Showing results by narrator "Gareth Richards" in All Categories

This Very Short Introduction audiobooks draws on the very latest science from the 2021 IPCC Report, examining the evidence that climate change is already happening and discussing its potential catastrophic impacts in the future. Mark Maslin also explores the geopolitics of climate change and the win-win solutions we can employ to avoid the very worst effects of climate change. Throughout, he demonstrates how we must develop new modes of thinking for the 21st century at individual, corporate, and government levels to collectively tackle the challenge of climate change. 

In July 2010, Wikileaks published Cablegate, one of the biggest leaks in the history of the US military, including evidence for war crimes and torture. In the aftermath, Julian Assange, the founder and spokesman of Wikileaks, found himself at the center of a media storm, accused of hacking and later sexual assault. He spent the next seven years in asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, fearful that he would be extradited to Sweden to face the accusations of assault and then sent to US.

After the war to save Ultramar from the traitor hosts of Horus ended, formerly disgraced Ultramarines Sergeant Aenoid Thiel believes that enemies still linger within the borders of the empire. Finding other men of purpose, fellow Space Marines known as the ‘Red-Marked’, Thiel wages a guerrilla war to root out these enemies and vanquish them for good. Following the threads of a previous mission, the Red-Marked arrive on the moon of Bael. There they find an underwater rigging station that has seemingly been abandoned.

An inviting and accessible new translation of Aristotle's complete Poetics—the first and best introduction to the art of writing and understanding stories.

In 2020, guitar expert John Stubbings released a limited-edition book on the American acoustic guitar that sold out in days. Now, The Devil Is in It returns with additional research and subject matter for a new generation of listeners. Stubbings traveled the country and met with guitar makers, players, collectors, and historians to unravel the long and rich history of the acoustic guitar, its evolution, and the music it has made over the last hundred years.

The names of few medieval monarchs and their queens are better known than Eleanor of Aquitaine, uniquely queen of France and queen of England, and her second husband Henry II. Although academically labeled "medieval," their era was the violent transition from the Dark Ages, when countries' borders were defined with fire and sword. If princes fought for their succession to crowns, the princesses were traded—usually by their mothers—to strangers for political power without the bloodshed.

Big Pharma is more interested in profit than health. This was made clear as governments rushed to produce vaccines during the Covid pandemic. Behind the much-trumpeted scientific breakthroughs, major companies found new ways of gouging billions from governments in the West while abandoning the Global South. But this is only the latest episode in a long history of financializing medicine—from Purdue's rapacious marketing of highly addictive OxyContin through Martin Shkreli's hiking the price of a lifesaving drug to the 4.5 million South Africans needlessly deprived of HIV/AIDS medication.

I could have been anything I wanted: a chef, a chauffeur, a pianist, an artist, an aristocrat...but where would the fun be in that? In my past life, I'd been one of the world's greatest demonologists, and horned lords and masters of the inferno had cringed and trembled with terror at my name.

Analyzing the way in which horror has been used throughout history to articulate the fears and taboos of the current generation, Darryl Jones considers the continuing evolution of the genre today. As horror is mass marketed to mainstream society in the form of romantic vampires and blockbuster hits, it also continues to maintain its former shadowy presence on the edges of respectability, as banned films and violent internet phenomena push us to question both our own preconceptions and the terrifying capacity of human nature. 

In the history of ancient Macedonia, the last three Antigonid kings—Philip V, his son Perseus, and the pretender Andriscus or Philip VI—are commonly overlooked in favor of their predecessors Philip II and his son Alexander the Great, who established a Macedonian empire.

The Second World War was the most destructive conflict in history. It left Europe in ruins, its economies severely damaged and millions of its people facing malnutrition, its political systems shaken if not destroyed. Yet three decades later its economies had recovered; it largely appeared politically stable; its inhabitants generally were well housed and well fed. Then at the end of the 1980s, the postwar settlement disintegrated, and a new chapter in Europe's postwar history had begun.

In this uncompromising essay, Jonathan Crary presents the obvious but unsayable reality: our "digital age" is synonymous with the disastrous terminal stage of global capitalism and its financialization of social existence, mass impoverishment, ecocide, and military terror. Scorched Earth surveys the wrecking of a living world by the internet complex and its devastation of communities and their capacities for mutual support.

To date, more than a million insect species have been described, with probably at least another 5-8 million species waiting in the wings for a name. Insects are a fascinatingly diverse and beautiful spectrum of animals. They range in size from the tiny parasitic wasp, measuring a mere 139µm, to the aptly named Titan beetle, which can reach lengths of up to 17cm. They can be found on all continents of the world, from the Sahara Desert to the frozen wastes of Antarctica. While no insects live beneath the waves, the intrepid sea skaters skim the surface of some of the world's oceans.

Disaster struck the morning of the Chucklefest Comedy Festival. Not with a bomb, but with a canine whimper. Vanlife convert Max Effort's best buddy, Anxious the Jack Russell Terrier, managed to disassemble his favorite toy, leaving him bereft. But help was on hand, and Min, Max's ex-wife, hightails it across the country, determined to deliver a replacement bestie. Feeling chilled and in good spirits, Max's mood soon soured when he reached into the festival freezer and discovered a smiling face staring back at him. Shame it wasn't attached to the rest of the comedian's body.

When Knight Alaric von Mertz loses his family to a ravenous zombie horde, he swears revenge on the necromancer responsible. But a quest for vengeance is no easy matter in a world overrun by the walking dead. Joined by a rogue, a witch hunter, a novice wizard, and a dwarf demolition master, Alaric's journey leads him from fire moats to the zombie-ridden catacombs of the witch hunters to uncover a spell book of insurmountable power. As zombies claw and bite, Alaric fears he will never avenge his family. For in this age of the undead, betrayal and magic lurk around every corner.

Charity Goswick thinks she is escaping an arranged marriage to a brute when she slips onto a ship unnoticed. Little does she realize that this is no honorable vessel of the King's Navy—it is a pirate ship. It's just a matter of time before she is discovered by a handsome rake of a pirate, who locks her in his cabin. And while she should be scared, her captor sparks the most unladylike feelings within her.

This compelling collection will engage the lovers of horror, fantasy, and science fiction and marry their eccentric desires in the church of Blithecraft. Twelve stories suitable for the discerning fantasist. A blithely return to the eccentric craft of weird short stories. Tales of other dimensions, eldritch beasts, and seditious sirens. Ancient witchcraft, necromancers, and giant arthropods. Worlds of past, present, and future are presented in a classical style with contemporary beguile.

Olive Wickes knew a better life once. Before their old master died, her family lived in comfortable servants' quarters beside a garden where birdsong echoed through the day. But the new young master turned them out, and now Olive, her parents, and her five-year-old brother Jimmy are struggling to get by. In their cold and desolate tenement, Olive sings to Jimmy about the birds of the garden, trying to cling on to hope.

I died a great mage, protecting my people. A millennium later, I wake to find true magic dead, completely replaced by gadgetry. It appears that my descendants require a lesson in true sorcery. But first I need to find out something—who wants me dead badly enough to try killing me twice?...

Cara Cooper’s third Christmas starts out as the best she’s ever known. As the daughter of a kitchen maid, she’s just old enough to be really excited. When a kind stranger appears and takes Cara to a beautiful house filled with toys and Christmas treats of every description, she is thrilled. Little does the toddler know that the kind stranger, Edna, has an ulterior motive. Now kidnapped, Cara’s life is set on a collision course with tragedy.