Showing results by narrator "Antonia" in All Categories

The Rule of St. Benedict (the rule) arose in an era when a great civilisation was threatened by violence, economic forces that favoured the wealthy, political leaders that lacked the trust of the public and rampant xenophobia. The events that occurred in sixth-century Rome were much those like on the nightly news. Benedict was not a priest or religious official. He was just a young man disillusioned by a corrupt society that lacked compassion. He had a vision of a society in which human values reigned supreme - a vision of compassion, harmony and hope.

A radical look at Jane Austen as you've never seen her - as a lover of farce, comic theatre and juvenilia. The Genius of Jane Austen celebrates Britain's favourite novelist 200 years after her death and explores why her books make such awesome movies time after time.

Could you stay quiet about a murder? Killed on his way home from a night out, Kit Harper had lots of secrets. At the opposite end of the city, another man is found smothered in his bed. Jack Fletcher had secrets too. A photo of a young woman reveals a clue and with dual cases to run, Detective Allie Shenton and her team are pushed to their limits. As attacks on a close group of friends continue, a link to a cold case twenty years ago is unveiled.

When war photographer Jo returns from her latest assignment in Afghanistan and moves into the Brighton flat she's just inherited, she hopes to restore equilibrium to her chaotic life. But images and events of her recent past and the reading of her great-grandmother Elizabeth's diary haunt her night and day, forcing Jo to come to terms with demons she thought she could leave behind.

1941. After the death of her beloved mother, nineteen-year-old Romilly Brooks impulsively accepts a job as a nanny, accompanying eight-year-old Freddie and his grandmother on a sea voyage from war-torn London to the safety of New York. From the first, Romilly is entranced by the opulent ocean liner… if only she could put the idea of German U-boats circling beneath the waves out of her mind.

What would you do if a stranger told you your son was going to die? Silas is 10 years old when the headaches start. When the diagnosis arrives, his parents are told they have until Christmas...maybe. And so begins Sarah Pullen's battle to save her son, against doubting doctors and insurmountable odds. This story about love and loss traces her family's journey from that first day at the hospital, battling a tumour they named Bob, through Silas' death and beyond.

By the time she was 18, Caroline Jones had lived in five different African countries as well as Pakistan. Her father worked for the UN, and the family followed him to countries in or on the border of civil wars and famines. It was a childhood full of adventure, but it was also transient and impermanent. At 16 she went to boarding school in England and then on to Oxford University. At 17 Caroline developed bulimia, a disease that became like a lover to her, her map through darkness.

It's Fran's 30th birthday and things are good. Her outlandishly handsome boyfriend Michael is escorting her to the Ritz, but something has gone very wrong. By the end of the evening Fran is howling in bed with one of Michael's old socks. In her quest to figure out why her life has suddenly gone down the pan, Fran comes up with a failsafe plan. And so begins the greatest love story of all time... The Greatest Love Story of All Time is Lucy Robinson's first novel.

Aldeburgh, 1972. The local community is devastated by the accidental death of a local fisherman. Another tragedy to add to the recent murders of three young women. Soon, Laurel Bowman, Frank Diamond and the rest of the Anglian Detective Agency are pulled in to investigate another complex and dangerous case. But one of them is convinced that the fisherman's death is not an accident and they'll do anything to prove it. Even risk breaking up the agency.

Kate and Bella, Bella and Kate. From childhood they were inseparable yet polar opposites: Bella sensible and cautious, Kate gregarious and just a little dangerous. Then men came into their lives and things changed: a black seed was set in in the heart of their relationship. Over decades, acts of both cruelty and love feed that seed until one shocking event leads to further tragedy. Neither will escape unscathed.

Leyli Maal is a beautiful Malian woman, mother of three, living in a tiny apartment on the outskirts of Marseille. Her quiet life as a well-integrated immigrant is suddenly shaken when her beautiful eldest daughter, Bamby, becomes the main suspect in two murders linked to a lethal illegal immigration racket. Is Bamby really involved? And why is everyone desperate to get their hands on Leyli's mysterious red notebook?

The Time Traveller's Almanac is the largest, most definitive collection of time travel stories ever assembled. Intrepid chrononauts and world-renowned anthologists Ann and Jeff VanderMeer have scoured time itself to bring you these classic stories. Be warned: reality will be warped, wormholes opened, paradoxes woven and parallel universes breached.

A scholar pursues an elusive biographer, stumbling upon buried fragments of distant lives; a woman walks out of her previous existence and encounters an ice-blond stranger from a secretive world; a schoolgirl draws a blood-filled picture of Jael; a swimming pool reveals a beauteous monster in its depths. The settings range from the heat of Provence in summer to the cold forests of Scandinavia, from chalk-strewn classrooms to herb-scented hillsides, from suburban streets to rocky wilds.

I have no idea why they think I had anything to do with Danielle’s accident. My only crime was being there when she fell down the stairs. My therapist, Justine, thinks I'm hiding something. She's quite the character, but I know what she wants to hear. She's the least of my problems. Because, yes. Maybe I am hiding something. But it's not what she thinks. And if people found out, it wouldn't be just my own life in danger...

A farm in Norfolk in the 1970s. A Japanese girl comes to visit her English lover in the house where he was born. She arrives on a day of perfect summer, stands with his mother in a garden filled with roses, watches as his brother walks fields of ripening wheat. But between the two brothers lies the shadow of their father’s violent death almost 20 years before, the unresolved narrative of their childhood - a story that has gone untold, a story that began in the last war. In the presence of the girl, the old trauma begins to surface as the work of the harvest begins.

We've heard the name "Condoleezza Rice" over and over again as the spokesperson for President George W. Bush in matters of national security and foreign affairs. She presented a balanced, firm, unafraid presence to the country after the terrible events of September 11, 2001, as she spoke to the media and the public on behalf of the President. And, when the President has something to say about our friends and foes overseas, "Condi," as she is known to her friends, is usually standing in the background.

A comedy of ambition, dreams, blackmail and daytime TV… Bella’s career as a TV presenter is ‘on hold’. To fill her days, she sits in a coffee shop and obsesses about a wedding dress in the neighbouring shop. Her luck changes when she gets the call from her old boss to present a pilot for a new food and chat show. But her revived TV career is short-lived when one of the celebrity guests threatens to steal the show…

I was taught that life is pain. That love is pain. It was unavoidable. Acceptable. I never had anything, or anyone I could count on. Not really. Not even myself. Until I met Dr Menon... To the outside world Lauren Taylor’s relationship with her boyfriend Josh is perfect. He is supportive and loving and has been there for Lauren during her darkest moments. But behind closed doors, secrets and lies can be hidden…

Amsterdam, 1616. Jana Beil has learned that life rarely provides moments of joy. Having run away from a violent father, her days are spent searching for work in an effort to stay out of the city brothels, where desperate women trade their bodies for a mouthful of bread. But when Jana is hired as a servant for the wealthy and kind Master Reynst and his beautiful daughter Sontje, Jana’s future begins to look brighter.

Angela Carter was one of the most important and influential writers of our time: a novelist of extraordinary power and a searching critic and essayist. This selection of her writing, which she made herself, covers more than a decade of her thought and ranges over a diversity of subjects giving a true measure of the wide focus of her interests: the brothers Grimm; William Burroughs; food writing, Elizabeth David; British writing; American writing....