Showing results by narrator "Julian" in All Categories

Just when you thought that it was safe to start showing off again, John Lloyd and John Mitchinson are back with another busload of mistakes and misunderstandings. Here is a new collection of simple, perfectly obvious questions you'll be quite certain you know the answers to. Whether it's history, science, sports, geography, literature, language, medicine, the classics, or common wisdom, you'll be astonished to discover that everything you thought you knew is still hopelessly wrong.

H. G. Wells wrote dozens of novels and short stories and is often called the 'father of science fiction'. Here we collect together the works of H. G. Wells as broadcast on BBC Radio. With full-cast dramatisations of novels including The Time Machine, The Island of Dr Moreau, The War of the Worlds, Ann Veronica, The First Men in the Moon and The Wonderful Visit; plus readings of The Invisible Man, Love and Mr Lewisham and several short stories including The Inexperienced Ghost and In the Abyss.

The Devil comes to Moscow, but he isn't all bad; Pontius Pilate sentences a charismatic leader to his death, but yearns for redemption; and a writer tries to destroy his greatest tale, but discovers that manuscripts don't burn. Multi-layered and entrancing, blending sharp satire with glorious fantasy, The Master and Margarita is ceaselessly inventive and profoundly moving. In its imaginative freedom and raising of eternal human concerns, it is one of the world's great novels.

Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, and Nero - these are the names history associates with the early Roman Empire. Yet, not a single one of these emperors was the blood son of his predecessor. In this captivating history, a prominent scholar of the era documents the Julio-Claudian women whose bloodline, ambition, and ruthlessness made it possible for the emperors' line to continue. Eminent scholar Guy de la Bedoyere, author of Praetorian, asserts that the women behind the scenes - including Livia, Octavia, and the elder and younger Agrippina - were the true backbone of the dynasty.

In the same engaging style that has endeared him to listeners of Mindfulness in Plain English, Bhante Gunaratana delves deeply into each step of the Buddha's most profound teaching on bringing an end to suffering: the noble eightfold path. With generous and specific advice, Eight Mindful Steps to Happiness offers skillful ways to handle anger, to find right livelihood, and to cultivate loving-friendliness in relationships with parents, children, and partners, as well as tools to overcome all the mental hindrances that prevent happiness.

Zen master Julian Daizan Skinner guides the listener through a sequence of meditation techniques that can safely lead even a complete novice through to advanced levels. Based on his own long experience of the Rinzai Zen tradition, as taught by the great 17th-century masters Hakuin and Bankei, Daizan highlights the key points for success and addresses the pitfalls. Structured around a traditional teaching framework called 'the two wings of a bird', Daizan clearly lays-out how these methods build and combine to create a transformative and sustaining practice.

My boss got me pregnant. Made me marry him. And now... "What do you mean, 'you're sending me away'? Is this some kind of joke?" But the look on Arsen's face says nothing about this being funny. He means it: he's sending me and our newborn baby to God knows where for God knows how long. It's "for my safety"? Yeah, I've heard that line before. It's what men say when they're doing something for themselves. But fine. If that's what Arsen wants, he can have it.

Hell Week has begun. Senior students have been tasked with making the freshmen's lives pure torture as we prepare to face The Reckoning—the assessment that will decide whether we stay at Zodiac Academy or lose our places here forever. With the Lunar Eclipse on the horizon, my sister and I have more to worry about than just passing our exams. A dark plot is unfolding and the shadows are drawing closer. It looks like our enemies could be more powerful than we ever realised.

Lady Athelinda Playford has planned a house party at her mansion in Clonakilty, County Cork, but it is no ordinary gathering. As guests arrive, Lady Playford summons her lawyer to make an urgent change to her will - one she intends to announce at dinner that night. She has decided to cut off her two children without a penny and leave her fortune to someone who has only weeks to live.... Among Lady Playford's guests are two men she has never met - the famous Belgian detective Hercule Poirot and Inspector Edward Catchpool of Scotland Yard.

The Lick of Love takes us on a tour of Julian's colourful life - and wherever life has taken him, Julian has had a dog by his side. Fanny the Wonder Dog, who came into Julian's life when he was somewhat adrift, propelled him up the ranks of the alternative comedy circuit and onto television. Valerie, the whippet cross-breed escorted Julian through his 40s, the Germaine Greer to his Bernard Manning.

Pierre Clostermann DFC was one of the oustanding Allied aces of the Second World War. A Frenchman who flew with the RAF, he survived over 420 operational sorties, shooting down scores of enemy aircraft while friends and comrades lost their lives in the deadly skies above Europe. The Big Show, his extraordinary account of the war, has been described as the greatest pilot's memoir of WWII.

Sixteen-year-old Olivia Prior is missing three things: a mother, a father and a voice. Her mother vanished all at once, her father by degrees and her voice was a thing she never had to start with. She grew up at Merilance School for Girls. Now, nearing the end of her time there, Olivia receives a letter from an uncle she’s never met, her father’s older brother, summoning her to his estate, a place called Gallant. But when she arrives, she discovers that the letter she received was several years old. Her uncle is dead. The estate is empty save for the servants.

When Crab finds a new shell, he doesn’t want to share it with anyone - especially not a blobby purple anemone and a tickly bristleworm. But life in the rock pool proves tougher than Crab thinks and he soon finds he needs his new housemates. Sharing a Shell is a charming underwater tale of friendship and fun from the stellar picture book partnership of Julia Donaldson and Lydia Monks, creators of What the Ladybird Heard. With brilliant rhythmic verse, charmingly read by Julian Clary, this is a firm favourite with children and parents alike.

A brand-new, unabridged recording of Baroness Orczy's classic tale of adventure, read by Julian Rhind-Tutt. Paris, 1792. The Terror has begun. Every day, scores of the French nobility are delivered to the guillotine. Trapped in the capital, they have no way of escape. But rumours abound of a league of young English gentlemen who are risking their lives to spirit French aristocrats away to safety across the Channel. Led by a man known only as the 'Scarlet Pimpernel', they leave no trace behind them save a single note.

The Thirty Years' War (1618-48) was Europe's most destructive conflict prior to the two world wars. Two of European history's greatest generals faced each other at Lutzen in November 1632, midway through this terrible war. This book is the first to combine analysis of the battle itself with an assessment of its cultural, political, and military legacy, and the first to incorporate recent archaeological research within a reappraisal of the events and their significance.

'Never before had the world seen four such giants coexisting. Sometimes friends, more often enemies, always rivals, these four men together held Europe in the hollow of their hands.' The colourful story of the four very different men who created our modern world: Henry VIII, Francis I of France, Charles V of Spain and Suleiman the Magnificent: popular history at its best from John Julius Norwich.

In this absorbing and frequently contentious book, Roger Penrose puts forward his view that there are some facets of human thinking that can never be emulated by a machine. The book's central concern is what philosophers call the "mind-body problem". Penrose examines what physics and mathematics can tell us about how the mind works, what they can't, and what we need to know to understand the physical processes of consciousness.

From the moment that Jim and his best friend Charlie bug the staffroom and overhear two of their teachers speaking to each other in a secret language, they know there's an adventure on its way. But what does "spudvetch" mean, and why do Mr Kidd's eyes flicker with fluorescent blue light when Charlie says it to him?

By 1535 Thomas Cromwell is Chief Minister to Henry VIII, his fortunes having risen with those of Anne Boleyn, the king’s new wife. But Anne has failed to give the king an heir, and Cromwell watches as Henry falls for plain Jane Seymour. Cromwell must find a solution that will satisfy Henry, safeguard the nation and secure his own career. But neither minister nor king will emerge unscathed from the bloody theatre of Anne’s final days.

Andrew Lambert, author of The Challenge - winner of the prestigious Anderson Medal - turns his attention to Athens, Carthage, Venice, the Dutch Republic, and Britain, examining how their identities as "seapowers" informed their actions and enabled them to achieve success disproportionate to their size. Lambert demonstrates how creating maritime identities made these states more dynamic, open, and inclusive than their lumbering continental rivals. Only when they forgot this aspect of their identity did these nations begin to decline.