Showing results by narrator "Peter Kenny" in All Categories

Reynevan begins by hiding away in Bohemia but soon leaves for Silesia, where he carries out dangerous secret missions entrusted to him by the leaders of the Hussite religion. At the same time, he strives to avenge the death of his brother and discover the whereabouts of his beloved. Once again pursued by multiple enemies, Reynevan is constantly getting into and out of trouble. 

The Wasp Factory is a bizarre, imaginative, disturbing, and darkly comic look into the mind of a child psychopath - one of the most infamous of contemporary Scottish novels. 

It's always awkward when 5,000 kronor goes missing. When it happens at a certain grotty hotel in South Stockholm, it's particularly awkward because the money belongs to the hitman currently staying in room seven. Per Persson, the hotel receptionist, just wants to mind his own business and, preferably, not get murdered. Johanna Kjellander, temporarily resident in room eight, is a priest without a vocation and, as of last week, without a parish. But right now she has two things at her disposal: an envelope containing 5,000 kronor and an excellent idea....

Noah Brown has a gift for fighting. Unfortunately, punching things doesn't pay the bills, at least until he died and an Eldritch god found his soul. The encounter brings him to a new world, summoned by bloody cultists. He's got nothing but the shirt on his back and a strange item in his system menu.

When a mountain mysteriously appears in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, a group of scientists are sent to investigate – and discover what is at the summit. Eminent scientist, explorer and chronic loner Harry Tunmore is among those asked to join the secret mission – and he has his own reasons for joining the team beyond scientific curiosity. But the higher the team ascend, the stranger things become. Time and space behave differently on the mountain, turning minutes into hours, and hours into days.

The story of one of the greatest footballers of all time, Barcelona and Argentina's Lionel Messi. Despite all the fame and adulation, remarkably little is known about Lionel Messi, the modest and intensely private footballing genius. Just how did the boy from Rosario, Argentina, become the world's greatest player? Guillem Balague has had unprecedented access to Messi's inner circle: his coaches, teammates and family. In addition, Pep Guardiola has provided exclusive analysis of the player. The result is an authoritative and compelling account of the wonderful mystery that is Messi.

With his Warrior Ceremony approaching, Merrick was sure his greatest wish was about to come true, never expecting he was going to be thrown into a torrent of change that would threaten to sweep away his whole world. Invaders from another world were beginning to creep into his people’s land, intent on devouring every resource they could find, and when Merrick offers to act as a guide for a rich young prospector’s group, he finds he may have bit off more than he can chew.

The Culture - a human/machine symbiotic society - has thrown up many great Game Players, and one of the greatest is Gurgeh: Jernau Morat Gurgeh, The Player of Games, master of every board, computer, and strategy. Bored with success, Gurgeh travels to the Empire of Azad, cruel and incredibly wealthy, to try their fabulous game... a game so complex, so like life itself, that the winner becomes emperor.

An Abyssal Rift is about to open in Heartillia and Noah is invited to the city by its Lord on a special quest. Having reached level 50 at a rapid rate, he will need to train his body to keep up with his soul's progress. But the effort will be worth the price when Noah learns what awaits him at the end.

A few spliffs, a spot of mild S&M, phone through the copy of tomorrow's front page, catch up with the latest from your mystery source - could be big, could be very big - in fact, just a regular day at the office for free-wheeling, substance-abusing Cameron Colley, a fully paid-up Gonzo hack on an Edinburgh newspaper. The source is pretty thin, but Cameron senses a scoop and checks out a series of bizarre deaths from a few years ago - only to find that the police are checking out a series of bizarre deaths that are happening right now. Cameron just might know more about it than he'd care to admit.

It is the year 1710, and Thomas True has arrived on old London Bridge with a dangerous secret. One night, lost amongst the squalor of London's hidden back streets, he finds himself drawn into the outrageous underworld of the molly houses. Meanwhile, carpenter Gabriel Griffin struggles to hide his double life as Lotty, the molly's silent guard. When the queen of all 'he-harlots', Mother Clap, confides in him about a deadly threat, he realises his friends are facing imminent execution. To the horror of all mollies, there is a rat amongst them.

For Isaiah Berlin, there is a fundamental distinction in mankind: those who are fascinated by the infinite variety of things - foxes - and those who relate everything to a central all-embracing system - hedgehogs. It can be applied to the greatest creative minds: Dante, Ibsen and Proust are hedgehogs, while Shakespeare, Aristotle and Joyce are foxes. Yet when Berlin reaches the case of Tolstoy, he finds a fox by nature, but a hedgehog by conviction.

In The Conquest of Bread, first published in 1892, Kropotkin set out his ideas on how his heightened idealism could work. It was all the more extraordinary because he was born into an aristocratic land-owning family - with some 1,200 male serfs - though from his student years his liberal views and his fixation on the need for social change saw him take a revolutionary path. This led rapidly to decades of exile. It is a passionate, even a fierce polemic for dramatic social change. 

Silky, Siv, and Mitsuki are now willing to do whatever it takes to find and rescue Ambassador Galen Vim. But government agents, criminal organizations, and bounty hunters swarm the Titus II system. Getting to the planet alive may be the easiest part of this mission since no one has seen the ambassador since he was captured by Tekk Reapers.

Stewart Gilmour is back in Stonemouth. After five years in exile, his presence is required at the funeral of patriarch Joe Murston, and even though the last time Stu saw the Murstons he was running for his life, staying away might be even more dangerous than turning up. An estuary town north of Aberdeen, Stonemouth, with its five mile beach, can be beautiful on a sunny day. On a bleak one it can seem to offer little more than sea fog, gangsters, cheap drugs and a suspension bridge irresistible to suicides.

After surviving the destruction of Chaenbalu, new mysteries and greater threats await Annev and his friends in the capital city of Luqura. As they navigate the city's perilous streets, Annev searches for a way to control his nascent magic and remove the cursed artifact now fused to his body. But what might removing it cost him? As Annev grapples with his magic, Fyn joins forces with old enemies and new allies, waging a secret war against Luqura's corrupt guilds in the hopes of forging his own criminal empire.

Spellswords, Wardens, Traders, Scholars, Diplomats - the five departments of the Royal Institute of Magic an apprentice must master to become a full member. Ben Greenwood has no idea what to expect when he begins his apprenticeship, but he quickly realizes his family history is going to make life difficult. On his very first day, a Shadowseeker - a mysterious and dangerous dark elf - surfaces, and Ben suspects the dark elves might be trying to capture him again in an effort to flush out his parents.

Charlie meets everyone - but only once. You might meet him in a hospital, in a war zone, or at the scene of traffic accident. Then again, you might meet him at the North Pole - Charlie gets everywhere. Sometimes he is sent as a courtesy, sometimes as a warning. Either way, this is going to be the most important meeting of your life. The End of the Day is the stunning new story from Richard and Judy Book Club author Claire North: the voice behind the word-of-mouth best-seller The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August.

Two years after his parents' sudden disappearance, Ben Greenwood stumbles upon a cryptic letter that could shed some light on their whereabouts. But before he can track them down, he'll need to find the mysterious organization that sent the letter: The Royal Institute of Magic. To succeed, Ben will have to navigate a land filled with fantastic creatures and spellshooters, where magic can be bought and sold, to unravel an ancient family secret that could hold the key to defeating an evil the Institute has been fighting for the last 500 years.

Shaun Bythell owns The Bookshop, Wigtown - Scotland's largest second-hand bookshop. It contains 100,000 books, spread over a mile of shelving, with twisting corridors and roaring fires, and all set in a beautiful, rural town by the edge of the sea. A book-lover's paradise? Well, almost... In these wry and hilarious diaries, Shaun provides an inside look at the trials and tribulations of life in the book trade, from struggles with eccentric customers to wrangles with his own staff, who include the ski-suit-wearing, bin-foraging Nicky.