Showing results by narrator "Simon Prebble" in All Categories

Scotland Yard’s Ian Rutledge seeks a killer who has eluded Scotland Yard for years in this next installment of the acclaimed New York Times bestselling series. An astonishing tip from a grateful ex-convict seems implausible—but Inspector Ian Rutledge is intrigued and brings it to his...

Essential listening for all those who want to understandthe universe in which we liveStephen Hawking is one of the most influential thinkers of our time, an intellectual icon, known not only for the adventurousness of his ideas but also for the clarity with which he expresses them. Seeking to...

Unlike his brothers, Vane Cynster vows to never marry. The eligible women of London have different plans for him, however. Seeking safety at Bellamy Hall, the residence of his eccentric godmother, Vane doesn't expect to meet any new unmarried women. But upon his arrival, he encounters the voluptuous Patience Debbington in the garden. When their gazes meet for the first time, she is filled with a sensation that leaves her quivering.

The story of France from the Renaissance to the 19th century, as Dumas vibrantly retold it in his numerous enormously popular novels, has long been absent one vital, richly historical era: the Age of Napoleon. But no longer. Now dynamically, in a tale of family honor and undying vengeance, of high adventure and heroic derring-do, The Last Cavalier fills that gap.

By 1939, Anglo-American journalist John Russell has spent 15 years in Berlin, where his German-born son lives. He writes human-interest pieces for British and American papers, avoiding the investigative journalism that could get him deported. But as war approaches, he faces the prospect of having to leave his son and his longtime girlfriend.

Milan, 1899. A desperate musical colleague smuggles an envelope to Zoe, Lucy's mother, begging her to deliver it to Sherlock Holmes. When her colleague is killed, Zoe must act quickly to avoid the same fate. She flees to London, only to find she’s been followed by Black Hand thugs determined to retrieve the envelope’s contents - a code which Holmes must decipher.

In the fall of 1941, Anglo-American journalist John Russell is still living in Berlin, tied to the increasingly alien city by his love for two Berliners: his 14-year-old son, Paul, and his longtime girlfriend, Effi. Forced to work for both German and American intelligence, he's searching for a way out of Germany. Can he escape and take Effi with him?

Mr Phillips wakes on the morning of July 31st in his modest, nearly mortgage-free home, in the bed he has contentedly shared with his wife of 30 years - though to be honest, at night he lies beside her and dreams of other women. He's ready to face another ordinary day. Except that for Mr Phillips, it is not an ordinary day, for on July 28th, he was summarily sacked. Nonetheless, he rises at his usual hour and prepares himself as he has done his entire working life for the office he no longer has.

One of the most revered works in English literature, Great Expectations traces the coming of age of a young orphan, Pip, from a boy of shallow aspirations into a man of maturity. From the chilling opening confrontation with an escaped convict to the grand but eerily disheveled estate of bitter old Miss Havisham, all is not what it seems in Dickens’ dark tale of false illusions and thwarted desire.

"Every idiot who goes about with 'Merry Christmas' on his lips should be boiled with his own pudding," says Ebenezer Scrooge. Mean old Scrooge despises Christmas until Christmas Eve, when a haunted voice from the past changes his life: overnight! Many know this story but few have experienced the true marvel of the tale.

"A religious fundamentalist, a political operative, a primitive sermonizer, and an accomplice of worldly secular powers. Her mission has always been of this kind. The irony is that she has never been able to induce anybody to believe her. It is past time that she was duly honored and taken at her word." Among his many books, perhaps none have sparked more outrage than The Missionary Position, Christopher Hitchens's meticulous study of the life and deeds of Mother Teresa.

Governess Honoria Wetherby values her independence. She would rather travel the world than marry and give some man control of her life. Then, one stormy evening, fate changes all her plans. She stumbles upon a mortally wounded young man in the woods. When the stranger dies, she is trapped in a cabin with his body and with his newly arrived cousin, Devil, whom she soon learns is aptly named.

The country doctor had come to 221B Baker Street, the famous lodgings of Sherlock Holmes, with an eerie tale---the legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles, the devil-beast that haunted the lonely moors around the Baskervilles' ancestral home. The tale warned the descendants of that ancient family never to venture out on the moor "in those dark hours when the powers of evil are exalted."

A young American actress arrives in London hoping to learn her identity, just as Sherlock Holmes is closing in on a master criminal. Their worlds collide, and not even Holmes could have foreseen the impact!

London, 1899: Lady Constance has seen too much, and now, her life is in danger. The beautiful, aristocratic newlywed is the sole witness in a murder case, and without her testimony, a killer will walk free. Her husband is distraught, thinking any harm might come to his young bride, whose affection is the only thing that has given his wayward life purpose.

Memoir of Jane Austen is the Austen family's memoir of the beloved 19th-century English novelist. Written and compiled by Austen's nephew, James Edward Austen-Leigh, Memoir of Jane Austen reveals the author as her family knew her while at the same time protecting the author's privacy in keeping with the Victorian conventions of the time.

Published in 1904, The Golden Bowl is the last completed novel of Henry James. In it, the widowed American Adam Verver is in Europe with his daughter Maggie. They are rich, finely appreciative of European art and culture, and deeply attached to each other. Maggie has all the innocent charm of so many of Jamess young American heroines. She is engaged to Amerigo, an impoverished Italian prince; he must marry money, and as his name suggests, an American heiress is the perfect solution.

In his 11th novel, Tim Powers takes his unique brand of speculative fiction into uncharted territory, instilling the old-fashioned espionage novel with a healthy dose of the supernatural. As a young double agent infiltrating the Soviet spy network in Nazi-occupied Paris, Andrew Hale finds himself caught up in a secret, even more ruthless war. Two decades later, a coded message draws Professor Andrew Hale back into Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

A colonel receives five seeds in the mail---and dies within weeks. A young bride disappears immediately after her wedding. An old hat and a Christmas goose are the only clues to a stolen jewel. A son is accused of his father's murder. These mysteries---and many more---are brought to the house on Baker Street where detective Sherlock Holmes resides. No case is too tricky for the world's most famous sleuth and his incredible powers of deduction.

Long ago, the wizards had vanished from the world, and all knowledge was left hidden in riddles. Morgon, prince of the simple farmers of Hed, proved himself a master of such riddles when he staked his life to win a crown from the dead Lord of Aum.But now ancient, evil forces were threatening him. Shape changers began replacing friends until no man could be trusted. So Morgon was forced to flee to hostile kingdoms, seeking the High One who ruled from mysterious Erlenstar Mountain.Beside him went Deth, the High One's Harper. Ahead lay strange encounters and terrifying adventures.