Showing results by narrator "Eve Karpf" in All Categories

From the best-selling author of My Dear, I Wanted to Tell You and The Heroes' Welcome, Louisa Young's Devotion is a novel of family, love, race and politics set during the electric change of the 1930s. Tom loves Nenna. Nenna loves her father. Her father loves Mussolini. Ideals and convictions are not always so clear in the murky years between the end of the First World War and the beginning of the second.

For holidaymakers it’s a glorious time of breathtaking scenery, picnics on beaches, and flocks of tourists on their summertime holidays. But for Miss Judy Dimont, this is all a trifle dull. As a reporter for local rag, The Riviera Express, she needs scandal and intrigue - and one morning, as the clock strikes the quarter hour, she gets it. A woman has been shot dead in one of Buntorama’s upmarket holiday huts, the toffee-nosed rival hotelier next door is rubbing his hands with glee, and Judy and her trusty moped, Herbert, are off like a shot to survey the scene of the crime.

The Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood began as a group of painters, including Dante Gabriel Rossetti and William Holman Hunt, who wished to reject the stern and academic strictures of current painting and return to the simpler and more uncomplicated days before the Italian High Renaissance and the days of Raphael. The movement was short lived but very influential and, as well, was taken up by a number of different arts.

In the seaside town of Temple Regis, seagulls are wheeling overhead and the holidays are getting close. And then the body of political candidate Odile Clifford is discovered on the balcony of the lighthouse. Fearless Riviera Express reporter Judy Dimont goes in search of the killer - but who is it? And where will they strike next?

For the female poet there was always the confining hand of men to instruct that their time was perhaps spent more productively elsewhere. These lines, these gilded verses often protest otherwise. The contribution of women in these earlier centuries is immense, and in this series we bring together poets who have created some of the most beautiful and expressive verses ever written. And remember these words, these telling lines, have been written against the grain of society's male bias. With their remembered words these female poets have given us a history that we can all now share.

Looking out upon the backstreets, the suburbs and the high society haunts of Edwardian London, the delightfully witty and independent spinster Miss Ley surveys a tangled web of lives; she sympathetically observes the struggle under the pressures of convention, and the complex interplay between love and reason. Through Miss Ley's eyes we witness the brief but happy marriage of a dying poet; a woman's adulterous passion for a young rascal; and finally, an honourable man's decision to take virtue to extremes.

When Roberta, Peter, and Phyllis' father is arrested for a crime he did not commit and they have to start a new life in the country, they fear the happy times are gone forever. Little do they expect the exciting adventures and the new friends that await them. By the end they have learned more about life and themselves than they had ever dreamed possible. This full-cast, dramatized version of E. Nesbit's children's classic delightfully brings to life the adventures of The Railway Children.

These 11 stories include, amongst others, a terrifying Nordic curse and a country garden inhabited by a deadly ghost. Aiken's other works include 'The Kingdom Under The Sea', 'Mortimer Says Nothing' and 'Past Eight O'Clock'.

The Lighthouse begins on a North Sea ferry, on the blustery outer deck of which stands Futh: a middle-aged, recently-separated man heading to Germany for a restorative walking holiday. After an encounter with an inexplicably hostile barman at a family-run hotel in Hellhaus, Futh sets out on his week-long circular walk along the Rhine. As he travels, he contemplates his childhood, a complicated friendship with the son of a lonely neighbour, his parents’ broken marriage and his own.

This century unfolds with a fast-changing world riven by immense wars and glutton hungry Empires. Women strive to win the most basic of rights, the right to vote. Their literary testament is now a vital part of our cultural world. They write on all manner of subjects with truth, with imagination and with undeniable talent. We are all the richer for their words.

We all love animals, even if sometimes its only from afar on TV or at a zoo. But many of us have felt a closer friendship and companionship with our friends in the animal world. We talk and react to them as if they really do understand us. Perhaps they do. In this volume Hardy, Thackeray, Carroll, DH Lawrence, Emily Dickinson, and many others share their words with our ears.

When Flossie Teacake tries on her older sister's fur coat she is transformed from a timid ten-year-old into a glamorous 18-year-old. With all her dreams coming true she is determined to have a fantastic time.

Herbert George Wells was born on September 21st, 1866 in Bromley in Kent. He was the youngest of four siblings and his family affectionately knew him as ‘Bertie’. The first few years of his childhood were spent fairly quietly, and Wells didn’t display much literary interest until, in 1874, he accidentally broke his leg and was left to recover in bed, largely entertained by the library of books his father regularly brought him. Through these Wells found he could escape the boredom and misery of his bed and convalescence by exploring the new worlds he encountered in these books.

George Robert Gissing was born on November 22, 1857, in Wakefield, Yorkshire. He was educated at Back Lane School in Wakefield. Gissing loved school. He was enthusiastic with a thirst for learning and always diligent. By the age of 10 he was reading Dickens, a lifelong hero. In 1872, Gissing won a scholarship to Owens College. Whilst there, Gissing worked hard but remained solitary. Unfortunately, he had run short of funds and stole from his fellow students. He was arrested, prosecuted, found guilty, expelled and sentenced to a month's hard labour in 1876.

In this selection of some of Saki's best short stories, we enter a fictional world in which the Edwardian gently are pitched against the rude forces of nature and maiden aunts struggle unsuccessfully to contain the merciless antics of children in their charge. Saki is perhaps the ultimate master of writing complete stories in just a few pages and his sublime craftsmanship is accompanied by a wicked black humour.

Imogen and Arthur have been missing their friend, the penguin, Einstein, since he went back to Australia. So when an opportunity for him to return arises, they jump at the chance. But then Einstein and his friend Isaac are kidnapped. It’s time to turn detective again.

When Devon farmer's daughter Roxanne Hawkins attends a local summer concert, the 14-year-old is blindingly stage-struck. On the day of St Petroc's autumn fair, Roxanne runs away to seek fame and fortune in the bright lights of London. There she stumbles across suave and sophisticated music-hall fixer Harry Bright, who persuades her to adopt the stage-name Annie Breeze. The popular double act Bright and Breeze is born.

When we read or listen, words can have a transforming effect. Our mood can alter in the space of a few sentences from joy to sadness. And not just our mood. These words can affect us physically, they can engage our emotions and even in their sadness bring a lump to our throat and tears to our eyes. Sometimes the relief can be palpable. Our authors, from Anton Chekhov, Stephen Crane, Willa Cather, Katherine Mansfield and a wealth of others, are well aware of what their talents will evoke. Genius has many names.

London 1927: the city is buzzing with life. By day, Grace Rutherford is a copywriter at one of London's biggest advertising agencies but by night she is Diamond Sharp, author of a racy gossip column. When Grace meets two Americans who are sworn enemies, she is drawn into a web of secrets and lies which will change her life forever....

The art of writing a short story can be barely noticed by a reader or listener - such is the quality with which they are usually written. It is a difficult trade, an unforgiving discipline, but for those who master it, the rewards are many. In this series of works by our greatest female writers we bring you a selection of those we consider the best. In Volume 1 we bring you the classics 'A Dill Pickle' by Katherine Mansfield, 'The Storm' by Kate Chopin, and 'The Sexton’s Hero' by Elizabeth Gaskell.