Showing results by narrator "Peter Noble" in All Categories

The Cooler King tells the astonishing story of William Ash, an American flier, who after being shot down in his Spitfire over France in early 1942 spent the rest of the war striving to escape from every prisoner of war camp in which he was incarcerated. It is a saga full of high drama, climaxing in a break out via a tunnel dug in the latrines of the Oflag XXIB prison camp in Poland.

The period covered in this book is well known for its epic battles and grand campaigns of territorial conquest, but Hellenistic monarchies, Carthaginians, and the rapacious Roman Republic were scarcely less active at sea. Huge resources were poured into maintaining fleets not only as symbols of prestige but as means of projecting real military power across the Mediterranean arena.

Detective Dean Matheson has returned to his hometown to begin his new job and put the traumatic events of his past behind him - but his fresh start won’t last long.... A nameless girl badly beaten and dumped in front of the mysterious new church. A shocking murder scene discovered in the apartment over the diner. A child missing without a trace. These are the crimes Dean Matheson is confronted with in his first week as detective. Are they isolated events, or is something altogether more disturbing happening in Maple Valley now that Dean’s back in town?

Where does self-confidence come from? How does it work? What makes it stronger or weaker? Why are some people more confident than others? Is it only a question of temperament or the result of conscious self-improvement? How do you get closer to those who stand out thanks entirely to their confidence in themselves? Drawing on philosophical texts, ancient wisdom, positive psychology, and a wide range of case studies, Charles Pépin brings to light the strange alchemy that is self-confidence. By doing so, he gives us the keys to having more confidence in ourselves.

Vividly capturing the heady times in the waning months of World War II, Ronald Weber follows the exploits of Allied reporters as they flooded into liberated Paris after four dark years of Nazi occupation. He traces the remarkable adventures of the men and women who lived, worked, and played in the legendary Hôtel Scribe, set in a highly fashionable part of the largely undamaged city. Press jeeps and trailers packed the street outside, while inside the hotel was completely booked with hundreds of correspondents.

First published in 1948, The Ides of March is a brilliant epistolary novel of the Rome of Julius Caesar. Through imaginary letters and documents, Wilder brings to life a dramatic period of world history and one of its magnetic personalities. In this novel, the Caesar of history becomes Caesar the human being as he appeared to his family, his legions, his Rome, and his empire in the months just before his death.

Former police officer Dean Matheson has been playing it safe since the case that cost him almost everything. But working as a PI doesn’t quite cut it - that is until a British woman walks into his office with a job that Dean can’t resist. The woman’s daughter, Hannah Walker, and her friend Jodie have gone missing whilst working at a ski resort in Colorado. It’s clear there’s something sinister about the girls’ disappearance, but then why are the local police department being so unhelpful?

In 1999, in the small provincial town of Beauval, France, 12-year-old Antoine Courtin accidentally kills a young neighbor boy in the woods near his home. Panicked, he conceals the body and to his relief—and ongoing shame—he is never suspected of any connection to the child's disappearance. But the boy's death continues to haunt him, shaping his life in unseen ways. More than a decade later, Antoine is living in Paris, now a young doctor with a fiancée and a promising future.

Brought together first as enemies in the Anglo-Boer War and later as allies in the First World War, the remarkable and often touching friendship between Winston Churchill and Jan Smuts is a rich study in contrasts. In youth, they occupied very different worlds: Churchill, the rambunctious and thrusting young aristocrat; Smuts, the aesthetic, philosophical Cape farm boy who would go on to Cambridge. Both were men of exceptional talents and achievements, and between them the pair had to grapple with some of the 20th century's most intractable issues, not least of which was the task of restoring peace and prosperity to Europe after two of mankind's bloodiest wars.

It's 1919. The Derbyshire village of Wenfield is still coming to terms with the loss of so many of its sons when the brutal murder of a young girl shatters its hard-won tranquility. Myrtle Bligh is found stabbed, her mouth slit to accommodate a dead dove. During the war Myrtle volunteered as a nurse, working at the nearby big house, Tarnhey Court. When two more women are found murdered, Inspector Albert Lincoln is sent up from London.

Sophie Duguet—young, successful, and happily married—thought at first she was becoming absentminded when she started misplacing her mail and forgetting where she'd parked her car the night before. But then, as her husband and colleagues pointed out with increasing frustration, she began forgetting things she'd said and done, too. And when she was detained by the police for shoplifting, a crime she didn't remember committing, the confusion and blackouts that had begun to plague her took on a more sinister cast.

Throughout human history the art of warfare has evolved into many forms across numerous theatres, gradually becoming more sophisticated and strategised as the centuries have progressed. From the Spartans of ancient Greece with their code of valour fighting to the last man to the US Navy SEALs who operate using the latest technology of the 21st century. Across the vast array of military campaigns and battles one can see that the majority of organised armies have been comprised of enlisted men who would have their basic training.

A fine collection of essays representing C. S. Lewis at his best and most brilliant. As ever, Lewis' clear and eloquent mind give plenty of food for thought, especially as he aims his intellectual ammunition at the modern myths still so prevalent in our postmodern culture and encourages a robust defence of the Christian Gospel.

For Commandant Verhoeven life is beautiful: he is happily married, expecting his first child with the lovely Irène. But his blissful existence is punctured by a murder of unprecedented savagery. Worse still, the press seem to have it in for him - his every move is headline news. When he discovers that the killer has killed before - that each murder is a homage to a classic crime novel - the fourth estate are quick to coin a nickname: The Novelist.

The perfect husband. The perfect stepson. The perfect lie? When Rachel marries dark, handsome David, everything seems to fall into place. Swept from single life in London to the beautiful Carnhallow House in Cornwall, she gains wealth, love, and an affectionate stepson, Jamie. But then Jamie's behavior changes, and Rachel's perfect life begins to unravel. He makes disturbing predictions, claiming to be haunted by the specter of his late mother - David's previous wife. Is this Jamie's way of punishing Rachel, or is he far more traumatized than she thought?

In 18th-century Venice, Minguillo Fasan, heir to a fortune, contrives to dispatch of his sister, Marcella, condemning her to the fate of a nun. But Marcella Fasan is tougher than Minguillo imagines, and, aided by a servant, a painter, a skin-obsessed doctor, a Scottish merchant and a cigar-smoking pornographer, she pitches her wits against her brother….

When Ralph Waldo Emerson published his seminal essay on self-reliance in 1841, the United States was still reeling from the effects of a calamitous financial collapse four years earlier. His positive vision for the power of individualism and personal responsibility was issued in a climate of panic and uncertainty, at a time when the values of society and humanity were shifting. Emerson’s call to independence remains as relevant and energizing as ever.

When James Canton walked into Suffolk’s Lindsey Chapel, it was the beginning of what would become a new journey in his life—hours away from the bustling city of London and distant from the years in his early twenties when he traveled from Egypt to Argentina. Standing inside the quaint chapel, Canton realized that his past cosmopolitan desires had been replaced by an intense yearning to understand the history of the place he called home, a burning curiosity about the past and the spiritual ways and beliefs of the people who came before us.

As thinking machines make more decisions on our behalf, they can enrich, enable, and influence our lives. The increasing use of AI raises critical questions about our values, cultures, economies, and power relationships. And the answers may depend upon your race, gender, age, behavior, and nationality. In clear and accessible prose, Olaf Groth and Mark Nitzberg explore the history of intelligent technology, revealing how close we are to designing machines that have some sort of consciousness - and that we must now decide how to give those machines a conscience.

They say I'm a murderer. Six years ago, Kate Reynolds was found holding the body of her best friend, covered in blood, and clutching the knife that killed her. I plead guilty. Kate has been in prison ever since, but now her sentence is up. She is being released. But the truth is, I didn't do it. There's only one person who can help: Private Investigator Madison Attallee, the first officer on the scene all those years ago. But there's someone out there who doesn't want Kate digging up the past.