‘We are all travelers in the “wilderness of the world” travelers with a donkey.’ So Robert Louis Stevenson wrote to a friend on completing this enchanting account of a journey in rural France in 1878. Alone with his pack-donkey Modestine, and showing total disregard for discomfort, Stevenson relishes to the full his walking tour of the Cévennes. Freedom was the important thing: ‘I bless God that I was free to wander, free to hope, and free to love.’ This diary will find many kindred spirit...

Boswell’s biography of his friend and hero Samuel Johnson is an acknowledged classic, full of humorous anecdote and rich characterisation. Johnson’s complex humanity (his depression, fear of death, intellectual brilliance and rough humour) is set within a vivid picture of eighteenth-century London, peopled by personalities of the time such as Sir Joshua Reynolds, John Wilkes, Oliver Goldsmith and David Garrick.

In 1933, at the age of 18, Patrick Leigh Fermor set out on an extraordinary journey by foot - from the Hook of Holland to Constantinople. A Time of Gifts is the first volume in a trilogy recounting the trip, and takes the reader with him as far as Hungary.It is a book of compelling glimpses - not only of the events which were curdling Europe at that time, but also of its resplendent domes and monasteries, its great rivers, the sun on the Bavarian snow, the storks and frogs...

The acclaimed travel writer's youthful journey - as an 18-year-old - across 1930s Europe by foot began in A Time of Gifts, which covered the author's exacting journey from the Lowlands as far as Hungary.Picking up from the very spot on a bridge across the Danube where his readers last saw him, we travel on with him across the great Hungarian Plain on horseback, and over the Romanian border to Transylvania.The trip was an exploration of a continent which was already...

Harriet Vane has never dared to return to her old Oxford college.Now, despite her scandalous life, she has been summoned back . . .At first she thinks her worst fears have been fulfilled, as she encountersobscene graffiti, poison pen letters and a disgusting effigy when shearrives at sedate Shrewsbury College for the 'Gaudy' celebrations.But soon, Harriet realises that she is not the only target of this murderousmalice - and asks Lord Peter Wimse...

Orwell's own experiences inspire this semi-autobiographical novel about a penniless man living in Paris in the early 1930s. The narrator's poverty brings him into contact with strange incidents and characters, which he manages to chronicle with great sensitivity and graphic power. The latter half of the book takes the English narrator to his home city, London, where the world of poverty is different in externals only.A socialist who believed that the lower classes were the wellspri...

Martin Cruz Smith's “masterful” (USA TODAY) and “irresistible” (People) New York Times bestseller and Washington Post notable book of the year: Arkady Renko must connect the dots among a Russian journalist’s mysterious death, corrupt politicians, murderous gangsters, and brazen bureaucrats.Arkady Renko, one of the iconic investigators of contemporary fiction, has survived the cultural journey from the Soviet Union to the New Russ...

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of The Railway Children by E. Nesbit, read by Jenny Agutter.When Father is taken away unexpectedly, Roberta, Peter, Phyllis and their mother have to leave their comfortable life in London to go and live in a small cottage in the country. The children seek solace in the nearby railway station, and make friends with Perks the Porter and the Station Master himself. Each day, Roberta, Peter and Phyllis run down the field ...

The year is 1745, and Prince Charlie of the defeated royal house of Stuart, has just returned to Scottish soil. A weighty choice faces every Scottish man. Should he stitch a white cockade to his hat and join the fight to restore James, Prince Charlie's father to the British throne? Or should he stay at home and back George II, the reigning King. One Lowland family, the Duries of Durisdeer and Ballantrae, believe they've found a clever way to sidestep the decision. With the toss of a coin, ...

The members of a club decide to raise money and build a projectile that can land on the moon. Three people climb into the rocket and proceed to the moon. This audio classic novel has been carefully abridged and adapted into 10 short, easy to understand chapters. This format enables listeners of all ages and English language abilities to understand and enjoy the story. Composition includes original custom background music. This adventure tale is appropriate for children and adults.

‘People will die,’ says the panic-stricken woman outside police headquarters. She has been standing in blazing sunshine for more than an hour, and refuses to speak to anyone besides Commissaire Adamsberg. Her daughter has seen a vision: ghostly horsemen who target the most nefarious characters in Normandy. Since the middle ages there have been stories of murderers, rapists, those with serious crimes on their conscience, meeting a grizzly end following a visitation by the riders.Soo...

Agatha Christie’s personal memoirs about her travels to Syria and Iraq in the 1930s with her archaeologist husband Max Mallowan, where she worked on the digs and wrote some of her most evocative novels.Think you know Agatha Christie? Think again!To the world she was Agatha Christie, legendary author of bestselling whodunits. But in the 1930s she wore a different hat, travelling with her husband, renowned archaeologist Max Mallowan, as he investigated the buried ruins and an...