Showing results by narrator "Leighton Pugh" in All Categories

Skylarks are the heralds of our countryside. Their music is the quintessential sound of spring. The spirit of English pastoralism, they inspire poets, composers and farmers alike. History has seen us poeticise and musicise the bird, but also capture and eat them. We watch as they climb the sky, delight in their joyful singing, and yet, we harm them, too. The Soaring Life of the Lark explores the music and poetry; the breathtaking heights and struggle to survive of one of Britain's most iconic songbirds.

Brought to you by Penguin. In the beginning was the earth... From the Paleozoic volcanoes that stained its soil, to the Saxons who occupied it, to the Tudors who traded its wool, to the Land Girls of wartime, John Lewis-Stempel charts a sweeping, lyrical history of Woodston: the quintessential...

1939. As Europe teeters on the brink of war, Alfred Kendall is tasked with carrying out a minor mission for the British Intelligence Service. Travelling to Prague, he takes his troubled young son, Hugh, as cover.  When Hitler invades Czechoslovakia, Alfred is given an ultimatum by the Czech Resistance. They will arrange for him to return to England, but only if he leaves his son Hugh behind as collateral. Hugh is soon taken under the wing of a Nazi colonel - Helmuth Scholl. 

Brought to you by Penguin. The Charente: roofs of red terracotta tiles, bleached-white walls, windows shuttered against the blaring sun. The baker does his rounds in his battered little white van with a hundred warm baguettes in the back, while a cat picks its way past a Romanesque church, the...

Melting ice, a military arms race, the rush to exploit resources at any cost - the Arctic is now the stage on which our future will be decided. And as temperatures rise and the ice retreats, Vladimir Putin orders Russia's oil rigs to move north. But one early September morning in 2013, 30 men and women from 18 countries - the crew of Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise - decide to draw a line in the ice and protest the drilling in the Arctic.

From the International Booker Prize shortlisted author of The Order of the Day and The War of the Poor comes a searing account of a conflict that dealt a fatal blow to French colonialism. A NEW YORKER BEST BOOK OF 2023 'Excoriating and profound . . . A remarkable work' - Scotsman 'Absolutely...

Berlin, 1962. Morale is at rock bottom in East Germany, thrown into chaos by the new Berlin Wall. The Ministry for State Security is hunting for a new weapon in the war against capitalism - and their solution is stranger than fiction. Rather than guns, tanks or bombs, the Stasi resolve to fight the enemy through rhyme and verse, winning the Culture Wars through poetry - and the result is the most bizarre book club in history.

A superbly controlled emotional thriller of passion, betrayal and conscience, set in post-War Germany, soon to be made into a major film. Hamburg, 1946. Thousands remain displaced in what is now the British Occupied Zone. Charged with overseeing the rebuilding of this devastated city and the...

Twelve-year-old Carl Hunter has been snatched at gunpoint from his home on Jersey. He and his kidnapper have vanished without a trace. Enter Ben Hope, now working freelance to rescue kidnapped children. But as Ben begins his search for Carl, he soon discovers that nothing about this case is as it seems. Behind the mystery of the boy's disappearance lies a sinister secret that threatens to destroy anyone who comes into contact with it...

The war is over, but Berlin is a desolate sea of rubble. There is a shortage of everything: Food, clothing, tobacco. The local population is scrabbling to get by. Kasper Meier is one of these Germans, and his solution is to trade on the black market to feed himself and his elderly father. He can find anything that people need, for the right price. Even other people. When a young woman, Eva, arrives at Kasper's door seeking the whereabouts of a British pilot, he feels a reluctant sympathy for her but won't interfere in military affairs.

Sultan Gadaffi has escaped from Libya with a fistful of dangerous secrets. The British Government want ex-Special Forces operative Steve Range, the go-to man for any Black-Ops missions, to lead an ultra-covert mercenary group to seize him from his near-impregnable desert stronghold. Saed is defended by Tuareg warriors armed to the teeth with stolen NATO hardware. If Range's team can somehow overcome them, then they will earn themselves gold bullion worth $500 million.

Brought to you by Penguin. "I adore the fox for its magnificence; I hate the fox for killing my chickens. To love and loathe the fox is a British condition." The fox is our apex predator, our most beautiful and clever killer. We have witnessed its wild touch, watched it slink by bins at night...

Winner of the Canadian Jewish Literary Award for History From the two-time winner of the Canadian Jewish Book Award, the first full depiction of the wave of anti-Jewish pogroms that followed the Russian Revolution and how they laid the groundwork for the Holocaust Finalist for the Lionel Gelber...

Brought up in Switzerland, the only son of well-to-do parents, Charles Fryerne is somewhat unprepared for the world he meets when he goes up to Oxford University in the early 1980s. There he meets a fascinating social set, including a stellar young playwright, a student dubbed 'the future leader of the Conservative party' and a mercurial figure with ambitions to become the youngest prime minister since Pitt. When they leave university, the characters go their separate ways.

Jocelyn Pierston, a successful sculptor, is helpless in the face of "the well-beloved": the manifestation of perfect womanhood that seems to move like a will-o'-the-wisp from one acquaintance to the next. It shapes his whole life. Where his artistry involves permanence - cold stone objects - his heart is caught by ephemeral beauty. After years spent in London, a return to his rocky birthplace, the Isle of Slingers, sparks Pierston's extraordinary involvement with three generations of the Caro family.

A Times Literary Supplement Book of the Year A riveting account of a forgotten holocaust: the slaughter of over one hundred thousand Ukrainian Jews in the aftermath of the Russian Revolution. In the Midst of Civilized Europe repositions the pogroms as a defining moment of the twentieth century...

When Detective Inspector Robert Finlay is sent to a military barracks to investigate a connection to weapons discovered in the possession of London gangsters, he is given strict instructions not to get involved in a suicide enquiry into the recent death of a young, recruit soldier. The army partners Finlay with Floria McLaren, an ambitious military policewoman who doesn't believe the death was a suicide.

They say that third time's a charm... It's been two years since mass murderer, Giacomo Riondino, disappeared after killing Greta Alfieri. Dr. Claps, devastated and guilt-ridden by Greta's death, has been on a man-hunt for Riondino ever since. Meanwhile, an American girl disappears on the 382nd step of the Cerro trail in Guayaquil, Ecuador. No one saw her disappear. Who took her? And how? When the US authorities contact Claps, he is certain that it must be Riordino. But, unlike Riondino's other victims, the girl has disappeared into thin air.

A gripping thriller full of twists you won't see coming... Seven years ago, psychiatrist Dr Claps assisted police in capturing Giacomo Riondino, a man accused of abducting, torturing and murdering two women. On arrest, tests had revealed that Riondino suffered from a rare and disturbing psychiatric condition and was sectioned. Six years later, Riondino is on the run after escaping from a rehabilitation centre, leaving a trail of bloody murders in his wake.

As old friends the Wiksells and the Anderssons raise their glasses, their teenage children host their own party across town, finally free to let loose. But the next morning, seventeen-year-old Jennifer Wiksell is missing. The hours tick by. The police get involved. And no one knows who to trust. These two families have a lot to hide. Could the answer to Jennifer's disappearance lie close to home?