Showing results by narrator "Thomas Judd" in All Categories

Part hands-on archaeological history of Britain, part deeply personal insight into this ancient craft by a stonemason who has worked on Britain's greatest monuments, from Salisbury Cathedral to St Paul's. Following a tradition that dates back hundreds of years, stonemason Andrew Ziminski has worked on many of Britain's greatest monuments, from the Roman ruins of Bath to Salisbury Cathedral's spire to St Paul's, and his three decades of work give a unique perspective on the warp and weft of English history, nature and geology.

Mr Goon is on holiday, and there's a new policeman in town. While the Find-Outers are up to their usual games, he stumbles upon a puzzling mystery: the theatre safe has been robbed! The top suspect is Boysie, the pantomime cat, but Fatty, Larry, Daisy, Pip and Bets aren't convinced. Who could the real thief be?

‘Stories are like Russian dolls; open them up, and in each one you’ll find another story.’ Conjured from a wickedly imaginative pen, here is a new collection of short stories that showcases Joanne Harris’s exceptional storytelling art. Sensuous, wicked, mischievous, uproarious and wry, here are tales that combine the everyday with the unexpected; wild fantasy with bittersweet reality.

Jason Cowley, editor-in-chief of the New Statesman, examines contemporary England through a handful of the key news stories from recent times to reveal what they tell us about the state of the nation and to answer the question Who Are We Now? Spanning the years since the election of Tony Blair’s New Labour government to the aftermath of the Covid pandemic, the book investigates how England has changed and how those changes have affected us.

In order to stay human, Audrey has built a moat around herself; a moat of books, music, and dreams. It makes her different from the echoes: the sophisticated, emotionless machines, built to resemble and work for the humans. Daniel is an echo - but he's not like the others. He has feelings he was never designed to have, and cannot explain. And when Audrey is placed in danger, he's determined to save her.

There is an ongoing crisis with regards to young men and mental health, with unhelpful gender stereotypes contributing to this malaise. Stories for Boys Who Dare to Be Different offers a welcome alternative narrative. It is an extraordinary compilation of 100 stories of famous and not-so-famous men from the past to the present day, every single one of them a rule breaker and innovator in his own way, and all going on to achieve amazing things.

Written when Orwell was a struggling writer in his 20s, it documents his 'first contact with poverty'. Here, he painstakingly documents a world of unrelenting drudgery and squalor - sleeping in bug-infested hostels and doss houses of last resort, working as a dishwasher in Paris's vile 'Hôtel X', surviving on scraps and cigarette butts, living alongside tramps, a star-gazing pavement artist and a starving Russian ex-army captain.

'Dear Mama, I am having a lovely time here. We play football every day here. The beds have no springs....' So begins the first letter that nine-year-old Roald Dahl penned to his mother, Sofie Magdalene, under the watchful eye of his boarding school headmaster. For most of his life, Roald Dahl would continue to write weekly letters to his mother, chronicling his adventures, frustrations and opinions, from the delights of childhood to the excitements of flying as a World War II fighter pilot....

To overcome a crisis of melancholy after the death of his father, Montaigne withdrew to his country estates and began to write, and in the highly original essays that resulted he discussed themes such as fathers and children, conscience and cowardice, coaches and cannibals, and, above all, himself.

James Patterson's BookShots. Fast-paced, high-impact entertainment. When former SAS captain David Shelley goes looking for an old comrade who has taken to a life on the streets, he finds his friend is dead. An MI5 agent contacts Shelley and arranges a meeting. All the signs point to murder, and the agent believes this is part of something much bigger. The only way Shelley can discover the truth is to put himself on the streets - and into the same danger that got his friend killed.

When young novice monk Brother Beowulf is sent to spy on Spook Johnson, he has no idea of the trouble he's about to find himself in. Johnson boasts to Wulf of his battles against demonic creatures and even seems to imprison local witches, though Wulf is sceptical. But the monsters Johnson claims to fight turn out to be very real indeed, and soon Wulf is forced to seek help from another young Spook, Tom Ward, who terrifies and charms him in equal measure. But the forces of the dark are many and it's not long until Wulf and Tom realise they've bitten off far more than they can chew.

The second terrifying tale in the Spook's spin-off series from best-selling author Joseph Delaney. Thomas Ward was working as the new County Spook, fighting the Dark with his own apprentice. But a new enemy stirred in the north, and Tom's calling required him to leave his home and lead an uprising against a legion of beasts: creatures of the Dark intent on locking the whole Earth in a never-ending winter.

The definitive no-holds-barred biography of John Entwhistle, The Who's legendary bass guitarist. With the full co-operation of the Entwistle family, The Ox will shine a long overdue light on one of the single greatest and most impactful figures in rock history. Drawing on Entwhistle's own notes for an unfinished autobiography, as well as his personal archives and interviews with his family and friends, The Ox will give listeners a never-before-seen glimpse into the two very distinct poles of Entwistle, the rock star incarnate and a man of simple tastes.

Nichol tells the remarkable tale of how the ejection seat was first conceived during the Second World War as countless lives were lost in accidents and in battle. In the wake of the war, that technological race to save aircrew lives using explosive seats continued at an incredible pace. Nichol tells the story of the brave men who risked their lives testing those early devices, and interviewed the first British pilot to eject back in 1949, when ejection, from pulling the handle to being under the parachute, took thirty seconds. Today, that figure is down to around one second.

Inside a Los Angeles church, on the altar steps, lies the blood-soaked, decapitated body of a priest. Carefully positioned, legs stretched out, arms crossed over the chest, the most horrifying thing of all is that the priest's head has been replaced by that of a dog. Later, the forensic team discover that on the victim's chest, the figure 3 has been scrawled in blood.

After a tough week, Tanya Kaitlin is looking forward to a relaxing night in, but as she steps out of her shower, she hears her phone ring. The video call request comes from her best friend, Karen Ward. Tanya takes the call, and the nightmare begins. Karen is gagged and bound to a chair in her own living room. If Tanya disconnects from the call, if she looks away from the camera, he will come after her next, the deep, raspy, demonic voice at the other end of the line promises her.

>The Spook, Tom, and Alice return from Greece to find the County under siege - and the Spook's home burnt to the ground. With his precious library of knowledge destroyed, they seek refuge on the nearby island of Mona. But with Mona in the thrall of a twisted Shaman there is little respite from hostility or denizens of the dark. And as Alice dodges the ever-tightening net of the island's witch hunters, a more deadly enemy emerges. Bony Lizzie, escaped from the Spook's bonds, has grand ambitions of taking the throne.

When those harrowing words ring out during a children’s entertainment in Washington on the evening of April 14, 1865, a quick-thinking young chemist from England named Johnnie Holmes grabs the 12-year-old son of the dying president, races the boy to safety, and soon finds himself enlisted in the most infamous manhunt in history.

They met for the first time in college. Two of the brightest minds ever to graduate from the prestigious Stanford University. They met again in Quantico, Virginia. Robert Hunter has become the head of the LAPD’s Ultra Violent Crimes Unit. Lucien Folter has become the most prolific and dangerous serial killer in FBI history. The FBI caught Lucien. He's been in prison for years. But Lucien has just escaped. And he’s angry. He's going to make the person who put him away suffer. That person...is Robert Hunter.

The fourth instalment of the Wardstone Chronicles. In Pendle the witches are rising and the three most powerful witch clans are rumoured to be uniting in order to conjure an unimaginable evil. Together they will be capable of raising the dark made flesh - the Devil himself.Tom and the Spook need to set off for Pendle to avert the unthinkable. But before they go, the Spook tells Tom to journey home and collect the trunks Mam left behind for him. But what dark family secrets are contained in the trunks?