The three great-nephews of cantankerous Mr Penicuik know better than to ignore his summons, especially when it concerns the bestowal of his fortune. His freakish plan is that his fortune will be his step-daughter's dowry.
Adam Deveril, the new Viscount Lynton and a hero at Salamanca, returns from the Peninsula War to find his family on the brink of ruin and the broad acres of his ancestral home mortgaged to the hilt. It is Lord Oversley, father of Adam's first love, who tactfully introduces him to Mr Jonathan Chaleigh, a City man of...
"Strange as it may seem, the idea of 'God' developed in a market economy in a spirit of aggressive capitalism," Karen Armstrong asserts in her fascinating work A History of God. Armstrong considers herself a "historian of ideas," and with this broad view she gives a compelling account of the correspondences...
A Genius Performance by Philip Franks! Campion returns from three years work for the War Office in Europe to find that Lugg, his manservant, has brought him an unusual gift: the black silk nightdress-clad body of a dead woman, an apparent suicide. Wanting only to get away to a well-deserved rest, Campion...
It was not unusual to find the beautiful bronzed body of the sun-loving Arlena Stuart stretched out on a beach, face down. Only, on this occasion, there was no sun...she had been strangled. Ever since Arlena's arrival at the resort, Hercule Poirot had detected sexual tension in the seaside air. But could ...
Rich and handsome, the hope of ambitious mothers and despair of his sisters, the Marquis of Alverstoke sees no reason to put himself out for anyone. But when a distant connection applies to him for help, he finds himself far from bored.
Morse had solved so many mysteries in his life. Was he now, he wondered, beginning to glimpse the solution to the greatest mystery of them all? How can the discovery of a short story by a beautiful Oxford graduate lead Chief Inspector Morse to her murderer? What awaits Morse and Lewis in Room 231 of the...
Six people sit down to dinner at a table laid for seven. In front of the empty place is a sprig of rosemary - in solemn memory of Rosemary Barton who died at the same table exactly one year previously. No one present on that fateful night would ever forget the woman's face, contorted beyond recognition - or ....
The Complete Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy features all five complete and unabridged audiobooks of this much-loved 'trilogy' in a CD pack. On 12 October 1979 the most remarkable book ever to come out of the great publishing corporations of Ursa Minor (and Earth) was made available to humanity. This was ...
The Moonstone, a priceless Indian diamond which had been brought to England as spoils of war, is given to Rachel Verrinder on her eighteenth birthday. That very night, the stone is stolen. Suspicion then falls on a hunchbacked housemaid, on Rachel's cousin Franklin Blake, on a troupe of mysterious Indian jugglers, and on Rachel herself.
Agatha Christie’s audacious mystery thriller, reissued with a striking new cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers. For an instant the two trains ran together, side by side. In that frozen moment, Elspeth witnessed a murder.
This 10-part history of mathematics reveals the personalities behind the calculations: the passions and rivalries of mathematicians struggling to get their ideas heard. Professor Marcus du Sautoy shows how these masters of abstraction find a role in the real world and proves that mathematics is the driving force behind modern science. He explores the relationship between Newton and...
Venetia Aldridge QC is a distinguished barrister. When she agrees to defend Garry Ashe, accused of the brutal murder of his aunt, it is one more opportunity to triumph in her career as a criminal lawyer.
WARNING: CONTAINS AN UNLIKELY IMMIGRANT, AN UNSUNG COUNTRY, A BUMPY ROMANCE, SEVERAL SHATTERED PRECONCEPTIONS, TRACES OF INSIGHT, A DOZEN NUNS AND A REFERENDUM. Not many Brits move to Poland to work in a fish and chip shop. Fewer still come back wanting to be a Member of the European Parliament. In 2016, Ben Aitken moved to Poland while he still could. It wasn’t love that took him...
"A Christmas Carol" is the best-known and best-loved of Dickens' 'Christmas Books', and the story of the miser Scrooge's redemption has become as much part of the Christmas tradition as plum pudding and carols themselves. Will Tiny Tim live to see another Christmas? Naxos
A classic novel of desire and jealousy. Ann Prentice falls in love with Richard Cauldfield and hopes for new happiness. Her only child, Sarah, cannot contemplate the idea of her mother marrying again and wrecks any chance of her remarriage. Resentment and jealousy corrode their relationship as each seeks relief in different directions. Are mother and daughter destined to be enemies for life or will their underlying love...
A Falcon Flies is the first bestselling novel in Wilbur Smith's epic tale of Africa, The Ballantyne Novels. In search of a father they barely remember, Zouga and Dr Robyn Ballantyne board Mungo St John's magnificent clipper to speed them to Africa.
A Genius Performance by George Baker! It's impossible to forget the violent bludgeoning to death of an elderly lady in her home. Even more so when it's your first murder case. Wexford believed he'd solved Mrs Primero's murder fifteen years ago. It was no real mystery. Everyone knew Painter, her odd-job man, had done it. There had never been any doubt in anyone's mind. Until now...
Hardy's third novel, A Pair of Blue Eyes, follows the story of Elfride Swancourt. The daughter of the Rector of Endelstow, a sparse sea-swept parish in Cornwall, Elfride is caught between two suitors of very different backgrounds: Stephen Smith, a young architect restoring the old parish church...
n 1963, Stephen Hawking contracted motor neurone disease and was given two years to live. Yet he went on to Cambridge to become a brilliant researcher and Professorial Fellow at Gonville and Caius College.
Stephen Hawking's worldwide bestseller, A Brief History of Time, has been a landmark publication in scientific books. A Briefer History of Time expands on the great subjects of the original. Purely technical concepts, such as the mathematics of chaotic boundary conditions, are gone.
This set covers 10 x 15 minute series on Radio 4 which was part of a two-week "Brain Season".
It explains in clear terms the latest discoveries in neuroscience. In this unprecedented journey, covering over 2,500 years of development in our understanding of what it is to be human.
In A Short History of Nearly Everything, beloved author Bill Bryson confronts his greatest challenge yet: to understand—and, if possible, answer—the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as his territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. The result is a sometimes...
In 1913, English physicist Henry Moseley established an elegant method for 'counting' the elements. Soon afterwards, it became clear that there were precisely seven elements missing from the periodic table―those that had yet to be isolated among the 92 naturally occurring elements from hydrogen (#1) to uranium (#92).
Ask a dozen people to name a genius and the odds are that 'Einstein' will spring to their lips. Ask them the meaning of 'relativity' and few of them will be able to tell you what it is.
In this astonishing and startling audiobook, award-winning science and history writer Robert Whitaker investigates a medical mystery: Why has the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States tripled over the past two decades? Every day, 1,100 adults and children are added to the government ....
We are obsessed with our health, yet we are constantly bombarded with inaccurate, contradictory and misleading information. Ben Goldacre dismantles the dodgy science behind some of the great drug trials
Drawing on the lives of five great scientists, this "scholarly, insightful, and beautifully written book" (Martin Rees, author of From Here to Infinity) illuminates the path to scientific discovery.
Cancer is the second biggest killer in the world, but few of us understand how it works or how we treat it. In this illuminating introductory audiobook, Paul Scotting explains the science behind the disease and explores why some of us are more likely to develop it than others.
For most people, thoughtful behaviour and common decency are in short supply, or simply forgotten in hurried lives of emails, mobile phones and multi-tasking.
In CHOOSING CIVILITY, civility expert P M Forni identifies the 25 rules that are most essential in connecting effectively and happily with others.
In the past, we filled our free time with the tools at our disposal. Television became a kind of universal part-time job, and sitcoms and soap operas sponged up our cognitive surplus: the collective surfeit of time, intellect and energy at our disposal.
An expose of the current state of psychiatry that reveals how the pursuit of pharmaceutical riches has compromised the patients' well-being. In an effort to enlighten a new generation about its growing reliance on psychiatry, this illuminating volume investigates why psychiatry has become the ....
Over the past few years, devastating tsunamis off the coast of the Indian Ocean have killed hundreds of thousands of people. Even more alarmingly, scientists predict that these tsunamis, as well as a series of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, will be striking with even greater frequency and may eventually threaten Hawaii, California, and Oregon.
For decades we have been taught that fat is bad for us, carbohydrates better, and that the key to a healthy weight is eating less and exercising more. Yet despite this advice, we have seen unprecedented epidemics of obesity and diabetes.
Our gut is as important as our brain or heart, yet we know very little about how it works and many of us are too embarrassed to ask questions. In Gut, Giulia Enders breaks this taboo, revealing the latest science on how much our digestive system has to offer.
The World Is Flat has helped millions of readers to see globalization in a new way.
Now Friedman brings a fresh outlook to the crises of destabilizing climate change and rising competition for energy—both of which could poison our world if we do not act quickly and collectively.
From the New York Times?bestselling author of Where Good Ideas Come From and Everything Bad Is Good for You, a new look at the power and legacy of great ideas. In this volume, Steven Johnson explores the history of innovation over centuries, tracing facets of modern life ..............
This riveting audio explains history's most exciting discoveries. In this series, listeners will travel back in time, experiencing the lives and cultures of some of the world's greatest scientists.
The study of life and its existence in the universe, known as astrobiology, is now one of the hottest areas of both popular science and serious academic research, fusing biology, chemistry, astrophysics, and geology. Lewis Dartnell tours its latest findings, and explores some of the most fascinating ....
One of the nation's most popular presenters examines twenty marvels of the natural world from his extraordinary and pioneering experiences.
What was Sir David's first pet? Which animal would he most like to be? What creature lays 'the biggest egg in the world'? How do you communicate with an ancient nomadic community in Fiji? And what did Sir David do when confronted by a ten-foot-long reptile?
How does your personality shape your life , and what, if anything, can you do about it?Are you hardwired for happiness, or born to brood? Do you think you're in charge of your future, or do you surf the waves of unknowable fate? Would you be happier, or just less socially adept,
In clinical trials, it's called the placebo effect. But patients treated with placebos don't just feel better. It's not just 'in their heads'. They can heal their bodies by healing their thoughts. For years, pioneers in the medical community have been extolling the virtues of the mind's power to heal the body.
Why do many flowers have five or eight petals, but very few six or seven? Why do snowflakes have sixfold symmetry? Why do tigers have stripes but leopards have spots? Mathematics is to nature as Sherlock Holmes is to evidence.
""On the Origin of Species" must be high on any serious list of the most important and influential books ever written. On its first publication in 1859, Thomas Henry Huxley exclaimed 'How extremely stupid of me not to have thought of that.'
Who better than Sir Patrick Moore to introduce us to the fascinating world of astronomy? As the presenter for well over 50 years of The Sky at Night, he has become synonymous with this area of science.
In this technology-driven age, it’s tempting to believe that science can solve every mystery. After all, science has cured countless diseases and even sent humans into space. But as Jonah Lehrer argues in this sparkling debut, science is not the only path to knowledge. In fact, when it comes to understanding the brain, art got there first.
Hear a day in the life of the Amazonian rainforest, a continuous sequence of beautiful and exotic sounds. From dawn till dusk the magic of the rainforest unfolds, with rare birds, monkeys, insects, frogs and toads. There is an afternoon equatorial rainstorm, and the evening chorus of birds once ....
A brilliant examination into how the internet is profoundly changing the way we think.
In this groundbreaking book, Wired writer Clive Thompson argues that the internet is boosting our brainpower, encouraging new ways of thinking, and making us more not less intelligent as is so often claimed.
A brilliant examination into how the internet is profoundly changing the way we think.
In this groundbreaking book, Wired writer Clive Thompson argues that the internet is boosting our brainpower, encouraging new ways of thinking, and making us more not less intelligent as is so often claimed.
Dr James Hansen, the world's leading scientist on climate issues, speaks out for the first time with the full truth about global warming: the planet is hurtling to a climatic point of no return. Hansen - whose climate predictions have come to pass again and again, beginning in the 1980s when he first warned US Congress about global warming - is the single most credible voice on the subject worldwide.
Jason Padgett was an ordinary, not terribly bright, 41-year-old working in his father's furniture shop when he was the victim of a brutal mugging outside a karaoke bar in 2002.
That same night his stepfather died of cancer, and two weeks later his only brother went missing (his body was discovered three year later).
Why would a casino try and stop you from losing? How can a mathematical formula find your future spouse? Would you know if a statistical analysis blackballed you from a job you wanted?
The Ancestor's Tale is a pilgrimage back through time; a journey on which we meet up with fellow pilgrims as we and they converge on our common ancestors. Chimpanzees join us at about 6 million years in the past, orangutans at 14 million years, as we stride on together, a growing band. The journey ...
From a bestselling author and the most-followed psychologist on Twitter, this "intriguing new slant to personal transformation" (Kirkus Reviews) shows you how to take control of your life in an instant. Victorian philosopher William James had a theory about emotion and behavior:
How feminine values can solve our toughest problems and build a more prosperous future Among 64,000 people surveyed in thirteen nations, two thirds feel the world would be a better place if men thought more like women.
Every schoolchild learns about the mutually beneficial dance of honeybees and flowers: The bee collects nectar and pollen to make honey and, in the process, spreads the flowers' genes far and wide.
The Nazis discovered it. The Allies won the war with it. It conquered diseases, changed laws, and single-handedly launched the era of antibiotics. This incredible discovery was sulfa, the first antibiotic.
The classic personal account of Watson and Crick s groundbreaking discovery of the structure of DNA, now with an introduction by Sylvia Nasar, author of "A Beautiful Mind."
For two hundred years a noble Venetian family has suffered from an inherited disease that strikes their members in middle age, stealing their sleep, eating holes in their brains, and ending their lives in a matter of months. In Papua New Guinea, a primitive tribe is nearly obliterated by a sickness whose chief symptom is uncontrollable laughter.
Winner of 2013 Best Book Award from the National Academies. Finalist for 2013 Pulitzer Prize in General Nonfiction. Winner of the 2013 Reed Environmental Writing Award. Winner of the 2012 National Outdoor Book Award for Natural History Literature. Runner-up for 2013 PEN/E. O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award.
The truth about the Ebola Virus. This book looks into the current information about this shocking virus and how the US Government have been involved. Facinating listen!
In this classic, the world's expert on language and mind lucidly explains everything you always wanted to know about language: how it works, how children learn it, how it changes, how the brain computes it, and how it evolved. With deft use of examples of humor and wordplay, Steven Pinker weaves ...
The Making of the Fittest This history of DNA offers listeners a tour of the massive DNA record of three billion years of evolution to see how the fittest are made. This work argues for evolution as it examines immortal genes, fossil genes, and genes that bear the scars of past battles with horrible diseases.
Is morality universal? Why are men less faithful than women? Why do some businesses succeed while others collapse?
If we have a natural impulse to empathise and care for each other, why are there psychopaths? Neuroscientist and economist Paul Zak has spent 10 years researching to answer these questions and discovering the chemical driver of our behaviour.
The world was shocked when a computer, Deep Blue defeated Gary Kasparov, arguably the greatest human chess player ever to have lived. This remarkable victory, and other, more day-to-day innovations, beg serious questions: what are the limits of what computers can do Can they think Do they learn
In his new book human paleoanthropologist Ian Tattersall argues that a long tradition of "human exceptionalism" in paleoanthropology has distorted the picture of human evolution. Drawing partly on his own career - from young scientist in awe of his elders to crotchety elder statesman -
P.M. Forni is America's civility expert. In his first two books he taught readers the rules of civil behaviour and ways of responding to rudeness.
In "The Thinking Life", he looks at the importance of thinking in our lives: how we do it, why we don't do enough of it and why we need to do more of it because, for Forni, serious thinking leads to the good life.
Unravelling the latest amazing breakthroughs in theoretical physics, Stephen Hawking guides the reader through the evolution of Einsteinian physics to a universe of ten dimensions and a so-called theory of everything.
Stephen Hawking is an intellectual icon, known not only for the adventurousness of his ideas but for the clarity and wit with which he expresses them. His phenomenal multi-million-copy bestseller A Brief History of Time introduced the fascinating landscape of theoretical physics to readers all over the world. Now, in a major new book, Hawking turns to the most important breakthroughs that have occurred in the years since...
With genius, passion and unmatched flair, this one-volume "greatest hits" of the Feynman lectures places you in the classroom of one of the twentieth century's most brilliant teachers.
A dramatic rendering of life aboard a whale-saving pirate ship traces the efforts of a vigilante crew to stop illegal Japanese whaling in the Antarctica seas, in an account that profiles the Sea Shepherd Society of radical environmentalists and the charismatic captain Paul Watson.
Beloved New York Times best-selling author Susanna Kearsley delivers a riveting novel that deftly intertwines the tales of two women, divided by centuries and forever changed by a clash of love and fate. For nearly 300, the cryptic journal of Mary Dundas has kept its secrets. Now, amateur codebreaker Sara Thomas travels to Paris to crack the cipher. Jacobite exile Mary Dundas is filled with longing - for freedom, for...
Maggie vowed to never marry a man who can’t laugh or dance, but when she and the dull new doctor in town, Everett Dulanis, wind up spending the night together in an abandoned dugout house, all that changes. Her father is the best man and his shotgun is the bridesmaid at the wedding where a union has been made, but there’s certainly no unity. Everett was engaged to Carolina Prescott, a southern lady in...
Set during a period of revolution and turmoil, Mistress of My Fate is the first book in a trilogy about Henrietta Lightfoot, a young woman who was abandoned as a baby and raised alongside her cousins, noble children of a lord and lady. At just sixteen years old, circumstance and a passionate love affair tear Henrietta away from everything she knows, leading to a new life fending for herself on the streets of...
No one has failed to notice that the current generation of youth is deeply - some would say totally - involved with digital media. Professors Howard Gardner and Katie Davis name today's young people The App Generation, and in this spellbinding book they explore what it means to be "app-dependent" versus "app-enabled" and how life for this generation differs from life before the digital era. Gardner and Davis...
St Angelus runs like a family: the workers take care of their own - a lesson the mysterious new assistant matron, Miss Van Gilder, is about to learn the hard way. Little Joe has had trouble breathing but the doctors don’t take his sister Lily’s concerns seriously, least of all Miss Van Gilder. The nurses of Lovely Lane have a secret which is dividing their close knit group and when Nurse Pammy Tanner once again breaks...
Harry Pendel is the charismatic proprietor of Pendel and Braithwaite Limitada of Panama, through whose doors everyone who is anyone in Central America passes. Andrew Osnard, mysterious and fleshy, is a spy. His secret mission is two-pronged: to keep a watchful eye on the political manoeuvrings leading up to the American handover of the Panama Canal on 31st December 1999; and to secure for himself the...
January 1782, Portsmouth. His Britannic Majesty's frigate Phalarope is ordered to the assistance of the hard-pressed squadrons in the Caribbean. Aboard is her new commander - Richard Bolitho. To all appearances the Phalarope is everything a young captain could wish for. But beneath the surface she is a deeply unhappy ship - her wardroom torn by petty greed and ambition, her deckhands driven to...
Millions of years ago, the Ice Warriors fled to Deimos to sit out the death throes of their home planet, and it is now a popular tourist attraction. But it seems that the Ice Warriors are far from extinct...
Pro bono lawyer Jenny Parker is the only true innocent in her family. The daughter of a New Orleans crime lord, she’s tried for years to make her own way, but family ties always manage to pull her back in line. When her youngest brother gets involved in human trafficking, Jenny wants to believe him innocent and tries to protect him, even though it means covering for his crimes. Matthew Ryder knows Jenny is...
These easy-to-follow guided meditations involve beautifully crafted stories with music and natural sound effects. Each track will ease you into a deep state of relaxation, where you can tap into the restoring power of meditation. Track 1 - Deep Recharge: in the sanctuary of a desert oasis Track 2 - Inner Peace: is yours in a beautiful secluded valley Track 3 - Pure Relaxation: on a hammock in your secret garden...
The third book in Arthur Ransome's wonderful series for children, Peter Duck takes intrepid explorers John, Susan, Titty, and Roger Walker and fearless Amazon pirates Nancy and Peggy Blackett onto the high seas. Under the command of the infamous Captain Flint (Nancy and Peggy's Uncle Jim), the children brave a real-life pirate and his cutthroat crew, fog, sharks, and the ravenous crabs of Crab Island in search of...
In this evocative tale of life in India between the wars, friendships will be tested and loyalties torn. But can love win the day? In Scotland in the aftermath of the First World War, nurse Esmie McBride meets handsome Captain Tom Lomax at her best friend Lydia’s home. Esmie is at first concerned for Tom’s shell shock, then captivated by his charm, but it’s effervescent Lydia he marries, and the pair begin a...
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy is a tragic novel set in the fictional town of Casterbridge. Michael Henchard, a young hay trusser, overindulges in rum-laced furmity and quarrels with his wife, Susan. Spurred by alcohol, he decides to auction off his wife and baby daughter, Elizabeth-Jane, to a sailor, Mr. Newson, for five guineas. Once sober the next day, he is too late to recover his family, particularly since...
** This set includes the audio on Cassette, Audio CD and Paperback book ** About a man with the nickname spider, gets his girlfriend pregnant, he knows lots about trivia, she has a dangerous family who doesn't accept him, he plays in a quiz game to try and win 1 million euro to support the baby.
The Sacred Diary of Adrian Plass (Aged 37 3/4) began its public life in Christian Family Magazine, progressed to live performances at Christian holiday weeks and has grown to a best-selling book which will leave listeners helpless with laughter yet moved by the genuine affection which holds together Adrian, his family, and his assorted fellow-believers. The Diary is a must for anyone who has ever thought that some...
Bruce Chatwin provides a fascinating background to indigenous Australian life. The songlines are the invisible pathways that criss-cross Australia, tracks connecting communities and following ancient boundaries. Along these lines, Aboriginals passed the songs which revealed the creation of the land and the secrets of its past. In this magical account, Chatwin recalls his travels across the length and breadth...
An ingeniously witty novel about the risks - and rewards - of opening your life to new people by Amazon Charts bestselling author Camille Pagán. No new people: that's Annie Mercer's vow. It's bad enough that her boss sabotaged her chemistry career and her best friend tried to cure her with crystals. But after her fiancé, Jon, asks for space while he's gallivanting around Paris, Annie decides she needs space too...
Martin believes he can possess both a beautiful wife and a delightful lover. But when his wife, Antonia, suddenly leaves him for her psychoanalyst, Martin is plunged into an intensive emotional re-education. He attempts to behave beautifully and sensibly. Then he meets a woman whose demonic splendour at first repels him and later arouses a consuming and monstrous passion. How will he survive it?