Showing results by narrator "Philip Bird" in All Categories

“I had been waiting for much of my life to read this extraordinary book…there are clues and messages for every fortunate reader who picks it up.” —Annie Proulx *A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice* A landmark history of the peasant experience, exploring a now neglected way of...

In 1968 Donald Crowhurst was trying to market a nautical navigation device he had developed and saw the Sunday Times Golden Globe 'round the world sailing race as the perfect opportunity to showcase his product. Few people knew that he wasn't an experienced deep-water sailor. His progress was so slow that he decided to shortcut the journey, falsifying his location through radio messages from his supposed course. Everyone following the race thought that he was winning, and a hero's welcome awaited him at home in Britain.

How did Shakespeare sound to the audiences of his day? For the first time, this audio offers listeners the chance to hear England's greatest playwright performed by a company of actors using the pronunciation of his time. Under the guidance of Ben Crystal, actor, author of Shakespeare on Toast, and an expert in original Shakespearian pronunciation, the company performs some of Shakespeare's best-known poems, solo speeches, and scenes from the plays.

Detective Patrik Hedström and Erica Falck are back, in an irresistible Scandi crime thriller for fans of Jo Nesbo and Lars Kepler. A community torn apart As a heavy mist rolls into the Swedish coastal town of Fjällbacka, shocking violence shakes the small community to its core. Rolf Stenklo, a...

Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson (6 August 1809 - 6 October 1892) was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language. He was born in Somersby, Lincolnshire, a rector's son and fourth of 12 children and reportedly a descendant of King Edward III of England.

This electrifying novel of passion, greed, murder, and revenge follows the sweeping saga of one prominent French family in postwar Paris, Beirut, and Saigon. The Pelletiers are a prominent French family living in Beirut. The patriarch, Louis, has built a successful business that he hopes to pass...

From the beginning of the eighteenth century to the high water mark of the Victorian era, the world was transformed by a technological revolution the like of which had never been seen before. Inventors, businessmen, scientists, explorers all had their part to play in the story of the Industrial Revolution and in this Brief History Thomas Crump brings their story to life, and shows why it is a chapter in English history that can not be ignored.

Visible Gods is an imaginary dialogue between Socrates and four fictitious modern-day characters. Socrates' worldview is of a living cosmos with man only half-way up the hierarchy of all beings; above him reign suprahuman beings of great majesty and power - the visible gods. The moderns with whom Socrates converses disdain his ancient Greek cosmos as primitive and false.

From “a novelist at the height of his powers,” a dramatic and jubilant dive into France in the “glorious years” of the 1950s, through the lens of one ambitious, troubled, and utterly compelling family (La Croix). It is 1952 and the grown children of Louis Pelletier, a prominent...

The first English publication of Georges Simenon's compelling novel about summer escape and elusive obsessions. 'The island itself. Its throbbing heat as if in a bell jar under the sun, the scorpion in his son's bed, the deafening sound of cicadas.' During his first holiday on the island of Porquerolles, Dr Mahé caught a glimpse of something irresistible. As the memory continues to haunt him, he falls prey to a delusion that may offer an escape from his conventional existence - or may destroy him.

Four of the greatest Greek legends produced in one magnificent collection - read and performed by Philip Bird, Keith Barron, Duncan Law, Stephanie Pack, and Kate Gielgud. Their outstanding performances introduce these timeless classics to a younger generation in a new and exciting way.

In the frozen lands of the North gods, men and giants battle in a ceaseless round of adventure. The mighty sagas of the Norsemen are brought vividly to life in another classic recording.

Welcome to the bizarre and dangerous world of Victorian London, a city teetering on the edge of revolution. Its people are ushering in a new era of technology, dazzled each day by new inventions. Airships soar in the skies over the city, whilst ground trains rumble through the streets and clockwork automatons are programmed to carry out menial tasks in the offices of lawyers, policemen and journalists. But beneath this shiny veneer of progress lurks a sinister side.

The stories of the Old Testament have the great virtue of being both simple and challenging at the same time. The stories themselves are easy to follow but the moral questions that they raise remain central to our lives, whether we are five years old or seventy-five. Adapted for this recording by popular children's author Nigel Forde, and narrated by Philip Bird with a strong supporting cast this is a thrilling and evocative account of the central tales of the Old Testament.

One Wednesday morning, Thomas Hardy, an old man in ragged trousers, entombed by paper and increasingly estranged from his wife, Emma, finds her dying in her bedroom. Between his speaking to her and taking her in his arms, she has gone. The day before, he and Emma had exchanged bitter words, leading Hardy to wonder whether all husbands and wives ended up as enemies to each other. He, his family and Florence Dugdale, the much younger woman with whom he had been in a relationship, all assumed that he would be happy and relieved to be set free. But he is left shattered by the loss.

A completely charming rediscovered collection of ten short stories, four by Dickens himself, others by Chalres Allston Collins , Arthur Locker, John Oxenford and Julia Cecelia Stratton. Together they gradually uncover the identity of the owner of the lost luggage.

On Christmas Eve, a party of friends descends on a purportedly haunted country retreat, charged with the task of discovering evidence of the supernatural. Sequestered in their rooms for the holiday, the friends reconvene on Twelfth Night at a great feast and share their stories of spectral encounters.

A way of life that once encompassed most of humanity is vanishing in one of the greatest transformations of our time: the eclipse of the rural world by the urban. In this new history of peasantry, Patrick Joyce tells the story of this lost world and its people. In contrast to the usual insulting stereotypes, we discover a rich and complex culture: traditions, songs, celebrations, and revolts, across Europe from the plains of Poland to the farmsteads and villages of Italy and Ireland, through the 19th century to the present day.

A novel from the director of the film Country Life. A young actor struggles to make his way in the theatre, experiencing the quick, intense relationships that flare within the closed world of the theatre as he acts out small, solid roles with a famous classical company outside of London.

A Victorian family gathers round the hearth, and one by one they tell each other their Winter's tales. Charles Dickens begins 'the round of stories they were to relate, as they sat in a goodly circle by the Christmas fire', and then hands over to Elizabeth Gaskell, Samuel Sidney and other respected contributors to the Christmas 1852 number of Household Words.