Showing results by narrator "Roger May" in All Categories

London, 1936. Gordon Comstock has declared war on the money god, and Gordon is losing the war. Nearly 30 and 'rather moth-eaten already', a poet whose one small book of verse has fallen 'flatter than any pancake', Gordon rejects money-worship and a steady job in advertising for the pursuit of creativity. But poverty soon bites, and with it his creative spirit disappears. Only his ever-faithful Rosemary can rouse him from the stupor and challenge his commitment to his chosen way of life.

The year is 1903, and 22 years have passed since Astrid Hekne died in childbirth. Her son, Jehans, lives on a modest smallholding up in the hills near Butangen, having withdrawn from his community. He is drawn to freedom, to fishing and reindeer hunting, and one day meets a stranger over the body of a huge reindeer buck. 

This audiobook includes unabridged recordings of all George Orwell's six novels: 1984; Animal Farm; Burmese Days; Coming Up For Air; Keep the Aspidistra Flying; and A Clergyman's Daughter.

After more than a decade of Bitcoin, which has now moved beyond lore and hype into an increasingly robust star in the firmament of global assets, a new and more important question has arisen. What happens beyond Bitcoin? 

A rollicking tour of the English country home after World War II, when swinging London collided with aristocratic values As the sun set slowly on the British Empire, its mansions fell and rose. Ancient families were reduced to demolishing the parts of their stately homes they could no longer...

Bloomsbury presents The Devil's Bridge by Anthony Tucker-Jones, read by Roger May. This fascinating title offers a new look at Operation Market Garden and the Arnhem campaign from the perspective of the German forces who defended against the Allies. In the late summer of 1944...

Graham Greene's 'long journey through time' began in 1904, when he was born into a tribe of Greenes based in Berkhamstead at the public school where his father was headmaster. In A Sort of Life, Greene recalls schooldays and Oxford, adolescent encounters with psychoanalysis and Russian roulette, his marriage and conversion to Catholicism and how he rashly resigned from The Times when his first novel, The Man Within, was published in 1929.

Norway, 1880. Winter is hard in Butangen, a village secluded at the end of a valley. The lake has frozen and for months the ground is too hard to bury the dead. Astrid Hekne dreams of a life beyond all this, beyond marriage, children and working the land to the end of her days. Then Pastor Kai Schweigaard takes over the small parish, with its 700-year-old stave church carved with pagan deities. The two bells in the tower were forged by Astrid's forefather in the sixteenth century, in memory of conjoined twins Halfrid and Gunhild Hekne. They are said to hold supernatural powers.

Unpublished at the time of her death, The Professor is the first novel written by Charlotte Brontë, and the seed of her later books, Jane Eyre and Villette. The narrator of the tale, William Crimsworth, tells a story of courage and ambition among jealousy and envy: Orphaned from a young age, William rejects life in the clergy, and then as a tradesman, to the chagrin of his cruel uncles and elder brother. Instead he pursues a career in education and ends up in Brussels where he meets student/teacher Francis Evans Henri, with whom he falls in love.

When Hubert Larnaudie invites some fellow residents of his Parisian apartment building to drink an exceptional bottle of 1954 Beaujolais, he has no idea of its special properties. The following morning, Hubert finds himself waking up in 1950s Paris, as do antique restorer Magalie, mixologist Julien, and Airbnb tenant Bob from Milwaukee, who's on his first trip to Europe. After their initial shock, the city of Edith Piaf and An American in Paris begins to work its charm on them.

David Morris lives the quiet life of a book-valuer for a London auction house, travelling every day by omnibus to his office in the Strand. When he is asked to make a trip to rural Somerset to value the library of the recently deceased Lord Buff-Orpington, the sense of trepidation he feels as he heads into the country is confirmed the moment he reaches his destination, the dark and impoverished village of Ashbrittle.

The body of a suspected blackmailer poses a problem for Bergerac. The elderly corpse has been discovered on a deserted Jersey beach. While Bergerac investigates the man’s shady past, the mainland is being threatened by a nationwide programme of IRA assassinations. At first the connection is unclear, but as scarlet fever sweeps through Jersey, Bergerac enlists the help of the doctor to uncover the origins of the epidemic.

When a small boy called Matthew arrives at the police department and announces he has been kidnapped, only Bergerac takes him seriously. But Bergerac has many other matters occupying his thoughts: the drunken waiter at Lil’s (missing in bizarre circumstances), his battle with Hungerford over the arrests quota, and, more important, the arrangements for his daughter’s party. What Bergerac does not realise is that the kidnap is just a small part of a dirty game being played on the island. A game with no rules.

Featuring some of Lewis Carroll's most famous and best-loved poems - including "Jabberwocky" (1871) and "The Hunting of the Snark" (1876) as well as lesser-known gems such as "Brother and Sister" and "My Fairy" (1845) - this production wonderfully illustrates Carroll's fondness for impish satire, verbal wizardry, and pure imagination. The selection ranges from pieces written when Carroll was just 13 to his mature work and is read with great character and charm by Roger May.

When it comes to his daughter’s school, Bergerac has a lot to learn. Bergerac’s daughter, Kim, is a reluctant pupil in a liberal Jersey school stuffed with the offspring of jet-setting parents. But there’s trouble in store when the headmaster’s wife is assaulted and a member of staff disappears. Asked to investigate by Hungerford, a school governor, Bergerac uncovers a rich seam of corruption, centred on one of the more notorious of the school’s pupils, and shoots to the top of the class.

During the war in occupied Jersey a wealthy Jewish local, Henry Tillersland, was betrayed to the Gestapo. Now the traitor has returned, determined to discover the whereabouts of a missing van Gogh that belonged to Tillersland. To make matters easier, the irreproachable Inspector Crozier is being blackmailed to keep very quiet. Bergerac is one step ahead of the blackmailers but two steps behind the Nazi-hunters who are seeking, in their turn, the Tillersland traitor. And the van Gogh, of course.

A milestone in the history of the novel, Samuel Richardson’s epistolary and elaborate Clarissa follows the life of a chaste young woman desperate to protect her virtue. When beautiful Clarissa Harlowe is forced to marry the rich but repulsive Mr. Solmes, she refuses, much to her family’s chagrin. She escapes their persecution with the help of Mr. Lovelace, a dashing and seductive rake, but soon finds herself in a far worse dilemma.

Mary Shelley’s poignant exploration of the true depths of human ambition has had a profound effect on readers since its conception in 1816. When scientist Victor Frankenstein forms a creature from the body parts of corpses, thus shattering the perceived limits of scientific understanding, the consequences are devastating.

Arriving too late, Amos Cotswold cannot decipher what the dying Lord Marston is desperately trying to convey, and his failure threatens to destroy the villagers’ way of life. What will become of the estate? Amos and Lord Marston’s son had been friends, but Crispin hasn’t been seen for 40 years and no one knows if he’s still alive. As the estate disintegrates, Amos finds himself haunted by the Marston ghosts. Merely finding the rightful heir won’t be enough to save his village; Amos must also determine how the legend ended.

Picardie, France, 1964, the exclusive Clos du Lac sanitarium: A man is discovered standing in the therapy pool. But he's not there for his health; someone has chained him to the bottom and left him to die very, very slowly. Inspector Lucas Rocco believes it's an unusual and elaborate method of execution. But nobody seems to have heard or seen anything, the staff are resolutely unhelpful - or dead - and ministry officials sent from Paris to 'assist' attempt to impede Rocco's efforts to find answers.