Showing results by narrator "Kris Dyer" in All Categories

From the historical roots of the concept of risk to the latest digital anxieties, each chapter unfolds a captivating narrative, weaving together major historical incidents and topical news events. Explore the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and witness the transformative power of risk perception. Travel to Fukushima and learn how a nuclear disaster shapes our approach to designing critical infrastructure. Dive into the digital realm with the Cambridge Analytica scandal, revealing a new era of digital risk and anxiety.

In 2005 London, two teenage boys commit a crime so horrendous that the entire nation is shocked and outraged. When Abigail Riley's body is found in an underground shelter, DS Fraser Harvey finds himself hunting her killers--whose depravity is matched only by their naivety. Eleven years later, when the young murderers are released to faraway countries with new identities, Harvey remains haunted by the case, convinced that one--or both--will kill again.

Economics may seem like a modern field, but its object of study is ancient. Resources have been exchanged and distributed since the dawn of history, and the economies that arose from those transactions were more complex than you might expect. In this panorama of the development of trade and industry, Economist columnist Philip Coggan tracks the development of the world economy starting with the first obsidian blades that made their way from Turkey to what is now the Iran-Iraq border 7,000 years before Christ, and ending with the Sino-American trade war that we are in right now.

Nigel Farage is a maverick and an outsider. But perhaps more than anyone else, he is now shaping the British political agenda. Under his leadership the United Kingdom Independence Party has been turned from a fringe organisation into a new political force, winning seats in the European Parliament and on local councils across the country. Farage has been called a "rabble-rouser", as well as "a man of the people". But he is a far more complex character than most people appreciate.

All too often we think of the past as static, 'frozen in time', and indeed movement is not always easy to decipher from the archaeological record. With Jim Leary's expert eye we explore the tangible remains, from fossilized footprint tracks to prehistoric wooden trackways, ridgeways, holloways, droveways, green ways, corpse roads, and Roman roads. Isotope studies and archaeogenetics now allow us see the arduous journeys that people made across continents and oceans, proving that migration has been continuous throughout our past, an endless ebb and flow of populations.

I wish Mr Bambuckle would come back. Who will cook us breakfast now? Miss Frost gave me detention just for answering a question. Mr Bambuckle said I’m about to discover magic - but how? There are some pretty strange things going on. It’s almost as if Mr Bambuckle could hear us....

The sacrifices that enabled the Soviet Union to defeat Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War 1941-45 are sacrosanct. The foundation of their eventual victory was laid during the battle for the city of Stalingrad, resting on the banks of the river Volga. For Germany, the catastrophic defeat was the beginning of their eventual demise that would see the Red Army two years later flying their flag of victory above the Reichstag. Stalingrad is seen as the pivotal battle of the Second World War.

Following on from the internationally best-selling The Art of Happiness, the Dalai Lama and Howard Cutler bring us the inspiring The Art of Happiness in a Troubled World. This inspirational audiobook brings the successful East-meets-West pairing together again to provide a practical application of Tibetan Buddhist spiritual values to the fast-paced, unpredictable, stressful and demanding world we all live in today.

Berlin, 1945. Following the fall of the Third Reich, drug use — long kept under control by the Nazis' strict anti-drug laws — is rampant throughout the city. In the American sector, Arthur J. Giuliani of the nascent Federal Bureau of Narcotics is tasked with learning about the Nazis' drug policies and bringing home anything that might prove 'useful'.

When their circus moves into a new town they soon make friends with a young boy named Tom. But Tom can't enjoy the circus because his granny has disappeared, and he's worried he'll never see her again. With the help of their astonishing circus skills can the Shortbread circus stars crack the clues and find Tom's granny?  

Louise has had to watch her husband, Andrew, start a new family in the four years since he left her. The ‘other woman’ is now his wife - but Louise isn’t ready to let Caz enjoy the life that was once hers or to let go of the man she still loves. As Louise starts to dig into Caz’s past, the two women’s pretence of civility starts to slip. But in trying to undermine each other, they discover more about the man they both married. And when Andrew is murdered at a family party, both women are found standing over the body. It’s always the wife. But which one?

The possibility of life elsewhere in the cosmos is one of the most profound subjects that human beings can ponder. Astrophysicist Andrew May gives an expert overview of our current state of knowledge, looking at how life started on Earth, the tell-tale ‘signatures’ it produces and how such signatures might be detected elsewhere in the solar system or on the many ‘exoplanets’ now being discovered by the Kepler and TESS missions.

Why does one smoker die of lung cancer but another live to 100? The answer is 'The Hidden Half' - those random, unknowable variables that mess up our attempts to comprehend the world. We humans are very clever creatures - but we're idiots about how clever we really are. In this entertaining and ingenious book, Blastland reveals how in our quest to make the world more understandable, we lose sight of how unexplainable it often is. The result - from GDP figures to medicine - is that experts know a lot less than they think.

In What Do Animals Think and Feel?, the biologist Karsten Brensing has something astonishing to tell us about the animal kingdom: namely that animals, by any reasonable assessment, have developed the sophisticated systems of social organisation and behaviour that human beings call 'culture'. Dolphins call one another by name and orcas inhabit a culture that is over 700,000 years old. Chimpanzees wage strategic warfare while bonobos delight in dirty talk. Ravens enjoy snowboarding on snow-covered roofs, and snails like to spin on hamster exercise wheels.

We all have good days and bad days. Some days we're on form, others we can't really be bothered and feel a little lackluster. No one enjoys those slump days - so let's do away with them! The wonderful, uplifting, and funny authors of the best-selling The Art of Being Brilliant are here to show us how to get motivated, get positive, and get happy, and, most importantly, how to be all three consistently.

LONDON, 1590. Queen Elizabeth I's control over her kingdom is wavering. Amidst a tumultuous backdrop of Spanish plotters, Catholic heretics and foreign wars threatening the country's fragile stability, the body of a small boy is found in the City of London, with strange marks that no one can explain. When idealistic physician Nicholas Shelby finds another body displaying the same marks only days later, he becomes convinced that a killer is at work, preying on the weak and destitute of London.

Australia's funniest new author for kids is back with a fresh batch of stories about the mysterious Mr Bambuckle and the class of room 12B. Meet your new assistant principal - Miss Frost! Uh-oh, that's not good. At least we're away on camp. Mr Bambuckle lets us eat marshmallows before dinner! Is that a spark-maker beetle? Shh! What was that noise? The class in room 12B are having fun in the wilderness. Until Miss Frost crashes camp....

As a winter storm rages over the coastal city of Brighton, torrential rain exposes a shallow grave up on the cliffs, while a teenager goes rogue with a shotgun in a supermarket and a violent robbery is staged in an upmarket boutique. The resulting body count stretches the resources of the Brighton police. They badly need leads, but can they trust the testimony of Ciara O’Cleary, the sole witness to the robbery – who saw nothing, but seems to be offering vital clues?

Kim is not your average member of Her Majesty's palace staff – but then he shouldn't be on the staff at all. He's in fact a Sun staff reporter who's wormed his way into Buckingham Palace to pick up every bit of dirt and gossip that he can lay his hands on. Along the way, Kim is faced with many surprising aspects of Palace life that even he didn't see coming. Based on the true story of the tabloid hack who became a Queen's footman, Palace Rogue is a charming, uplifting and utterly outrageous story of love and secrets – all of it set in the heart of one of the world's most famous houses.

Many people dread public speaking. And yet we all find ourselves forced to make a speech at some point in our lives and suffer the same inevitable anxieties: will my jokes fall flat? What if I freeze up? Is it okay to read notes? What if people walk out? This book will not magically transform you into a fast-talking, high-flying hotshot. But it does hope to teach you how to be adequate at public speaking - and, with a spot of luck, you might turn out to be 'rather good'.