Results narrated by "Charles Johnston" in All categories

Veteran journalists Simon Pearson and Fiona Gorman follow the remarkable life of heart surgeon Magdi Yacoub from his formative years in Egypt, through spectacular success at Cairo University, to his long and distinguished career in Britain. Although at times he clashed with the medical establishment in London, Yacoub pioneered great advances in heart surgery. He was knighted in 1992, and in 2014, he was awarded the highest honor in the gift of the Queen, the Order of Merit.

'Your lives are in danger... leave the hotel before it is too late...' When newlyweds Clarice and Cliff Thorley arrive in the little French town of Tourville-sur-Mer for their honeymoon, the last thing they expect to find is the corpse of a wanted jewel thief in their hotel room. Nor do they expect to find a stolen diamond necklace worth over half a million Francs hidden in their luggage. Somebody wants to get hold of that necklace very much. So much, that they are willing to kill for it.

Two lost heirs. One bloody crown. The greatest cold case in British history reimagined. For five hundred years, the fate of the two sons of Edward IV has been shrouded in myth and Tudor propaganda. In The Princes in the Tower, the shadows of the White Tower are peeled back to reveal a visceral psychological thriller where the line between protector and executioner is written in blood. The Weight of a Dying King When King Edward IV dies, his young heir, Edward V, and his brother, Richard of Shrewsbury, become the most dangerous pieces on the board of English power.

Brian Duffy, aging soldier of fortune, had been hired in Venice by a strange old man who called himself Aurelianus Ambrosius. He was supposed to go to Vienna and act as bouncer at an inn where the fabulous Herzwesten beer was brewed. That was clear enough. But why was he guided and guarded on the trip by creatures from the ancient legends? Why should he be attacked by ifrits and saved by mythical dwarfs? What was so important about the Herzwesten beer to the Fisher King—whoever he was?

Suffolk, 1934: when the Very Reverend Eckhart Vale, the Red Dean of Midchester Cathedral, falls to his death during Evensong, the police are only too quick to dismiss the whole affair as a tragic accident, and the only guilty party some rotten wooden railings. The Reverend Lucian Shaw, bicycling enthusiast, country parson and former army chaplain, is the only person to have seen the Dean fall, and begins to ask questions - questions that lead him into very dangerous waters.

Steeped in history, culture and traditions, London remains one of the largest and most populous cities on the planet. Small wonder then, that some of history's greatest poets have been inspired by it.

Meet a robot poet, a ghost ferret named Alfonso, a barbarian who dreams of a quiet life, a brave knight whose noble steed is a donkey, and MANY more delightfully quirky characters!

A Forgotten Poet follows the fortunes of diffident and reluctant man of letters, Harold Humber, from his early life in the English Midlands through his post-war career as economist, jazz aficionado, expert in industrial architecture, and, in the final reckoning, author of four slim volumes of popular verse.

February, 1932: The highly unpopular Joan Hexham, "the spider at the centre of a web of village gossip", is killed on stage during an amateur performance of Hamlet. An accident, surely. Nobody would be brazen enough to commit murder in full view of 50 witnesses in Lower Addenham village hall—or would they?

Pushkin’s story of thwarted love is set in Russia of the early years of the C19th. In verse at once satiric and penetrating, it tells the tale of a bored young man and the country girl, brought up on romantic novels, whose love he rejects. His behavior leads indirectly to tragedy. The tables are turned some time later when he in his turn becomes obsessed with her. In a final confrontation, she rejects his advances.

October, 1931: an anonymous telegram summons the Reverend Lucian Shaw, country parson and former army chaplain, to the deathbed of his elderly uncle in the remote Scottish Highlands.

Roger Bushell was 'Big X', mastermind of the mass breakout from Stalag Luft III in March 1944, immortalised in the Hollywood film The Great Escape. Very little was known about Bushell until 2011, when his family donated his private papers - a treasure trove of letters, photographs and diaries - to the Imperial War Museum. Through exclusive access to this material - as well as fascinating new research from other sources - Simon Pearson, Chief Night Editor of The Times, has now written the first biography of this iconic figure.

These poems range across a number of topics related to marriage: parenthood, family, friendship, sex, divorce and bereavement and refer from time to time to marriages in literature, opera and the Old Testament. The verse is accomplished, the analysis of marriage both instructive and entertaining, the compassion and wisdom remarkable.

This is a tale of witches and wishes, tales and trees, stepmothers, spells and a girl who sleeps in the ashes by the fire.... But it's not the one you know.

"I know of no gamekeepers who are not countrymen to their fingertips. They observe, they consider, they cherish, and they do more than most to look after out woodlands and hedgerows, our moorlands and fens. Theirs is not an easy job—out in all weathers and misunderstood by many townies who are further removed from the countryside and its workings than they have ever been, thanks to increasing technology which keeps them housebound."

Is it true that every life is the stuff of novels? Or are some people just too ordinary? This is the question a struggling Parisian writer asks when he challenges himself to write about the first person he sees when he steps outside his apartment. Secretly hoping to meet the beautiful woman who occasionally smokes on his street, he instead sets eyes on octogenarian Madeleine. She’s happy to become his subject, but first she needs to put her shopping away. Wondering if his project is doomed to be hopelessly banal, he soon finds himself tangled in the lives of Madeleine’s family.

2019. Russia's Web Brigades have created a divided West, but both the European and the American intelligence services are getting wise to their tactics. When Stanislav Kuznetsov, the FSB’s Director of Overseas Strategic Affairs, entrusts a group of young idealists with the task of devising the next phase in the disruption of Russia’s enemies, little does he suspect that six weeks later, they’ll come up with a plan to suborn the British Broadcasting Corporation. His first reaction is mingled incredulity and exasperation. Have they taken leave of their senses?  

The Crimean War was a major conflict that took place between 1853 and 1856 involving Russia, the Ottoman Empire, France, and the United Kingdom. In this concise history book, you will delve into the causes, events, and consequences of this brutal war. From the Charge of the Light Brigade to the...

Selected poems from a couple of decades in South East London.

Christmas, 1930. An exiled Balkan king, living incognito in rural Suffolk, is shot dead in his secluded mansion following a meeting with the local vicar, Reverend Lucian Shaw. Special Branch detectives are soon on the trail of sinister agents of a foreign power that they think are responsible, but Shaw begins to realize that the culprit could be much closer to home. Observation, cogitation, meditation, and prayer lead him down a dangerous road toward a desperate killer who will stop at nothing to evade capture.