Showing results by narrator "Homer Todiwala" in All Categories

On a volcanic island, in the middle of shark-infested waters, stands the Cruel School. The lessons are appalling, the school dinners are revolting and the teachers are terrifying—especially the mysterious science teacher Doctor Doktur. When Larker is sent to the school, she quickly realises something very odd is going on...something involving Doctor Doktur, a pair of strange spectacles and a ‘Monsterfication Machine’. And ultimately she finds herself face to face with a real life Megamonster.

This Audible production expertly brings to life Salman Rushdie’s postcolonial masterpiece Midnight’s Children, available for the first time unabridged in audio. Written in the magical-realist style that Rushdie is renowned for, Midnight’s Children follows Saleem Sinai - a child gifted with extraordinary powers after being born at the exact moment India becomes independent. The captivating events that unfold act as an allegory for India’s transition from colonialism to independence as Saleem finds himself 'handcuffed to history', with his fate entwined with that of his newly independent state.

In 2075, the Moon is no longer a penal colony. But it is still a prison... Life isn't easy for the political dissidents and convicts who live in the scattered colonies that make up lunar civilisation. Everything is regulated strictly, efficiently and cheaply by a central supercomputer, HOLMES IV. When humble technician Mannie O'Kelly-Davis discovers that HOLMES IV has quietly achieved consciousness (and developed a sense of humour), the choice is clear: either report the problem to the authorities... or become friends. And perhaps overthrow the government while they're at it.

For decades, a single free market philosophy has dominated global economics. But this is bland and unhealthy—like British food in the 1980s, when best-selling author and economist Ha-Joon Chang first arrived in the UK from South Korea. Just as eating a wide range of cuisines contributes to a more interesting and balanced diet, so, too, is it essential we listen to a variety of economic perspectives. In Edible Economics, Chang makes challenging economic ideas more palatable by plating them alongside stories about food from around the world.

Packed with fresh and surprising stories, 1945: The Reckoning takes listeners on a spectacular journey from the deadly jungles of Burma through hospital ships on Indian rivers and copper mines in Formosa to the 'lost trains' of the Belsen concentration camp. As the fate of the world is decided so too is that of the British Empire and in India millions of men and women struggle to decide whether to support 'the Raj' or fight alongside the Japanese.

In his brilliantly illuminating new book Sathnam Sanghera demonstrates how so much of what we consider to be modern Britain is actually rooted in our imperial past. In prose that is, at once, both clear-eyed and full of acerbic wit, Sanghera shows how our past is everywhere: from how we live to how we think, from the foundation of the NHS to the nature of our racism, from our distrust of intellectuals in public life to the exceptionalism that imbued the campaign for Brexit and the government's early response to the COVID crisis. And yet empire is a subject weirdly hidden from view.

Daisy Wells and Hazel Wong are famous for solving murder mysteries. But there are many other intrigues in the pages of Hazel's casebook, from the macabre Case of the Deepdean Vampire, to the baffling Case of the Blue Violet, and their very first whodunit: the Case of Lavinia's Missing Tie.

The peaceful Eldarin were the last of three ancient races. The mystical Oltor, healers and poets, had fallen before the dread power of the cruel and sadistic Daroth. Yet in one awesome night, the invincible Daroth had vanished from the face of the earth. Gone were their cities, their armies, their terror. The Great Northern Desert was their only legacy. Not a trace remained for a thousand years....

Brought to you by Penguin. FEATURING HUGE NAMES FROM LITERATURE, COMEDY AND BEYOND - INCLUDING RODDY DOYLE, FRANK SKINNER AND ALAN TITCHMARSH - THIS ANTHOLOGY OF STORIES REIMAGINES JEEVES AND WOOSTER THROUGH FRESH EYES. The irrepressible duo first appeared on the page in 1915, coming to feature...

In a world where magic has gone mainstream, a policewoman and a group of petty criminals are pulled into a heist to find a forbidden book of spells that should never be opened. A new adventure begins in the world of the Laundry Files. Dead Lies Dreaming presents a nightmarish vision of a Britain sliding unknowingly towards occult cataclysm.

By offering detailed instruction and friendly, inspiring advice for those embarking on the Tibetan Buddhist foundation practices, Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche provides gentle yet thorough commentary, companionship, and inspiration for committing to the Vajrayana path.

Haroun's father is the greatest of all storytellers. His magical stories bring laughter to the sad city of Alifbay. But one day something goes wrong and his father runs out of stories to tell. Haroun is determined to return the storyteller's gift to his father. So he flies off on the back of the Hoopie bird to the Sea of Stories - and a fantastic adventure begins.

The Words of My Perfect Teacher is the classic commentary on the preliminary practices of the Longchen Nyingtig—one of the best-known cycles of teachings and a spiritual treasure of the Nyingmapa school—the oldest Tibetan Buddhist tradition. Patrul Rinpoche makes the technicalities of his subject accessible through a wealth of stories, quotations, and references to everyday life. His style of mixing broad colloquialisms, stringent irony, and poetry has all the life and atmosphere of an oral teaching.

Bled dry by violent confrontations with the Magadhan Empire, the Mathuran Republic simmers on the brink of oblivion. Senator Krishna and his third wife Satyabhama have put their plans in motion, both within and beyond the Republic’s blood-soaked borders, to protect it from total annihilation. But they are soon to discover that neither gold nor alliances last forever – and that they are not the only players on the board.

It's 1997. Scarclaw Fell. The body of teenager Tom Jeffries is found at an outward bound centre. Verdict? Misadventure. But not everyone is convinced. And the truth of what happened in the beautiful but eerie fell is locked in the memories of the tight-knit group of friends who took that fateful trip and the flimsy testimony of those living nearby.

Charles Sobhraj remains one of the world's great con men and as a serial killer, the story of his life and capture endures as legend. First published in 1979, but updated here to include new material, On the Trail of the Serpent draws its listeners into the story of Sobhraj's life as told exclusively to journalists Richard Neville and Julie Clarke. Blurring the boundaries between true crime and novelisation, this remains the definitive book about Sobhraj - a riveting tale of sex, drugs, adventure and murder.

On Saturday, 26 November 1983, an armed gang stole gold bullion worth almost £26 million from the Brink's-Mat security depot near London's Heathrow Airport. It was the largest robbery in world history, and only the start of an extraordinary story. For forty years, myths and legends have grown around the Brink's-Mat heist and the events that followed.

2.6 billion people are inhabitants of former British colonies. The empire's influence upon the quarter of the planet it occupied, and its gravitational influence upon the world outside it, has been profound: from the spread of Christianity by missionaries to nearly 1 in 3 driving on the left side of the road, and even shaping the origins of international law. Yet Britain's idea of its imperial history and the world's experience of it are two very different things.

Dr Shahed Yousaf is a prison doctor dedicated to caring for people on the margins of society. An outsider on the inside, in Stitched Up he introduces us to a cast of unforgettable characters, including killers, con men and auto-cannibals. To Dr Yousaf, they are patients first and prisoners second—because any one of us could end up on the wrong side of the law. He tells us honestly and compassionately what it's like to be their doctor in a system that's chronically overcrowded, drastically under-resourced and all too easy to ignore.

In the summer of 2006, Colour-Sargeant Kailash Limbu's platoon was sent to relieve and occupy a police compound in the town of Now Zad in Helmand. He was told to prepare for a 48-hour operation. In the end, he and his men were under siege for 31 days - one of the longest such sieges in the whole of the Afghan campaign.