Showing results by narrator "Michael Page" in All Categories

Set in the aftermath of the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, Kidnapped (1886) sustains a gripping narrative. It is told by David Balfour, a young Whig and Lowlander, who is tracked by his miserly uncle, survives attempted murder, kidnap and shipwreck and, in the company of Alan Breck, a Jacobite, escapes through the Highlands.

The Little Book of Stoic Wisdom is a classical primer for anyone wanting to understand true stoicism–and even though we’re living in drastically different times to the ancients, many of the lessons of Seneca, Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius still stand today.

Max Tudor thought he'd left the world of deceit when he resigned from MI5 to become an Anglican priest. Then his bishop asks him to return to his Oxford college, St Luke's, to investigate the death of its chaplain, and Max realizes there's no leaving the past behind. At first, Max agrees with the official police verdict of death by natural causes. The Rev. Ace Graybill was as harmless a man as ever lived. It's difficult to see how he managed to cross anyone capable of murder.

An assembly of family, friends, lovers, and enemies are ensnared by the long-running court case Jarndyce and Jarndyce. For orphan Esther Summerson, it might lead to the truth of her parentage. The arrogant Lady Dedlock fears the legal tangle could expose her secret. For the malevolent solicitor Mr. Tulkinghorn, the costly dispute is a gainful opportunity. As for John Jarndyce, Esther’s guardian and master of Bleak House, it’s a chance to correct the past. When questions of inheritance become a trigger for murder, the sharp-eyed Inspector Bucket enters the fray.

What makes you the way you are - and what makes each of us different from everyone else? In Innate, leading neuroscientist and popular science blogger Kevin Mitchell traces human diversity and individual differences to their deepest level: in the wiring of our brains.  

Many Christians are disconnected from the past or imagine they are "above" history, immune to it, as if self-starters from clean slates in every generation. They suffer from a lack of awareness of time and the effects of history—both personal and collective—and thus are naive about current issues and fixated on the end times. Popular speaker and award-winning author James K. A. Smith shows that awakening to the spiritual significance of time is crucial for orienting faith in the twenty-first century. 

At the height of its power, the elven court of Queen Emerelle relishes in the joyful, wintry Festival of Light. Yet, as tribes gather to reaffirm their loyalty to the queen, treachery festers within the nobility. An assassination attempt leaves Emerelle severely injured and plunges the realm back into the throes of an ancient war. While an army of trolls ravages the kingdom, the elves seek aid from Alfadas, the human hero who was raised among them. Back in the land of men, Alfadas has settled into a quiet life as his village's protector.

The Moment of Liberation in Western Europe: Power Struggles & Rebellions, 1943-1948, regards the final two years of World War II and the immediate post-liberation period as a moment in 20th century history when the shape and contours of postwar Western Europe appeared highly uncertain and various alternatives and conflicting visions were up for grabs. After close to six years of total war, Nazi terror, and brutal occupation policies, a growing number of Europeans were no longer content solely to fight for national liberation from fascist control.

The Titanic is meant to be unsinkable, but as it begins its maiden voyage, there’s plenty of danger waiting for four of its young passengers. Paddy is a stowaway, escaping a deadly past. Sophie’s mother is delivered to the ship by police - after she and Sophie have been arrested. Juliana’s father is an eccentric whose riches can barely hide his madness. And Alfie is hiding a secret that could get him kicked off the ship immediately.

Seven years ago, Anne Elliot broke off her engagement to Captain Frederick Wentworth, convinced that marrying a man without money or status would be a grave mistake. Now, she is past her prime and single at 27. But when the estranged paramours reconnect through a couple renting the Elliot family estate, Anne discovers she may have another shot at romance - this time, on her terms.

Lord and Lady Baaden-Boomethistle have been in residence for some weeks now, and the villagers are hoping for a return to the good old days, when the lord of the manor sprinkled benefits across the village like fairy dust. Father Max Tudor's invitation to dinner at the Hall comes as a welcome novelty; it will be his first time meeting the famous family that once held sway in the area.

On a drowsy afternoon by a riverbank, a young and distracted Alice follows a rabbit into a fantastical underground world that grows curiouser and curiouser. Dared, insulted, amused, and threatened by a succession of anthropomorphic creatures, the indomitable Alice falls deeper into a swirl of the imagination where logic has no place.

Swindled out of his inheritance, recently orphaned David Balfour finds himself kidnapped and aboard a slave ship bound for the Carolinas shortly after the Jacobite rising of 1745. A shipwreck leads to a chance encounter and an unlikely rescuer - Highland rebel and suspected assassin Alan Breck Stewart. An incredible friendship blossoms between the two young men, who occupy opposite ends of the political and religious spectra. Together they return to the mainland and outwit many murderous foes.

Kyle's great-grandfather once possessed a silver lance that, according to legend, gave its owner invincible power. The lance is now missing, and Kyle is always looking for it, but so are his worst enemies: the robber Rasputin and the evil magician Balduin. Luckily, Kyle has the help of his friends, including Lady Constance (who is as brave as a dragon), Dragobert (who really is a dragon), Elf Aurin (whose harp playing, unfortunately, puts Kyle to sleep), and Prince Nepomuk (who protects his friends and his wardrobe).

The beauty of fractal patterns and their relation to chaos, as well as the history of chaos, and its uses in the real world and implications for the philosophy of science are all discussed in this Very Short Introduction audiobook. 

More than 2,000 men, women, and children are on board. Here on the first-class promenade is millionaire John Jacob Astor, who hopes his return from Egypt with his pregnant teen bride will invite a minimum of media attention. And here, in the third-class common room, a beautiful Lebanese refugee, on her way to family in Florida, discovers first love. And there in the distance, shrouded in darkness, an ancient iceberg lies patient, awaiting its encounter.

Russia and China, the largest and most populous countries in the world, respectively, have maintained a delicate relationship for four centuries. In addition to a four-thousand-kilometer border, they have periodically shared a common outlook on political and economic affairs. But they are, in essence, profoundly different polities and cultures, and their intermittent alliances have proven difficult and at times even volatile. Philip Snow provides a full account of the relationship between these two global giants.

Following the end of the First World War, Poland was wedged uncomfortably between the two dominant nations of Germany and the Soviet Union. Poland was obliged to plot and negotiate to try and prevent them from realizing their ambitions to eviscerate the country. As well as bitter ethnic battles between Germany and Poland for the political control of Upper Silesia, there were also the burning ambitions of Weimar Germany, and later Nazi Germany, to reclaim lands incorporated into the new state of Poland at Versailles.

In this indispensable volume, one of America's ranking scholars combines a life's work of research and teaching with the art of lively narration. Both authoritative and beautifully told, The Middle Ages is the full story of the thousand years between the fall of Rome and the Renaissance - a time that saw the rise of kings and emperors, the flowering of knighthood, the development of Europe, the increasing power of the Catholic Church, and the advent of the middle class.

What was to be a grand adventure for Melissa MacGregor - an escape from the wilds of her Scottish home into the whirl of the London social scene - seems to pale before the promise in the passionate gaze of Lincoln Ross Burnett. Though they exchange but a few words before parting after a chance encounter on her grandfather's lands, Melissa instantly knows this bold stranger is her destiny.