Showing results by narrator "Richard E Grant" in All Categories

Enjoy the first novels that brought the world two of Agatha Christies’ most enduring detectives: Miss Marple and Hercule Poirot. The Murder at the Vicarage is the first Miss Marple mystery, one which tests all her powers of observation and deduction. In The Mysterious Affair at Styles, Captain Arthur Hastings, invalided in the Great War, is recuperating as a guest of John Cavendish at Styles Court, the "country-place" of John's autocratic old aunt, Emily Inglethorpe.

If you look hard enough, you can find stories pretty much anywhere. They don’t even have to be your own. Or so would-be writer Maurice Swift decides very early on in his career. A chance encounter in a Berlin hotel with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann gives him an opportunity to ingratiate himself with someone more powerful than him. For Erich is lonely, and he has a story to tell. Whether or not he should do so is another matter entirely. Once Maurice has made his name, he sets off in pursuit of other’s stories. He doesn’t care where he finds them as long as they help him rise to the top.

Miss Marple encounters a compelling murder mystery in the sleepy little village of St. Mary Mead, where under the seemingly peaceful exterior of an English country village lurks intrigue, guilt, deception and death. Colonel Protheroe, local magistrate and overbearing land-owner is the most detested man in the village. Everyone—even in the vicar—wishes he were dead. And very soon he is—shot in the head in the vicar's own study. Faced with a surfeit of suspects, only the inscrutable Miss Marple can unravel the tangled web of clues that will lead to the unmasking of the killer.

Richard E. Grant emigrated from Swaziland to London in 1982, with dreams of making it as an actor. Unexpectedly, he met and fell in love with a renowned dialect coach Joan Washington. Their relationship and marriage, navigating the highs and lows of Hollywood, parenthood, and loss, lasted almost forty years. When Joan died in 2021, her final challenge to him was to find a “pocketful of happiness in every day.”

Born in Swaziland in 1957, Richard E. Grant moved to the UK to pursue his acting career and has been a fixture on our screens since his breakout role in Withnail and I in 1987. When his beloved wife, Joan, died in 2021 after almost 40 years together, she set him a challenge: to find a pocketful of happiness in every day. The result is this book.

Few novels have made a more shattering impact on their society than El Filibusterismo - and its predecessor, Noli Me Tangere, by Jose Rizal. And surely no writer has paid a higher penalty for self-expression. Rizal was executed by firing squad mainly because of these two books.

From the Levant to London's society salons to the canals of Venice, famed poet Lord Byron embarks on a life of adventure as the world's most notable vampire, following a dark trail of long-hidden secrets, ancient black arts, and the depths of evil.

40 of Aesop's tales, specially adapted for young children. Read by Richard Briers, Jane Horrocks, Jonathan Pryce, Alison Steadman, Richard E. Grant, Lindsay Duncan and Brenda Blethyn.

Richard E. Grant’s life changed almost overnight when he was cast as the lead in Withnail & I in 1986. He kept a diary of the experience, the bestselling With Nails, and now it is published for the first time in audio, read by the author. Funny and revealing, told with trademark candour, join Richard E. Grant on the shoot of a lifetime.

The Complete Short Stories is a collection to be loved and cherished, from one of the finest short-story writers of the twentieth century. From the cruel irony of A member of the Family to the fateful echoes of The Go-Away Bird and the unexpectedly sinister The Girl I Left Behind Me, in settings that range from South Africa to the Portobello Road, Muriel Spark coolly probes the idiosyncrasies that lurk beneath the veneer of human respectability, displaying the acerbic wit and wisdom that are the hallmarks of her unique talent.

Jose Rizal’s two novels Noli Me Tangere and its sequel El Filibusterismo are beloved classics in The Philippines. Here, they are read with characteristic flair by Academy-Award Nominee Richard E. Grant, who apart from his work in Film and TV, is well-loved by audiobook listeners. It might be fiction, but it is also Philippine history. Rizal travelled to Europe as a student and wrote these books there under difficult circumstances. His friends helped ship them back to Manila where the books were swiftly banned by the Spanish authorities.

Rex Fortescue, king of a financial empire, was sipping tea in his "counting house" when he suffered an agonizing and sudden death. On later inspection, the pockets of the deceased were found to contain traces of cereals. Yet, it was the incident in the parlor that confirmed Miss Marple's suspicion that here she was looking at a case of crime by rhyme....

Gordon Comstock loathes dull, middle-class respectability and worship of money. He gives up a 'good job' in advertising to work part-time in a bookshop, giving him more time to write. But he slides instead into a self-induced poverty that destroys his creativity and his spirit. Only Rosemary, ever-faithful Rosemary, has the strength to challenge his commitment to his chosen way of life.

The Cleverley family live a gilded life, little realising how precarious their privilege is, just one tweet away from disaster. George, the patriarch, is a stalwart of television interviewing, a 'national treasure' (his words); his wife, Beverley, a celebrated novelist; and their children, Nelson, Elizabeth, Achilles, various degrees of catastrophe waiting to happen. Together they will go on a journey of discovery through the Hogarthian jungle of the modern living where past presumptions count for nothing and carefully curated reputations can be destroyed in an instant.

'Anyone who murdered Colonel Protheroe,' declared the parson, brandishing a carving knife above a joint of roast beef, ‘would be doing the world at large a service!' It was a careless remark for a man of the cloth. And one which was to come back and haunt the clergyman just a few hours later. From seven potential murderers, Miss Marple must seek out the suspect who has both motive and opportunity.

The one and only Conn Iggulden takes on the story of the mighty Kublai Khan. An epic tale of a great and heroic mind; his action-packed rule; and how in conquering one-fifth of the world’s inhabited land, he changed the course of history forever.A scholar who conquered an empire larger than those of Alexander or Caesar.A warrior who would rule a fifth of the world with strength and wisdom.A man who betrayed a brother to protect a nation.

Abridged edition: In 1989 Ken Follett astonished the literary world with The Pillars of the Earth, set in 12th-century England. Readers and listeners ever since have hoped for a sequel. At last, here it is. Although the two novels may be listened to in any order, World Without End also takes place in Kingsbridge, two centuries after the townspeople finished building their exquisite Gothic cathedral. The cathedral is again at the center of a web of love and hate, greed and pride, ambition and revenge.

Maurice Swift is handsome, charming, and hungry for fame. The one thing he doesn’t have is talent - but he’s not about to let a detail like that stand in his way. After all, a would-be writer can find stories anywhere. They don’t need to be his own. Working as a waiter in a West Berlin hotel in 1988, Maurice engineers the perfect opportunity: a chance encounter with celebrated novelist Erich Ackermann. He quickly ingratiates himself with the powerful - but desperately lonely - older man, teasing out of Erich a terrible, long-held secret about his activities during the war.

Lymstock is a town with more than its share of shameful secrets - a town where even a sudden outbreak of anonymous hate mail causes only a minor stir. But all that changes when one of the recipients, Mrs. Symmington, commits suicide. Her final note says "I can’t go on", but Miss Marple questions the coroner's verdict of suicide. Soon nobody is sure of anyone - as secrets stop being shameful and start becoming deadly.

The year 1904. On the banks of the Zambezi River, a few miles from the majestic Victoria Falls, there is a colonial settlement called The Old Drift. In a smoky room at the hotel across the river, an Old Drifter named Percy M. Clark, foggy with fever, makes a mistake that entangles the fates of an Italian hotelier and an African busboy. This sets off a cycle of unwitting retribution between three Zambian families (black, white, brown) as they collide and converge over the course of the century, into the present and beyond.