Showing results by narrator "David Rintoul" in All Categories

Hans Castorp is, on the face of it, an ordinary man in his early 20s, on course to start a career in ship engineering in his home town of Hamburg, when he decides to travel to the Berghof Santatorium in Davos. The year is 1912 and an oblivious world is on the brink of war. Castorp’s friend Joachim Ziemssen is taking the cure and a three-week visit seems a perfect break before work begins. But when Castorp arrives he is surprised to find an established community of patients, and little by little, he gets drawn into the closeted life and the individual personalities of the residents.

Nothing extraordinary has ever happened to Billy Smith. In fact, every single thing about him is ordinary, including his name. But when a documentary crew turns up at Billy’s school to film the new TV series School Daze, everything changes. Billy shouldn’t stand out: all the other kids are much more interesting than him. But when remixes of his boring class presentation go viral, Billy finds himself accidentally an overnight star.

One of the most celebrated thrillers ever written, The Day of the Jackal is the electrifying story of an anonymous Englishman who in, the spring of 1963, was hired by Colonel Marc Rodin, Operations Chief of the O. A. S., to assassinate General de Gaulle.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Thomas Cromwell by Diarmid MacCulloch, read by David Rintoul. Thomas Cromwell is one of the most famous - or notorious - figures in English history. Born in obscurity in Putney, he became a fixer for Cardinal Wolsey in the 1520s. After Wolsey's fall, Henry VIII promoted him to a series of ever greater offices, and by the end of the 1530s he was effectively running the country for the King.

Plan Aurora, hatched in a remote dacha in the forest outside Moscow and initiated with relentless brilliance and skill, is a plan within a plan that, in its spine-chilling ingenuity, breaches the ultra-secret Fourth Protocol and turns the fears that shaped it into a living nightmare. A crack Soviet agent, placed under cover in a quiet English country town, begins to assemble a jigsaw of devastation.

When the entire Soviet Union wheat crop is destroyed by a devastating string of failures, the population faces starvation. The USA is quick to offer assistance. They devise a plan to trade vital food resources with the Russians in exchange for sensitive political information. But the Politburo has other ideas: the invasion of Western Europe to commandeer the food for them... As the paths of communication breakdown the president of the United States and leaders from around the world face an appalling choice: Should they allow the loss of thousands to save the lives of many more?

Book Two in Herbert’s classic ‘rats’ series.They've waited long enough.The mutant white rats had grown and mated, creating offspring in its own image. They dominated the others, the dark-furred ones, who foraged for food and brought it back to the lair. Now the dark rats were restless, tormented by a craving they could not satisfy. But the white sluglike thing that ruled them knew. Its two heads weaved to and fro and a stickiness drooled from its mouth as it remembered the taste of human flesh.

Aion is one of the major works of C.G. Jung's later years. The title comes from the Greek word for aeon or age and refers to the age of Christianity, for, in Aion, Jung is concerned with the collective psychic development that the Christian era represents. How did it come about when it did? What psychic change did it represent? In exploring these questions, Jung (1875-1961) draws upon Christian symbolism and, in particular, the figure of Christ as a case study in the archetype of the Self.

The Radetzky March is a meditation on the Austro-Hungarian Empire through the prism of three generations of the Trotta family. The novel opens in 1859 at the Battle of Solferino, when the young Lieutenant Trotta saves the life of the Emperor and is ennobled. He owes the Empire everything, and his son also becomes a conscientious servant of the great multinational state even as it enters into its period of chaos, with competing nationalisms and ideologies tearing it apart.

The Parent Agency is an epic wish-fulfilment adventure for every child - and for the child in everyone. Head Kid tells the story of Ryan Ward, the maestro of practical jokes. The new head teacher, Mr Carter, arrives. A man so strict even the teachers are scared of him. So imagine his surprise - and Ryan’s - when they swap bodies.

"People will die," says the panic-stricken woman outside police headquarters. She has been standing in blazing sunshine for more than an hour, and refuses to speak to anyone besides Commissaire Adamsberg. Her daughter has seen a vision: ghostly horsemen who target the most nefarious characters in Normandy. Since the middle ages there have been stories of murderers, rapists, those with serious crimes on their conscience, meeting a grizzly end following a visitation by the riders.

As summer blooms in Edinburgh's gardens and Bertie Pollock's birthday appears on the horizon, all at 44 Scotland Street is not cake and sunshine. Newlywed Angus Lordie has been booked by his bride into what he must not call the loony bin; Bruce's first encounter with hot wax brings more anguish than he bargained for; and Bertie's birthday dreams of scout camp and a penknife look set to be replaced by a game of Royal Weddings and a gender-neutral doll.

Book Three in Herbert’s classic ‘rats’ series. The final countdown. The long-dreaded nuclear conflict. The city torn apart, shattered, its people destroyed or mutilated beyond hope. For just a few, survival is possible only beneath the wrecked streets - if there is time to avoid the slow-descending poisonous ashes. But below, the rats, demonic offspring of irradiated forebears, are waiting. They know that Man is weakened, become frail. Man has become their prey.

For the first time we discover what really happened between his sister and the dastardly Wickham. How did he distract his friend Bingley from pining for his beloved Jane? Why did he propose to another young woman? Only to his diary does he tell his true story. At last we see Darcy as he really is; and, beneath his polite facade, we find a sensitive, private and passionate man.

Waverley by Sir Walter Scott is an enthralling tale of love, war and divided loyalties. Taking place during the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, the novel tells the story of proud English officer Edward Waverley. After being posted to Dundee, Edward eventually befriends chieftain of the Highland Clan Mac-Ivor and falls in love with his beautiful sister Flora. He then renounces his former loyalties in order actively to support Scotland in open rebellion against the Union with England. The book depicts stunning, romantic panoramas of the Highlands.

When the naive David Balfour sets out on his quest for a long-lost relative, a terrifying chain of events is set in motion. He is plunged into a world of infamy and violence from which there seems no escape - until, that is, he meets the enigmatic and valiant Highlander, Alan Breck....

Here are the Socratic Dialogues presented as Plato designed them to be - living discussions between friends and protagonists, with the personality of Socrates himself coming alive as he deals with a host of subjects, from justice and inspiration to courage, poetry and the gods. Plato's Socratic Dialogues provide a bedrock for classical Western philosophy. For centuries they have been read, studied and discussed via the flat pages of books, but the ideal medium for them is the spoken word.

Long-suffering child genius Bertie Pollock has much to contend with in the latest instalment of life at 44 Scotland Street, not least the birth of his brother Ulysses. Bertie had hoped that caring for a new baby would command all of his mother's attention, but he quickly sees that his dream of being left to his own devices is not destined to come true.

Five long years have passed since the annihilation of three Roman legions in the wilds of Germania. Varus, the general who led the ill-fated army, is long dead, and the bones of his 15,000 legionaries moulder in the forests. But not all the Romans were slain in the ambush. Centurion Tullus, a seasoned veteran, survived, and now he lives for revenge upon the tribal chieftain Arminius, who masterminded the ambush. Tullus will stop at nothing to kill his bitterest enemy or to recover his legion's lost Eagle.

Glasgow for Bertie is the promised land. The city of pies and Irn Bru, far from his controlling mother, Irene, – his place of escape. But how will he respond to the news of the proposed merging of Edinburgh and Glasgow? A new member of Bertie’s class at school is causing ripples in his social circle. She is called Galactica MacFee and is going to be a match for Olive and her lieutenant, Pansy. And an incredible new discovery: a Pictish stone that is said to have the first-know written poem carved into it is the talk of the town.