Résultats lu par "Bill Homewood" dans Toutes les catégories

The tale of social-climbing arriviste Julien Sorel brilliantly captures the contradictions and hypocrisies permeating French society under the Bourbon Restoration. Using his formidable intellect, innate cunning and charm, Julien clambers his way to the top, manipulating and seducing those who have the power to give him the social status he desires.

The story begins in Hamburg, 1863. The brilliant Professor Lidenbrock, inspired by an ancient, encoded manuscript, impetuously decides to take his reluctant nephew Axel on a seemingly insane mission: to travel down volcanic tunnels to the very center of the earth.

Impoverished young aristocrat Eugene de Rastignac is determined to climb the social ladder and impress himself on Parisian high society. While staying at the Maison Vauquer, a boarding house in Paris's rue Neuve-Sainte-Genevieve, he encounters Jean-Joachim Goriot, a retired vermicelli maker who has spent his entire fortune supporting his two daughters. The boarders strike up a friendship and Goriot learns of Rastignac's feelings for his daughter Delphine. He begins to see Rastignac as the ideal son-in-law, and the perfect substitute for Delphine's domineering husband. But Rastignac has other opportunities too....

Bored with inactivity following the end of the Civil War, the fanatical members of the American Gun Club in Baltimore look for a project to fulfill their passion for rearms. Their distinguished President, Impey Barbicane, proposes an exciting new endeavor - one that will cement their names in history: They will build the largest projectile ever known to man and shoot it at the moon! The bullet will be hollowed to accommodate Barbicane and two bold companions, along with their dog, and they will claim the moon as America's 37th state.

Here are 35 of the greatest poems in the French language, carefully selected and read in French by Bill Homewood, the bilingual English classical actor who has spent half his life in France. To help those English speakers with just a little French to appreciate the glories of these poems, he provides his own clear English translations.

With the Reign of Terror at its peak, and the death toll mounting, France's violent revolutionists suddenly find themselves frustrated by a mysterious vigilante. Known as the Scarlet Pimpernel, the enigmatic hero rescues the country's ill-fated aristocrats from the doom of the guillotine and whisks them away to safety, with a band of gallant cohorts at his aid.

Reina de los Angeles is being terrorized by a masked swordsman who marks the faces of his victims with Zorro's trademark Z. But is this the real Zorro? The governor of California offers a reward for the capture of Don Diego Vega (who is known to have previously been Zorro) dead or alive, while an army - led by the ruthless Captain Rocha - is in hot pursuit of the outlaw. Assisted by a coterie of allies and the native Cocopah tribe, Don Diego seeks to establish his innocence and unmask the evil imposter.

Once again, the intrepid Zorro fights for justice! In the fourth of Naxos AudioBooks' Zorro titles, our hero's assistance is sought when the devious Pedro Morelos threatens the fortune of a wealthy heir, Vicente Canchola. Morelos hatches a plot to kidnap the Governor of California and extort profitable trade concessions from him. Zorro overhears this, but will he be able to foil the evil scheme, and stop the Canchola estate from falling into the wrong hands?

The swashbuckling sequel to The Mark of Zorro (The Curse of Capistrano), The Further Adventures of Zorro sees the daring hero out for revenge once more. After Captain Ramon kidnaps the beautiful Lolita Pulido, Zorro takes to the seas and battles pirates in a bid to win her back. Swordfights, death traps, and disastrously tight corners await him. But it is never much more than a challenge as the gallant caballero laughs in the face of danger - nothing can faze him.

Step aboard for perhaps the nearest thing to a ride on a ghost train: a thrilling trip into the murky world that lies deep beneath the vast opera house in Paris, famously haunted by a mysterious phantom. Despite a series of terrifying and deadly accidents backstage, the gorgeous voice of divine young diva Christine Daaé is soaring with each performance to ever greater heights of beauty—but why? Who is teaching her? Her adoring lover Raoul fears he is losing her to a force he cannot comprehend.

In The Three Musketeers, one of the greatest adventure stories ever written, we follow the fortunes of the dashing young swordsman D'Artagnan and his daredevil companions Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. As the thrilling story unfolds, "The Four" find themselveds embroiled in duels, love tangles, and sinister intrigues which threaten the furtue of the king, the queen, and France herself.

In the brutal Prussian winter of 1807, Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte’s Grande Armée suffered massive losses to the Russians in the Battle of Eylau. Many thousands died. Young Colonel Chabert falls heroically, his actions having turned the tide of the battle, but he is buried anonymously on the battlefield in a mass grave. Incredibly, he is alive, but severely injured, and digs himself out. On his eventual return to Paris, he finds his wife, the beautiful and ambitious Rosine, now remarried, and his fortune gone.

Brothers Philippe and Joseph Bridau are completely unalike: Philippe, braggart and soldier, formerly aide-de-camp to Napoleon, is their mother Agathe's favorite; Joseph, a poor and aspiring artist, is raised in his brother's shadow. When Agathe is reduced to poverty and Philippe accrues gambling debts, the family join forces to focus their attentions on Agathe's brother, Jean-Jacques Rouget, heir to the family fortune. The struggle for his inheritance pits the family against Rouget's beautiful maid Flore ("La Rabouilleuse"), the apple of her master's eye, and her crafty lover.

Shango and the Amazing Magical Sleeping Spell is one book in a series of books aimed at dealing with a number of childhood issues, such as sleep, fears & phobias, confidence, anxiety, and anger. The books are a therapeutic tool with brief instructions for the parent to follow and listen with the child. The book is aimed at age groups 4-11 years.

The heroic and honorable Zorro, an ace with a whip and a demon with a sword, fights for the poor and oppressed - a far cry from the effete young aristocrat Don Diego, who spends his days reading poetry and dreaming of the beautiful Lolita Pulido. When Lolita's family faces ruin and accusations of treason, Zorro must step in to save her family and her honor. But who is this masked caballero?

The Man in the Iron Mask continues the adventures of the dauntless heroes of The Three Musketeers - Aramis, Athos, Porthos and d'Artagnan. In old age their swashbuckling ought to have been replaced by a more gentle way of life, but the veteran warriors find themselves at the center of a plot in which both hearts and heads are broken, and the very throne of France is at stake.

Somewhere in Africa, a tiny, primitive tribe, the Amahaggers, live secretly amongst the debris of a lost Egyptian civilization, ruled by the beautiful semi-goddess Ayesha, or She-who-must-be-obeyed. Ludwig Horace Holly, a Cambridge academic, is reluctantly drawn into plans for a voyage in search of this legendary queen. With his adopted son, Leo, he sets out on a brave journey, following a trail of clues. Shipwrecked and captured by cannibals, their voyage soon turns into a nightmare.

In The Just Men of Cordova, written in 1917, the Four move into the treacherous, aristocratic world of gambling, horse-racing and high finance. It seems that police services, even governments, have no power to control this world, where blackmail, poison and murder are commonplace. The Four, working outside the law, take it upon themselves to clean things up in their own way.

In 1962 a cache of ancient urns was discovered in Antarctica dating back tens of thousands of years. They contained writings proving our ancestral myths and lore are actually rooted in the history and culture of a pre-glacial utopian civilization. Zandernatis - Predestination sets the scene and describes the opening of the most fascinating story contained in these texts: "The Song of Gorin", an epic poem describing what really led up to the fall of man in Paradise.

Edgar Wallace’s classic vigilante detective series The Four Just Men – involving four wealthy and resourceful individuals determined to take the law into their own hands – has maintained its popularity for over a century In this, the opening volume, the mysterious Four Just Men punish by death those who are beyond the reach of the law. When Foreign Secretary Sir Philip Ramon’s proposed Aliens Extradition Bill threatens the safety of a Spanish resistance leader, the men warn Sir Sir Philip that he must either withdraw the legislation, or face death.