Showing results by narrator "John Sackville" in All Categories

Direct democracy can no longer be thought of as something that belongs to the future.... This is the scarcely believable story of how, in just over three years, a political dotcom grew to become one of the most powerful forces in the affairs of a country of 60 million people. At the general election in Italy this year, Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement, which has its headquarters on a website, took a quarter of the vote - more than Silvio Berlusconi’s party.

At the dawn of the Enlightenment, James Dyer is born unable to feel pain. A source of wonder and scientific curiosity as a child, he rises through the ranks of Georgian society to become a brilliant surgeon. Yet as a human being he fails, for he can no more feel love and compassion than pain. Until, en route to St Petersburg to inoculate the Empress Catherine against smallpox, he meets his nemesis and saviour.

From the people who brought you the bestselling Confessions of a GP. From stampeding nudes to inebriated teenagers, young nurse Michael Alexander never really knew what he was getting himself into.

In 2014 it is possible that Israel, backed by the United States, will launch an attack on Iran. This would be a catastrophic event, risking war, bloodshed, and global economic collapse. In this passionate, but rationally argued essay, the author's attempt to avert a potential global catastrophe by showing that the grounds for war do not exist, that there are no Iranian nuclear weapons, and that Iran would happily come to a table and strike a deal.

Noticing society's creeping descent into infantilisation is one thing, however understanding the roots and causes of the phenomenon is not quite so easy. But in this topical and vitally important new work, cultural theorist and academic, Dr Keith Hayward, exposes the deep social, psychological and political dangers of a world characterised by denuded adult autonomy.

Narcoball uncovers the incredible story of Colombian football during the early 1990s - shaped by drug lords, rivalries, and ambition. It uncovers a football empire backed by cartels - where victory was a currency of its own, and defeat, a matter of life and death. This is a different story of Pablo Escobar and his rivals.

Infamous names like Ted Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer are known and feared. But what if, just south of the border, there was a far more active network of serial killers? What if the perfect storm of crime, fuelled by this nation's deadly narco wars, has turned Mexico into an ideal hunting ground for many of the most bizarre and blood thirsty serial killers the world has ever seen? Serial Killers of Mexico delves into this criminal underbelly to tell the stories of the psychopathic loners, professional narco assassins and the overwhelmed law enforcement trying desperately to hunt them down.

As the Great War enters its most deadly phase, Patrick, Jenny, and Danny Carmody must cast aside their personal desires in order to stand with Britain against Germany and her allies. Danny, who is recovering from serious wounds, is devastated when he learns he must return to the Continent to fight at the front. Patrick prays for a shore posting, but the Royal Navy has something much more insidious in store for him. Jenny and Kevin rekindle their love for one another, but their relationship is tested when the Irish people demand their independence.

Chinese writer Fan Wen manages to weave a fable of love, dreams, sacrifice, and spirituality, starting from the conflict between two prominent families - beneath the snow mountain of a picturesque Eastern Tibet - and ending with a journey in pursuit of personal salvation, self-esteem, and enlightenment. Steep in the magical lore of Tibetan Buddhism or Lamaism, Fan Wen brings his listeners into a world of magic and mystery, where no limitation of human capability is part of belief, and where legend turns often into myth and myth into history.

With over two decades’ experience both observing and interpreting how people channel disaster into opportunity in the most extreme circumstances and environments on Earth, Ben Ramalingam has a unique vantage point from which to identify the key principles that can enable anyone to use stress as an opportunity for change. In Upshift, Ramalingam distils this expertise into an insightful, powerful, and engaging book that will show you how to reframe your set responses to stress and pressure and instead use them to harness the potential they hold.

Unable to find work in his field, Joseph Ponthus enlists with a temp agency and starts to pick up casual shifts in the fish processing plants and abattoirs of Brittany. Day after day he records with infinite precision the nature of work on the production line: the noise, the weariness, the dreams stolen by the repetitive nature of exhausting rituals and physical suffering. But he finds solace in a life previously lived. Shelling prawns, he dreams of Alexandre Dumas. Pushing cattle carcasses, he recalls Apollinaire.

New York City. Summer. A series of violent and highly successful bank robberies have been carried out across the city, all by the same five-man team. Millions of dollars have been stolen. The thieves are slick, efficient, well organized, and vicious. The FBI are getting nowhere in tracking them down. With pressure from Washington mounting and the heists continuing, the Feds desperately search for any leads. Across the city Sam Archer is in town for a funeral. At the service he is approached by an old family friend who works out of the FBI's New York office.

On a cold December morning in New York City, a man is found dead in Central Park. There are no knife or gunshot wounds to his body and no signs of violence. But beside the body is a box containing a cracked vial. Suspecting he died from some sort of biological attack, a lab team screen the body. What they find is deeply unsettling and terrifying.

In a hugely ambitious study that crosses continents, languages, and almost a century, Gregory Woods identifies the ways in which homosexuality has helped shape Western culture. Extending from the trials of Oscar Wilde to the gay liberation era, this book examines a period in which increased visibility made acceptance of homosexuality one of the measures of modernity.

It's 24 December 1999. Byron Easy, a poverty-stricken poet, half-cut and suicidal, sits on a stationary train at King's Cross waiting to depart. He has in his lap a bin-liner containing his remaining worldly goods - an empty bottle of red wine, a few books, a handful of crumpled banknotes. As the journey commences he conjures memories of the recent past, of his rollercoaster London life, and, most distressingly, of Mandy - his half-Spanish, Amazonian wife - in an attempt to make sense of his predicament.

It's late 1938. Thomas Heiselberg has built a career in Berlin as a market researcher for an American advertising company. In Leningrad, 22-year-old Sasha Weissberg has grown up eavesdropping on the intellectual conversations in her parents' literary salon. They each have grand plans for their lives. Neither of them thinks about politics too much, but after catastrophe strikes they will have no choice.

Young counterterrorist cop Sam Archer arrives for work at the Armed Response Unit expecting a quiet day. But unbeknownst to him, a storm is coming. Three men have already been killed that morning. One committed suicide by the River Thames. Another was strangled in his car in Washington, DC. And the third was shot in the face in his high-rise New York apartment as he slept. The deaths seem random, thousands of miles apart. But they are all connected - by a shocking event 15 years ago.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Charles I: An Abbreviated Life by Mark Kishlansky, read by John Sackville. The tragedy of Charles I dominates one of the most strange and painful periods in British history as the whole island tore itself apart over a deadly, entangled series of religious and political disputes. In Mark Kishlansky's brilliant account it is never in doubt that Charles created his own catastrophe, but he was nonetheless opposed by men with far fewer scruples and less consistency who for often quite contradictory reasons conspired to destroy him.

The Seven Laws of Spiritual Purity provides a profound and eye-opening perspective on achieving true spiritual purity. This thought-provoking and straightforward book draws practical advice from ancient wisdom to show you how to purify your mind, body, and soul. This book is not only a roadmap for anyone seeking a more enlightened existence. It is also a passionate plea for a better world — a world in which humanity no longer has to accept and deal with the consequences of many sufferings but instead prevents their very causes.

As Hitler prepares to invade Poland, an underfunded MI5 struggles to contain the German and Russian spies who are flocking to England to recruit sympathetic British agents. The section’s biggest challenge, however, lies with fascist aristocrats and several Parliament MPs who support Nazi Germany’s foreign policy and its leader Adolf Hitler. Some of them, including Sir Oswald Mosley, are planning for a revolution if Prime Minister Chamberlain declares war on the Third Reich.