Showing results by narrator "Leighton Pugh" in All Categories

Izaak Walton's The Compleat Angler, long considered the bible of fishing, is a joyful celebration of the English countryside and the relaxed and reflective lifestyle of the devoted fisherman. Through dialogue between teacher and student, the book sheds a unique light on fishing, baiting, and cooking, including an original recipe for trout. Its music, rhymes, poetry, and humor are all brought to life by a full cast.

The first of Kafka’s three great novels, The Man Who Disappeared (America) follows the picaresque adventures of Karl Rossman, who is banished to America following a family scandal. Upon his arrival, Karl immediately happens upon his uncle, and from there follows a pattern of wandering, adoption and expulsion as Karl marches inexorably on towards the interior of the continent. With its blitheness and comical moments, The Man Who Disappeared is perhaps the most charming of Kafka’s works.

The essays in The Two Fundamental Problems of Ethics have a rather special place in Schopenhauer’s work, both being written as entries to Scandinavian philosophy competitions, one in Norway and one in Sweden.

In The Republic, Socrates is asked the question: "What is justice?" And in order to answer it, he draws a long and detailed analogy between the individual and the city. Plato’s work forms the foundation of Western philosophy and covers a wide range of topics including political theory and ethics, with extended digressions into artistic and literary criticism, the theory and practice of education as well as epistemology and metaphysics.

These three vibrant texts show different sides of the Roman historian Tacitus. Agricola was a successful general and Governor of Britain (77-83CE), a task which he carried out with firmness and probity. Tacitus' account of Germania shows a very different land with its many tribes, their habits and qualities in a strongly rural and resistant environment. A Dialogue Concerning Oratory, by contrast, is placed decidedly at the heart of Roman culture, a survey of rhetoric and the art of eloquence.

John Flory is a white timber-merchant in 1920s Burma. Disillusioned by imperial life, Flory defies orthodoxy and befriends Indian Dr Veraswami. The doctor is being pursued by a corrupt magistrate, U Po Kyin, who is orchestrating his downfall. The only thing that can save his reputation is membership of the all-white Club, and Flory is in a position to help. Flory's life is also upended by the arrival of beautiful Parisian Elizabeth Lackersteen, who offers an escape from loneliness and the deceit of colonial life.

In this acclaimed investigation, Owen Jones explores how the working class has gone from 'salt of the earth' to 'scum of the earth.' Exposing the ignorance and prejudice at the heart of the chav caricature, he portrays a far more complex reality. The chav stereotype, he argues, is used by governments as a convenient fig leaf to avoid genuine engagement with social and economic problems and to justify widening inequality.

In this fourth volume of The Deals of Warren Buffett, we trace Buffett’s journey as he made Berkshire Hathaway the most respected company in the world. When we left Buffett at the end of Volume 3 towards the end of the 1990s, he was leading the largest corporation in America and his personal...

Random House presents the audiobook edition of The War in the West: A New History: Volume 2 by James Holland, read by Leighton Pugh. In the second volume of his acclaimed new history of the Second World War, James Holland examines the momentous turning points of 1941–1943: Hitler’s invasion...

Brought to you by Penguin. ONLY SHE KNOWS THE TRUTH. ONLY HE CAN TELL THE WORLD. VIENNA, 1946 A brilliant German scientist spirited out of the ruins Nazi Europe in search of a new life MOSCOW, 1964 A rising star of the British diplomatic service whose job is not what it seems LONDON, THE PRESENT...

The murders have begun. Across England, a string of murders is taking place. Each different in method, but each horrifying and brutal. Jess Ambrose is plunged into the investigation when her house is set ablaze. With her husband dead and the police pointing at her, she runs. Her only hope is disgraced detective Nate Griffin, who is convinced Jess is innocent. Soon, Jess and Griffin discover the unthinkable: this murderer is copying the world’s most notorious serial killers. And now, imitation isn’t enough. The killer dubbed the Echo Man is ready to create his own masterpiece.

British M16 Agent and former SAS trooper Jack Tate is trying to escape his past when he witnesses a terrorist attack of unthinkable scale. An electro-magnetic pulse knocks out the US power grid, killing anything with a computer processor, throwing the whole country into chaos. Under the cover of the blackout, a clandestine operation aims to assassinate prominent public figures on US soil. Looting and violence spreads across the country. And Jack Tate’s past comes back to haunt him. 

Susan Hill meets Alfred Hitchcock in Alison Littlewood's latest chiller. Asylum doctor Nathaniel is obsessed with the beautiful Mrs Harleston - but is she truly delusional? Or is she hiding secrets that should never be uncovered? Haunted by his father's suicide, Nathaniel walks away from the highly prestigious life of a consultant to become an asylum doctor. He takes up a position at Crakethorne Asylum, but the proprietor is more interested in phrenology and his growing collection of skulls than the patients' minds.

The gripping narrative of one of the last Nazi criminal trials in Germany—that of Bruno Dey, a 93-year-old former concentration camp guard charged with aiding the murder of more than 5,000 people—and a larger exploration of Germany's reckoning with the Holocaust, from silence to memory to...

Brought to you by Penguin. The renowned historian of the Third Reich takes on the conspiracy theories surrounding Adolf Hitler and the Nazis, in a vital history book for the 'post-truth' age The idea that nothing happens by chance in history, that nothing is quite what it seems to be at first...

The Communist Manifesto was first published in London in 1848, by two young men in their late 20s. Its impact reverberated across the globe and throughout the next century, and it has come to be recognised as one of the most important political texts ever written. Maintaining that the history of all societies is a history of class struggle, the manifesto proclaims that communism is the only route to equality, and is a call to action aimed at the proletariat. It is an essential listen for anyone seeking to understand our modern political landscape.

“A beautiful, dream-like, unsettling narrative in which every word, like a small jewel, feels carefully chosen, considered and placed. Rarely do debut novels come as assured and impressive as this one.” —Sarah Waters, New York Times bestselling author of The Paying Guests Elegant, sinister...

Discover how Galileo worked out his scientific theories of motion and inertia, why Isaac Newton gets the credit for them, and what the discovery of DNA meant. All the big scientific ideas are brought to life with pithy quotes and step-by-step 'mind maps' - from evolution and continental drift to black holes and genetic engineering, showing how the ideas of famous scientists have affected our understanding of the world.

Parerga means 'supplementary to a main work', and Paralipomena suggests a further supplement, but these two books were anything but a casual addition to his major opus, The World as Will and Idea. For a start, it was the publication of Parerga and Paralipomena in 1851 which brought Schopenhauer to the attention of the general public, decades after The World as Will and Idea first appeared.  

Brought to you by Penguin. Does the thought of delivering a presentation make your heart skip a beat? Do your pitches fall flat no matter how much preparation you put in? Are you often comparing yourself to more eloquent speakers and wondering how they capture the room? At some point in our...