Showing results by narrator "Allan Corduner" in All Categories

On the fourth day there was war. Following their adventures in the Border Sea, Arthur and Leaf head for home. But only Leaf gets through the front door. Arthur is blocked because someone, or something, has assumed his identity and is taking over his life. Before Arthur can take action, he is drafted by Sir Thursday and forced to join the Glorious Army of the Architect.

It is 1868, and a 22-year-old Bram Stoker has locked himself inside an abbey's tower to face off against a vile and ungodly beast. He is armed with mirrors and crucifixes and holy water and a gun - and is kept company by a bottle of plum brandy. His fervent prayer is that he will survive this one night - a night that will prove to be the longest of his life.

Four of the seven Trustees have been defeated and their Keys taken, but for Arthur, the week is still getting worse. Suzy Blue and Fred Gold Numbers have been captured by the Piper, and his New Nithling army still controls most of the Great Maze. Superior Saturday is causing trouble wherever she can, including turning off all the elevators in the House and blocking the Front Door.

A land-surveyor, known only as K., arrives at a small village permanently covered in snow and dominated by a castle to which access seems permanently denied. K.'s attempts to discover why he has been called constantly run up against the peasant villagers, who are in thrall to the absurd bureaucracy that keeps the castle shut, and the rigid hierarchy of power among the self-serving bureaucrats themselves.

Ragnarok was the End of Worlds. Asgard fell centuries ago, and the old gods have been defeated. Some are dead while others have been consigned to eternal torment in the netherworld - among them the legendary trickster, Loki. A god who betrayed every side and still lost everything, who has lain forgotten as time passed and the world of humans moved on to new beliefs, new idols and new deities...But now mankind dreams of the Norse Gods once again, the river Dream is but a stone's throw from their dark prison and Loki is the first to escape into a new reality.

Among the many important historical documents from the Classical world of Greece and Rome The Antiquities of the Jews by Flavius Josephus is one of the most distinctive and characterful. Josephus (37-c100 CE) set out with the clear purpose of telling the history of the Jews from the creation in Genesis to the Jewish revolt against the Romans in 66 CE. Born in Jerusalem as Yosef ben Matityahu, he rose to become a leading participant in the First Jewish Revolt (66-73 CE).

Seven stories of love and loss, drama and glamour, hope and rejection, from a writer at the height of his powers. A brilliantly witty, funny and tender collection of stories that draws on the wealth of film and TV ideas Rupert Everett has created over the course of his career, The American No will delight and surprise his many fans.

They are Hazel, James, Aubrey, and Colette. A classical pianist from London, a British would-be architect turned soldier, a Harlem-born ragtime genius in the US Army, and a Belgian orphan with a gorgeous voice and a devastating past. Their story, as told by goddess Aphrodite, who must spin the tale or face judgment on Mount Olympus, is filled with hope and heartbreak, prejudice and passion, and reveals that, though war is a formidable force, it's no match for the transcendent power of love.

There have always been whispers. Legends. The warrior who cannot be killed. Who’s seen a thousand civilizations rise and fall. He has had many names: Unute, Child of Lightning, Death himself. These days, he’s known simply as “B.” And he wants to be able to die. In the present day, a U.S. black-ops group has promised him they can help with that. And all he needs to do is help them in return.

Berlin, 1943. August Schlegel lives in a world full of questions with no easy answers. Why is he being called out on a homicide case when he works in financial crimes? Why did the old Jewish soldier with an Iron Cross shoot the block warden in the eye, then put a bullet through his own head? Why does Schlegel persist with the case when no one cares because the Jews are all being shipped out anyway? And why should Eiko Morgen, wearing the dreaded black uniform of the SS, be assigned to work with him?

John Lennon was a writer as well as a musician. It was entirely natural for him to put pen to paper whenever he had an idea, a thought, a reaction, or a desire to communicate. He lived - and died - in an age before emails and texts. Pen and ink was what he turned to. John wrote letters and postcards all of his life, most of which were funny, informative, campaigning, wise, mad, poetic, anguished, and sometimes heart-breaking. For the first time, John's widow, Yoko Ono, has given permission to publish a collection of his letters.

Sixteen-year-old photography enthusiast Zoey has been fascinated by the haunted, burnt-out ruins of Medwyn Mill House for as long as she can remember - so she and her best friend, Poulton, run away from home to explore them. In 1851, 17-year-old Roan arrives at the Mill House as a ward - one of three, all with something to hide from their new guardian. 1583. Hermione, a new young bride, accompanies her husband to the wilds of North Wales where he plans to build the largest water mill and mansion in the area.

Paul Sellar is an award-winning playwright working in theatre, film and radio. This compulsive collection brings together four of his gritty, modern thrillers, set at the intersection of the murky worlds of corrupt business and criminality.

Three moons are rising. They are rising over the snowy Archen Mountains, where Teia struggles through the high passes to carry her warning to the Empire: The Nimrothi war band is poised to invade and at their head stands Ytha. She means to release the Wild Hunt - and with it Maegern the Raven, the Keeper of the Dead.

How many people do you know grew up as a poor immigrant in America during the Great Depression, won a scholarship to Harvard Law School, landed on the beaches of Normandy on D Day, were present at the liberation of concentration camps including Buchenwald, Mauthausen and Flossenburg, held leading Nazis to account at the Nuremberg trials and have fought for an International Criminal Court to hold war criminals to account the world over? Now you know one.

A BBC Radio 4 full-cast drama by Laurence Marks and Maurice Gran. Originally broadcast in the ‘Saturday Play’ slot on 8 November 2008. Wine shop owner Gerald desperately needs money: his business is failing and the landlord has raised the cost of the lease. When he inherits a watch that used to belong to wartime Nazi Joachim Von Ribbentrop he believes that his financial troubles are over. But it sparks conflict with his wife and brother, who question the ethics of the potential sale.

Berlin, July 1944, a world of illicit jazz clubs, sexually generous young women, suspect art dealers, last-ditch zealots and a city defined by crumbling infrastructure, advanced terror, dirty secrets and deep politics - and then there is August Schlegel, caught askance in a web of totalitarian mayhem.

Step right up! The Amusement Park is a rich, anecdotal history that begins nine centuries ago with the "pleasure gardens" of Europe and England and ends with the most elaborate modern parks in the world. It's a history told largely through the stories of the colorful, sometimes hedonistic characters who built them. And, of course, this is a full-throttle celebration of the rides, those marvels of engineering and heart-stopping thrills from an author, Stephen Silverman, whose lifelong passion for his subject shines through.

A trilogy of contemporary plays inspired by tales from The Arabian Nights: Arabian Afternoons includes The Casper Logue Affair by Sebastian Baczkiewicz, The Porter and the Three Ladies by Rachel Joyce and A Dish of Pomegranates by Peter Jukes.

Once upon a time in an enormous forest lived a woodcutter and his wife. The woodcutter is very poor and a war rages around them, making it difficult for them to put food on the table. Yet every night, his wife prays for a child. A Jewish father rides on a train holding twin babies. His wife no longer has enough milk to feed both children. In hopes of saving them both, he wraps his daughter in a shawl and throws her into the forest. While foraging for food, the woodcutter’s wife finds a bundle, a baby girl wrapped in a shawl.