Showing results by narrator "Joan Walker" in All Categories

In "The Story of a Fierce Bad Rabbit," a bad rabbit steals a carrot from a good rabbit and scratches him in the process. When a hunter mistakes the bad rabbit for a bird, the bad rabbit inadvertently receives his just desserts.

In The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck, a farmer's wife believes ducks make poor sitters and takes their eggs to give to her hens to hatch them. The duck Jemima decides to find a safe place away from the farm to lay her eggs. When a fox offers to help, Jemima must keep her guard up. The 12th of Beatrix Potter's 22 charmingly illustrated tales of animals in amusing situations, The Tale of Jemima Puddle-Duck has children and adults alike since its release in 1907.

Full-cast performance with comprehensive commentary and analysis for any student to fully understand and appreciate the novel. Hardy's world is brought to life in this vivid drama that sets the scene, tells the tale, and puts the characters on trial using theatre-in-education techniques to examine "the leaden gloom of one who has lost all".

Brought to you by Penguin. It's Christmas at Westbury Manor and amateur detective Hugh Gaveston must unravel a fiendish mystery... Christmas Eve, 1938. The Westbury family and assorted friends have gathered for another legendary celebration at their beautiful country house. The champagne flows...

From the bestselling author of A Woman of Substance, a page-turning epic Victorian historical family saga. London 1889: Victorian London is a place of wealth, privilege and poverty, a city of extremes. For James Falconer, who grew up as a barrow boy on a London market, it is a city of...

Jerusalem, 1920: in an already fractured city, 11-year-old Prudence feels the tension rising as her architect father launches an ambitious and wildly eccentric plan to redesign the Holy City by importing English parks to the desert. Prue, known as the 'little witness', eavesdrops underneath the tables of tearooms and behind the curtains of the dance halls of the city's elite, watching everything but rarely being watched herself.

Can you remember how photosynthesis works? Well, what about quadratic equations? Or the names of all the Bennet sisters in Pride and Prejudice? How about Henry VIII’s wives, conjunctions, inertia, the continents of the world and the Seven Deadly Sins? And what on earth is the point of pi? Let’s face it, there are an awful lot of half-remembered things floating around in our heads.

Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes includes well-known nursery rhymes such as "Goosey Goosey Gander", "This Little Piggy", and "Three Blind Mice", rewritten to refer to Beatrix Potter's own recurring characters. Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes has delighted children and adults alike since its release in 1922. 

Agatha Christie, in London to visit her agent, boards a train preoccupied with the knowledge that her husband Archie is having an affair. She feels a touch on her back, loses her balance but is pulled to safety from the rush of the incoming train. So begins a sequence of terrifying events. Her rescuer is no guardian angel but a blackmailer, and Agatha must use every ounce of her cleverness to thwart an adversary determined to exploit her genius for murder to kill on his behalf.

Three German women are haunted by the past and their secrets in the devastating aftermath of WWII. A mesmerising story of resistance, forgiveness and the complexity of the human heart. A resistance widow. A silent co-conspirator. The only one who survived. Bavaria, Germany. June, 1945. The Third Reich has crumbled. The Russians are coming. Can Marianne von Lingenfels and the women in her care survive and build their ravaged world anew?

Robin Ballantyne is investigating the murder of a British man in Beijing. Is his death linked to a recent series of brutal attacks on women? In a city thick with paranoia and corruption, Robin struggles to separate rumour from reality.

When DS Josie Masters is called out to a house in North Oxford to investigate a serious incident, things take a personal turn. The body is Harry’s - her friend and former colleague. Josie thought Harry lived alone, but evidence suggests he’d had a lodger - a young woman who has fled the scene.

1912, Loughborough. Molly and Queenie are best friends living on the same street, both are in love with Harry Spencer, though he has made his choice in Queenie . . . Molly, with determined spirit, becomes increasingly involved in the Suffragette cause and grows in confidence. She is blamed for...

Step into the magical world of Hedgewitch, where the land of Faerie lies just beyond our own . . . The enchanting new series continues. Cassie has settled into life in Hedgely when, out of the blue, her troubled cousin, Sebastian, comes to stay for Hallowe'en. Sneering and scornful, Sebastian...

Ipswich, 1923: After an unlucky start in her first role as a nursemaid, sixteen-year-old Elin Odell looks forward to seeing in the New Year at home. Little does she know, her family is changing and she has no idea what lies ahead. Having been offered the role as governess for the Lamberts in Middlesex, Elin quickly accepts, leaving her own family behind in Ipswich. But when tragedy strikes at her new home, Elin steps up to hold everyone together at the expense of her own happiness.

In "The Tale of the Pie and the Patty-Pan", Ribby, a cat, invites a little dog called Duchess to tea. Duchess accepts the invitation but is anxious that she will be served mouse. When Duchess switches pies in Ribby's oven before tea, confusion ensues.

Oli and Joe are identical twins. But they will never be the same. Lizzie Truman gives birth to her sons at thirty-one weeks. From the start, the differences between the twins are clear. Oli is bigger, stronger, healthier. Joe is small and much less robust, his future inexorably altered by the trauma of his premature delivery. As soon as the boys are well enough, Lizzie checks out of the maternity hospital and leaves her old life behind. By the time Oli and Joe are grown, Beth has a new name, a thriving business, and she has successfully raised her sons alone.

Brought to you by Penguin. **LONGLISTED FOR THE WOMEN’S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2024** What do three murderers, Karl Marx's daughter and a vegetarian vicar have in common? They all helped create the Oxford English Dictionary. The Oxford English Dictionary has long been associated with elite...

1918. Fleeing from her past, Cathy Carmichael is new to the Sixteen Streets. She has nothing to her name, no plan and nowhere to go. Cathy thinks she's struck gold when she runs into Mrs Sturrocks, an elderly lady who offers her a room at her boarding house. Her son, Noel, might be strange and sulky, but he gives her a job at the Robin Hood pub and before long, Cathy is thriving as the new barmaid. The Sixteen Streets was only meant to be a temporary stop for Cathy...but could it become home instead?

Benjamim, a young man on the cusp of fatherhood, discovers a disturbing family secret: before his father was born, his paternal grandfather had a child with Benjamim's mother. With both men dead, Benjamim turns to three of their confidantes to piece together his family history: Haroldo, his grandfather's best friend; Isabel, his grandmother; and Raul, a friend from his father's youth. Through their conflicting testimonies, full of blind spots and contradictions, Benjamim will gradually learn of the secrets and conflicts that shattered his wealthy family.