Showing results by narrator "Matt Addis" in All Categories

Science starts to get interesting when things don'’t make sense. Even today, there are experimental results that the most brilliant scientists can neither explain nor dismiss. In the past, similar anomalies have revolutionised our world: in the 16th century, a set of celestial irregularities led Copernicus to realise that the Earth goes around the sun and not the reverse. In 13 Things That Don'’t Make Sense, Michael Brooks meets thirteen modern-day anomalies that may become tomorrow'’s breakthroughs.

The epic novel of action, conspiracy and suspense from best-selling storyteller Robyn Young. From the bloody battlefields of the Wars of the Roses to the court of the Tudors and the dawn of a new world comes Jack Vaughan: bastard son, mercenary soldier and now the king's trusted man at a time when many choose a path of deception and conspiracy....

"I can command storms, summon fire, and unmake stone. Animals have nothing interesting to say, and no one can see the future because it has not been written," growled Balfruss. "It's dangerous to meddle with things you don't understand." When you fight magic with magic, nothing is certain. Balfruss is a battlemage, one of a vanishing breed, sworn to fight and die for a country that fears and despises him.

Xander Shute - once a wealthy banker, now living on the streets - shelters for the night in an empty Mayfair flat. When he hears the occupants returning home, he scrambles to hide. Trapped in his hiding place, he hears the couple argue and he soon finds himself witnessing a vicious murder. But who was the dead woman, who the police later tell him can't have been there? And why is the man Xander saw her with evading justice?

It is 1852, and in Sweden's far north, deep in the Arctic Circle, charismatic preacher and Revivalist Lars Levi Læstadius impassions a poverty-stricken congregation with visions of salvation. But local leaders have reason to resist a shift to temperance over alcohol. Jussi, the young Sami boy Læstadius has rescued from destitution and abuse, becomes the preacher's faithful disciple on long botanical treks to explore the flora and fauna. Læstadius also teaches him to read and write - and to love and fear God. 

April, 1145. Thorgar the Ploughman is found by the bloodied body of Father Edmund, a village priest in Ripple, and is summarily hanged for being caught in the act, despite his pleas of innocence. When his sister goes to Worcester to seek justice for Thorgar, the lord Sheriff sends Hugh Bradecote, with Serjeant Catchpoll and Underserjeant Walkelin, to discover the truth. They soon expose strong motives for placing the blame on the ploughman’s shoulders, some unpleasant secrets festering among the villagers, as well as the whisper of a treasure long lost and now rediscovered.

The enthusiasm for and expectation of happiness are so widespread today that fundamental questions about it are often overlooked. For starters, the most basic question of all: where does happiness come from? Is it your brain - a mere concoction of chemicals or network of neurons? Is it in fact your gut? (Spoiler alert: yes. Sort of) Or is it external? Is it love or sex or money or success? And what are these doing to our brains anyway? In The Happy Brain, Neuroscientist Dean Burnett delves into our most private selves to investigate what causes happiness.

The year is 1793, Stockholm. King Gustav of Sweden has been assassinated, years of foreign wars have emptied the treasuries and the realm is governed by a self-interested elite, leaving its citizens to suffer. On the streets, malcontent and paranoia abound. A body is found in the city's swamp by a watchman, Mickel Cardell, and the case is handed over to investigator Cecil Winge, who is dying of consumption. 

The 60th birthday party of Silas Kane was marred by argument and dissension amongst his family. And then, the morning after the celebrations, Kane is found dead at the foot of a cliff. The theory that Silas accidentally lost his way in the fog is confirmed when the coroner returns a verdict of death by misadventure. But then Kane's nephew, and heir, is murdered, and threats are made on the next in line to the fortune, throwing a new and sinister light on Silas Kane's death. 

Hugh Bradecote does not want his betrothed heading off on pilgrimage to the shrine of St Eadgyth at Polesworth, but the Archbishop of Canterbury's envoy and his entourage of monks seem Heaven sent as escorts, right up until they are captured by a renegade who wants his forger out of the lord Sheriff's cells; a renegade who loathes the Benedictines and kills for pleasure. 

Nobody knew where it came from. Nobody knew why it came. When an eight-foot-tall man made of stone appears in the middle of a busy city center one July afternoon, two-bit (and antisocial) reporter Andy Pointer assumes it's just a publicity stunt. Indeed, so does everyone else...until the Stone Man begins to walk, heading silently through the wall of the nearest building, flattening it, and killing several people inside as a result.

Auntie Poldi can think of no finer place to wait for death than Sicily. All she asks is a sea view, fine wine (and plenty of it), and her family close around. When death instead takes her handsome young friend Valentino - and under mysterious circumstances at that - Poldi will not take it lying down. Perhaps it's in her blood, but Auntie Poldi's hunting instincts have never felt more alive. Justice must be served - if it's the last thing she does....

Without the right mindset, no one will reach their health and fitness potential, and that's exactly what James Atkinson focuses on in this book. James Atkinson knows what it takes to set a goal, and only through sustained, consistent motivation will that goal ever be met. This book is for anyone who wants to make a change in their life but doesn't know where to start, or doesn't think they have the motivation to meet their goals because after all, motivation is a shared quality in any type of fitness goal.

For Shai, lost and drifting, a visit to her hometown in India’s Northeast offers the possibility of new ways of living. For Evelyn, a Cambridge student, scientific inspiration guides her to the forests of the lower Himalayas and a world she has only read about. For Johann, a German writer, travelling through Italy inspires him to develop groundbreaking ideas that will cement his place in history. And for a young Swede, an unwavering curiosity for earth’s natural wonders takes him on an expedition that will forever alter the way we understand the world around us.

We are witnessing the emergence of ordinary people working together to solve big problems in all aspects of our society, rooted in a communal desire to make the world a better place in which to live: The student organizing a mass global protest, inspiring millions to take action. A school achieving great academic outcomes because of its commitment to diversity. The successful brewery giving customers the opportunity to become co-producers. 

A dazzling new recording of this classic best-seller to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the author's birth, Rape of the Fair Country follows its hero Iestyn Mortimer from boyhood to manhood, through the turbulent times of the Industrial Revolution and the Chartist Revolt against the ironmasters and a government that supported them. It is a story of love, of loss, of battle and of honour, set in the plundered valleys of South Wales. Rape of the Fair Country launched the career of Alexander Cordell and went on to sell millions of copies in seventeen languages throughout the world.

October 1143. A mysterious archer who kills cleanly and 'dissolves' into the forest, a missing train of pack mules on the salt road from Wich and a lord in the wrong place at the wrong time mean a crime the lord Sheriff of Worcestershire cannot ignore. Bradecote, Catchpoll and the eager Walkelin are hunting a killer and a gang and whoever is giving them orders. They are not helped by a reeve keen to keep his position, a lord with his own ends to serve and a distrusting and vengeful widow with a haunted past, to whom Bradecote is increasingly attracted.

September 1143. Bradecote is a minor landowner and newly appointed under-sheriff. His sergeant, Catchpoll, is a weather-beaten, wily and experienced thief-taker who always looks to be one step ahead of any villain. Bradecote though quite new to the job brings an effectively analytical eye to the investigation. A series of fires around the city seem linked, and Bradecote and Catchpoll have to piece together the vengeful motive that links them in order to uncover the arsonist.

Ho Chi Minh (1890-1969), the founder of the Vietminh and President of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam, was the archetypical Communist and anti-colonial revolutionary of the twentieth century. He played a key role in the formation of the French, Chinese, and Vietnamese Communist movements and fought successfully against Japanese, French and American imperialism, becoming a hate-figure of the American state during the Vietnam War

In many corners of the world the climate of hostility hangs over any overt Christian faith commitment. The book of Daniel shows how people who worship the one, true, living God can live, work, and survive in the midst of a nation, a culture, and a government that are hostile and sometimes life-threatening.