Showing results by narrator "Ralph Ralph" in All Categories

HMS Vanguard is the most powerful battleship ever to be commissioned by the Royal Navy, but she is not a happy ship. Her commanding officer is eccentric, rarely seen on the bridge; her former XO has deserted his post; and her first middy is resentful because he hasn't been promoted as he deserves.... But when a first contact mission goes badly wrong, HMS Vanguard and her crew are plunged into an interstellar war against a new and deadly alien threat.

On her last cruise, HMS Vanguard - the most powerful battleship in the Royal Navy - barely survived her encounter with a deadly new enemy. Now, with her commanding officer accused of everything from mutiny to dereliction of duty and her crew under a cloud, the Royal Navy doesn't quite know what to do with her. But there's still a war on. And Vanguard must return to the front lines. Assigned to a task force heading to assist humanity's alien allies, Vanguard and her crew find themselves caught in a deadly alien trap.

Written after his wife's tragic death as a way of surviving the "mad midnight moments", A Grief Observed is C.S. Lewis's honest reflection on the fundamental issues of life, death, and faith in the midst of loss. This work contains his concise, genuine reflections on that period.

One summer following the Second World War, Robert Appleyard sets out on foot from his Durham village. Sixteen and the son of a coal miner, he makes his way across the northern countryside until he reaches the former smuggling village of Robin Hood’s Bay. There he meets Dulcie, an eccentric, worldly, older woman who lives in a ramshackle cottage facing out to sea. Staying with Dulcie, Robert’s life opens into one of rich food, sea swimming, sunburn and poetry.

John-John wants to escape his past. But the legacy of brutality left by his boxer father, King of the Gypsies, Mac Wisdom, overshadows his life. His new job as an ice cream man should offer freedom but instead pulls him into the dark recesses of a northern town where his family name is mud. When he attempts to trade prejudice and parole officers for the solace of the rural landscape, Mac’s bloody downfall threatens John-John’s very survival.

With timeless classics from some of the most notable names in literature, this Christmas story bundle is the perfect listen for the most wonderful time of the year.

What is poetry? If music is sound organized in a particular way, poetry is a way of organizing language. It is language made special so that it will be remembered and valued. It does not always work - over the centuries countless thousands of poems have been forgotten. This little history is about some that have not. John Carey tells the stories behind the world’s greatest poems, from the oldest surviving one written nearly four thousand years ago to those being written today. Carey looks at poets whose works shape our views of the world.

When Yao Shen, Patriarch of the Heavenly Sky Sect, ascends and regains memories of his past life on Planet Earth, he realizes that he can no longer allow himself to accept the cruel and violent ways of Eliria, the realm of cultivation. So he decides to change it. It was time to found a new sect. One based on the values of honor and equality over senseless violence and discrimination. A sect where all, from the mortal farmer’s son to a sect elder's daughter, were held accountable to the same rules.

For generations, the human race has feared an encounter with an alien race so advanced their technology might as well be magic. And yet, no such alien race has been encountered. Until now. During the Virus War, human explorers discovered proof of alien technology that was beyond human understanding, technology so strange it was impossible even to guess at its function. Now, in the aftermath of the war, HMS Endeavour embarks on a mission to the core of the alien civilization. And discovers a mystery older than the human race itself.

This program based on the readings of Edgar Cayce, the best-known and best-documented psychic in American history, teaches you a completely natural method of self-hypnosis designed to enlist the powers of your subconscious mind to help you become your personal best. Self-Hypnosis offers you a powerful resource for transformation that will help you remodel your life. Now, you can learn to control or eliminate unwanted habits, create a positive new identity for yourself, or develop your latent talents.

They are icons of the literary world whose soaring works have been discussed and analyzed in countless classrooms, homes, and pubs. Yet for most readers, the living, breathing human beings behind the classics have remained unknown - until now. In this utterly captivating book, Dr. Elliot Engel, a leading authority on the lives of great authors, illuminates the fascinating and flawed members of literature’s elite. In lieu of stuffy biographical sketches, Engel provides fascinating anecdotes.

In this book, C.S. Lewis tells of his search for joy, a spiritual journey that led him from the Christianity of his early youth into atheism and then back to Christianity.

In this classic text, Taiichi Ohno—inventor of the Toyota Production System and Lean manufacturing—shares the genius that sets him apart as one of the most disciplined and creative thinkers of our time. Combining his candid insights with a rigorous analysis of Toyota's attempts at Lean production, Ohno's book explains how Lean principles can improve any production endeavor.

On 27th February 2022, after 170 matches in charge, promotion to the Premier League and some of the most exhilarating football the English game has ever seen, Leeds United parted company with their most beloved and successful manager in a generation: Marcelo Bielsa. His parting gift was to embrace the crowds of adoring fans who turned up to say thank you as he left the club's training ground for the final time.

Poldon Fairfield, a 14-year-old prince, has no desire to rule - his poor health has convinced him that he will not live long enough to sit on any throne. Matters take a turn for the worse when his father, the King of North Salvan, decides his oldest will rule the country where Pol's mother is first in the line of succession followed by Pol, her only child. Pol learns he has developed a talent for magic, and that may do him more harm than good as he must struggle to survive among his siblings, who have now turned lethally hostile.

HMS Lion and HMS Unicorn have made it home from their first mission against the alien virus, opening the way for humanity to take the offensive. Now, a major fleet is readying itself to depart into enemy space, intent on smashing the virus’ ability to wage war and destroy the threat once and for all. And Captains Hammond and Campbell will take the lead. But humanity itself is buckling under the strain of endless war.

Forged for combat, the rock trolls have no equal. They train from birth, endure brutal conditioning, and mark their skin with every kill. They have become the very flesh of war and inspire fear across the globe. Now a bounty has been issued, one that calls for the extermination of their race.

"Kissing you is like new paint and old pain. It is like coffee and car alarms and a dim stairway and a stain and it's like smoke.' ('Placing a Call') How does love change us? And how do we change ourselves for love - or for lack of it? Ten stories by acclaimed author Deborah Levy explore these delicate, impossible questions. In Vienna, an icy woman seduces a broken man; in London gardens, birds sing in computer start-up sounds; in ad-land, a sleek copywriter becomes a kind of shaman.

In the form of warm, relaxed letters to a close friend, C. S. Lewis meditates on many puzzling questions concerning the intimate dialogue between man and God. He considers practical and metaphysical aspects of prayer, such as when we pray and where. He questions why we seek to inform God in our prayers if he is omniscient, whether there is an ideal form of prayer, and which of our many selves we show to God while praying.

It is 1939. Despite a law banning him from performing surgery, Ravic, a German doctor and refugee living in Paris, has been treating some of the city's most elite citizens for two years on the behalf of two less-than-skillful French physicians.