Showing results by narrator "Jack Hawkins" in All Categories

Welcome to the world of the Secret Barrister. These are the stories of life inside the courtroom. They are sometimes funny, often moving and ultimately life-changing. How can you defend a child abuser you suspect to be guilty? What do you say to someone sentenced to ten years whom you believe to be innocent? What is the law, and why do we need it? And why do they wear those stupid wigs?

Day one: The Georgia Flu explodes over the surface of the Earth like a neutron bomb. News reports put the mortality rate at over 99%. Week Two: Civilization has crumbled. Year Twenty: A band of actors and musicians called the Travelling Symphony move through their territories performing concerts and Shakespeare to the settlements that have grown up there. Twenty years after the pandemic, life feels relatively safe. But now a new danger looms, and it threatens the hopeful world every survivor has tried to rebuild.

We live in the age of the individual. We are supposed to be slim, prosperous, happy, extroverted and popular. This is our culture's image of the perfect self. We see this person everywhere: in advertising, in the press, all over social media. We're told that to be this person, you just have to follow your dreams, that our potential is limitless, that we are the source of our own success. But this model of the perfect self can be extremely dangerous. People are suffering under the torture of this impossible fantasy.

In his 17 years as a Formula 1 driver, Jenson Button has picked up a thing or two about how to do the job properly. Sure, you need to be able to drive a car fast - and Jenson is on hand to pass on a few tricks of the trade here - but you also need to know the real rules for making it to the top. Like, how to tell a multiple F1 champion they need to check their blind spot. What the difference is between a helmet and a hat, and indeed a 'helmet-hat'. How to practise your champagne spray ahead of the big day. 

Most of us think the law is only relevant to criminals, if we even think of it at all. But the law touches every area of our lives: from intimate family matters to the biggest issues in our society. Our unfamiliarity is dangerous because it makes us vulnerable to media spin, political lies and the kind of misinformation that frequently comes from other loud-mouthed amateurs and those with vested interests. This 'fake law' allows the powerful and the ignorant to corrupt justice without our knowledge - worse, we risk letting them make us complicit.

You're waiting for the postman - he's bringing your A level results. University, a career as a journalist - a glittering future lies ahead. But when the doorbell rings it's your old girlfriend; and she's carrying a baby. Your baby. You're happy to look after it, just for an hour or two. But then she doesn't come back - and your future suddenly looks very different. Malorie's dramatic new novel will take you on a journey from tears to laughter and back again.

The full-length, in-depth and intimate autobiography from Jenson Button, one of the greatest racing drivers of his generation. His 17 years in Formula One have seen him experience everything the sport has to offer, from nursing duff cars round the track to winning world championships and everything in between. Here, Jenson tells his full story for the first time in his own honest, intelligent and eloquent style.

What was a Buddhist monk doing at the 2014 World Economic Forum in Davos lecturing the world's leaders on mindfulness? Why do many successful corporations have a chief happiness officer? What can the chemical composition of your brain tell a potential employer about you? In the past decade, governments and corporations have become increasingly interested in measuring the way people feel: the Happiness index, Gross National Happiness, well-being and positive psychology have come to dominate the way we live our lives.

A new translation of Simenon's gripping novel about lives transformed by deceit and the destructive power of lust. It was all real: himself, the room, Andrée still lying on the ravaged bed. For Tony and Andrée, there are no rules when they meet in the blue room at the Hôtel des Voyageurs. Their adulterous affair is intoxicating, passionate - and dangerous. Soon it turns into a nightmare from which there can be no escape.

Ever since Stanley was flattened by a bulletin board, there are places he can get to that no one else can. Stanley’s a big fan of ninja movie star Oda Nobu so he sends him something even better than fan mail - Stanley himself! Soon Flat Stanley is in Japan, but when trouble surprises them, it will take a real hero to save the day. And when Stanley receives a letter from an archaeologist, he travels by airmail to Egypt to help find an ancient treasure deep in the heart of a great pyramid.

He's back! Join Stitch Head, a mad professor's creation, in the adventure of an almost-lifetime. The orphans at Castle Grotteskew are running riot - and getting hungry. With no food in the castle, Stitch Head and Arabella head down to Grubbers Nubbin to see what they can pilfer, but there they encounter a terrifying, savage beast. Could one of the professor's creations be on the loose?

Twins Burt and Cameron are in competition with each other about everything. When they hear the Queen wants moose cheese – which is near-impossible to make – they embark on a dangerous world-wide venture to collect the ingredients for the Queen. Only they are so busy being in competition with each other, they don’t even notice Dr X, another competitor, steal all their ingredients to claim the prize himself. And worse, the twins uncover Dr X’s plot to poison the Queen with his moose cheese!

There’s more than meets the eye to Granny Hogsflesh and her pickling empire, but even Barnaby couldn’t have guessed how much more. Nor could he possibly have imagined what actually happened to his dad, who, burping and slurping, mysteriously disappeared into the night... What has Granny done? Enter the hilarious and disgusting world of bogles and pickling with a delightfully eccentric cast and deliciously dark humour.

The first time Alfie sees the boy, he appears as if from nowhere in the school detention room – the ‘padded cell’. There’s something odd about him and Alfie is definitely not pleased when he realises the boy has nicked his new jacket. But a ghost? His new friend Sarah is convinced – so convinced she is prepared to ghost-watch with him. And that’s when the warning message appears, scratched out on the blackboard by a phantom hand.

'The situation as far as I'm concerned', says the young narrator-hero of MF, 'is an interesting one. In two days in a strange country I've acquired a mother in the form of a Welsh-speaking Bird Queen who scares me. I've spent some hours in prison, I've discovered the works of an unknown superlative artist in a garden shed and I've been shot at by a riddling lion-faced expert on Bishop Berkeley. Most interesting of all I'm due tonight to be married by a circus clown to my own sister.'

When Stitch Head's human friend Arabella is sent away to an orphanage, Stitch Head leaves Castle Grotteskew and its creatures behind and sets out on a daring rescue. But a gruesome monster awaits, and soon Stitch Head is trapped in its web with no chance of escape....  

Join Stitch Head, mad Professor Erasmus' forgotten creation, as he steps out of the shadows into the adventure of an almost-lifetime. The ghost of a villainous ne'er-do-well is haunting the corridors of Castle Grotteskew, gunning for Stitch Head's heart – and soul. Certain that his heart once belonged to the vicious rogue, Stitch Head's world is torn apart. Will he surrender to the evil ghost and agree to do his bidding?

When Stitch Head sees his ice-blue eye for the very first time, he's convinced that it once belonged to the legendary pirate Captain Flashpowder. Could it be that he is part pirate? But as Stitch Head prepares for a life on the high seas, some fishy business closer to home puts a stop to his swashbuckling plan....

In the mazelike dungeons of Castle Grotteskew, the frightfully insane Professor Erasmus conducts his bizarre experiments on living things. His very first creation has been long forgotten - a small, almost-human creature known only as Stitch Head. Poor Stitch Head has spent years vying for attention amongst a menagerie of freakish monsters. When a travelling circus ringmaster, Fulbert Freakfinder, promises to make him a star, Stitch Head wonders whether there is another life for him.

Jack Urwin's father died just before Jack turned 10. Being male, he never really learned to talk about this with any kind of sincerity. His grief stayed with him through his teens, slowly becoming depression. Now 24 and a journalist whose recent Vice article, A Stiff Upper Lip Is Killing British Men - described as 'fabulous' by Irvine Welsh - became a viral sensation, Urwin explores what it means to be a man now.