Showing results by narrator "Mike Grady" in All Categories

A forth collection of gripping short stories from the most acclaimed Science Fiction author of any generation. Arthur C Clarke is without question the world's best-known science fiction writer, enjoying a career of unequalled success. Clarke has always been celebrated for his prophetic vision, which is fully on display in this audiobook, but there are also many stories which show his imagination in full flight.

From the author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin; a heart-warming collection of stories inspired by life in an English village. Casting his mind back to the village where he grew up, Louis de Bernières brings us a forgotten England: where a lady might dress in plus fours, a retired general might give up wearing clothes and a spiritualist might live with her sister and the ghost of her husband. Here we find the atmosphere of those times as it was in the countryside, and the people whose lives are worth celebrating.

In The Heartbeat of Trees, renowned forester Peter Wohlleben draws on new scientific discoveries to show how humans are deeply connected to the natural world. In an era of cell phone addiction, climate change and urban life, many of us fear we’ve lost our connection to nature - but Peter Wohlleben is convinced that age-old ties linking humans to the forest remain alive and intact.

Drawing upon a lifetime of scientific expertise and an abiding love of nature, Richard Fortey uses his small wood to tell a wider story of the ever-changing British landscape, human influence on the countryside over many centuries and the vital interactions between flora, fauna and fungi. The trees provide a majestic stage for woodland animals and plants to reveal their own stories.

The first unpublished novel from the historical fiction legend George Macdonald Fraser, featuring the unscrupulous and brilliantly entertaining pirate Calico Jack Rackham. New Providence, 1720s. When infamous pirate Captain 'Calico' Jack Rackham returns from the high seas to ask Governor Woodes Rogers for a royal pardon, the Governor sees his chance to put his own devious plans into action.

In Footprints, David Farrier explores what traces we will leave for the very deep future. From long-lived materials like plastic and nuclear waste, to the 50 million kilometres of roads spanning the planet, in modern times we have created numerous objects and landscapes with the potential to endure through deep time. Our carbon could linger in the atmosphere for 100,000 years, and the remains of our cities will still exist millions of years from now as a layer in the rock.

Before May 2011 the top demographics experts of the United Nations had suggested that world population would peak at 9.1 billion in 2100, and then fall to 8.5 billion people by 2150. In contrast, the 2011 revision suggested that 9.1 billion would be achieved much earlier, maybe by 2050 or before, and by 2100 there would be 10.1 billion of us. What's more, they implied that global human population might still be slightly rising in our total numbers a century from now. So what shall we do?

Ash spewed into the sky. All eyes were on Vesuvius. Pliny the Elder sailed towards the phenomenon. A teenage Pliny the Younger waited. His uncle did not come back. In a dazzling new literary biography, Daisy Dunn introduces Pliny the Younger, the survivor who became a Roman lawyer, senator, poet, collector of villas, curator of drains, and representative of the Emperor. He was confidant and friend to the great and good, an unparalleled chronicler of the Vesuvius catastrophe, and eyewitness to the terror of Emperor Domitian.

The Armstrongs are both predator and prey, hunting for clues to help them fight the Darkening King while constantly watching their backs. This time it’s not just the world of the Hidden searching for them: the Josser world is intent on capturing the family, too. Leading the search is the curious Mr Fox and his agents in grey, and they’ve found an ally who knows Ned’s every move.

The galaxy is at war and Jake Cutler is at the heart of it. With his friends and allies captured, it's up to teenage space pirate, Jake, to go into battle and take down the corrupt Interstellar Government once and for all. But in order to win this battle, Jake must find his father and confront secrets from his own past.

A personal narrative blended with beautiful descriptions of gardening and the pleasures of losing yourself in the horticultural, Plot 29 weaves together memoir and memory from the author's childhood to the present day.

In his beloved book The Hidden Life of Trees, Peter Wohlleben revealed astonishing discoveries about the social networks of trees and how they communicate. Now, in The Power of Trees, he turns to their future, with a searing critique of forestry management, tree planting and the exploitation of old growth forests.

In 1992, after being fired from a secret nuclear facility, a KGB agent buried a nuclear suitcase. Sixteen years later he has found a buyer for it. Travelling to the exchange point with the buyer is an undercover policeman. But as their journey begins, it becomes clear that the agent may be suffering from Stockholm Syndrome, putting the lives of millions across Europe at risk...

A magisterial life of Ted Hughes - identified recently as the only English poet since the First World War with a claim to true greatness and one of Britain's most important writers - to be published on National Poetry Day by prize-winning biographer Jonathan Bate. Ted Hughes, Poet Laureate, was one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. He is one of Britain's most important poets, a poet of claws and cages: Jaguar, Hawk and Crow. Event and animal are turned to myth in his work.

On a voyage toward the boundaries of the known universe, nine misfit academics seek out first contact with a shadowy alien race. But another enigma is the Nightflyer itself, a cybernetic wonder with an elusive captain no one has ever seen in the flesh. Soon, however, the crew discovers that their greatest mystery - and most dangerous threat - is an unexpected force aboard the ship wielding a thirst for blood and terror....

Trees can survive without humans, but we can't live without trees. Even if human-caused climate change devastates our planet, the trees will return – as they do, always and everywhere, even after ice ages, catastrophic fires, destructive storms and deforestation. It would just be nice if we could be around to see them flourish. A love letter to the forest and a passionate argument for protecting nature's boundless diversity – not only for the trees, but also for ourselves, The Power of Trees is forester Peter Wohlleben's follow-up to The Hidden Life of Trees.

It is no small matter, after all, to create something - to make it so only by setting down the words. We forget the magnitude, sometimes, of that miracle. Mr. Crowe was once the toast of the finest salons. A man of learning and means, he travelled the world, enthralling all who met him. Now Mr. Crowe devotes himself to earthly pleasures. He has retreated to his sprawling country estate, where he lives with Clara, his mysterious young ward, and Eustace, his faithful manservant.

A wife compulsively digs in her garden. Two brothers, long estranged, reunite for a terse, heady summer. A woman flies to Krakow to see her adult son. At dusk, a teenage girl pushes her dying mother out into the sea. A small boy sits on his own in the cinema, entranced by the cowboys who light up the screen. With these short stories, Tim Pears illuminates a series of blazing moments in quiet lives - the tragic, strange, funny and beautiful fragments that make and unmake us - and shines a light into the gulfs that lie between us and those who should know us best.

For four characters the 500 quid worry bead in their pocket may be both a blessing and a curse. For elderly Dr Zachary Busner, it's his lifeline to his autistic grandson Ben, whose own connection with technology is, in turn, a vital one. For MI6 agent Jonathan De'Ath, aka 'the Butcher', the phone may reveal his best kept secret of all: that Colonel Gawain Thomas is his lover.

October 1937. Swanton Morley, the People's Professor, sets off to Essex to continue his history of England, The County Guides. Morley's daughter, Miriam, continues to cause chaos, and his assistant, Stephen Sefton, continues to slide deeper into depression and despair. Morley is an honorary guest at the Colchester Oyster Festival. But when the mayor dies suddenly at the civic reception, suspicion falls on his fellow councillors. Is it a case of food poisoning? Or could it be...murder?