Here are the stories of nine great adventures and the lives of the men who took part in them. They pushed back the frontiers of man’s knowledge of the world by their vision, courage and sheer doggedness. They were very different people from bold adventurers facing the unknown with enjoyment to careful, more scientific individuals. Their journeys are placed within their historical context, but also contain the words of the men themselves. Written especially for Naxos AudioBooks.

A passenger train stands in York station. Jack Follis, the guard, patrols the platform to make sure that everyone is safely aboard. Returning to the brake van to load a box into it, he is alarmed by a smell of burning. Before he can find the cause, there is an explosion and the van is engulfed in flames. Responding to summons from the North-Eastern Railway, Robert Colbeck and Victor Leeming are sent to investigate. The two are split on whether a murder has taken place. A...

A frightening dystopian horror novel in which grief is forbidden and purged from the mindSorrow is inefficient. It’s also inescapable.Lieutenant Dev Singh dutifully spends his days recording the memories of people who, struck with incurable depression, will soon have their minds erased in order to be more productive members of society.At night though, hidden in the dark, Dev remembers and writes in his secret journal the special moments shared with ...

When Adela and her elderly companion, Mrs. Moore, arrive in the town of Chandrapore, India, they quickly feel trapped by its insular and prejudiced British community.Determined to explore the “real India,” they seek the guidance of the charming and mercurial Dr. Aziz, a cultivated Indian Muslim. But a mysterious incident occurs while they are exploring the Marabar caves with Aziz, and the well-respected doctor soon finds himself at the center of a scandal that rouses violent passio...

Arising out of Naipaul’s lifelong obsession and passion for a country that is at once his and totally alien, India: A Million Mutinies Now relates the stories of many of the people he met traveling there more than fifty years ago. He explores how they have been steered by the innumerable frictions present in Indian society—the contradictions and compromises of religious faith, the whim and chaos of random political forces. This book represents Naipaul’s last word on his homeland, ...

In 1975, at the height of Indira Gandhi’s “Emergency,” V. S. Naipaul returned to India, the country his ancestors had left one hundred years earlier. Out of that journey he produced this concise masterpiece: a vibrant, defiantly unsentimental portrait of a society traumatized by centuries of foreign conquest and immured in a mythic vision of its past.Drawing on novels, news reports, political memoirs, and his own encounters with ordinary Indians—from a supercilious prince to an eng...

Prince Philip's life and legacy. Read the new and definitive biography of the remarkable Duke of Edinburgh.For decades Prince Philip shared the Queen’s burden of office without upstaging her, always privately providing reassurance and advice but never overstepping the boundaries of his supporting role. It was an unforgiving position – a challenge for anyone – but one that he met head on. He remained the Queen’s adviser and closest confidant and was known as such ...

Former government minister Ralph Singh is the perpetual outsider: displaced, disillusioned and now living in exile, Ralph reflects on his earlier life and the searing effects of colonialism. Ralph’s constant estrangement sees him ever attempting to fit into various communities, only to find home in more transient spaces. Born on the tropical island of Isabella, he is one of West India’s many ‘Mimic Men’. Booker and Nobel Prize-winning author V.S. Naipaul’s sixth novel is a brutal and perce...

The Buddha and the Sahibs: The Men Who Discovered India’s Lost Religion by Charles Allen.For nearly 1,000 years, from the destruction of temples and monasteries by Muslim invaders in the 11th and 12th centuries, followed by Hinduism’s increasing power, Buddhism vanished from the country of its origin. Though hugely influential throughout Asia, the religion was forgotten in India.This is the story of the men from the British Raj who rediscovered the history of the Buddha and...

Antony Barlow comes from a very old Quaker family, dating back to the earliest days of Quakerism in the 17th Century, when members were still being persecuted for their beliefs. On the death of his mother, Joan Barlow in 2007 at the age of 93, he became the custodian of the invaluable collection of family archives, including fading ancient letters, crumbling historical documents, dageurreotypes and perhaps most importantly, their old family Bible dating from 1616. This wonderful old book h...

A client claiming she was murdered in a past life is a novel dilemma even for Vish Puri, India’s most private investigator.When a young woman comes forward saying she’s the reincarnation of Riya Kaur, a wife and mother who vanished during the bloody 1984 anti-Sikh riots, Puri is dismissive. He’s busy enough dealing with an irate matrimonial client whose daughter is complaining about her groom’s thunderous snoring. Puri’s indomitable Mummy-ji however is adamant the ...

December 1864. As a cold winter wind scours the Worcestershire countryside, an excursion train comes through a tunnel in the Malvern Hills, only to be confronted by a blockage on the line ahead. The driver manages to slow the train down so that the impact is minimised, but the passengers are alarmed. The first person to alight is Cyril Hubbleday, the man in charge of the excursion. He walks to the front of the locomotive - and, as he is talking to the driver, fireman and guard, he is shot ...