Résultats lu par "Robin Laing" dans Toutes les catégories

The Spanish military coup of 1936 was launched to overturn the social and economic reforms of the democratic Second Republic, and its educational and cultural challenges to the established order. The consequent civil war was fought in the interests of the landowners, industrialists, bankers, clerics and army officers whose privileges were threatened. However, a central justification for a war that took the lives of around 500,000 Spaniards was that it was being fought to combat an alleged scheme for world domination by a non-existent ‘Jewish-Masonic-Bolshevik Conspiracy’.

The immense cultural contribution made by two maverick Scottish independent music labels, Fast Product and Postcard, cannot be underestimated. Bob Last and Hilary Morrison in Edinburgh, followed by Alan Horne and Edwyn Collins in Glasgow, helped to create a confidence in being Scottish that hitherto had not existed in pop music (or the arts in general in Scotland). Their fierce independent spirit stamped a mark of quality and intelligence on everything they achieved. Hungry Beat is a definitive oral history of these labels and the Scottish post-punk period.

Guy de Maupassant is renowned as one of the fathers of the modern short story. A protégé of Flaubert, he was celebrated for his naturalistic fiction, and wrote over 300 short stories, six novels, three travel books and one volume of verse in his short but highly productive lifetime. He died in an asylum aged just 43. This collection brings together dramatisations of some of his finest works.

Jamie was 19. He was an ambitious personal trainer who wanted to be a social media influencer. But now his hopes and dreams will never be realised. Jamie was found killed at the family home, discovered by his dad - who’s now been charged with his own son’s murder. In this gripping crime drama, revealed through recordings of sessions led by forensic psychiatrist Dr Alex Bridges (Lolita Chakrabarti), we hear from those closest to Jamie and find out more about the family’s secrets. 

When pickpocket Danny accidentally bids for Maharajah the elephant at an Edinburgh auction, he's swept up on an unforgettable journey. His new employer, a zookeeper, transforms Danny into a bejewelled Indian prince. As he rides Maharajah from Scotland to his new home in England, even Queen Victoria follows their journey with delight. But as a rival zookeeper wagers on their failure, Danny's shady connections threaten to overturn the mission....

It is the near-future, and drug resistance has taken hold. Antibiotics are no longer available, and in the war between humanity and bacteria, one little girl is in the front line.... 10-year-old Sarah is not allowed to play outside. But one day, she and her brother break the rules and go into the nearby woods, where she scratches her knee. The wound gets infected, and soon becomes life-threatening. Now Sarah’s in a coma, in an isolated room in hospital. Her family and medical team are hoping this will stop the infection - but they’re running out of time.

As the old chemical works in Leith are demolished, a long deceased body encrusted in phosphate rock is discovered. Seated at a card table, he has 10 objects laid out in front of him. Whose body is it? How did he die, and what is the significance of the objects? Phosphate Rocks: A Death in 10 Objects unravels the mystery using a mix of real life anecdote, scientific explanation and a touch of fiction, woven together to create a vivid account of the life and decline of a factory over five decades.

Sound interesting? The author thinks so too! Listen to Our Lady of the Snows and learn about William Neilson.

In 1720, the young William Neilson leaves Edinburgh to make his fortune in Europe, first sailing to Rotterdam and then on foot to Paris, where he meets and is immediately employed by the banker John Law. A day later he is in the Bastille, but not before he has encountered a young woman of surpassing beauty to whom Neilson will be devoted for the rest of his life.

New Year's Eve, 1746. A castle in the depths of France. A thunderstorm. A pair of lovers in a hay-loft. A wounded soldier toppling from his horse. So begins the second instalment of the life of William Neilson, Scottish soldier in French service and Jacobite agent against his will. Around his neck, William carries the most precious jewel on the surface of the earth, but it is not his, and he must carry it to the exiled King of England, Scotland and Ireland in Italy. Before that, he wishes to see for a last time the woman he has loved for more than half his life.