Showing results by narrator "Mark Smith" in All Categories

Once described as rugby’s answer to Ant & Dec, David Flatman and Mark Durden-Smith are the oddest of odd couples. Now this hugely popular rugby broadcasting double act have turned to dissecting and celebrating rugby union in audiobook form. And, as you’d expect, it’s a brilliant combination of in-depth knowledge and hilarious stories.

First serialized in "Outing" magazine, "White Fang" was published in 1906. The story takes place in Yukon Territory, Canada, during the Klondike Gold Rush at the end of the 19th century, and details a wild wolfdog's journey to domestication.

"White Fang" is a companion novel (and a thematic mirror) to London's best known work, "The Call of the Wild", which is about a kidnapped, domesticated dog embracing his wild ancestry to survive and thrive in the wild.

Madame Charmaine chronicles the adventure one summer of four close friends, three boys and a girl, all 12 years old, who discover a locked “treasure chest” half buried in the sandy shore of the Missouri River following a spring flood. As they play detective and try to find out who buried the chest and what its strange content means, they meet up with a tall, mysterious woman in a turban and soon find out that they are playing a dangerous game, one that threatens to bury them alive in a grave of their own digging.

Deklan ‘Dek’ Archer and his mates arrive at school to a tense atmosphere. ‘Old Mate’, Mr Henry, who has lived in town for a long time, has been found murdered. He had been selling grog on the black market for years. To add to these worries, the Year 12s, who were on camp, are now missing. The police think there is a link between the missing students and the murder. Dek and his friends are torn. Dek and Willum, his mate, have an important football match that evening – professional recruiters are in town. Neither wants to let their coach down but they feel they must search for their friends.

Someone is killing women in the Chelsea nieghborhood of Manhattan - but, who? The only clues: a signature heart carved into each victim's breast (inside, the initials "J.C." and those of the deceased); copies of the New Testament (with underlined passages referring to infidelity); and fingerprints of a juvenile arrested in the 1960s. On the case is Matt Davis, a plodding but effective NYPD homicide detective who is addicted to fly fishing - and chocolate.

A British newspaper editor in India does some favors for a memorable pair of strangers who confide in him their plan to become kings in Afghanistan. Then, two years later, he has a bizarre return visit - kings they have become, sure enough, but they've found the price of kingly mistakes was very high!

When penniless businessman Mr Bedford retreats to the Kent coast to write a play, he meets by chance the brilliant Dr Cavor, an absent-minded scientist on the brink of developing a material that blocks gravity. Cavor soon succeeds in his experiments, only to tell a stunned Bedford the invention makes possible one of the oldest dreams of humanity: a journey to the moon. With Bedford motivated by money, and Cavor by the desire for knowledge, the two embark on the expedition.

"The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" is the series of short stories that made the fortunes of the Strand magazine, in which they were first published, and won immense popularity for Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson. The detective is at the height of his powers and the volume is full of famous cases, including The Red-Headed League, The Blue Carbuncle, and The Speckled Band. Although Holmes gained a reputation for infallibility, Conan Doyle showed his own realism and feminism by having the great detective defeated by Irene Adler - the woman - in the very first story, A Scandal in Bohemia.

The remarkable stories in Born Into This are eye-opening, razor-sharp and entertaining, often all at once. From an Aboriginal ranger trying to instil some pride in wayward urban teens on the harsh islands off the coast of Tasmania, to those scraping by on the margins of White society railroaded into complex and compromised decisions, Adam Thompson presents a powerful indictment of colonialism and racism.

The story takes place in the extreme conditions of the Yukon during the 19th century Klondike Gold Rush, where strong sled dogs were in high demand. After Buck, a domesticated dog, is snatched from a pastoral ranch in California, he is sold into a brutal life as a sled dog. The novella details Buck's struggle to adjust and survive the cruel treatment he receives from humans, other dogs, and nature. He eventually sheds the veneer of civilization altogether and instead relies on primordial instincts and the lessons he has learned to become a respected and feared leader in the wild.

Dr. Watson chronicles here some of the more interesting detective cases that he and his good friend, Mr. Sherlock Holmes, have encountered during their association. We see the cases unfold as he does, scratch our heads as does he while the evidence is collected, and then marvel at the impeccable observations, remarkable insight, and doggedness which Holmes displays as he teases apart the tangled clues.

Criminals should not return to the scene of their crime. Sometimes, it's just too horrible to bear!

Silly, isn't it? The things you think of when a vehicle breakdown makes you walk to the base at night. Creepy, too! But when you're at the outer edge of the galaxy, sometimes your thoughts have something to them....

Was Auntie Maim an axe murderer? Well, you might have thought so! Auntie Mame, on the other hand, can teach you and all of us an important lesson. The little things in life sometimes aren’t so little. Sheldon Beasley, 13, learned that lesson when his attempt to audition for a role in the wildly popular play Auntie Mame went horribly awry. In a letter to the play’s director, Sheldon made several references to "Auntie Maim". Oops. That’s no way to impress the boss, who politely notified Sheldon he would not be invited to tryouts.

James Norman Hall arrived in Paris with the intention of joining the Foreign Legion. After a chance meeting with the man who was to become his good friend, he suddenly found himself signing papers to serve in the Lafayette Escadrille, that corps of American adventurers who fought in the skies above France before the U.S. entered WWI. Hall kept a diary of his experiences and from it he extracted this narrative.

When Stella's father, Leon, disappears in September 2001, the police knock at her door. She baulks at their questions, not sure how to answer. 'What if I just write it down for you?' One summer, a long time ago, Stella sat watching her father cry while the sky clouded over. He had tried to make amends: for his failures, for forgetting to buy the doll she once hoped for, for the terrible things he had done. The first time Stella sensed that something was wrong was on her ninth birthday. There was an accident, and when she opened her eyes there was the tang of blood in her mouth.

Robert Louis Stevenson's swashbuckling high-seas adventure! Now with waves crashing and swords clashing, a pirate tale like you've never heard before!

A good Service non-com will keep his nose clean of politics. And the Sergeant-Major of the 5th Command is a good non-com. When word comes from Earth that there is a new Emperor and the 5th is being recalled to Earth, after ten generations on Mars, he knows it's smart to just salute the flag and follow orders.

Deklan ‘Dek’ Archer and his mates arrive at school to a tense atmosphere. ‘Old Mate’, Mr Henry, who has lived in town for a long time, has been found murdered. He had been selling grog on the black market for years. To add to these worries, the Year 12s, who were on camp, are now missing. The police think there is a link between the missing students and the murder. Dek and his friends are torn. Dek and Willum, his mate, have an important football match that evening – professional recruiters are in town. Neither wants to let their coach down but they feel they must search for their friends.

Set during the Napoleonic Wars, this story features two French Hussar officers, D'Hubert and Feraud. Their quarrel over an initially minor incident turns into a bitter, long-drawn out struggle over the following fifteen years, interwoven with the larger conflict that provides its backdrop. At the beginning, Feraud is the one who jealously guards his honor and repeatedly demands satisfaction anew when a duelling encounter ends inconclusively; he aggressively pursues every opportunity to locate and duel his foe.