Resultado narrado por "Bill Wallis" em Todas as categorias

In this series we look at some of our leading classic authors across two genres: the short story and the poem. In this modern world there is an insatiable need to categorise and pigeon-hole everyone and everything. But ideas, these grains and saplings of the brain, need to roam, to explore and find their perfect literary use vehicle. Our authors are masters of many literary forms, perhaps known for one but themselves favouring another.

This collection of short stories contains several gothic tales to bear macabre and chilling witness to writers as diverse as Rudyard Kipling, Guy De Maupassant, Edgar Allan Poe, Arnold Bennett, Daniel Defoe, Edith Nesbit and M.R. James. These tales are designed to unsettle you, just a little, while you sit back, and take in their words as they lead you on a walk to places you’d perhaps rather not visit on your own. Our stories include "My Own True Ghost Story" by Rudyard Kipling, "The Horla" by Guy De Maupassant, and more.

In this collection of Rumpole stories the comic, courageous, and corpulent 'great defender of muddled and sinful humanity' is joined by a winning cast of villains and victims in tales whose wry humour and sparkling wit deftly send up the legal system. In Rumpole and the Angel of Death our hero achieves resounding triumphs over the forces of prejudice and mean-mindedness. Rumpole and the Way through the Woods involves Rumpole in the world of hunters and the hunted, animal rights and human wrongs.

Naples, 1913. Sun-baked, blue-skied, and with its amazing bay it is one of the most beautiful spots in Italy. But it’s also one of the most corrupt. A new arrival here is a junior British official, Scampion, who has already been banished from Florence. Scampion, however, brings with him a new craze that is sweeping Italy: bicycling. But one day as he walks home after a bicycle race, he is stabbed to death. That happens all the time in Naples, but remarkably his wallet was not taken.

When a bunch of mean and rotten pirates, led by a captain who is afraid of blood, raid an abandoned ship, they find far more than they bargained for on board. They find a baby girl whom they happily adopt and call Violet: "Vile" for short. Soon the pirates are busy caring for the little girl and teaching her lots of piratical ways. Great times are had as the pirates and Violet happily sail the seven seas in their trusty ship, the Sleek Sally.

"I see murder in this unhappy hand...." When Mrs. Robinson, palmist to the Prince of Wales, reads Oscar Wilde's hand she cannot know what she has predicted. Nor can Oscar know what he has set in motion when, that same evening, he proposes a game of "Murder" in which each of his Sunday Supper Club guests must write down those whom they would like to kill. For the fourteen "victims" begin to die mysteriously, one by one, and in the order in which their names were drawn from the bag....

Shortlisted for the 2014 Folio Prize. Old Filth and The Man in the Wooden Hat told with bristling tenderness and black humour the stories of that titan of the Hong Kong law courts, Old Filth QC, and his clever, misunderstood wife, Betty. Last Friends, the final volume of this trilogy, picks up with Terence Veneering, Filth's great rival in work and - though it was never spoken of - in love.

In this eclectic selection of biographical sketches, Bill Deedes remembers some of the key figures of the 20th century. Political heavyweights such as Ramsay MacDonald, Stanley Baldwin and Anthony Eden are reassessed and revalued while record breakers such as Sir Edmund Hillary and Roger Bannister are shown to be far more than just their achievements. Further afield, W. F. Deedes ruminates on the chaotic and shady world of Imelda Marcos, the dignity and determination of anti-apartheid campaigner Helen Suzman and the controversial leadership of Ian Smith in Rhodesia.

Maggie Perowne is head of Old Masters at Klinsky's auction house in London. Ben Glazier is an art expert. Ben, not as young as he was, is inescapably in love with Maggie, but she has an unfortunate taste for such dubious men as the Hooray Henry in the wine department. Together Ben and Maggie form a crack team that blends integrity and professionalism with a keen eye for uncovering the mysterious circumstances surrounding priceless works of art.

From the author who brought the world Paddington Bear, comes the new book in the delightful Parisian mystery-series featuring Monsieur Pamplemousse and his canine partner, Pomme Frites. In this latest adventure, they must get to the bottom of a mystery surrounding the tarnishing of the integrity of Le Guide - France's premier hotel and restaurant guide. What they couldn't anticipate was that the case would involve a nun who is in the habit of joining the Mile High Club...

Alexander Cleave, actor, has left his career and his family behind and banished himself to his childhood home. He wants to retire from life, but finds this impossible in a house brimming with presences, some ghostly, some undeniably human. Memories, anxiety for the future, and more particularly, for his beloved but troubled daughter, conspire to distract him from his dreaming retirement.

ASBOs may be the pride and joy of New Labour, but they don't cut much ice with Horace Rumpole - he takes the old-fashioned view that if anyone is going to be threatened with a restriction of their liberty then some form of legal proceeding ought to be gone through first. When one of the Timson children is given an ASBO for playing football in the street, Rumpole soon realizes something fishy is going on.

Having delivered a particularly stirring speech at his recently deceased colleague's funeral, Monsieur Pamplemousse is more than a little disturbed when the coffin explodes during the ceremony. Luckily, his faithful hound Pommes Frites gave out a warning cry just in time, so there were no casualties. But, who exactly is behind this explosion? And was the same person responsible for his late co-worker's demise?

Robert Harper is going back to school, and it is the first railway journey he has ever made alone. And it is not a very usual sort of railway journey. The train stops at the tunnel’s mouth and in order to help whileaway the time, a strange woman dressed in white tells Robert stories. But these are not the kind of stories normally told to a child. Soon Robert is both entranced and terrified by the strange woman and her macabre stories.... Eleven more spine-chilling tales for older children from bestselling author Chris Priestley.

i>Le Guide, France’s top gastronomic guide, is failing to whet the appetite of its audience in America. Bribed by the director with offers of some time off, Monsieur Pamplemousse agrees to flex his literary muscles in a bid to address the problem by writing a play. The result is the ex-detective’s directorial debut, complete with walk-on part for faithful bloodhound Pommes Frites. But disaster strikes on opening night....

Throughout John Mortimer's career, he established profound friendships with people accused of various crimes. He also indulged his passion for writing, penning Paradise Postponed and a series of stories about Rumpole, for whom he was often mistaken. With wit, wisdom and tenderness, he has written the story of his life.

The year is 1931. The new and luxurious transatlantic liner Empress of Britain is on her eastward passage. Among the first-class passengers on board are two English confidence tricksters, making a discreet exit from a little awkwardness they have left behind them in the United States.

Rumpole isn't particularly fond of Christmas; he finds it has a horrible habit of dragging on as he and She Who Must Be Obeyed go through the usual rituals in Froxbury Mansions. After the exchange of presents (lavender water for her, a tie for him) they settle down to a supermarket turkey with all the trimmings, followed by a glass of port. The only excitement comes in deciding whether to stand for the national anthem after the Queen's Speech.

Fed up with questions about what he was going to do when he retired, Edward decided to get on his bicycle and ride from Le Havre to the Mediterranean. He struggled in Normandy to get directions from old men tipsy on Calvados by 9 am, passed by prairies of corn and acres of sunflowers, and hit his stride on the towpath of the Burgundy canal. He explored the mystery of what an ouvrier eats for lunch, and was barred from a swimming pool because his trunks were too decent.

The irrepressible, audacious defence barrister Horace Rumpole whose court scenes are proverbial, and whose home is ruled by Mrs Rumpole, is back in these short stories by John Mortimer. The much loved stories were adapted from his scripts for the hugely popular TV series of the same name.