Showing results by narrator "Jamie Parker" in All Categories

Robert Musil (1880-1942) is best known for his enduring masterpiece The Man Without Qualities, one of the great European works of the 20th century. It was with The Confusions of Young Master Törless first published in 1906, a challenging but very different work, that he signalled his extraordinary talent. As the nineteenth century draws to an end, young Torless is sent to a military boarding school for the sons of the nobility on the eastern outreaches of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.

The terrorist Guy Fowle has escaped from prison. Jude Lyon of MI-6 has been saved from a Syrian ambush by his lover - and enemy? - Julia Ermolaeva. A mysterious Russian has been murdered in London and his thumb cut off. The chancellor of the Exchequer has made an unfortunate social connection at a party, which he hopes he can keep secret. And suddenly, the world is literally going up in flames. Jude needs to start putting together the pieces of this jigsaw and quickly, because someone is putting into play a terrifying Russian plan to disable and destroy the UK.

A brilliantly observed story of crises and reconciliations within families and stepfamilies and the conflict between Millennials and their Baby Boomer parents. Funny, dark, yet limned with hope, Tim Lott returns to a family saga—and social commentary—that began with the award-winning White City Blue, continuing with When We Were Rich. It is a story for everyone trying to make sense of a sharply polarised world where the political has become personal and the personal has become a minefield.

An estate agent in a property boom, Frankie is focused simply on getting rich. But can he survive the coming crash? And what will become of his friends—and his marriage—as they are scoured by the winds of change? New Labour are at their zenith. The economy booms, awash with cheap credit. The arrival of the smartphone heralds the sudden and vast expansion of social media. Mass immigration from Eastern Europe leave many unsettled while religious extremism threatens violent conflict.

For those who enjoyed I Am the Secret Footballer, this new book delivers hard-hitting insights into the hidden world of professional football and footballers. In the vein of Hotel Babylon and Confessions of a GP, The Secret Player will fascinate football fans with its wealth of insider knowledge and willingness to talk, albeit anonymously, about the inner workings of the game. Based on the hugely popular 'The Player' columns in FourFourTwo magazine, the book gives a warts-and-all insight into the daily life of professional footballers.

The Notebooks of Malte Laurids Brigge (Die Aufzeichnungen des Malte Laurids Brigge) has been described as an anti-novel. It is set in Paris in the period just before the First World War, but it presents a bleaker milieu than that described by Proust. The language is terse, the atmosphere painful, the images uncompromising. Rilke drew on the short period he spent in Paris in 1903 where, in contrast to the rural circumstances in which he had lived before, he found the underbelly of urban life distressing.

When Compton Valance and his best friend Bryan Nylon discover the world's first time machine (aka a mouldy, thirteen-week-old-cheese-and-pickled-egg sandwich), they become the most powerful boys in the universe. But how will Compton and Bryan decide to use their incredible new time-travelling powers? Will they use them for good or evil? Or will they just focus their efforts on perfecting a formula for the world's first pair of custard trousers?

Tom Brown's Schooldays is the story of an energetic, good-hearted boy and his adventures at public school. Based on the author's own childhood, the novel presents us with a snapshot of life at Victorian public school as we follow Tom's development from a boy to a young man. Tom must fend off his archenemy, the bully Flashman, and take a younger boy under his wing - through which he learns loyalty, courage, and brotherhood.

A bomb explodes in a newly designed shopping complex, ripping through the lives of everyone in its wake. Confirmed as a targeted terrorist attack, special units are quickly brought in to lock down the area. For bomb-disposal expert, Staff Sergeant Dominic Riley, Afghanistan never feels far away and that’s especially true on the morning of the bombing. And it's only just beginning.

For a century Bram Stoker's Dracula has reigned supreme as the undisputed masterpiece of horror writing. We have all grown up under the shadow of the elegant Count, at once an attractive, brutal, and erotic creature of the night.

With superb skill and feeling, Graham Greene retraces the experiences and encounters of his extraordinary life. His restlessness is legendary; as if seeking out danger, Greene travelled to Haiti during the nightmare rule of Papa Doc, Vietnam in the last days of the French, Kenya during the Mau Mau rebellion. With ironic delight he recalls his time in the British Secret Service in Africa and his brief involvement in Hollywood. He writes, as only he can, about people and places, faith, doubt, fear and not least, the trials and craft of writing.

In the fighting pits of the Conqueror, Khârn and his fellow World Eaters compete in ever-bloodier contests of carnage and mayhem. As the Butcher's Nails dig ever deeper into their brains, the Legion have forsaken the Crimson Path. Now they walk a darker, more dangerous road: the Eightfold Path.

French Academician and Nazi sympathiser Paul-Jean Husson writes a letter to his local SS officer in the autumn of 1942. Tormented by an illicit passion for Ilse, his German daughter-in-law, Husson has taken a decision that will devastate several lives, including his own.

With Glow, Ned Beauman has reinvented the international conspiracy thriller for a new generation. A hostage exchange outside a police station in Pakistan. A botched defection in an airport hotel in New Jersey. A test of loyalty at an abandoned resort in the Burmese jungle. A boy and a girl locking eyes at a rave in a South London laundrette... For the first time, Britain's most exciting young novelist turns his attention to the present day, as a conspiracy with global repercussions converges on one small flat above a dentist's office in Camberwell.

Fisher and Ivy have been an item for a whole 19 days. And they just know they are meant to be together. The fact that they know little else about each other is a minor detail. Over the course of 12 months, in which their lives will change forever, Fisher and Ivy discover that falling in love is one thing, but staying there is an entirely different story.

She dedicated her mind to beauty and truth. She offered her heart to her faith. She sacrificed her body to Christ. Ode to Saint Cecilia tells the dramatic story of a modest young woman from Rome whose life has transcended time to influence poets, composers, sculptors, and painters. Augustine Institute Radio Theatre's Ode to Saint Cecilia includes cinematic sound, original music, and the award-winning talents of highly-acclaimed British actors.

Estate agent Frankie Blue is known on his home turf—White City, Shepherd’s Bush—as ‘Frank the Fib’. He’s a liar—but one who always tries to tell the truth. Frankie has been friends with Diamond Tony, a hairdresser, Colin, a computer nerd, and Nodge, a cabbie, since schooldays. Now they are thirty and trying to live the same life as they did then—drinking, girls, banter, football. Then comes Frankie’s Great Betrayal—Veronica, and marriage, his ticket to a bigger, better grown-up world.

As war continues to ravage the galaxy, the new Age of Darkness sees whole systems simply lost and countless battles forgotten. Surely there can be no hope for peace, forgiveness or respite in such times, and all that will be left are the dying warp-echoes of supreme galactic ruin....

Jamie Parker stars as the Prince of Denmark in this brand new BBC Radio 4 full-cast production. At the Castle of Elsinore in Denmark, the court is uneasy. The king of Denmark has recently died and the throne has been claimed by the king's brother, Claudius. Prince Hamlet, still in mourning for his father, distrusts Claudius and believes that what has happened at the court 'cannot come to good’. The ghost of his father has told him he was murdered by Claudius.

Sergei Yesenin is a young poet, formed by childhood abandonment, set on becoming the most famous poet in Russia in a time of war, revolution and terror. A sensitive soul in a senseless time, searching for meaning through poetry, fame and passionate affairs with both women and men – until a meeting with the beautiful actress Zinaida Raikh changes everything.