Showing results by narrator "Simon Shepherd" in All Categories

The codebreakers at Bletchley Park have been immortalised in films such as The Imitation Game and Enigma, but the Germans were also breaking Allied ciphers. The Third Reich Is Listening is the comprehensive account of the successes, failures and science of Germany's codebreaking and signals intelligence operations from 1935 to 1945. This fast-moving blend of modern history and popular science is told through colourful personal accounts of the Germans at the heart of the story.

Science, technology and Western liberal democracy have all had a dramatic impact on our quality of life. Compared to previous generations, we have unprecedented access to information, increased personal freedom, more material comforts and more possessions. Yet, even before the shock of COVID-19, more people than ever before were reporting being depressed, anxious or unfulfilled. As our material circumstances become easier, life seems to get harder. 

Love Bombing is a radical new method for resetting the emotional thermostats of troubled children and their parents, setting them on a much happier trajectory. It is simple to do, easily explained, and works for both severe and mild problems from aged three to early teenage. 

When Iranians overthrew their monarchy, rejecting a pro-Western shah in favor of an Islamic regime, many observers predicted that revolutionary turmoil would paralyze the country for decades to come. Yet 40 years after the 1978-79 revolution, Iran has emerged as a critical player in the Middle East and the wider world, as demonstrated in part by the 2015 international nuclear agreement. In Iran Rising, renowned Iran specialist Amin Saikal describes how the country has managed to survive despite ongoing domestic struggles, Western sanctions, and other serious challenges.

In the respectable seaside town of Flaxborough, the equally respectable councillor Harold Carobleat is laid to rest. Cause of death: pneumonia. But he is scarcely cold in his coffin before Detective Inspector Purbright, affable and annoyingly polite, must turn out again to examine the death of Carobleat's neighbour, Marcus Gwill, former prop. of the local rag, the Citizen. This time it looks like foul play, unless a surfeit of marshmallows had led the late and rather unlamented Mr Gwill to commit suicide by electrocution. ('Power without responsibility', murmurs Purbright.)  

This compilation, comprising a Baker's (Street) Dozen of his adventures, re-creates the gas-lit, fog-enshrouded world of Victorian London as once more Sherlock Holmes urges, 'Come, Watson, the game is afoot!'

It started with a cash drop by an English spy in occupied Paris in 1944. Reserved for Resistance groups during the war, the money reached Émilien Amaury, an advertising executive, who was tasked to help France return to a free press once liberated. He soon launched a newspaper empire that—unbeknown to him—would own the rights to run what would become one of the greatest sporting events in history.

Spanning events over thirty years, Volume I of The Papers of Sherlock Holmes relates narratives of Holmes and Watson's days in Baker Street, as well as particulars of Holmes's supposed retirement. Follow along as The Master and his Boswell travel from the streets of London to the Kent countryside, to Oxford and Sussex. Written in traditional canonical style, these stories provide fresh details of Holmes's world. Join us as we climb the seventeen steps to the Baker Street sitting room, where Holmes and Watson prepare to begin their next adventure. The game is afoot!

Net curtains twitch furiously, and neighbours have observations to make to Chief Inspector Purbright and Sergeant Love about the inhabitants of 14, Beatrice Avenue. Nice Gordon Periam, the mild-mannered tobacconist, and his rather less nice (in fact a bit of a bounder) lodger Brian Hopjoy had apparently shared the house amicably. But now neither man is to be found, and something very disagreeable seems to be lurking in the drains.... Then a couple of government spooks turn up, one with an eye for the ladies - the drama is acquiring overtones of a Bond movie! 

Maps fascinate us. They chart our understanding of the world and they log our progress, but above all they tell our stories. From the early sketches of philosophers and explorers through to Google Maps and beyond, Simon Garfield examines how maps both relate and realign our history. His compelling narratives range from the quest to create the perfect globe to the challenges of mapping Africa and Antarctica, from spellbinding treasure maps to the naming of America, from Ordnance Survey to the mapping of Monopoly and Skyrim and from rare map dealers to cartographic frauds.

Elton John is as much loved for his outrageous personality and witty outspokenness as for his music. Such shamelessness and sheer silliness rivals anything uttered by punk rockers, yet it is so typically Elton: honest and intemperate. Tragedy and heartbreak have played a large part in his life. Behind the parties, the hedonism, the lavish stage costumes, and silly glasses lies a more somber story. Between disputes with managers, legal wranglings, public breakups, and divorce, John has been faced with serious health problems and drug addictions.

It's the height of World War II. Britain is being ravaged by bombs, and most young men are off fighting. Gordon wishes he was too. Maybe then he wouldn't get bullied for having a cowardly family.... Gordon's dad didn't serve in World War I, and now his older brother ,Raymond, isn't serving in World War II - he's gone missing. When Gordon finds a revolver hidden in his house, he tracks Raymond down but ends up involved in more than he'd bargained for.

Enter the dark and scary world of Horowitz Horror, and expect the unexpected! It's a world where everything might seem pretty normal. But the weird, the surprising and the truly terrifying are lurking just out of sight. Like a hitchhiker who isn't quite all he seems, a spooky cottage with a grisly secret and a mobile phone that lets you contact the dead! Each story has a shocking sting in the tale... Warning: Not for the nervous or frail!

Imperial Tragedy tells the story of Rome's gradual collapse. Full of palace intrigue, religious conflicts and military history, as well as details of the shifts in social, religious and political structures, Imperial Tragedy contests the idea that Rome fell due to external invasions.  

Love is a great leveller. Everyone wants love, everyone falls in love, everyone loses love, and everyone knows something of love's madness. But the experience of obsessive love is no trivial matter. In the course of his career, psychologist Dr Frank Tallis has treated many unusual patients, whose stories have lessons for all of us.

The History Keepers are in terrible danger once more. Stocks of Atomium - the crucial ingredient which allows them to travel through time - are perilously low, and the agents must embark on a risky mission to find more. And now a new and even more evil member of the Zeldt family is planning a hideous take-over of the Ancient world, and they are forced to travel further back into history than ever before in order to save the day. Well, all of the days actually.

At the war's end, Churchill and his colleagues left the chamber and locked the door behind them and the War Rooms remained there, untouched and little known, until the early 1980s. Today, those historic chambers are on display as the Churchill War Rooms exhibit. With Secrets of Churchill's War Rooms, you can go behind the glass partitions that separate the War Rooms from the visiting public, bringing listeners closer than ever before to where Churchill not only ran the war but won it.

William is a happy man. He has just married Isabel, the girl of his dreams, and is confidently sailing along on a sea of wedded bliss. He’s got a hot wife, a snazzy new job and things couldn’t be much better. Sure, there are a few bumps in the road, but life on the whole is good. That is until Isabel’s ‘best friend’ Alex starts to intrude on their wedded bliss. And when William’s ex-girlfriend Saskia - aka the ‘Destroyer of Relationships’ - appears on the scene, things go from bad to worse.

It’s a difficult time for William Dougal. He’s given up smoking and, to make matters worse, a touch of blackmail persuades him into doing a job for his old adversary James Hanbury. Nothing complicated - all he has to do is keep an eye on Dr Vertag, the leader of a lunatic fringe survival group. But he has hardly started when the barman who tried to warn him off is murdered. Suddenly Zelda appears from Dougal’s murky past. Zelda is big, black and very beautiful. And just as suddenly she is kidnapped from his flat.

The powerful story of the Red Army's battle of liberation against the Nazi invader - from Stalingrad all the way to Berlin. In February 1943, German forces surrendered to the Red Army at Stalingrad, and the tide of war turned. By May 1945 Soviet soldiers had stormed Berlin and brought down Hitler's regime. Total War follows the fortunes of these fighters as they liberated Russia and the Ukraine from the Nazi invader and fought their way into the heart of the Reich. It reveals the horrors they experienced.