Leighton Pugh

The World as Will And Idea, Volume 1

• UNABRIDGED (20 hrs and 31 mins)
• By Arthur Schopenhauer
• Narrated By Leighton Pugh

Schopenhauer was just 30 when his magnum opus, Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung, a work of considerable learning and innovation of thought, first appeared in 1818.

Much to his chagrin and puzzlement (so convinced was he of its merits), it didn't have an immediate effect on European philosophy, views and culture. It was only decades later that it was recognised as one of the major intellectual landmarks of the 19th century.

Dunkirk

• UNABRIDGED (10 hrs and 43 mins)
• By Joshua Levine
• Narrated By Jonathan Keeble, Leighton Pugh

The Battle of Dunkirk, in May/June 1940, is remembered as a stunning defeat yet a major victory as well. The Nazis had beaten back the Allies and pushed them across France to the northern port of Dunkirk. In the ultimate race against time, more than 300,000 Allied soldiers were daringly evacuated across the Channel. This moment of German aggression was used by Winston Churchill as a call to Franklin Roosevelt to enter the war.

Adults in the Room: My Battle with Europe’s Deep Establishment

• UNABRIDGED (20 hrs and 14 mins)
• By Yanis Varoufakis
• Narrated By Leighton Pugh

In Adults in the Room, Yanis Varoufakis exposes the shocking reality of how power is wielded behind the scenes at the EU - and argues that only radical reform can save it from collapse. Yanis Varoufakis became globally famous when was elected finance minister of Greece with a specific mandate to say no to the EU: to reject the forced loans and crushing austerity forced upon his country by the Eurozone.

Koh-i-Noor: The History of the World's Most Infamous Diamond

• UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 30 mins)
• By William Dalrymple, Anita Anand
• Narrated By Leighton Pugh

On 29 March 1849, the 10-year-old Maharajah of the Punjab was ushered into the magnificent Mirrored Hall at the centre of the great Fort in Lahore. There, in a public ceremony, the frightened but dignified child handed over to the British East India Company in a formal act of submission not only swathes of the richest land in India but also arguably the single most valuable object in the subcontinent: the celebrated Koh-i-Noor diamond. The Mountain of Light.

The Life of the Buddha

• UNABRIDGED (16 hrs and 4 mins)
• By Bhikkhu Ñanamoli
• Narrated By Hayward Morse, Leighton Pugh, Nicolette McKenzie, and others

This unique biography, told in a lively manner through six 'voices', presents the Buddha's revolutionary solution for humanity that lends to the end of ill will, craving and delusion. It goes back to the earliest sources of the Buddha's life and teachings, drawing as it does from the Pali Canon which was said to record the words that the Buddha spoke, the events that happened, and his specific teachings on which the world-wide religion was based.

The Sorrows of Young Werther

• UNABRIDGED (4 hrs and 31 mins)
• By Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
• Narrated By Leighton Pugh
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

Werther, a sensitive young artist, finds himself in Wahlheim, a quiet, attractive village in Germany where he seeks solace from the turmoils of love. It is a young spring, and he hopes that arcadian solitude will prove a genial balm to his mind. But his romantic tendency rules otherwise, and he falls in love with Charlotte - Lotte - even though he knows she is affianced to another.

The World as Will and Idea, Volume 3

• UNABRIDGED (17 hrs and 22 mins)
• By Arthur Schopenhauer
• Narrated By Leighton Pugh

In this final part to Schopenhauer's momentous and hugely influential work, his original and wide-ranging observations are as lively as ever. Though cast as a 'pessimist' by history, he is anything but that to read - and listen to. Here are the last supplementary comments his original work (published 1818), the fruit of decades of further reflection.

The Diary of Samuel Pepys: Volume I: 1660 - 1663

• UNABRIDGED (42 hrs and 46 mins)
• By Samuel Pepys
• Narrated By Leighton Pugh, David Timson

The Diary of Samuel Pepys is one of the most entertaining documents in English history. Written between 1660 and 1669, as Pepys was establishing himself as a key administrator in the naval office, it is an intimate portrait of life in 17th-century England covering his professional and personal activities, including, famously, his love of music, theatre, food, wine and his peccadilloes.

The Diary of Samuel Pepys: Volume II: 1664 - 1666

• UNABRIDGED (37 hrs and 26 mins)
• By Samuel Pepys
• Narrated By Leighton Pugh

The Diary of Samuel Pepys is one of the most entertaining documents in English history. Written between 1660 and 1669, as Pepys was establishing himself as a key administrator in the naval office, it is an intimate portrait of life in seventeenth-century England, covering his professional and personal activities, including, famously, his love of music, theatre, food, and wine and his peccadilloes.

The World as Will and Idea, Volume 2

• UNABRIDGED (17 hrs and 51 mins)
• By Arthur Schopenhauer
• Narrated By Leighton Pugh

The original edition of The World as Will and Idea appeared in 1818, but in 1844 Schopenhauer published an expanded version. It contained the 'Criticism of the Kantian Philosophy', a lengthy document; and Supplements to the First Book (The Doctrine of the Idea of Perception) and the Second Book (The Doctrine of Perception or Knowledge of the Understanding).

Don't Trust, Don't Fear, Don't Beg: The Extraordinary Story of the Arctic 30

• UNABRIDGED (9 hrs and 34 mins)
• By Ben Stewart
• Narrated By Leighton Pugh

Melting ice, a military arms race, the rush to exploit resources at any cost - the Arctic is now the stage on which our future will be decided. And as temperatures rise and the ice retreats, Vladimir Putin orders Russia's oil rigs to move north. But one early September morning in 2013, 30 men and women from 18 countries - the crew of Greenpeace's Arctic Sunrise - decide to draw a line in the ice and protest the drilling in the Arctic.

The Ashes of London

• UNABRIDGED (12 hrs and 59 mins)
• By Andrew Taylor
• Narrated By Leighton Pugh

London, September 1666. The Great Fire rages through the city, consuming everything in its path. Even the impregnable cathedral of St. Paul's is engulfed in flames and reduced to ruins. Among the crowds watching its destruction is James Marwood, son of a disgraced printer and reluctant government informer. In the aftermath of the fire, a semi-mummified body is discovered in the ashes of St. Paul's, in a tomb that should have been empty. The man's body has been mutilated, and his thumbs have been tied behind his back.

The Praise of Folly/Against War

• UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 5 mins)
• By Desiderius Erasmus
• Narrated By Georgina Sutton, Leighton Pugh

'The Praise of Folly', written in Latin in 1509 and spoken by the goddess Folly (who champions a lively enjoyment of life), was a bold satire on (in the cautious contemporary environment) not only Western classical traditions but also the Catholic Church. Dedicated to More himself, Erasmus wittily challenged entrenched views in so forthright (and humanist) a style that it could have brought him in direct conflict with the papacy. Fortunately the pope, Leo X, enjoyed the humour and the challenge!

Germinal

• UNABRIDGED (19 hrs and 55 mins)
• By Émile Zola
• Narrated By Leighton Pugh

Germinal is one of the most striking novels in the French tradition. Widely regarded as Zola's masterpiece, the novel describes the working conditions of French coalminers in the 1860s in harsh and realistic terms. It is visceral, graphic, and unrelenting. Its strong socialist principles and vivid accounts of the miners' strikes meant that the novel became a key symbol in the workers' fight against oppression, with chants of "Germinal! Germinal!" resonating high above the author's funeral.

Chavs: The Demonization of the Working Class

• UNABRIDGED (11 hrs and 16 mins)
• By Owen Jones
• Narrated By Leighton Pugh
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

In this acclaimed investigation, Owen Jones explores how the working class has gone from 'salt of the earth' to 'scum of the earth.' Exposing the ignorance and prejudice at the heart of the chav caricature, he portrays a far more complex reality. The chav stereotype, he argues, is used by governments as a convenient fig leaf to avoid genuine engagement with social and economic problems and to justify widening inequality.

Fireside Gothic

• UNABRIDGED (6 hrs and 54 mins)
• By Andrew Taylor
• Narrated By Leighton Pugh, Peter Noble, Anna Bentinck
• Whispersync for Voice-ready

From the number one best-selling author of The American Boy and The Ashes of London comes a collection of three Gothic novellas - Broken Voices, The Leper House and The Scratch - perfect for fans of The Loney by Andrew Michael Hurley.

The War in the West: A New History: Volume 2: The Allies Fight Back 1941-43

• UNABRIDGED (24 hrs and 55 mins)
• By James Holland
• Narrated By Leighton Pugh

In the second volume of his acclaimed new history of the Second World War, James Holland examines the momentous turning points of 1941-1943: Hitler's invasion of Russia, America's entry into the conflict, the devastating Thousand Bomber Raids over Germany, the long struggle in the deserts of North Africa and the defeat of the U-boats in the crucial Battle of the Atlantic. As in his first volume, Germany Ascendant, he interweaves his account of the well-known events of the period with the personal stories of individuals caught up in them - on all sides.

Six Stories

• UNABRIDGED (8 hrs and 11 mins)
• By Matt Wesolowski
• Narrated By Tim Bruce, Helen Johns, Leighton Pugh, and others

It's 1997. Scarclaw Fell. The body of teenager Tom Jeffries is found at an outward bound centre. Verdict? Misadventure. But not everyone is convinced. And the truth of what happened in the beautiful but eerie fell is locked in the memories of the tight-knit group of friends who took that fateful trip and the flimsy testimony of those living nearby.

Peculiar Ground

• UNABRIDGED (17 hrs and 39 mins)
• By Lucy Hughes-Hallett
• Narrated By Juanita McMahon, Leighton Pugh, Adjoa Andoh, and others

In the 17th century, a wall is built around the deer park of a great house. Wychwood is a world in itself, its ornamental lakes and majestic avenues planned by Mr Norris, a master of the new art of landscaping. A world where, after decades of civil war, everyone has something to hide or something to fear, where dissidents hide in the forest and Londoners fleeing the plague are at the gate.