検索キーワード： ナレーター "Simon Prebble" すべてのカテゴリー

In 1914, a new kind of war came about, bringing with it a new kind of world. World War One began on horseback, with generals employing bayonet charges to gain ground, and ended with attacks resembling the Nazi blitzkriegs. The scale of devastation was unlike anything the world had seen before: 14 million combatants died, a further 20 million were wounded, and four empires were destroyed. Even the victors' empires were fatally damaged.

The country doctor had come to 221B Baker Street, the famous lodgings of Sherlock Holmes, with an eerie tale---the legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles, the devil-beast that haunted the lonely moors around the Baskervilles' ancestral home. The tale warned the descendants of that ancient family never to venture out on the moor "in those dark hours when the powers of evil are exalted."

Published in 1904, The Golden Bowl is the last completed novel of Henry James. In it, the widowed American Adam Verver is in Europe with his daughter Maggie. They are rich, finely appreciative of European art and culture, and deeply attached to each other. Maggie has all the innocent charm of so many of Jamess young American heroines. She is engaged to Amerigo, an impoverished Italian prince; he must marry money, and as his name suggests, an American heiress is the perfect solution.

A powerful ruler, an alluring young woman, a scandal that would rock the nation: Anne Boleyn’s life story sounds more like a juicy TV docu-drama than a chapter of English history. Although she is not of noble birth or even especially beautiful, Anne Boleyn manages to rise to the very pinnacle of the English aristocracy. Renowned for her extraordinarily vivid recreations of historical events, Carolly Erickson brings out the full fascinating story of the enigmatic Anne Boleyn.

Architect and family man Lee Morris never gave much thought to the shares he inherited of the Stratton Park racecourse, the multi-million dollar property owned by the powerful Stratton family. His mother had first received the shares to keep her quiet about the abuse she had suffered at the hands of her first husband, Keith Stratton. Now, much to Lee's chagrin, he is being drawn into the thick of the Stratton family squabbles as they wage a furious debate over the future of the race track.

It's a double mystery: Two young men have vanished, and the investigation leads to two troubling clues in two different locations - a scorched van and a peculiar bloodstain in an abandoned airport hangar.

A distraught woman arrives at the Eastvale police station desperate to speak to Detective Chief Inspector Alan Banks. But since Banks is away on holiday, his partner, Annie Cabbot, steps in. The woman tells Annie that she's found a loaded gun hidden in the bedroom of her daughter, Erin: a punishable offense under English law. When an armed response team breaks into the house to retrieve the weapon, the seemingly straightforward procedure quickly spirals out of control.

Lady Priscilla Dalloway’s twin brother took a job as trainer to Lord Cromarty - and then promptly disappeared. For Pris, finding her brother means seducing notorious cad Dillon Caxton. Dillon claims to have set aside his devilish ways and forged an impeccable reputation as Keeper of the Register for racehorses. He resists all women, and lets absolutely no one view the information he safeguards. But Lady Priscilla Dalloway is no ordinary temptress and she means to work her way into Dillon’s books.

It was the time of the French Revolution, a time of great change and great danger. It was a time when injustice was met by a lust for vengeance, and rarely was a distinction made between the innocent and the guilty. Against this tumultuous historical backdrop, Dickens’ dramatic story of adventure and courage unfolds.

Hailed as one of the world’s masterpieces of psychological realism, The Death of Ivan Ilyich is the story of a worldly careerist, a high-court judge who has never given the inevitability of his death so much as a passing thought. But one day death announces itself to him, and to his shocked surprise he is brought face-to-face with his own mortality. How, Tolstoy asks, does an unreflective man confront his one and only moment of truth?

One of the most revered works in English literature, Great Expectations traces the coming of age of a young orphan, Pip, from a boy of shallow aspirations into a man of maturity. From the chilling opening confrontation with an escaped convict to the grand but eerily disheveled estate of bitter old Miss Havisham, all is not what it seems in Dickens’ dark tale of false illusions and thwarted desire.

Throughout the annals of fiction, there have been many celebrated detective teams: Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Nick and Nora Charles. Hercule Poirot and Arthur Hastings. Thomas and Charlotte Pitt. That last pair is the creation of beloved mystery writer Anne Perry, who, as the editor of Odd Partners and in conjunction with Mystery Writers of America, has enlisted some of today’s best mystery writers to craft all-new stories about unlikely duos who join forces - sometimes unwillingly - to solve beguiling whodunits.

Penelope Ashford, Portia Cynster's younger sister, has devoted her life to the care of orphans. But lately, her charges seem to be disappearing without a trace. Penelope enlists investigator Barnaby Adair to solve the mystery. Adair agrees, intrigued by both the case and by Penelope.

Peter Diamond is tasked to run security for a wedding. Seems a bit beneath his extraordinary detective talents, as well as his title as head of Bath's CID, but this isn't your run-of-the-mill ceremony: the bride and groom belong to families on opposite ends of the law - and someone is trying to sabotage the nuptials by taking out a hit on the father of the bride.

In this science-fiction classic, a shooting star seen in the skies over Victorian England heralds an alien invasion. The Martians, in need of resources, have been shot from Mars via a huge space gun and have landed in Southern England, where they quickly overwhelm its inhabitants. As the battle for Earth begins, our unnamed narrator struggles to return to his wife amidst the fighting and devastation.

Jackson is always eager to visit his aunt Sarah at her anthropological digs. This time she's in England, at Stonehenge, and Jackson's particularly excited to see the massive and mysterious stone formations in person. But then he sees a young man viciously attacked and witnesses a similar savage attack on his beloved aunt Sarah. A beast no one has ever seen before is on the prowl and Jackson must rush to stop it before it can kill again. Can he solve the mystery of the inhuman monster that is stalking the countryside - before it's too late?

Scotland Yard Detective Joe Sandilands is caught off guard one night in 1933 by a phone call from a distressed boy named Jackie Drummond, who just might be the illegitimate son Joe never knew he had....

Imagine a world where Beatlemania was against the law - recordings scratched onto medical X-rays, merchant sailors bringing home contraband LPs, spotty broadcasts taped from western AM radio late in the night. This was no fantasy world populated by Blue Meanies, but by the USSR, where a vast nation of music fans risked repression to hear the defining band of the British Invasion. The music of John, Paul, George, and Ringo played a part in waking up an entire generation of Soviet youth, opening their eyes to seventy years of bland official culture and rigid authoritarianism.

In December 1924, a murder took place on a chicken farm in East Sussex, England. Although Norman Thorne never confessed to killing his girlfriend, Elsie, he was tried and hanged for the crime. In Chickenfeed, Walters burrows deep into an English legend, creating a suspenseful tale of fiction based in fact. Was Thorne guilty? If so, what was his motive?

This inspiring anthology collects enduring and entertaining stories that have enthralled young and old, by the cherished authors whose tales have captivated children for generations. Perfect for the family car trip or at-home listening, these recordings sparkle with the wit and wonder of time-tested storytelling.