Showing results by narrator "Alexander Doddy" in All Categories

Twelve years ago, Edwin Tully came to Oxford and fell in love with a boy named Marius. He was brilliant. An artist. It was going to be forever. Two years ago, it ended. Now Edwin lives alone in the house they used to share. He tends to damaged books and faded memories, trying to build a future from the fragments of the past. Then the weather turns, and the river spills into Edwin's quiet world, bringing with it Adam Dacre from the Environment Agency.

On February 15, 1942, the British surrendered to the Imperial Japanese Army and handed over Singapore and surrounding Malaya countries. The conflict began on December 8, 1941, when Japanese forces bombed Singapore and continued to make their way through the treacherous Malayan jungle. British Prime Minister Winston Churchill stated during the attack, “the worst disaster and the largest capitulation in British history”. 

Would you like to save up deposits, buy a property every few years, and (maybe) get financial freedom in a decade? Or would you rather do it in less than a year with none of your own money? It sounds almost unbelievable, but it’s totally achievable, and thousands of regular people are doing it all over the UK.

The Roman Empire crumbled, and nothing could replace it. People groups shifted all over the continent: the Byzantines came after the Visigoths, the Saxons clashed with the Celts, and the Vikings pillaged everyone. Eventually, feudalism emerged and brought with it knights in shining armor and long lines of monarchs.

The shift from the Paleolithic to Neolithic periods represents a watershed moment in human history. While many may consider the humans of both stone ages to be unintelligent barbarians, this brief history proves that the humans of yesteryear were just as smart as we are today. Between 10,000 BC and 2,000 BC, they instituted revolutionary changes in human life. All over the globe, formerly nomadic people began settling into villages, farming, and creating high-tech stone inventions. 

Nothing can make us feel more alive, or more human, than our emotions, or hurt us more. Yet many people lumber through life without giving full consideration to their emotions, partly because our empirical and materialistic culture does not encourage it or even make it seem possible, and partly because it requires unusual strength to gaze into the abyss of our deepest drives, needs, and fears. This book proposes to do just that, examining over 25 emotions ranging from lust to love and humility to humiliation, and drawing some powerful and astonishing conclusions along the way.

Self-deception is common and universal, and the cause of most human tragedies. Of course, the science of self-deception can help us to live better and get more out of life. But it can also cast a murky light on human nature and the human condition, for example, on such exclusively human phenomena as anger, depression, fear, pity, pride, dream making, love making, and god making, not to forget age-old philosophical problems such as selfhood, virtue, happiness, and the good life. Nothing, in the end, could possibly be more important.

Things are not all they seem. This is an audiobook about how depression can have benefits as well as costs, and how to reap those benefits. New chapters include the search for meaning, the philosophy of happiness, the psychology of gratitude, and the seven types of love.

This biography introduces listeners to Ramesses II's many accomplishments as both a warrior-king and a god-king. When he died at age 96, Egyptians believed him to be a higher deity than any who preceded him; in some ways, he achieved eternal life by living on in memory through the end of the Egyptian Empire and beyond. 

Trapped in a car wreck, crushed by a train. In seconds, Zaranna's world is torn apart and she must start life anew, as a survivor. A double amputee. Yet why does this promising equestrienne remember a flash of sulphurous fire, and a crimson paw hurling her mother's car onto the train tracks? Why does a tide of beguiling butterflies flood her increasingly chaotic dreams? As Zaranna Inglewood adjusts to life minus legs, plus gorgeous Alex, the paramedic who cut her body from the wreckage, she learns the terror of being hunted.

Liam Young has a problem - he's booked a romantic holiday to Rio de Janeiro months ago, but when he breaks up with his boyfriend, all his plans fall apart. Not only is his dream holiday slipping through his fingers, but Liam is sick and tired of getting his heart broken. Blaine Reed has a solution that can save Liam's plans. Recently divorced, Blaine needs a break, and a couple of stress-free weeks in Rio with a sexy guy like Liam sounds like heaven.

It took me nearly 10 years, two tours in Afghanistan, and losing a leg to come to terms with who I really am. Two years after coming back from war, I can say that I'm finally content. I'm as fit as ever, my prosthetic leg allowing me the freedom of moving and exercising as if nothing has changed. I own a small bakery, and I have a loyal circle of friends.Yet, there's something missing. A part of me craves the intimacy, the deep connection to another human being. But another - bigger - part of me is terrified of letting anyone in. My internal conflict didn't stand a chance when I met Jay....

Simon is a seasoned enterprise architect who joins a corporation in New York as their first-ever vice president of enterprise architecture. On his very first day, he meets the global chief executive officer, who asks Simon, "What do you do?" Simon's reply triggers the CEO to respond in a way that our hero least expects.

A man at odds with the universe, Anthony McGowan stumbles from one improbable fiasco to the next. On the mean streets of West Hampstead he reflects upon all that is at the heart of life itself - socks with holes, underwhelming packed lunches, broken washing machines, Kierkegaard, liver salts, British Library eccentricities, and disapproving ladies on trains. In this chronicle of one man’s daily failures and disappointments, McGowan can’t help but speak his mind - with cringe-worthy and hilarious results.

Sir Charles Huxley, a former government minister, kept a dark secret - a secret he should have taken to the grave when he died in 1999. His son, William, now lives an uneventful life in his father’s shadow. One evening, William has an encounter which sets off an escalating series of sinister events, culminating in a damning revelation about his father’s past. That revelation drags William into the darkest of blackmail plots. That is until a man working at his local bar steps forward and offers help.

Set in the early 1900s, a young boy comes across a life altering machine - and creatures - that may change the course of London's history. Oliver finds himself struggling with understanding the means of the system and where he fits in among creatures that aren't necessarily human. Can he beat the clock and save humanity before it's too late?

Kate Douglas Wiggin was an American educator and author of children's stories, including the classic children's novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. The Birds' Christmas Carol, published in 1888, is a novel about Carol Bird, a Christmas baby who turns into an exceptionally kind and generous young girl who has a positive effect on everyone with whom she comes into contact. The story was adapted as the silent movie A Bit o' Heaven in 1917. 

One of the barely functional artificial intelligence systems on the Colony Ship Eschaton has sent a warning message. Who will receive it? What will happen? What has found the ship, and why is an invasion happening? Can the people and systems inside of the Colony Ship confront this new foe? If so, how? 

Born the illegitimate son of the Duke of Normandy, young William rose against his controversial origins to become a powerful leader. He fought to establish his power as a Duke and then used that power to take England by storm. He faced off against King Harold in the Battle of Hastings, ultimately winning the English crown. William’s legacy as “the Conqueror” is not a nice one—he achieved greatness through brutal means. What he did not only secured his own reign, however, it paved the way for the future of England. 

Nikola Tesla, the lesser-known peer of Thomas Edison, invented the X-ray, wireless communication, the electric motor, and more. His greatest contribution, however, lies hidden in the groundwork he laid for future innovation. So many of the technological advancements we enjoy today are thanks to an eccentric scientist from Croatia who tested his far-fetched ideas without fear of failure.