Showing results by narrator "Simon Vance" in All Categories

Sons and Lovers, D. H. Lawrence's first major novel, was also the first in the English language to explore ordinary working-class life from the inside. No writer before or since has written so well about the intimacies enforced by a tightly knit mining community and by a family where feelings are never hidden for long. When the marriage between Walter Morel and his sensitive, high-minded wife begins to break down, the bitterness of their frustration seeps into their children's lives.

A man climbs a cliff face in the oldest inhabited place on earth, a mountain known as the Citadel, a Vatican-like city-state that towers above the city of Ruin in modern-day Turkey. But this is no ordinary ascent. It is a dangerous, symbolic act. And thanks to the media, it is an event witnessed by the entire world.

A classic since its first publication in 1863, The Water-Babies is the story of a little chimney sweep named Tom and his magical adventures beneath the waves. The ill-treated Tom flees his dangerous toil and his cruel master, Grimes. When he jumps into a cool stream to clean the soot off himself, he becomes a water-baby, cleaner and happier than he has ever been, in a hidden fairy world. There, Tom meets haughty dragonflies, makes friends with a slow-witted lobster, and dodges hungry otters.

Anthony Powell's universally acclaimed epic encompasses a four-volume panorama of twentieth-century London. Hailed by Time as "brilliant literary comedy as well as a brilliant sketch of the times," A Dance to the Music of Time opens just after World War I. Amid the fever of the 1920s and the first chill of the 1930s, Nick Jenkins and his friends confront sex, society, business, and art.

How can biblical authority be a reality for those shaped by the modern world? This work treats the First World as a mission field, offering a unique perspective on the relationship between the gospel and current society by presenting an outsider's view of contemporary Western culture.

Imriel de la Courcel's blood parents are history's most reviled traitors, while his adoptive parents, Phedre and Joscelin, are Terre d'Ange's greatest champions. Stolen, tortured, and enslaved as a young boy, Imriel is now a Prince of the Blood, third in line for the throne in a land that revels in beauty, art, and desire.

The newest film in the box-office smashing franchise Pirates of the Caribbean, Dead Men Tell No Tales features the return of fan-favorites Johnny Depp as Jack Sparrow, and Geoffrey Rush as Hector Barbossa, alongside franchise newcomers Javier Bardem ( No Country for Old Men, Skyfall), Kaya Scodelario ( The Maze Runner), and Brenton Thwaites ( Maleficent).

Tolstoy based Resurrection, the last of his novels, on a true story of a philanderer whose misuse of a beautiful young orphan girl leads to her ruin. Fate brings the two together many years later, and the meeting awakens the man's moral conscience. Anger, intimacy, forgiveness, and grace result.

Legend has it that Paxon Leah is descended from the royals and warriors who once ruled the Highlands and waged war with magical weapons. But those kings, queens, and heroes are long gone, and there is nothing enchanted about the antique sword that hangs above Paxon’s fireplace. Running his family’s modest shipping business, Paxon leads a quiet life—until extraordinary circumstances overturn his simple world . . . and rewrite his destiny.

J.R.R. Tolkien's creations, imagination, and characters captured the attention of millions of readers. But who was the man who dreamt up the intricate languages and perfectly crafted world of Middle-earth? Tolkien had a difficult life, for many years: orphaned and poor, his guardian forbade him to communicate with the woman he had fallen in love with, and he went through the horrors of the First World War. An intensely private and brilliant scholar, he spent over 50 years working on the languages, history, peoples, and geography of Middle-earth,

The mysterious, magic-wielding Druid order has existed for long ages, battling any evil that threatens the Four Lands - and struggling to be understood and accepted by outsiders. But their hopes of building goodwill are dashed when a demon’s murderous rampage at a peace summit leaves their political opponents dead - casting new suspicions upon the Druids and forcing them to flee from enemies both mortal and monstrous.

Here are books four, five, and six in L. M. Boston's thrilling and chilling tales of Green Knowe, a haunted manor deep in an overgrown garden in the English countryside, which have been entertaining audiences for half a century!

In this boldly drawn portrait of 18th-century England, Roy Porter defines a nation from its princes to its paupers, from its metropolis to its smallest hamlet. The topics covered run the gamut, covering diet, housing, prisons, rural festivals, bordellos, plays, paintings, and work and wages.

The hit BBC series Sherlock has introduced a whole new generation of fans to Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary detective. In this unique collection, Sherlock co-creators Steven Moffat and Mark Gatiss have selected their all-time favorite Sherlock Holmes adventures, providing listeners a curated masterclass in crime fiction. Each of these 19 tales, from Sherlock's first appearance in A Study in Scarlet to the late classic The Dying Detective, is a potent mix of murder, suspense, cryptic clues, red herrings, and revenge.

When Britain intercepted a French ship and its precious cargo, an unhatched dragon's egg, Captain Will Laurence of HMS Reliant unexpectedly became master and commander of the noble dragon he named Temeraire. As new recruits in Britain's Aerial Corps, man and dragon soon proved their mettle. But now China has discovered that its rare gift, intended for Napoleon, has fallen into British hands, and an angry Chinese delegation vows to reclaim the remarkable beast.

Once upon a time an Indian writer name Amitav Ghosh set out to find an Indian slave, name unknown, who some 700 years before had traveled to the Middle East. The journey took him to a small village in Egypt, where medieval customs coexist with 20th-century desires and discontents. But even as Ghosh sought to re-create the life of his Indian predecessor, he found himself immersed in those of his modern Egyptian neighbors.

Beset by marauding Gath, encroaching armies, and a mysterious plague, the end draws near. The bordermen of the Iron Shield continue to hold Jayden’s Pass against the might of a new goblin nation, but how will they overcome such insurmountable odds?

In his final novel - which he considered his most important - Aldous Huxley transports us to the remote Pacific island of Pala, where an ideal society has flourished for 120 years. Inevitably, this island of bliss attracts the envy and enmity of the surrounding world. A conspiracy is underway to take over Pala, and events are set in motion when an agent of the conspirators, a newspaperman named Faranby, is shipwrecked there. What Faranby doesn't expect is how his time with the people of Pala will revolutionize all his values and - to his amazement - give him hope.

Life in the wasteland is a constant struggle. No one knows it better than Taimin. Crippled, and with only his indomitable aunt to protect him, Taimin must learn to survive in a world scorched by two suns and frequented by raiders. But when Taimin discovers his homestead ransacked and his aunt killed, he sets off with one mission: to seek revenge against those who stole everything. With nowhere to call home, his hunt soon takes a turn when he meets a mystic, Selena, who convinces him to join her search for the fabled white city.

The window between two equally stifling autocracies - the imperial family and the communists - was open only briefly, in the last couple of years of the 19th century until the end of WWI, by which time the revolution was in full fury. From the last years of Tolstoy until the death of the Tsar and his family, however, Russia experimented with liberalism and cultural openness. Novelists and playwrights blossomed and political ideas were swapped in coffee houses.