Showing results by narrator "Frederick Davidson" in All Categories

In the princely state of Bhopore, India, 1930, a handful of Western visitors comes to the opulent Summer Palace to meet the outrageous Maharajah and his entourage. There they meet the Maharajah’s heir, the sensual Porgy, and his English chorus-girl mistress. They meet the enigmatic chief...

In 1936, George Orwell went to Spain to report on the civil war and instead joined the POUM militia to fight against the Fascists. In this now justly famous account of his experience, he describes both the bleak and the comic aspects of trench warfare on the Aragon front, the Barcelona uprising...

In a remote corner of Zangaro, a small republic in Africa, lies Crystal Mountain. At certain times of the day the mountain emits a strange glow. Only mining magnate Sir James Manson, a shadowy titan of London’s financial district, knows why. The mountain contains ten billion dollars’ worth...

Orwell's own experiences inspire this semi-autobiographical novel about a penniless man living in Paris in the early 1930s. The narrator's poverty brings him into contact with strange incidents and characters, which he manages to chronicle with great sensitivity and graphic power. The latter...

In this encyclopedically learned and immensely gripping book, one of our foremost military historians demolishes the famous dictum that war is the continuation of policy by other means. Beginning with the premise that all civilizations owe their origins to warmaking, Keegan probes the meanings...

It is Inspector Ghote's bad luck to be landed with the case of the perfect murder at the start of his career with the Bombay Police. As if it were not enough to have to contend with the cunning and important tycoon Lala Varde, Ghote finds himself investigating a mysterious theft of a single...

Here are six delightful tales featuring everyone's favorite barrister for the defense, Horace Rumpole. Eccentric characters such as his wife, Hilda, otherwise known as "She Who Must Be Obeyed," and his philandering colleague Claude Erskine-Brown are back as Rumpole visits a snooty restaurant...

Since the time of Voltaire and Rousseau, the secular intellectual has increasingly filled the vacuum left by the decline of the cleric and assumed the functions of moral mentor and critic of mankind. This fascinating portrait of the minds that have shaped the modern world examines the moral...

Alfred Hitchcock said, "Mr. Ambler is phenomenal," and Graham Greene referred to him as "our greatest thriller writer." This is an ideal title for introducing listeners to this master. Ambler brilliantly paints realistic portraits of his characters and the foreign landscape, mixing suspense with...

P.G. Wodehouse is at his whimsical best as the characters of Belpher Castle muddle through impending catastrophes and ill-considered love affairs in this comedy of errors. George Bevan, an American composer of musicals, is in England to attend the performance of one. But when the Lady Patricia...

Whether he's quoting Wordsworth or having words with a particularly obtuse judge, Horace Rumpole always knows what he's doing––even if no one else does. In this delightful collection of stories, Rumpole straightens everyone out in the shocking case of a "bent copper," gallantly teaches a...

This book, as much a work of history as a biography, is a masterful reconstruction of the life and imagination of one of the most remarkable figures in history. Thomas More (1478–1535) was a renowned statesman; the author of a political treatise, Utopia, that gave a political worldview; and...

Compelling, exotic, and suspenseful, Heart of Darkness is far more than just an adventure story. The novel explores deep into the dark regions of the hearts and souls of its characters and into the conflicts prevalent in more "primitive" cultures. It is also a striking picture of the moral...

There’s a corpse in the bathtub, wearing nothing but a pair of pince-nez spectacles. Enter Lord Peter Wimsey, the original gentleman sleuth. Urged to investigate by his mother, the Dowager Duchess of Denver, Lord Peter quickly ascertains that the sudden disappearance of a well-known financier...

“Almost all of the philosophical truths that I have come to know and understand I have learned from Aristotle,” says Mortimer J. Adler. This easy-to-listen-to exposition of Aristotle’s thoughts about nature, human actions, and the conduct of life confirms convictions that most of us hold...

It was the first war we could not win. At no other time since World War II have two superpowers met in battle. In this extensive history, preeminent military historianMax Hastings takes us back to the bloody, bitter struggle to restore South Korean independence after the Communist invasion of...

When Orwell went to the north of England in the thirties to find out how industrial workers lived, he not only observed but shared in their experience. He stayed in cramped, dreary lodgings and subsisted on the scant, cheerless diet of the poor. He went down into the coal mines and walked...

Colonial politics in 1930 Kyauktada, India, come to a head when the European Club, previously for whites only, is ordered to elect one token native member. The deeply racist members do their best to manipulate the situation, resulting in the loss not only of reputations, but of lives. Amidst...

Horace Rumpole, the irreverent, iconoclastic, claret-swilling, poetry-spouting barrister-at-law, is among the most beloved characters of English crime literature. He is not a particularly gifted attorney, nor is he particularly fond of the law by courts if it comes to that, but he'd rather be...

This is a good example of early Wodehouse. It is here that Jeeves makes his first appearance with these unremarkable words: “Mrs. Gregson to see you, sir.” Years later, when Jeeves became a household name, Wodehouse said he blushed to think of the offhand way he had treated the man at their...