Showing results by narrator "Ulf Bjorklund" in All Categories

An international group of experts confronts challenges to peace and conflict diplomacy—defined as the effort to manage others' conflicts, cope with great power competition, and deal with threats to the state system itself. They consider three potential scenarios for world order where key states decide to go it alone, return to a liberal order, or collaborate on a case-by-case basis to address common problems. These three scenarios are then evaluated through the prism of regional perspectives from around the world and for their potential ramifications for major security threats.

Everyone knows of the horses of Iceland, wild, and small, and free, but few have heard their story. Sarah Tolmie's All the Horses of Iceland weaves their mystical origin into a saga for the modern age. Filled with the magic and darkened whispers of a people on the cusp of major cultural change, All the Horses of Iceland tells the tale of a Norse trader, his travels through Central Asia, and the ghostly magic that followed him home to the land of fire, stone, and ice. 

Discover Ancient Greece and Rome like never before with this compendium that begins with creation myth of Uranus and Gaea and includes descriptions and tales of gods both major and minor, as well as mythical creatures and other divinities. Author and scholar E.M. Berens also details how the people of ancient Greece and Rome worshiped, covering sacred sites and customs, as well as their significance. Berens's seminal work offers something for anyone interested in Greek and Roman mythology, whether they are just beginning to learn or are looking to add to already established knowledge.

Detective H. Grímsson is a city detective, and a damn good one at that, owing much to what he calls his uncanny intuition. However, that's only half the truth of it—detective Grímsson is clairvoyant and frequently sees the grim shadow of death before it approaches. A young college student is found dead in his BMW on a gravel road not far from the city. He was shot at close range. Grímsson suspects that this has something to do with the nudes that the deceased had in his possession. 

A member of the parliament is stabbed to death in Reykjavik, the small and usually peaceful capital of Iceland. Police officer Grímsson thinks he saw the perpetrator earlier that night, in a pub in the city's east end. The young man turns himself in. He has no previous record and does not remember anything about the night of the murder, but his fingerprints are on the murder weapon. Grímsson feels that the young man is somehow innocent, a victim rather than a wrongdoer.

Detective H. Grímsson is intelligent, hard as nails, and very resourceful. But he's also his own worst enemy. After an unfortunate shooting incident in Iceland's largest shopping mall on Christmas Eve, he's demoted to a police deputy in a small rural village in eastern Iceland. Grímsson's plan is to kick back, drink some beer, and enjoy this time away from home. When two young female hitchhikers disappear, Grímsson fears that the girls are lost in the highlands or have drowned in the glacial river. But then one of the girls wanders naked into the village and dies in Grimsson's arms.

The Untold History of Healing takes the listener on an exciting, expansive journey of the history of medicine from the Stone Age to modern times, explaining that Western medicine has its true origins in the healing lore of Paleolithic hunters and gatherers, herding nomads, and the early sedentary farmers rather than in the academic tradition of doctors and pharmacists.

Only a fool would venture into the soul-stealing mists. That’s exactly where Odin is going. Along with blood-brother Loki, he hunts the frost giant who murdered his father. Caught between the machinations of Loki and a goddess, Odin is drawn into a world of sorcerers, trolls, and terrible secrets. Before he’s done, Midgard will drown in blood.

Rav has finally reached Viensic, the capital city of Netherdawn, also known as the city of magic. A wonderland of innovation and power, but a deadly secret hides inside darkened alleyways and seedy shops. A trap has been set for Rav and JesRyn.

Before time as we know it began, gods and goddesses lived in the city of Asgard. Odin All Father crossed the Rainbow Bridge to walk among men in Midgard. Thor defended Asgard with his mighty hammer. Mischievous Loki was constantly getting into trouble with the other gods, and dragons and giants walked free. This collection of Norse sagas retold by author Padraic Colum gives us a sense of that magical time when the world was filled with powers and wonders we can hardly imagine.

When Stieg Larsson died, the author of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo had been working on a true mystery that out-twisted his Millennium novels: the assassination on February 28, 1986, of Olof Palme, the Swedish prime minister. It was the first time in history that a head of state had been murdered without a clue who’d done it - and on a Stockholm street at point-blank range. Internationally known for his fictional far-right villains, Larsson was well acquainted with their real-life counterparts and documented extremist activities throughout the world.

"Nothing more strangely indicates an enormous and silent evil of modern society than the extraordinary use which is made nowadays of the word orthodox. In former days the heretic was proud of not being a heretic. It was the kingdoms of the world and the police and the judges who were heretics. He was orthodox. He had no pride in having rebelled against them; they had rebelled against him. The armies with their cruel security, the kings with their cold faces, the decorous processes of State, the reasonable processes of law - all these like sheep had gone astray...."

As princess of Krashna, Maeva has always gotten her way. But when she is sent to marry the third prince of Jora, Haruk, she has little choice in the matter. Due to an impending war against another kingdom, it is her duty to marry him and solidify the alliance between Jora and Krashna. However, the third prince proves to be unenthusiastic, lazy, seemingly unemotional, and extremely unmotivated. Still, Maeva hopes that by getting close to him and gaining his love, her country would benefit politically. Yet she can't shake the that there is more behind his expressionless, dark eyes....

Before time as we know it began, gods and goddesses lived in the city of Asgard. Odin All Father crossed the Rainbow Bridge to walk among men in Midgard. Thor defended Asgard with his mighty hammer. Mischievous Loki was constantly getting into trouble with the other gods, and dragons and giants walked free. This collection of Norse sagas retold by author Padraic Colum gives us a sense of that magical time when the world was filled with powers and wonders we can hardly imagine.

Raverek wants nothing more than to be a farmer like his dad; tend the fields, harvest the crops, and kill the occasional monster who breaks through the fog wall that borders his home. But getting what he wants isn't so easy when everyone's job class is designated by the gods and they have plans for the would-be farmer. A pestilence that hasn't been seen for 200 years has discovered a way to pierce the fog wall and the world is going to need a hero. 

The stories collected in the twelve volumes of Andrew Lang's Fairy Books of Many Colors have captivated generations of readers. In The Blue Fairy Book, the first in his legendary series, Lang compiled and edited tales from the Brothers Grimm, Madame d’Aulnoy, and French, Scandinavian, and Middle Eastern sources. He captured the folkloric traditions and dark origins of dozens of the world's best-known fairy-tale characters, including Sleeping Beauty, Little Red Riding Hood, Snow-White, Cinderella, and Rumpelstiltskin.

Before he was a god.... Odin was a man. Desperate for vengeance. A frost giant murdered his father. Odin cannot let this stand. Guided by his blood-brother Loki, Odin ventures into poison mists. Mists that steal souls. Mists that, men say, only a fool would enter. But what if revenge is only the beginning? His quest leads him to a chance at immortality. But what price will he finally pay? You’ll love this grim box set because it retells classic Norse myths in a whole new way. Get it now.

Listeners will delight in these masterful chronicles of the adventures and mishaps of Father Brown. Small, round-faced and engagingly innocent, Brown is a Roman Catholic priest from East Anglia. He also happens to be a top-notch detective, possessing that rarest of all gifts - an intuition that never fails.

Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories is a collection of shorter works on the strange and the macabre, first published in 1914, two years after Stoker's death. The title story "Dracula's Guest" is believed to be the deleted first chapter of Stoker's masterpiece, Dracula. The other nine stories like "The Squaw", "The Judge's House", and "The Burial of the Rats" rank very high among classic tales of horror.

In late summer of 2012, millionaire landowner Göran Lundblad went missing from his farm in Sweden. When a search yielded nothing, and all physical evidence had seemingly disappeared, authorities had little to go on - except a disturbing phone call five weeks later from Göran’s daughter Maria. She was sure that her sister, Sara, was somehow involved. At the heart of the alleged crime: Sara’s greed, her father’s land holdings, and his bitter feud with Sara’s idler boyfriend. With no body, there was no crime - and the case went as cold and dark as the forests of southern Sweden.