Showing results by narrator "Michael Langan" in All Categories

Called "a veritable tree whisperer" by the Wall Street Journal, Peter Wohlleben is known across the world for his illuminating books about forests and how to help them thrive. Now, the German forester invites listeners into his home for the first time in Our Little Farm, describing the steps he and his wife, Miriam, have taken to live sustainably and in harmony with nature.

From Cornish devils, to Welsh witches, from Ghazi genies, to Covent Garden mediums, from pagan sacrifices, to mummies' curses, The Infinitely Stranger Cases of Sherlock Holmes collects six canonical tales which test Holmes's ability to unravel the conspiracies, the misdirections, the strange, and the curious. The game is afoot.

883AD, Scandinavia. Harald Fairhair is King of Norway, and Bjorn Ironside King of Sweden. To the west, the Crippled King of Mann builds an army in thrall to Loki. He threatens to destroy the Viking world and set Midgard on the road to the Ragnarök, the end of days.

Impossible Monsters reveals the central role of dinosaurs and their discovery in toppling traditional religious authority, and in changing perceptions about the Bible, history, and mankind's place in the world.

As Inspector Lestrade asks "why, gentlemen, would someone break into a house, murder the owner and then steal only one volume of an Australian atlas, when all three volumes were there for the taking," more atlases are stolen before Holmes solves the mystery.

The fog, the mystery, the intrigue of 19th Century London, the incomparable team of Holmes and Watson, the brilliant deductions, the twisting plots, and the unimagined solutions—all these elements are accounted for in The Business of Baker Street, a collection of five new Sherlock Holmes stories. Each tribute tale respects the renowned style of Arthur Conan Doyle, and every story lures the listener into the entrancing world of Sherlock Holmes.

This wide-ranging collection of stories takes Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson from their cozy rooms in London, to exploring England's bucolic Lake District, to clambering up an extinct volcano in Scotland. There is murder on the Thames, a spectacularly unpleasant Lord finds himself on the wrong end of a carving knife at the legendary Simpson's-in-the-Strand restaurant, and the brutal slaying of the brilliant Hypatia of Alexandria in 415 CE may finally be solved.

1930. The tranquillity of suburban Craynebrook is disturbed when a lifeless and nameless body is found dumped on the local common. Enter newly promoted Detective Inspector Matthew Stannard, a policeman with a reputation that precedes him and which threatens to drag him down. As Matthew embarks on his investigation, an another, more sinister plot demands his attention. One by one, members of an esteemed social club are meeting an untimely demise, leaving their community in a state of panic that they might be next.

The Great Game continues for Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson. In 'The Gravesend Gryphon and other Sherlock Holmes stories', the great detective encounters a wounded old soldier, Baroness Orczy's old man in the corner, H. G. Wells's Sea lady, and a household with a troublesome family member. He helps a failure to become a hero, assists in a search for hidden treasure, and counters human trafficking in North East England. He even helps a 'Saint George' to defeat a dragon. The game is definitely afoot.

It's easy to think that ancient history is, well, ancient history—obsolete, irrelevant, unjustifiably focused on Greece and Rome, and at risk of extinction. In What Is Ancient History?, Walter Scheidel presents a compelling case for a new kind of ancient history—a global history that captures antiquity's pivotal role as a decisive phase in human development, one that provided the shared foundation of our world and continues to shape our lives today.

From a country estate in Sussex to the docklands of Limehouse, from the Royal Albert Hall to a music hall in Shoreditch, from the net-curtained suburbs of Beckenham and Hampstead to a brothel in Bow, Holmes and Watson go plumbing the depths of human depravity to unmask likely and unlikely villains. The cast of colourful characters include a world famous Russian violinist, an intrepid female detective, Miss Dimples and her performing poodles, a diminutive maid named Fancy, a dead policeman on a platform at St Pancras station, as well as Wiggins, Jimsy and Bobs of the Baker Street Irregulars.

Using academic, comprehensive, logical, and, at times, mathematical approaches, The Science of Weird Shit convincingly debunks ESP, communicating with the dead, and alien abduction claims, among other phenomena. All the while, however, French maintains that our belief in such phenomena is neither ridiculous nor trivial; if anything, such claims can tell us a great deal about the human mind if we pay them the attention they are due.

When David Bowie died on January 10th, 2016, aged sixty-nine, his death was greeted with the greatest display of public mourning since Princess Diana three decades before. His home cities of New York and London saw thousands of well-wishers assemble to play his music and console each other in their hour of grief. Twenty-five years before, Bowie appeared to be washed up. His '80s career had been a slow descent into self-parody, his attempts to diversify into hard rock had been disastrous, and the art-rock music was badly out of fashion.

Bestselling authors and international speakers Jeremie Kubicek and Steve Cockram share their simple but powerful strategies for boosting your emotional intelligence and elevating your interpersonal communication skills. Step by step, you will learn to integrate Care, Celebration, Collaboration, Critique, and Clarification into your communication toolbox. Using one of these 5 Cs, you can verbally ask someone to respond in the way that you most want, and as a result, facilitate a successful interaction.

Nonprofit leadership is hard. Most new nonprofit leaders are ill-prepared for the challenges they will face, and even those who are more experienced struggle to ensure their organizations deliver the change they are committed to.

Launched in 1914, two years after the ill-fated voyage of her sister ship, RMS Titanic, the Britannic was intended to be superior to her tragic twin in every way. But war intervened and in 1915 she was requisitioned as a hospital ship. Just one year later, while on her way to collect troops wounded in the Balkans campaign, she fell victim to a mine laid by a German U-boat and tragically sank in the middle of the Aegean Sea. There her wreck lay, at a depth of 400 feet, until it was discovered fifty-nine years later by legendary explorer Jacques Cousteau. 

Money issues dominate the news, but economic jargon and the complexity of it all can be bamboozling for regular folks. Paul Sheard, a leading economist and research fellow at Harvard Kennedy School, is known for his ability to see the forest and the trees and demystify complex economic phenomena. With The Power of Money, Sheard empowers listeners to become better-informed economic citizens by providing context for some of the biggest questions surrounding money.

This is the first thoroughly revised edition of The Rape of the Nile—Fagan’s classic account of the cavalcade of archaeologists, thieves, and sightseers who have flocked to the Nile Valley since ancient times. Featured in this edition are new accounts of stunning recent discoveries, including the Royal Tombs of Tanis, the Valley of Golden Mummies at Bahariya, the Tomb of the Sons of Ramses, and the sunken city of Alexandria (whose lighthouse was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World).

What's behind a series of mysterious deaths among the favourite concubines of Sultan of Turkey, Abdul Hamid II? Suspecting a plot against himself, the Sultan has called on Sherlock Holmes to investigate. However, as a man, the detective is clearly unable to penetrate the exotic enclosed world of the harem, so he reluctantly enlists the help of his landlady, Mrs Hudson. Together with Dr Watson, they travel across Europe by Orient Express to Constantinople, on the way encountering Holmes's old enemy, Baron Mauterpuis.

Sherlock Holmes is a Yorkshireman, born and brought up on the North York Moors, but he spent much of his life at 221B Baker Street in London. He is more than a character from Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's imagination. For many thousands of followers, he still lives in their minds through films, television, stage and radio plays, and written stories. Ever since Holmes first appeared in print, people have used the stories, together with knowledge of the culture of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, to speculate about his life. They wanted more than the 60 stories in the Canon.