Showing results by narrator "Finlay Robertson" in All Categories

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Noonday by Pat Barker, read by Juliet Stevenson, Stephen Boxer, John Sackville, Anne Reid & Finlay Robertson. London, the Blitz, autumn 1940. Ambulance drivers Elinor Brooke and Kit Neville ferry injured survivors from bomb sites to hospitals while Elinor's husband, Paul, works as an air-raid warden.

Envisage a world where inequality is shrinking, where natural resources are regenerated, and people can benefit from shared prosperity. In Impact, Sir Ronald Cohen proposes a new theory about how the Impact Revolution will enable us to achieve systemic social and environmental improvement. Impact investing is about creating a chain reaction. One that brings innovation to the stakeholders whose engagement is crucial to tackling massive social and environmental challenges at scale.

Nearly 60 years ago, Nobel Prize-winners Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson stumbled across a mysterious hiss of faint radio static that was interfering with their observations. They had found the key to unravelling the story of the big bang and the origin of our universe. That signal was the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the earliest light in the universe, released 379,000 years after the big bang.

Nick Smith charts his journey from trainee teacher through to inspiring head across his near thirty-year career, with fascinating insights into the educational system along the way. The catalogue of incidents ranges from the embarrassing to the ridiculous, hilarious to the heart-breaking, and together they illustrate the daily grind of life at the whiteboard face in UK schools. Head Trauma is more than an amusing look at the trials of teacherdom—it's a call to arms for parents, teachers and pupils alike.

White Supremacy begins with the anatomy of the murder of 10 black people in Buffalo, New York in 2022. The killer, 18-year old Payton Gendron, says he was driven by 'Great Replacement'–the conspiracy theory that a Jewish-led elite is replacing white people with black and brown people. This, and a spate of similar hate crimes, begs the question: what are the origins of such behaviour? Gavin Evans traces the historical roots of white supremacy.

The social revolution of the Swinging Sixties led to a renaissance of unchecked hair growth, and long hair, especially on men, was worn as a political or countercultural symbol of protest and as an expression of masculinity. No-one who was affected by one of a turbulent decade's loudest controversies—or anyone who ever wondered what all the fuss was about—will fail to be interested in this personal account of when the 'us and them' divide between youth and elders was most profound.

In 1912, the SS Birmingham approaches India. On board is Morgan Forster, novelist and man of letters. It will be another 12 years, and a second time spent in India, before A Passage to India, E. M. Forster's great work of literature, is published. During these years, Morgan will come to a profound understanding of the infinite subtleties and complexity of human nature.

This is a book of parts. Part tongue-in-cheek field guide, part comic memoire and country yearbook. It’s also a chronicle of calamities – of those unexpected events and terrible ordeals that can occur when you are out and about, just trying to enjoy life. Set over the course of 12 months, covering everything from driven pheasant, fishing in the Pyrenees, goose shooting in Scotland, boar hunting in France and foraging for food on freezing beaches in the 1970s.

When Henry Scowcroft's partner, Zarah, was diagnosed with stage-four bladder cancer in 2016, their world fell apart. An award-winning science writer for Cancer Research UK, Henry had spent 14 years at the coal-face of cancer research, but now the disease had infiltrated his personal life too. Henry uses this unique perspective to tell the story of Zarah's illness, how he tried in vain to use everything he'd learnt in his professional career to try to save her and in doing so, how he realised that even a career writing about cancer daily isn't enough preparation for what comes next.

After narrowly escaping the fall of Rossarb, Princess Catherine leads a rag-tag group of survivors into the barren wasteland of the Northern Plateau. With the Brigantine army snapping at their heels, Edyon and Ambrose become separated from the group, while demon hunter Tash leads Catherine and March to an unlikely refuge - the hidden tunnels of the demon world itself.

How do you solve your own murder? Everyone believes Alex is in a coma, unlikely to ever wake up. As his family debate withdrawing life support, and his friends talk about how his girlfriend Bea needs to move on, he can only listen. But Alex soon begins to suspect that the accident that put him here wasn't really an accident. Even worse, the perpetrator is still out there, and Alex is not the only one in danger. As he goes over a series of clues from his past, Alex must use his remaining senses to solve the mystery.

Captain Tom Barnes is leading British troops in a war zone. On all sides of this conflict, people are about to be caught up in the violence.... We see the characters not as they see themselves but as all the objects surrounding them do: shoes and boots, a helmet, a drone, a bag of fertilizer, a medal, a beer glass, dog tags, an exploding IED and the medical implements that are subsequently employed.

Towards the end of the Second World War a British artist called Kenneth Brill is arrested for painting near the village of Heathrow. Under interrogation a picture emerges as Brill tells the story of his life. Vanishing sees the world through the eyes of one of the forgotten geniuses of British Art, a man whose artistic vision is so piercing he has trouble seeing what is right in front of him.

From dominating the karting tracks of East Anglia to the top of the podium in Formula 3 and Formula 2, George Russell has now fully established himself as a rising Formula 1 star. After cutting his teeth as a driver with Williams, in 2022 he signed a lucrative contract with Mercedes, highlighting the extent of his raw talent. Driving for Mercedes, Russell has been confirmed as the designated successor to none other than Lewis Hamilton. As Hamilton's heir-apparent, will this protégé manage to follow in the footsteps of the greatest F1 driver of all time?

A would-be author has taken time out from life in the city to live in a cabin by a river and write a novel. And not just any novel. A novel that will avoid all the pitfalls and limitations of other novels, a novel that will include everything. At first, these new surroundings are so idyllic that it's hard to find the motivation to get started. And then, in all its brutality, the outside world intervenes.

As war spreads like wildfire, the Smoke Thieves face their greatest challenges yet. With her father tightening his grip on the Northern Plateau, Catherine sends her loyal bodyguard Ambrose into the dragon's den on a desperate mission to disrupt the supply of smoke. In Calidor, Edyon and March face a future divided while, trapped in the demon world, Tash wrestles with the price of her past. But as the battle for the human kingdoms reaches its climax, the demon realm reveals a final, terrible secret.

Our world order is under pressure as never before. From new authoritarian regimes in the US, Turkey and Russia to the imminent breakup of the European Union and a social media awash with intolerance, things look set to fall apart just as abruptly as the Soviet Union did some 30 years ago. How did we get here, and what do we do now? In this searching new exploration of our crisis, Paul Mason argues that at its heart lies an attack on the idea of humanity itself.

July, 1981. London. Shy, working-class Steven finds solace in beauty. Eighteen years old, he dreams of being a fashion designer. He's also gay, maybe - he hasn't decided yet. There's a lot Steven isn't sure about, like whether he hates himself or thinks he's amazing. When he ends up in hospital after being brutally attacked by his father, he meets Jasmine, an heiress. Intoxicating, anarchic, fabulous Jasmine. Fuelled by their shared love of fashion, a friendship blossoms and soon, Steven finds himself swept into her hedonistic world, wholly beguiled.

At a time of national emergency, the average person could be forgiven for thinking that crime rates would go down as everyone tried to help the war effort. However, the reality was that criminals saw the war as an opportunity to exploit the emergency conditions, and those with a previously unblemished reputation found themselves tempted off the straight and narrow.

What if you couldn’t get away from the one who got away? Unlucky in love Jess is following her dream and moving to London. It’s December, and she’s taking a room in a crumbling Notting Hill house‐share with four strangers. On her first night Jess meets Alex, the guy sharing her floor. They don’t kiss under the mistletoe, but as far as Jess is concerned, the connection is instant. She lets herself imagine how their relationship will grow over the following year. But when Jess returns from a Christmas holiday, she finds Alex has started dating someone else.