Showing results by narrator "Finlay Robertson" in All Categories

In The Spirit Level Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett put inequality at the centre of public debate by showing conclusively that less equal societies fare worse than more equal ones across everything from education to life expectancy. The Inner Level now explains how inequality affects us individually, how it alters how we think, feel and behave. It sets out the overwhelming evidence that material inequalities have powerful psychological effects: when the gap between rich and poor increases, so does the tendency to define and value ourselves and others in terms of superiority and inferiority.

On the day of his dad's funeral, Sam finds a strange, black stone which he senses has supernatural power. But that is just the beginning. Stowed in his pocket, the stone increases Sam's strength and speed at a single touch. And he starts seeing things: two girls dancing, a lone figure on a hilltop summoning ravens, walking with wolves...and his dad too. Could this small black stone really help bring back his dad?

People like Emmy Jackson. They always have. Especially online, where she is Instagram sensation Mamabare, famous for telling the unvarnished truth about modern parenthood. But Emmy isn’t as honest as she’d like the fans to believe. She may think she has her followers fooled, but someone out there knows the truth and plans to make her pay....

In 1912, the SS Birmingham approaches India. On board is Morgan Forster, novelist and man of letters. It will be another 12 years, and a second time spent in India, before A Passage to India, E. M. Forster's great work of literature, is published. During these years, Morgan will come to a profound understanding of the infinite subtleties and complexity of human nature.

As war spreads like wildfire, the Smoke Thieves face their greatest challenges yet. With her father tightening his grip on the Northern Plateau, Catherine sends her loyal bodyguard Ambrose into the dragon's den on a desperate mission to disrupt the supply of smoke. In Calidor, Edyon and March face a future divided while, trapped in the demon world, Tash wrestles with the price of her past. But as the battle for the human kingdoms reaches its climax, the demon realm reveals a final, terrible secret.

Artist, lover, wife, mother: can one woman be them all? Born in 1924, Jennet Mallow grew up with a disillusioned mother and a father haunted by memories of war. But Jennet has a talent - and a passion - for art. When she meets the handsome painter David Heaton, they begin a tempestuous affair which takes them from the dank terraces of London to a bohemian artistic community in St Ives. But as Jennet's career flourishes, her relationship with David suffers - with potentially tragic consequences....

A captain in 29 Commando, Johnny Mercer served in the army for 12 years. On his third tour of Afghanistan, he was a joint fires controller, with the pressurized job of bringing down artillery and air strikes in close proximity to his own troops. Based in an area of Northern Helmand that was riddled with Taliban leaders, he walked into danger with every patrol, determined to protect them. Then, one morning, in brutal close-quarter combat, everything changed....

It's 2006 in the fictional East London borough of Leytonstow. The UK’s pub smoking ban is about to happen, and 38-and-a-half year old John Torrington, a mopper and trolley collector at his local DIY store, is secretly in love with the stylish, beautiful, and middle-class barmaid Lois. John and his hapless, strange, and down-on-their-luck friends, Gabby Longfeather and Glyn Hopkins, live in Clements Markham House - a semi-derelict Edwardian villa divided into unsanitary bedsits, and (mis)managed by the shrewd, Dickensian business man, Mr Kapoor.

At a time of national emergency, the average person could be forgiven for thinking that crime rates would go down as everyone tried to help the war effort. However, the reality was that criminals saw the war as an opportunity to exploit the emergency conditions, and those with a previously unblemished reputation found themselves tempted off the straight and narrow.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Noonday by Pat Barker, read by Juliet Stevenson, Stephen Boxer, John Sackville, Anne Reid & Finlay Robertson. London, the Blitz, autumn 1940. Ambulance drivers Elinor Brooke and Kit Neville ferry injured survivors from bomb sites to hospitals while Elinor's husband, Paul, works as an air-raid warden.

What if you couldn’t get away from the one who got away? Unlucky in love Jess is following her dream and moving to London. It’s December, and she’s taking a room in a crumbling Notting Hill house‐share with four strangers. On her first night Jess meets Alex, the guy sharing her floor. They don’t kiss under the mistletoe, but as far as Jess is concerned, the connection is instant. She lets herself imagine how their relationship will grow over the following year. But when Jess returns from a Christmas holiday, she finds Alex has started dating someone else.

Tess and Gus are meant to be. They just haven't met properly yet. And perhaps they never will.... 'Today is the first day of the rest of your life' is the motto on a plate in the kitchen at home, and Tess can't get it out of her head, even though she's in Florence for a final idyllic holiday before university. Her life is about to change forever - but not in the way she expects. Gus and his parents are also on holiday in Florence. Their lives have already changed suddenly and dramatically.

A would-be author has taken time out from life in the city to live in a cabin by a river and write a novel. And not just any novel. A novel that will avoid all the pitfalls and limitations of other novels, a novel that will include everything. At first, these new surroundings are so idyllic that it's hard to find the motivation to get started. And then, in all its brutality, the outside world intervenes.

What happens to a man who has his ear pressed to the lives of others but not much life of his own? When Stephen Donaldson joins The Institute, he anticipates excitement, romance and new status. This becomes a reality when he is assigned a new case: Phoenix, in which he becomes mesmerized by the voice of the target's wife. Dangerously in love and very lonely, Stephen sets himself up for a vertiginous fall that will forever change his life.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Toby's Room, a dark, compelling novel of human desire, wartime horror and the power of friendship. When Toby is reported 'Missing, Believed Killed', another secret casts a lengthening shadow over Elinor's world: How exactly did Toby die - and why? Elinor determines to uncover the truth. Only then can she finally close the door to Toby's room.

Towards the end of the Second World War a British artist called Kenneth Brill is arrested for painting near the village of Heathrow. Under interrogation a picture emerges as Brill tells the story of his life. Vanishing sees the world through the eyes of one of the forgotten geniuses of British Art, a man whose artistic vision is so piercing he has trouble seeing what is right in front of him.

Spring, 1914. The students at the Slade School of Art gather in Henry Tonks's studio for his life-drawing class. But for Paul Tarrant the class is troubling, underscoring his own uncertainty about making a mark on the world. When war breaks out and the army won't take Paul, he enlists in the Belgian Red Cross just as he and fellow student Elinor Brooke admit their feelings for one another.

Rob Driscoll, former sergeant with 42 Commando, Royal Marines, served tours in Iraq, Kuwait and Kosovo. A born leader of fighting men, with the medals to prove it, he also endured three tours in Afghanistan. The third of those will go down in history as one of the UK military's darkest hours, for it marked the first time a British serviceman has been tried for a murder on the battlefield since the Second World War.

Nearly 60 years ago, Nobel Prize-winners Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson stumbled across a mysterious hiss of faint radio static that was interfering with their observations. They had found the key to unravelling the story of the big bang and the origin of our universe. That signal was the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the earliest light in the universe, released 379,000 years after the big bang.

How do you solve your own murder? Everyone believes Alex is in a coma, unlikely to ever wake up. As his family debate withdrawing life support, and his friends talk about how his girlfriend Bea needs to move on, he can only listen. But Alex soon begins to suspect that the accident that put him here wasn't really an accident. Even worse, the perpetrator is still out there, and Alex is not the only one in danger. As he goes over a series of clues from his past, Alex must use his remaining senses to solve the mystery.