Showing results by narrator "Thomas Judd" in All Categories

When Tom Finn is almost jailed for confronting two burglars in his own home, this taxi driver takes his young family to live on the tropical island of Phuket, Thailand. Phuket is all the Finn family dreamed of - a tropical paradise where the children swim with elephants, the gibbons sing love songs in the jungle, the Andaman Sea is like turquoise glass, and this young family is free to grow. But both man-made disaster and the unleashed forces of nature shatter this tropical idyll for Tom Finn's family.

3rd September 1938. Martin Preston is in his second year of Oxford when his world is split in two by a beautiful redhead, Nancy Whelan. A whirlwind romance blossoms in the Buckinghamshire countryside as dark clouds begin to gather in Europe. 3rd September 1939. Britain declares war on Germany. Martin is sent to the battlefields of France, but as their letters cross the channel, he tells Nancy their love will keep him safe. Then, one day, his letters stop.

In Human Frontiers, Michael Bhaskar draws a vividly entertaining and expansive portrait of humanity's relationship with big ideas. He argues that stasis at the frontier is the result of having already pushed so far, taken easy wins and started to hit limits. But new thinking is still possible. By adopting bold global approaches, deploying cutting-edge technology like AI and embracing a culture of change, we can push through and expand afresh.

A small group of commuters and tube workers witness a fiery apocalypse overtaking London. They make their escape through a service tunnel. Reaching a door they step through...and find themselves on a wild shore backed by cliffs and rolling grassland. The way back is blocked. Making their way inland, they meet a man dressed in a wolf's cloak and with wolves by his side.

It’s nearly midnight on the eve of the millennium when 18-year-old Joel’s heart stops. A school friend, Kerry, performs CPR for almost 20 exhausting minutes, ultimately saving Joel’s life, while her best friend, Tim, freezes, unable to help. That moment of life and death changes the course of all three lives over the next two decades: each time Kerry, Joel and Tim believe they’ve found love, discovered their vocation, or simply moved on, their lives collide again.

When those harrowing words ring out during a children’s entertainment in Washington on the evening of April 14, 1865, a quick-thinking young chemist from England named Johnnie Holmes grabs the 12-year-old son of the dying president, races the boy to safety, and soon finds himself enlisted in the most infamous manhunt in history.

The Pyramid Mind introduces a ground-breaking mind model consisting of six interconnected parts. Each of these contributes to who we are and affects our mental well-being, physical health, relationships and daily performance but we need to know how to adjust all six areas of the mind to achieve true well-being and optimal functioning.

When first-year music student Amalia stumbles into her Oxford college bar, she has no idea that everything is about to change. Seated across from her is Alex, a velvety-voiced fellow Australian with eyes the colour of her native sky. They strike up a friendship that is immediate - its intensity both thrilling and terrifying. As the days and weeks go by, they spend more and more time together: philosophising, hypothesising, questioning everything.

It is 1740 and when Louise Fletcher is offered work as a maid in the bustling port of Harwich she leaps at the chance. Fifteen-year old Luke is in a Harwich tavern when it is raided by His Majesty's Navy and he is press ganged and sent to sea on board the warship Essex. The worlds they find are more dangerous and more exciting than they could ever have imagined…

The Banks family are searching for a nanny. Macaw the parrot helps out at the fish and chip shop and a stonecutter dreams of becoming an emperor.

Brat has always lived in the isolated castle on the island, taking care of the vicious creatures that his master creates, waiting in terror for the moment when they are ready to be put to use. But then the unthinkable happens. The monsters get out. Now Brat must overcome his fears and venture into the world he has hidden from his whole life. For the fate of everyone rests on his shoulders alone....

He's going to a place he's never been before: home. Moon Two is a space station that orbits approximately 250 miles above Earth. It travels 17,500 miles an hour, making one full orbit every 90 minutes. It's also the only home that 15-year-old Leo and two other teens have ever known. Born and raised on Moon Two, Leo and the twins, Orion and Libra, are finally old enough and strong enough to endure the dangerous trip to Earth.

The story of a fascinating man who connected the great politicians, artists and thinkers at the height of British global power and influence. A famed aesthete and patron, Philip Sassoon's world was one of luxury and classic English elegance with oriental flair. He gathered a social set that would provide inspiration for Brideshead Revisited.

To be alive is to be in perpetual change: growing, healing, learning, aging. In Shapeshifters, award-winning writer and doctor Gavin Francis considers the transformations in mind and body that continue across the arc of human life. Some of these changes we have little choice about. We can't avoid puberty, the menopause, or our hair turning grey. Others may be welcome milestones along our path - a much-wanted pregnancy, a cancer cured, or a long-awaited transition to another gender.

Billy's mother is dead. He knows-because he reads about it in magazines-that people die every day in ways that are more random and tragic and stupid than hers, but for nineteen-year-old Billy and his little brother, Oscar, their mother's death in a bungled street robbery is the most random and tragic and stupid thing that could possibly have happened to them.

Paddington Bear tries to buy a birthday present, the animals of Brambly Hedge set off to the seaside. A greedy queen insists on having the biggest tree in the world, but will Cinderella get to go to the ball?

An underground passage leads from the Dell nursery to Saint Patricia’s asylum. Only the children enter, leaving their minders behind. On the other side are their parents - some of the most dangerous psychopaths in the country. Jan has just started working at the nursery. He is a loner with many secrets and one goal. He must get inside the asylum.... What is his connection with one of the inmates, a famous singer? What really happened when a boy in his care went missing nine years ago?

We’ve learned that the way to get ahead is through strong will, grit and naked ambition. The belief that self-interest makes the world go round has served us well: it has helped make our society more affluent. But does that premise still hold? In Beyond Self-Interest, Krzysztof Pelc argues that those who prosper increasingly do so by spurning prosperity, or by convincing others that they are pursuing passion, purpose, love of craft—anything but their own self-advancement.

James Patterson's BookShots. Fast-paced, high-impact entertainment. When former SAS captain David Shelley goes looking for an old comrade who has taken to a life on the streets, he finds his friend is dead. An MI5 agent contacts Shelley and arranges a meeting. All the signs point to murder, and the agent believes this is part of something much bigger. The only way Shelley can discover the truth is to put himself on the streets - and into the same danger that got his friend killed.

Alex has the concerns every 12-year-old has but lately, ever since his brain surgery, everyone in his life is behaving a little mysteriously. He decides it's time to investigate. So begins the journey that will take him to the limits of his understanding and take you back to the wonder and conviction of your own adolescence, to a time when you understood the world so much better than it understood you.