Showing results by narrator "Simon Vance" in All Categories

This historical romance, perhaps the greatest cloak-and-sword story ever, relates the adventures of four fictional swashbuckling heroes who served the French kings Louis XIII and Louis XIV. When the dashing young D'Artagnon arrives in Paris from Gascony, he becomes embroiled in three duels with the Three Musketeers: Athos, Porthos, and Aramis. But when he proves himself by fighting not against, but with, the Three Musketeers, they form a quick and lasting friendship.

Macbeth is one of William Shakespeare's more brilliantly populated plays and remains among the most widely read. Award-winning writer and beloved professor Harold Bloom investigates Macbeth's interiority and unthinkable actions with razor-sharp insight, agility, and compassion. He also explores his own personal relationship to the character. The book also becomes an extraordinarily moving argument for literature as a path to and a measure of our humanity.

Alain de Botton has performed a stunning feat: He has transformed arcane philosophy into something accessible and entertaining, useful and kind. Drawing on the work of six of the world's most brilliant thinkers, de Botton has arranged a panoply of wisdom to guide us through our most common problems.

The enthralling and often harrowing history of the adventurers who searched for the Northwest Passage, the holy grail of 19th-century British exploration. After the triumphant end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, the British took it upon themselves to complete something they had been trying to do since the 16th century: Find the fabled Northwest Passage, a shortcut to the Orient via a sea route over Northern Canada. For the next 35 years the British Admiralty sent out expedition after expedition to probe the ice-bound waters of the Canadian Arctic in search of a route.

A local woman is killed in a tragic car crash, but while the victim’s blood contains high alcohol levels, she rarely drank a drop. Meanwhile, a reality TV show begins shooting in Fjällbacka, and as cameras shadow the stars’ every move, tempers flare. When a drunken party ends with an unpopular contestant’s murder, all eyes turn to the cast and crew. Could there be a murderer among them? The ratings spike as the country tunes in to a real life murder mystery.

No one enters the doom-haunted Barrowlands without royal sanction. But Hesk Atterley has. Accompanied by seedy companions and a hunger for riches, what he finds may change his life forever...if it doesn't kill him first.

Eric Henry Liddell was a Scottish athlete, rugby union international player, and missionary. He is perhaps most well known as the subject of the Oscar-winning 1981 film Chariots of Fire, which depicted his experiences training and racing in the Olympics and the religious convictions that influenced him. In his book about spiritual disciplines, he outlines his own pattern for living, which has as its foundation a daily Bible-reading plan.

Welcome to the Home for Wayward and Misbegotten Creatures, an institution run by evil Miss Carbunkle, a cunning villainess who believes her terrified young charges exist only to serve and suffer. Part animal and part human, the groundlings toil in classroom and factory, forbidden to enjoy anything regular children have, most particularly singing and music. For the Wonderling, an innocent-hearted, one-eared, fox-like eleven-year-old with only a number rather than a proper name - a 13 etched on a medallion around his neck - it is the only home he has ever known.

Sir Charles Baskerville is dead. His body was discovered on the grounds of his Devonshire estate, face frozen in fright, not far from the footprints of a large beast. The cause of death has been determined to be a heart attack, but family legend tells another tale, and Detective Sherlock Holmes is determined to uncover the truth.

See You At San Diego is the comprehensive chronicle of Comic-Con International and modern geekdom itself as told through countless stories by nearly fifty of the most integral members of the Comic-Con and fandom scene. This full-fledged oral history—bursting with intimate reflections, hilarious observations, and at times, heartbreaking stories—is about how the geek at last inherited the earth and the story of the transformation of mainstream American pop culture into comic book culture over the past century.

In 1581, Emilia Bassano is allowed no voice of her own. But as the Lord Chamberlain’s mistress she has access to the theatre, and finds a way to bring her work to the stage secretly. And yet, creating some of the world’s greatest dramatic masterpieces comes at a great cost: by paying a man for the use of his name, she will write her own out of history. In modern day New York, playwright Melina Green is determined to see one of her shows make the stage. After years of struggle to be recognised she has finally written again, inspired by the life of her Elizabethan ancestor.

A curiously dated child’s suitcase arrives, unannounced and unexplained, in a modern-day Washington suburb. A week later, American genealogist Jefferson Tayte is sitting in an English hotel room, staring at the wrong end of a loaded gun. In his latest journey into the past, Tayte lands in wartime Leicestershire, England. The genealogist had hoped simply to reunite his client with the birth mother she had never met, having no idea she had been adopted.

While on a visit to London, American genealogist Jefferson Tayte’s old friend and colleague dies in his arms. Before long, Tayte and a truth-seeking historian, Professor Jean Summer, find themselves following a corpse-ridden trail that takes them to the Royal Society of London, circa 1708.

In most fairy tales, princesses are beautiful, dragons are terrifying, and stories are harmless. This isn't most fairy tales. Princess Violet is plain, reckless, and quite possibly too clever for her own good. Particularly when it comes to telling stories. One day she and her best friend, Demetrius, stumble upon a hidden room and find a peculiar book. A forbidden book. It tells a story of an evil being - called the Nybbas - imprisoned in their world. The story cannot be true - not really. But then the whispers start....

Though he is one of England's most acclaimed intellectuals, John Gower is no stranger to London's wretched slums and dark corners, and he knows how to trade on the secrets of the kingdom's most powerful men. When the bodies of 16 unknown men are found in a privy, the sheriff of London seeks Gower's help. The men's wounds - ragged holes created by an unknown object - are unlike anything the sheriff's men have ever seen. Tossed into the sewer, the bodies were meant to be found.

The shocks of 2020 have been great and small, disrupting the world economy, international relations, and the daily lives of virtually everyone on the planet. Never before has the entire world economy contracted by 20 percent in a matter of weeks nor in the historic record of modern capitalism has there been a moment in which 95 percent of the world's economies were suffering all at the same time. Across the world, hundreds of millions have lost their jobs. And over it all looms the specter of pandemic, and death.

In a world of secrets, Taimin and Selena are desperate for answers. They need to discover the truth about their origins and the firewall that borders the wasteland. If they don’t find the hidden path they seek, the citizens of Zorn will die. As they make the perilous journey to the distant firewall, Taimin and Selena are joined by three companions: a young healer, a weapons trader, and an old rover. Together the five are in constant danger, unable to rely on Selena’s powers as she has lost the ability to farcast - and she doesn’t know how to get it back.

Kenny Gabriel is three years away from turning sixty, has forty-three quid in the bank and is occasionally employed to find people who would rather not be found. Broke, clientless and depressed, he knows things can't get much worse. Then he's summoned to the office of London media magnate Frank Parr, whose daughter, Harry, is missing - and there's ten grand on the table to get her back. But he and Frank have a history he'd rather not revisit.

After escaping the horrors of Arkum Zul, Kael and his companions survive a terror-filled night on the ocean only to find themselves shipwrecked and stranded in the Wildlands. With forest tribals on the warpath and old enemies roaming the forest, Kael struggles to come to terms with what he is slowly becoming - a killer. A DeathWizard. In the fight against the evil that threatens to consume him, Kael learns that the Dwarven Mountains far to the north may hide an ancient monolith that holds the answer to the corruption that flows in his veins.

Merle Johnson has here gathered together in one volume all of the nineteenth-century author-artist's classic pirate stories that had been scattered through many magazines and books. Well researched and with richly drawn characters, Pyle's work will appeal to students of history and adventure lovers alike.