Showing results by narrator "Jonathan Keeble" in All Categories

Long days of boredom in confinement, the general inefficiency of prison bureaucracy and a critically over-stretched prison service. The tediousness of prison life kicks in for prisoner FF8282, also known as author Jeffrey Archer, in the second volume of his best-selling series The Prison Diaries. Still his fellow inmates show inspiring spirit and courage, amid an otherwise gloomy prison landscape, revealing that even in the darkest hours light can always be found.

Prisoner FF8282 gazes out from confinement on what he deems must be a glorious summer’s day, rays of sunlight bursting through the barred windows of his cell. Within the thick prison walls separating society from its dangerous criminals, a multitude of harrowing fates unfold, seldomly explored by the public. First-time offenders thrown in cells with hardened criminals, several inmates becoming heroin addicts and a system riddled with flaws. However, even in prison the sunlight cannot be kept out.

Ultramarines sergeants Sicarius and Numitor spearhead an assault on a tau-held world. As they clash with powerful tau battlesuits, the two sergeants discover that the Tau Empire and the Imperium of Man may have as many similarities and differences - but does that matter when the xenos threaten the Emperor's realm?

The Byzantine Empire rules in Southern Italy, but the indigenous populations are restless. The Lombards are no exception to this. One of their number, Arduin of Fassano, is appointed by a young Byzantine general to hold the key to Apulia. He is unaware that Arduin intends to join his Lombard brethren and rise up in revolt, hiring to aid him the Norman mercenaries of Campania.

In Three Dialogues (set in a ‘Platonic’ garden), Hylas begins by challenging Philonous that he denied the existence of material substance. ‘What!’ says Hylas. ‘Can anything be more fantastical, more repugnant to Common Sense, or a more manifest piece of Scepticism, than to believe there is no such thing as matter?’ And Berkeley, in the guise of Philonous, replies, ‘Softly, good Hylas. What if it should prove that you, who hold there is, are, by virtue of that opinion, a greater sceptic, and maintain more paradoxes and repugnances to common sense, than I who believe no such thing.’

Britain has invaded Afghanistan twice before in the nineteenth century. Both times tenacious Afghan fighters defended their country to humiliating British defeats. The Soviet Union also discovered what a tough enemy the Afghans are after nearly a decade of conflict from 1979 to 1989. When not fighting foreign invaders, Afghanistan was torn apart by Civil War from 1990 to 1996, resulting in victory for the Taliban.

War and Peace – Tolstoy's epic masterpiece intertwines the lives of private and public individuals during the time of the Napoleonic wars and the French invasion of Russia. Anna Karenina – The heroine of Tolstoy's epic of love and self-destruction, Anna Karenina has beauty, wealth, popularity and an adored son, but feels that her life is empty until she encounters the impetuous officer Count Vronsky. Resurrection – It tells the story of a nobleman's attempt to redeem the suffering his youthful philandering inflicted on a peasant girl who ends up a prisoner in Siberia.

Eminent Victorians, Lytton Strachey's wonderfully witty and Wildean quartet of biographies, stands out as one of the most radical and groundbreaking works of its genre. With relentless precision, Strachey explores the lives of four exemplars of the Victorian age: Cardinal Manning, Florence Nightingale, Thomas Arnold and General Gordon, irreverently bringing to light the flaws, strengths, ambitions and hypocrisies of these treasured legends.

Previously uncollected and unpublished: new short stories from a master of psychological suspense. New and uncollected tales of murder, mischief, magic and madness. Ruth Rendell was an acknowledged master of psychological suspense: these are 10 (and a quarter) of her most chillingly compelling short stories, collected here together for the first time.

While the war rages on across the galaxy, for many on the Throneworld of Terra it exists only in hearsay. But in the course of her daily duties, humble adept Katanoh Tallery discovers evidence of a conspiracy within the monolithic Administratum - surely, this can only be the precursor to a traitor attack on the Solar System itself? Fleeing into the shadows, she soon finds herself at the mercy of the mysterious Knight Errant Nathaniel Garro. Will this stalwart defender of mankind be her saviour, or her executioner?

Love history? Know your stuff with History in an Hour. In 1914 the world changed. Europe's great powers were dragged, one by one, into a war by Serbian conflict which affected very few of them directly. At least it would resemble the short sharp battles of the previous century, many thought - fought with military bands, horsemen, and swift victories.

Twenty-five years ago, a schoolgirl was attacked. Ambushed by three bullies at her home where she lived alone with her granny. Now, the mother of one of those bullies is found murdered on the Hobfield housing estate. Written on the wall in the victim’s blood is the word “sorry”. Detective Tom Calladine and his partner DS Ruth Bayliss discover a link to some bones found at an old house up in the hills. It was the home of the teenage girl who was attacked. The detectives have more than this puzzling case on their hands.

The Isle of Wight: in the summers of the 1800s, Queen Victoria holidayed here. At music festivals in the summer of love, hundreds of thousands of people got stoned here. And, in the summer of 2020, Hunter and Claire escaped locked-down North London for a week's holiday here. They fell in love with its sleepy charm – and ended up buying a Grade 2-listed home in the elegant Victorian seaside resort of Ryde. "Love in Old Age" tells the story of their first year on the island. It is a journey of discovery in a forgotten corner of England.

Part social reportage, part socialist polemic, The Road to Wigan Pier sets out a hellish vision of a broken Britain before delivering a meditation on how we can create a more egalitarian society. Having travelled to the industrial north of England on assignment from his editor, Orwell's confronting, stark descriptions of the social injustice, cramped slum housing, squalor, hunger and growing unemployment he encounters are written with unblinking honesty, anger and humanity.

The narrator travels through the nearby decrepit seaport of Innsmouth which is suggested as a cheaper and potentially interesting next leg of his journey. There he interacts with strange people and observes disturbing events that ultimately lead to horrifying and personal revelations. It forms part of the Cthulhu Mythos, using its motif of a malign undersea civilization. It references several shared elements of the Mythos, including place-names, mythical creatures and invocations.

Written in the summer of 1926, it was first published in Weird Tales, February 1928. It is the only story written by Lovecraft in which the extra terrestrial entity Cthulhu himself makes a major appearance. It is written in a documentary style, with three independent narratives linked together by the device of a narrator discovering notes left by a deceased relative. The narrator pieces together the whole truth and disturbing significance of the information he possesses

With their epic tales of gods, heroes, magic and monsters, the Greek myths have thrilled us for more than 2,000 years and inspired countless adaptations. Now, in this captivating collection, two award-winning playwrights bring their own fresh, contemporary takes to the famous legends of Odysseus, Orpheus and Eurydice.

For more than 200 years, the armies of the Emperor of Mankind fought to reconquer the galaxy - led by the superhuman primarchs, the Space Marine Legions brought countless worlds back under the rule of ancient Terra. Now Horus, once honoured Warmaster and favoured son of the Emperor, has been corrupted by the whispered promises of Chaos. At his command the Imperium is torn apart by a terrible and bloody civil war, the likes of which the galaxy has never seen....

Vladimir Putin is a paradox. In the early years of his presidency, he appeared to commit himself to friendship with the West, suggesting that Russia could join the European Union or even NATO. He said he supported free-market democracy and civil rights. But the Putin of those years is unrecognisable today. The Putin of the 2020s is an autocratic nationalist, dedicated to repression at home and anti-Western militarism abroad.

Veteran BBC journalist Chris Wyrecliffe finds himself in the Middle East as the Arab Spring explodes into life. Back on the front line at last, he’s stumbled across the biggest story of his life. But two women have a hold on him. One, a wealthy Saudi beauty he has loved since the first moment he saw her. The other, a feisty young Palestinian refugee, loves him with a frightening intensity. Wyrecliffe is caught between them in a dangerous game whose implications are as extreme as they are hidden....