Showing results by narrator "Gareth Gareth" in All Categories

A hilarious new animal story from Ian Whybrow about a burrow of meerkat pups and their eccentric babysitterWhile the grown-ups of the meerkat clan are out looking for food, young pup Jack and his siblings are left with a babysitter. Their favourite is ex media meerkat Uncle Adrian. He might be a bit of a show-off but he tells long funny stories from the time he was the star of a hit wildlife show. One day Jack talks Adrian into taking the pups on a tour of famous locations from the programme.

In 1612, Shakespeare gave evidence at the Court of Requests in Westminster - providing us with the only surviving record of his spoken words. The case seems routine - a dispute over an unpaid marriage-dowry - but it opens up an unexpected window into the dramatist's famously obscure life-story. Charles Nicholl applies a powerful biographical magnifying glass to this fascinating but neglected episode in Shakespeare's life.

This fascinating book charts the relationship between Mark Rowlands, a rootless philosopher, and Brenin, his extraordinarily well-travelled wolf. More than just an exotic pet, Brenin exerted an immense influence on Rowlands as both a person and, strangely enough, as a philosopher, leading him to reevaluate his attitude toward love, happiness, nature, and death.

Big Pharma is more interested in profit than health. This was made clear as governments rushed to produce vaccines during the Covid pandemic. Behind the much-trumpeted scientific breakthroughs, major companies found new ways of gouging billions from governments in the West while abandoning the Global South. But this is only the latest episode in a long history of financializing medicine—from Purdue's rapacious marketing of highly addictive OxyContin through Martin Shkreli's hiking the price of a lifesaving drug to the 4.5 million South Africans needlessly deprived of HIV/AIDS medication.

While travelling north in pursuit of hobgoblin gold, Gotrek and Felix find themselves holed up in the infamous Castle Bilenkov as guests of the curious Count Viktor. While the old man seems harmless enough, Felix soon finds himself the target of an ancient Kislevite curse, battling for his very soul against the insidious daemon Ghrizzhtadt. With Gotrek's resistance to magic waning, the adventurers have no choice but to confront the eternal evil of the Everliving.

Nostradamus wrote 1000 prophecies. Only 942 have survived. What happened to the missing verses? This mystery drives two very different men. Adam Sabir is a writer desperate to revive his flagging career; Achor Bale is a member of an ancient secret society dedicated to the "Three Antichrists" foretold by Nostrodamus: Napoleon, Adolf Hitler - and "one still to come". As Sabir is drawn into the hidden world of France's gypsies, Bale is on his trail. A terrifying hunt begins...

When a salesman from a Paris department store confides his secret fears to Maigret, the Inspector soon becomes caught up in a treacherous feud between husband and wife that is not as clear cut as it seems.

How are eggs of different shapes made, and why are they the shapes they are? When does the shell of an egg harden? Why do some eggs contain two yolks? How are the colours and patterns of eggshells created, and why do they vary? And which end of an egg is laid first - the blunt end or the pointy end?

Frank Foucham risks his life night after night flying raids over Germany. The war shows no sign of ending, and Frank is scared his luck is running out. On a rare day off, fishing for relaxation, he meets Kenneth Ovenden. Forging an immediate friendship based on shared wartime experiences, Frank is then introduced to Kenneth's daughter-in-law Vanessa. Their connection is immediate. With an urgency that the shadow of war brings, these two must follow their hearts before time runs out.

A new translation of Georges Simenon's devastating novel set on the French Riviera. It had a smell of holidays. The previous evening, in Cannes harbour, with the setting sun, had also had the smell of holidays, especially the Ardena, whose owner swaggered in front of two girls with gorgeous figures. Dazzled at first by the glamour of sunny Antibes, Maigret soon finds himself immersed in the less salubrious side of the Riviera, as he retraces the final steps of a local eccentric.

Gareth L. Powell would be the first to tell you that he doesn't know everything about being a writer, or about getting published, or about life when your work is in a bookshelf. But his field-guide to publishing, About Writing, is absolutely here to help writers on every stage of their journey. Whether you need a bit of writing inspiration or tips on how to find your voice, are struggling to manage writing alongside a day job, want some no-nonsense advice about working with an agent or a publisher or are all at sea with social media, this updated and expanded guide is a must.

The last survivors of their company, the battered remnants of the Cadian 267th trek across the deadly toxic deserts of Sanzu in search of salvation. Taking shelter in a damaged Adeptus Mechanicus facility, they think they have found a place to await reinforcements - but something lurks in the darkness, something large and dangerous and determined to kill every last Imperial Guardsman. The Morkanaut awaits....

A solitary tent is found to contain the body of a half-buried woman. She’s been stoned to death. There are lash marks across her back. One of her hands has been cut off. Two years earlier Internet reporter Henning Juul lost his son, Jonas, in a domestic fire. As he returns to work, physically and emotionally scarred, Henning struggles to escape this past and to be taken seriously again as a reporter.

Philosophy, art, democracy, language, even computers—the glories of Greek civilization have shaped our world even more profoundly than we realize. Pericles and the Parthenon may be familiar, but what of Epaminondas, the Theban general who saved the Greek world from Spartan tyranny? Alexander the Great's fame has rolled down the centuries, but the golden Hellenistic Age that followed is largely forgotten. "Byzantine" conjures decadence and deadly intrigue, yet the thousand-year empire that ruled from Constantinople and saved Europe twice from invasion was, in fact, Greek.

For Inspector Michael Angel, the savage murder in an insane asylum 20 years ago marks the beginning of this gruesome trail of enquiries to find missing nurse Fiona Thomas. In spite of obstruction from the chief constable, this quirky Yorkshire policeman reduces the suspects to one by resorting to an unusual and original strategy. A dead woman wearing one stocking inside out, an American class ring, a missing videotape of the lovely Lola and two dead cats all play their part in this scramble to find the killer in this unusual and gripping mystery.

Maigret is called to the home of professional gambler Felix Nahour, who has been found shot dead by his chambermaid. Maigret is shocked to recognise a photo of the man's wife, who becomes the main suspect. All signs point to her guilt, but Maigret suspects there might be more to this complicated affair.

This novel has been published in a previous translation as Maigret on the Defensive.

M. R. James is one of the finest English language ghostwriters ever published. These short stories are not only classics of their genre, but are outstanding examples of beautifully paced, understated terror and sociological horror, reaching to the dark expanse of the unconscious mind.

Louis is a gripping story of the life of a professional wartime spy. From his boyhood education in Egypt in the early 1900s, he was being prepared to serve in the newly formed British Secret Service Bureau on the orders of Abbas II Hilmi, the Khedive of Egypt and Sudan, as part of a secret arrangement with the British government to supply young operatives for the newly formed bureau.

An incredible debut novel: a coming-of-age tale set against the backdrop of the Yorkshire Ripper murders, ‘full of daring, authenticity and wit' (Rachel Cusk). "The milkman found her. On Prince Philip Playing Fields. He crossed the dew-soaked grass toward what he took to be a bundle of clothes, but then he came across a discarded shoe, and then t' mutilated body. Her name wor Wilma McCann." Leeds, late 1975, and a body has been found on Prince Philip Playing Fields.

When Countrywise presenter Paul Heiney's son, Nicholas, committed suicide aged 23, Paul and his wife, Times columnist Libby Purves, were rocked to the core. Nicholas had been a highly gifted, promising young man, although he had struggled to keep his head above water at times as severe depression slowly dragged him down over many years.