major Elliot and the theft of some very important dispatches.

This is a story from The Casebook of Sherlock Holmes, Volume II collection.