Showing results by narrator "Chris MacDonnell" in All Categories

While the Germans knew an invasion was inevitable, no one knew where or when it would fall. Those manning Hitler's mighty Atlantic Wall may have felt secure in their bunkers, but they had no conception of the fury and fire that was about to break. After the initial assaults of June established an Allied bridgehead, a state of stalemate prevailed. The Germans fought with great courage - hindered by lack of supplies and overwhelming Allied control of the air. This book describes the catastrophe that followed, in a unique look at the war from the losing side.

This is the story of the greatest empire the world has ever known. Simon Baker charts the rise and fall of the world's first superpower, focusing on six momentous turning points that shaped Roman history. Welcome to Rome as you've never seen it before - awesome and splendid, gritty and squalid. From the conquest of the Mediterranean beginning in the third century BC to the destruction of the Roman Empire at the hands of barbarian invaders some seven centuries later, we discover the most critical episodes in Roman history.

This riveting chronicle of submarine warfare is the first to cover all the major submarine campaigns of the war, describing, in detail, the operations of the British, American, Japanese, Italian, and German submarine and anti-submarine forces. Beginning with a vivid re-creation of the sinking of the passenger liner Athenia by a German U-boat in September 1939, critically acclaimed military historian Peter Padfield's compelling narrative casts an unflinching eye on the devastating consequences of maritime warfare.

In the late summer of 1944, 80 British Special Air Service (SAS) soldiers undertook a covert commando raid, parachuting behind enemy lines into the Vosges Mountains in occupied France to sabotage Nazi-held roads, railways, and ammo dumps, and assassinate high-ranking German officers, undermining the final stand of Hitler's Third Reich. Despite their successes, more than half the men were captured, tortured, and executed. After the war ended, a top-secret black ops unit was formed to hunt down the SS commanders who had murdered their special forces comrades....

Dawn on Sunday, June 22, 1941 saw the opening onslaughts of Operation Barbarossa as German forces stormed forward into the Soviet Union. Few of them were to survive the five long years of bitter struggle. A posting to the Eastern Front during the Second World War was rightly regarded with dread by the German soldiers. They saw epic battles such as Stalingrad and Kursk, and yet it was a daily war of attrition which ultimately proved fatal for Hitler's ambition and the German military machine.

Whip-smart 13-year-old Julian Costello Proctor - better known as Jules - has an eidetic memory. For as long as he can remember, he has remembered everything. "My mind is always on," he explains. But when an unexpected death throws his life into turmoil, Jules begins to experience something strange. For the first time, there are holes in his memory. But that's not the strangest part. What's really weird isn't what he's forgotten; it's what he remembers. Memories of another life, not his own.

Tragedy at Law follows a rather self-important High Court judge, Mr. Justice Barber, as he moves from town to town presiding over cases in the Southern England circuit. When an anonymous letter arrives for Barber, warning of imminent revenge, he dismisses it as the work of a harmless lunatic. But then a second letter appears, followed by a poisoned box of the judge's favorite chocolates, and he begins to fear for his life. Enter barrister and amateur detective Francis Pettigrew, a man who was once in love with Barber's wife and has never quite succeeded in his profession.

In the autumn of 1938, Europe believed in the promise of peace. But only a year later, the fateful decisions of just a few men had again led Europe to a massive world war. Drawing on contemporary diaries, memoirs, and newspapers, as well as recorded interviews, 1939 is a narrative account of what the coming of the Second World War felt like to those who lived through it.

Francis Pettigrew travels to Exmoor for a holiday with his wife - an area in which as a young boy he was traumatized by coming across a dead body on the moor. In an attempt to exorcise this trauma, Pettigrew walks across the moor to the place where the incident occurred - only to find another dead body. Moreover, when he returns to the scene with the police, the body is gone. Did he really see a body, or is it a hallucination conjured up by his return to the scene of the crime that has haunted him since childhood?

Based on meticulously researched historical fact, "Brown on Resolution" marks C.S. Forester's first novel about the British Navy and his subsequent sea-faring novels. It charts the life and death of Leading Seaman, Albert Brown, beginning with the story of how his mother, Agatha, meets and spends five days with a young Lieutenant Commander (RN) and becomes pregnant with Albert.

In this follow-up to the first of Hugh the series though, Lofting assigns the starring role to Tommy Stubbins who is now an "old man". He recalls how he met Doctor John Dolittle and the many adventures they shared. The Doctor is working on learning the language of the Shellfish and their adventures take them from a trial for murder to adventures on the high seas, culminating in their arrival on Spidermonkey Island. Then comes a war between the native tribes, Dolittle being crowned King, the arrival of the Great Glass Sea-Snail and their eventual return to Puddleby-on-the-Marsh.

Josephson-Storm traces the history of the myth of disenchantment in the births of philosophy, anthropology, sociology, folklore, psychoanalysis, and religious studies. Ironically, the myth of mythless modernity formed at the very time that Britain, France, and Germany were in the midst of occult and spiritualist revivals. It was specifically in response to this burgeoning culture of spirits and magic that they produced notions of a disenchanted world.

From colonial empire-building in the 19th century to the postcolonial culture wars of the 21st century, attempts at "comparison" have defined the international agenda of literature. But what is comparative literature? That is discussed in this audiobook....

This is a revised and updated edition of Evan Mawdsley's acclaimed global history of World War II. Beginning with the outbreak of the Sino-Japanese War, Evan Mawdsley shows how the war's origins lay in a conflict between the old international order and the new and traces its globalization as it swept through Asia, Europe, and the Middle East. The primary focus is on the war's military and strategic history, though also examines the political, economic, ideological, and cultural factors which influenced the course of events.

From the young airmen who took their frail machines high above the trenches of World War I and fought their foes in single combat, there emerged a renowned company of brilliant aces - among them Ball, Bishop, McCudden, Collishaw, and Mannock - whose legendary feats have echoed down half a century. But behind the elite pilots in the Royal Flying Corps, there were many hundreds of airmen who flew their hazardous daily sorties in outdated planes without ever achieving fame.

Of all the ghostly lore that bedevils Sleepy Hollow, none terrifies more than the galloping spectre of the Headless Horseman. Few in the haunted glen are as susceptible to the tale as the superstitious schoolmaster, Ichabod Crane. But just as bewitching - and bewildering - to Ichabod is the elusive coquette Katrina Van Tassel. On an autumn eve, Ichabod attends a harvest party, hoping to finally woo the woman of his dreams. Instead, he sees his worst nightmares come true.

In 1942, Norman Hanson learned to fly the Royal Navy's newest fighter: the US-built Chance Vought Corsair. Fast, rugged, and demanding to fly, it was an intimidating machine. But in the hands of its young Fleet Air Arm pilots, it also proved to be a lethal weapon. Posted to the South Pacific aboard HMS Illustrious, Hanson and his squadron took the fight to the Japanese. Facing a desperate and determined enemy, Kamikaze attacks, and the ever-present dangers of flying off a pitching carrier deck, death was never far away.

R. D. Blackmore’s enduring masterpiece Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor is renowned for its beautifully descriptive writing, the cleverly woven plot, and the powerfully drawn portrait of true love. Set in Devon in the late 17th century, it is an enduring masterpiece. First published in 1869, the novel revolves around the story of Devonshire farmer, John Ridd, his family, friends, and community. John tells the story in the first person beginning when he is just a boy and his father is murdered by the Doones.

River steamboat captain Charles Marlow has set forth on the Congo in Africa to find the enigmatic European trader Mr. Kurtz. Preceded by his reputation as a brilliant emissary of progress, Kurtz has now established himself as a god among the natives in "one of the darkest places on earth." Marlow suspects something else of Kurtz: he has gone mad.

To the modern eye, King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table have many similarities to our own contemporary super-heroes. Equipped with magical powers, enchanted swords, super-strength, and countless villains to take on, they protect the weak and innocent and adhere to their own code of honor. Comparing Batman, Superman, and Captain America to Sir Launcelot, Sir Tristram, and Sir Galahad isn't a huge leap of the imagination.