Resultado narrado por "Simon Shepherd" em Todas as categorias

Dame Beryl Bainbridge was one of the best loved and most recognisable English novelists of her generation. She was shortlisted for the Booker Prize five times, and her critically acclaimed novels The Dressmaker (1973), The Bottle Factory Outing (1974), An Awfully Big Adventure (1990), Every Man for Himself (1996) and Master Georgie (1998) confirmed her status as one of the major literary figures of the last 50 years.

Lettie Peppercorn lives in a house on stilts near the wind-swept coast of Albion, with no one to talk to but Periwinkle the pigeon. Her days are filled with floor-sweeping, bed-making and soup-stirring. Her nights are filled with dreams of her mother, who vanished long ago. Nothing incredible has ever happened to Lettie, until one winter’s night. The night the Snow Merchant comes. He claims to be an alchemist - the greatest that ever lived - and in a mahogany suitcase, he carries his newest invention. It is an invention that will change Lettie’s life - and the world - forever.

Ever pictured your own funeral? You won’t be able to help it when you read some of the stories in this nightmarish collection, where things are never what they appear. Funerals are just the beginning. How about a day at the beach that ends in a mischievous murder? Or a cell phone that has a direct dial to the dead? From the creator of the blockbuster Alex Rider Adventures and The Diamond Brothers Mysteries comes eight more fantastically frightening tales.

Science, technology and Western liberal democracy have all had a dramatic impact on our quality of life. Compared to previous generations, we have unprecedented access to information, increased personal freedom, more material comforts and more possessions. Yet, even before the shock of COVID-19, more people than ever before were reporting being depressed, anxious or unfulfilled. As our material circumstances become easier, life seems to get harder.

The Horologicon - which means 'a book of things appropriate to each hour' - follows a day in the life of unusual, beautiful, and forgotten English words. From the moment you wake to the second your head hits the pillow, there's a cornucopia of hidden words ready for every aspect of your day.

Arthur Bannister has been unexpectedly accepted into Shiverton Hall, which, as it turns out, is an incredibly spooky school, full of surprises. And it is just as well that Shiverton Hall has made its offer, because Arthur had a horrible time at his previous school, and was desperate to leave. Timely indeed... but Arthur has no time to worry about the strange coincidence. He is too busy trying to make head or tail of Shiverton Hall, dogged as it is by tales of curses and bad fortune.

Don’t look behind you. Resist with all your power. He’ll go away, perhaps, as long as you don’t look. Arthur Bannister is back for another term at Shiverton Hall, where eerie events are unfolding. First, a burned stranger shows up in the middle of the night uttering dire warnings. Then a young boy disappears, leaving behind only an ancient book as a clue. And then there’s that dreadful feeling Arthur has that he’s being watched . . .

In the respectable seaside town of Flaxborough, the equally respectable councillor Harold Carobleat is laid to rest. Cause of death: pneumonia. But he is scarcely cold in his coffin before Detective Inspector Purbright, affable and annoyingly polite, must turn out again to examine the death of Carobleat's neighbour, Marcus Gwill, former prop. of the local rag, the Citizen. This time it looks like foul play, unless a surfeit of marshmallows had led the late and rather unlamented Mr Gwill to commit suicide by electrocution. ('Power without responsibility', murmurs Purbright.)

Meet Eugene, the most portly of princes, and Kalvitas, the most courageous of chocolate makers. Theirs is a tale of cakes and cowardice, bullies and battles, as they set out to defeat a terrifying tyrant. The characters are cursed. The desserts are deadly. And people are not always as they appear....

Meet Osbert Brinkhoff, the unlikeliest of avengers. His is a tale of dark delights and ghastly goings-on, of injustice and revenge. The villains are vicious. The settings are sinister. And good does NOT always prevail.... If you prefer cleavers to kittens and fiends to fairies...then welcome to the dark, hilarious world of Schwartzgarten.

When twins Greta and Feliks lose their beloved Aunt Gisela to a poisoned marzipan cake and are sent to the ill-omened Schwartzgarten Reformatory for Maladjusted Children it seems their fate is sealed... that is until they are rescued by the glamorous and wealthy Olga Van Veenen, a fabulous children's author. The two twins are grateful but something tells them that Olga's motives are not entirely genuine...

Meet Marius Myerdorf, the newest recruit of Schwartzgarten's most secret of societies. His is a tale of adventure and abduction, friendship and fearlessness, as the Band of Blood race against time to unmask two of the foulest fiends in the history of the Great City. The deeds are dastardly. The twists are terrifying. And happy endings are not always guaranteed.

In Sherlock Holmes and The Dead Boer at Scotney Castle, the great consulting detective comes up against the rich and powerful Kipling League. Dr Watson recounts the extraordinary events which took place on a spacious early summer day in the Sussex and Kent countryside in 1904. None of the earlier stories chronicling the adventures of Sherlock Holmes compares to the strange circumstances which determined Watson to take up his pen

Late one evening, investigative journalist Bastian Obermayer receives an anonymous message offering him access to secret data. Through encrypted channels he then receives documents showing a mysterious bank transfer for $500,000,000 in gold. This is just the beginning. Obermayer and fellow Süddeutsche Zeitung journalist Frederik Obermaier find themselves immersed in a secret world where complex networks of shell companies help to hide people who don't want to be found.

On the most secret and dangerous assignment of their lives, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson are sent into the newborn Soviet Union to rescue the Romanovs: Nicholas and Alexandra and their innocent children. Will Holmes and Watson be able to change history? Will they even be able to survive?

A quirky, entertaining and thought-provoking tour of the unexpected connections between words, read by Simon Shepherd. What is the actual connection between disgruntled and gruntled? What links church organs to organised crime, California to the Caliphate, or brackets to codpieces? The Etymologicon springs from Mark Forsyth's Inky Fool blog on the strange connections between words.