The astonishing true story of Thomas Cochrane – naval hero, political radical and inspiration for Patrick O’Brian’s Jack Aubrey – whose audacity at sea, scandals on land and battles across empires make for a tale as thrilling as any novel.Cochrane’s life was even more remarkable than the fiction it inspired. A hero of the Napoleonic Wars, known for destroying the French Atlantic fleet in one explosive attack, he was an equally aggressive force in British politics a...

THE DEAD SHALL BE RAISED: In the winter of 1940, the Home Guard unearth a skeleton on the moor above the busy town of Hatterworth. Twenty-three years earlier, the body of a young textile worker was found in the same spot, and the prime suspect was never found but the second body is now identified as his. Soon it becomes clear that the true murderer is still at large. . . MURDER OF A QUACK: Nathaniel Wall, the local quack doctor, is found hanging in his consulting room in the Norfolk villag...

This audiobook narrated by Ric Jerrom traces the panoramic history of the Muslim world from the age of the Prophet Muḥammad to the the dawn of the modern eraThis book describes and explains the major events, personalities, conflicts, and convergences that have shaped the history of the Muslim world. The body of the work takes readers from the origins of Islam to the eve of the nineteenth century, and an epilogue continues the story to the present day. Michael Cook t...

This audiobook narrated by acclaimed critic and author Michael Rosen breathes new life into the political tales first published in British workers' magazinesWith additional narration by Lisa Coleman, Ric Jerrom, Peter Kenny, Miriam Margolyes, John Telfer, and Samuel WestIn the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, unique tales inspired by traditional literary forms appeared frequently in socialist-leaning British periodicals, such as the Clarion

This audiobook narrated by Ric Jerrom reveals how Enlightenment Europe rediscovered its identity by measuring itself against the great civilizations of AsiaDuring the long eighteenth century, Europe's travelers, scholars, and intellectuals looked to Asia in a spirit of puzzlement, irony, and openness. In this panoramic and colorful book, Jürgen Osterhammel tells the story of the European Enlightenment's nuanced encounter with the great civilizations of the East, fro...

Jim, the first mate aboard a small steamer named the Patna, travels from port to port in the Pacific Ocean. When the ship hits floating wreckage, Jim and the crew are forced to abandon it, leaving hundreds of ethnic travellers on board. However, Jim’s reprehensible actions are soon discovered by the court and he is compelled to face his guilt and redeem himself a journey that leads him to a remote exotic location where he is revered as Lord Jim (‘Tuan Jim’). Through beautifully evocative d...

In his dialogues the Stoic philosopher Seneca outlines his thoughts on how to live in a troubled world. Tutor to the young emperor Nero, Seneca wrote practical philosophical exercises that draw upon contemporary Roman life and illuminate the intellectual concerns of the day. The dialogues also have much to say to the modern reader, as they range widely across subjects such as the shortness of life, tranquillity of mind, anger, mercy, happiness, and grief at the loss of a loved one. Seneca’...

BBC Radio dramatisations and readings of the great Welsh writer's worksA novelist, playwright, broadcaster and raconteur, Gwyn Thomas was celebrated as one of Wales’s finest writers in the English language. He wrote countless novels, short stories and plays for stage, radio, and television, and he frequently contributed to Punch magazine. This BBC collection features a selection of his finest works, showcasing his engaging storytelling, dark humour and abi...

Yoshiro thinks he might never die. A hundred years old and counting, he is one of Japan's many 'old-elderly'; men and women who remember a time before the air and the sea were poisoned, before terrible catastrophe prompted Japan to shut itself off from the rest of the world. He may live for decades yet, but he knows his beloved great-grandson – born frail and prone to sickness – might not survive to adulthood. Day after day, it takes all of Yoshiro's sagacity to keep Mumei alive. As hopes ...

'The twenty-first century’s counterpart to Hobbes’s Leviathan’ EMMANUELE COCCIAWhat has happened to the nation-state? From a prizewinning writer, After Nations offers a sweeping history of this most unquestioned of modern structures and a bold speculation about its future.Until recently, the system of nation-states appeared settled and eternal. Not anymore. As American hegemony unwinds and Western countries slide into anxi...

This ambitious and fascinating history considers why, in the space of sixty years between 1850 and 1910, football grew from a marginal and unorganised activity to become the dominant winter entertainment for millions of people around the world. The book explores how the world’s football codes - soccer, rugby league, rugby union, American, Australian, Canadian and Gaelic - developed as part of the commercialised leisure industry in the nineteenth century. Football, however and wherever it w...

Prador Moon is one of Neal Asher’s most explosive excursions into the Polity universe. It’s also an action-packed prequel to the dramatic events in Neal Asher's Spatterjay novels.It takes one encounter to turn peace into war . . .The worlds of the Polity stretch from Earth Central into the unfathomable reaches of the galactic void. And when humanity finally encounters alien life – in the form of massive, hostile carnivores known as...