Agatha Christie’s audacious mystery thriller, reissued with a striking cover designed to appeal to the latest generation of Agatha Christie fans and book lovers. For an instant the two trains ran together, side by side. In that frozen moment, Elspeth witnessed a murder. Helplessly, she stared out of her carriage...
An entertaining and digestible volume that demystifies science, from the author of 16 best-selling popular science books Crave answers? A Feast of Science demystifies the chemistry of everyday life, serving up practical knowledge to both inform and entertain. Guaranteed to satiate your hunger for palatable...
The villagers of Chipping Cleghorn, including Jane Marple, are agog with curiosity over an advertisement in the local gazette which reads: ‘A murder is announced and will take place on Friday October 29th, at Little Paddocks at 6.30 p.m.’ A childish practical joke? Or a hoax intended to scare poor Letitia...
It was the best of times and the worst of times'. In one of the most famous openings of any novel, Dickens masterfully presents the turmoil of the French Revolution which is the backdrop for a novel of love, patience, hope and self-sacrifice. It is read by Anton Lesser whose award-winning Dickens... Naxos
Richard Derrington and Deborah McAndrew star in this thrilling dramatisation of P.D. James' enduringly popular mystery. When two men are discovered with their throats cut in the vestry of St Matthew's Church, the police are faced with an intriguing challenge. For one of the victims was ex-Government minister Sir Paul Berowne, the other Harry Mack, a local tramp and alcoholic.
It's almost Christmas. But for Ali, the season of good cheer is the anniversary of her baby's death. She gives in to her best friend Sarah s cajoling to share the festive season with her. The only trouble is, it means having to be nice to Sarah's awful husband, Trevor. Ali takes it upon herself to play God with her...
Agatha Raisin - the Columbo of the Cotswolds - is back in two more full-cast dramas based on the bestselling books by M.C. Beaton. In Agatha Raisin and The Potted Gardener, when a garden festival is announced, the village of Carsely is gripped with enthusiasm for water features and mulch. But when her arch...
Sea, sand ... and the slammer for Agatha! Agatha Raisin thinks she's in for a treat when her ex-husband, James Lacey, invites her on holiday, but - horrors! - his idea of an idyllic break is the small, run-down resort of Burryhill-on-Sea. And from there on, things go from bad to worse. So when a fellow guest in their...
A Genius Performance by Penelope Keith! She stars as Agatha Raisin in two full-cast BBC Radio 4 dramas. After a lifetime spent in public relations, the drinking and smoking one-woman dynamo that is Agatha Raisin struggles to adapt to life in a quiet Cotswold village. Penelope Keith stars again as Agatha Raisin - Miss Marple with attitude - in these two full-cast dramas based on the bestselling books by M.C. Beaton.
Elena Alvarez is living a cursed life. From the deadly fire she accidentally set as a child to her mother's abandonment and now an unwanted pregnancy, she knows better than most that small actions can have terrible consequences. Yet when her grandmother calls and asks her to watch over the children of a...
The power of laughter triumphs over illness in Norman Cousins's bestselling classic memoir that revolutionized medicine. Norman Cousins's iconic firsthand account of victory against terminal disease, Anatomy of an Illness as Perceived by the Patient inspired a revolution, encouraging patients to take charge of...
Graduating from high school is a big step for any girl. She is leaving her childhood behimd and beginning the rest of her life. She is alsoleaving her mother's protective circle of love and guidance. One of the greatests gifts a mother can give her daughter at this pivotal moment in her life is good counsel.
An unabridged audio CD edition of Agatha Christie’s most successful novel. Ten strangers, apparently with little in common, are lured to an island mansion off the coast of Devon by the mysterious U.N.Owen. Over dinner, a record begins to play, and the voice of an unseen host accuses each person of hiding a...
Among the towering red cliffs of Petra, like some monstrous swollen Buddha, sat the corpse of Mrs Boynton. A tiny puncture mark on her wrist was the only sign of the fatal injection that had killed her. With only 24 hours available to solve the mystery, Hercule Poirot recalled a chance remark he'd overheard back...
When Juliet Doyle discovers a gun in her daughter's bedroom, she turns to old friend DCI Alan Banks for advice. But Banks is taking a much-needed holiday, and it's left to DI Annie Cabbot to deal with the removal of the firearm. No one could have foreseen the operation's disastrous consequences, or that the...
Sir Claud Amory has discovered the formula for a new powerful explosive, which is stolen by one of the large household of relatives and friends. Locking everyone in the library, Sir Claud switches off the lights to allow the thief to replace the formula on the table, no questions asked. When the lights come on...
A brilliant, idiosyncratic collection of introductions and afterwords (plus some liner notes) by New York Times bestselling and Pulitzer Prize winning author Michael Chabon—“one of contemporary literature’s most gifted prose stylists” (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times). In Bookends Chabon offers a...
A Genius Performance by Robert Powell Set on the Greek island of Cephallonia during World War II, this is the story of a beautiful young woman and her two suitors: a gentle fisherman turned ruthless guerrilla, and the charming mandolin-playing head of the Italian garrison on the island.
When an exotic stranger, Vianne Rocher, arrives in the French village of Lansquenet and opens a chocolate boutique directly opposite the church, Father Reynaud denounces her as a serious moral danger to his flock - especially as it is the beginning of Lent, the traditional season of self-denial.
Sir George and Lady Stubbs, the hosts of a village fête, hit upon the novel idea of staging a mock murder mystery. In good faith, Ariadne Oliver, the well known crime writer, agrees to organise their murder hunt. Despite weeks of meticulous planning, at the last minute Ariadne calls her friend Hercule Poirot ...
A cop interrogates a perp in a lizard costume that seems all too real. An all-powerful superhero protects his city - and they better like it. An average Joe finds out that being undead isn't all that it's cracked up to be. Including three never-before-published stories, Dead Men Can't Complain is the first-ever collection...
Death Is Hard Work is the new novel from the greatest chronicler of Syria's ongoing and catastrophic civil war: a tale of three ordinary people facing down the stuff of nightmares armed with little more than simple determination.Abdel Latif, an old man from the Aleppo region, dies peacefully in a hospital bed in...
In one of her most popular mysteries, Agatha Christie leads us into a maze of evil as dark and labyrinthine as the ancient tombs of the Pharoahs. Linnet Ridgeway has led a charmed life. Blessed with beauty, enormous wealth and a devoted husband, she has everything anyone could wish for. But as the...
Can it be right to persist in a bigamous marriage? Mr. Peacocke, a classical scholar, has come to Broughtonshire with his beautiful American wife to live as a schoolmaster. But when the blackmailing brother of her first husband - a reprobate from Louisiana - appears at the school gates...
As Hercule Poirot sifts through his post one particular morning, he alights upon a letter from an elderly and (as it transpires), exceedingly rich spinster - Miss Emily Arundell. She is clearly in great distress and seeking his help, but doesn't say why. Her only specific mention is 'the incident of the dog's ball'.
Here is the novel that will be forever considered a triumph of the imagination. Set on the desert planet Arrakis, Dune is the story of the boy Paul Atreides, who would become the mysterious man known as Maud'dib. He would avenge the traitorous plot against his noble family and would bring to fruition...
Following an otherwise-enjoyable literary luncheon, the celebrated crime novelist Ariadne Oliver is accosted by a particularly formidable woman who engages her in conversation about one of her many god-daughters, whom Ariadne hasn’t seen since she was a child. She lands a bombshell with the question...
Hercule Poirot stood on the cliff-top. For here, many years earlier, there had been a tragic accident – the broken body of a woman was discovered on the rocks at the foot of the cliff. This was followed by the grisly discovery of two more bodies – a husband and wife – shot dead.
Sometimes murder is the easy way out... A brilliant Rebus novel from the No.1 bestselling author of A SONG FOR THE DARK TIMES. Britain's No.1 crime writer' Daily Mirror Ian Rankin is a genius' Lee Child A mugging gone wrong ... or murder? A dissident Russian poet is found dead - at the same time a delegation...
Terry Jones, Joan Greenwood, Michael Hordern, Bob Hoskins, Helen Mirren and Tim Rice read of a collection of original fairy tales for 8 to 11-year-olds, written by master storyteller Terry Jones, introducing such bizarre creatures as the fly-by-night, the rainbow cat, and the wonderful cake-horse.
In this 1860s Russian classic, Bazarov (the prototypical nihilist) argues with Pavel Kirsanov (the prototypical liberal of the 1840s generation) about the nature of nihilism and its usefulness to Russia, in an episode which personifies the struggle between the fathers (i.e., the liberals of the 1840s)
This wonderfully original collection proves once again that Pulitzer Prize finalist Lydia Millet is "the American writer with the funniest, wisest grasp on how we fool ourselves" (Chicago Tribune). In Fight No More, Nina, a lonely real-estate broker estranged from her only relative, is at the center of a web of stories...
Mary Shelleys poignant exploration of the true depths of ambition and humanity has had a profound effect on readers since its conception in 1816. When scientist Victor Frankenstein forms a creature from the body parts of corpses, thus shattering the perceived limits of scientific understanding, the...
An illustrated mini-encyclopedia of fungal lore, from John Cage and Terrence McKenna to mushroom sex and fairy rings. Fungipedia presents a delightful A-Z treasury of mushroom lore. With more than 180 entries - on topics as varied as Alice in Wonderland, chestnut blight, medicinal mushrooms, poisonings...
A witty, unflinching, and provocative memoir about one woman’s journey into the fact, fiction, and fraud of the modern mystical complex. In the months following the breakup with her longtime boyfriend, Victoria Loustalot crossed paths with multiple psychics eager to impart their vision. Persistent and...
The discovery of a strange and superior warship sends Dion, youngest son of the king of Xanthos, and Chloe, a Phalesian princess, on a journey across the sea, where they are confronted by a kingdom far more powerful than they could ever have imagined. But they also find a place in turmoil, for the ruthless...
A classic Christie mystery. Read by Hugh Fraser who plays Hugh Fraser in the popular TV series. At a Hallowe'en party, Joyce - a hostile thirteen-year-old - boasts that she once witnessed a murder. When no-one believes her, she storms off home. But within hours her body is found, still in the house, drowned in..
Although we are materially better off than ever before, surveys show that we are depressed and listless. In his revolutionary book, Buddhist monk Matthieu Ricard, shows that happiness is not just an emotion, but a skill that can be developed. Free of mumbo jumbo, Happiness contains 20-minute exercises to...
In this delightful tale, an Eastern Prince arrives in England with some family jewels which he's having reset as a gift for his fianceé. However, the Prince also has a mistress. She asks to wear one particularly enchanting piece that features a huge ruby, and then promptly disappears with it. Poirot discovers a...
The Plymouth Express, The Submarine Plans, Problem at Sea, How Does Your Garden Grow? The Market Basing Mystery - David Suchet, Poirot to perfection, returns with five further short stories taken from the collection entitled Poirot’s Early Cases. Each story is entirely self-contained and shows all the essential...
The secret to happiness, longevity, and living on is through mentoring the next generation. In How to Live Forever, Encore.org founder and CEO Marc Freedman tells the story of his thirty-year quest to answer some of contemporary life's most urgent questions: With so many living so much longer, what is...
Previously uncollected nonfiction pieces by Hollywood's ultimate It Girl about everything from fashion to tango to Jim Morrison and Nicholas Cage. With Eve’s Hollywood Eve Babitz lit up the scene in 1974. The books that followed, among them Slow Days, Fast Company and Sex and Rage, have seduced...
Innocent Graves is the eighth novel in Peter Robinson's Inspector Banks series, following on from Dry Bones That Dream. One foggy night, Deborah Harrison is found lying in the churchyard behind St Mary's, Eastvale. She has been strangled with the strap of her own school satchel. But Deborah was no typical...
Dame Lettie Colston is the first of her circle to receive insinuating anonymous phone calls. Neither she, nor her friends, wish to be reminded of their mortality, and their geriatric feathers are thoroughly ruffled. As the caller's activities become more widespread, old secrets are dusted off, exposing post and..
Dame Lettie, a blue-blooded reformer, Godfrey - her rather irritating brother, and his once fabulous novelist wife Charmian. But who is the caller? And why are they reminding them of this final truth? It's unsettling and mysterious. The activity increases and soon a witch-hunt is in full force, with nobody...
It starts with a phone call to Superintendent Dalziel from an old friend asking for help. But where it ends is a very different story. Gina Wolfe has come to Mid-Yorkshire in search of her missing husband, believed dead. Her fiance, Commander Mick Purdy of the Met, thinks Dalziel should be able to take care of the...
A classic Marple title now available in CD for the first time. First, the mystery man in the church with a bullet-wound… then, the riddle of a dead man’s buried treasure… the curious conduct of a caretaker after a fatal riding accident… the corpse and a tape-measure… the girl framed for theft… and the suspect accused of stabbing his wife with a dagger. Six gripping cases with one thing in common...
June Whitfield returns as the deceptively mild spinster sleuth in three full-cast BBC Radio 4 dramatisations. Specially broadcast to mark the 125th anniversary of Agatha Christie's birth, these brand new dramas are based on three of her best short stories. Tape-Measure Murder: When Mrs Spenlow is murdered in...
A classic murder mystery from the Golden Age of detective fiction, written by genre legend Josephine Tey. Leys Physical Training College is famous for its excellent discipline and its spectacularly athletic students. Miss Lucy Pym, expert psychologist, is pleased and flattered to be invited to lecture there - even if...
A Genius Performance by Philip Franks! In a masterpiece of storytelling, Margery Allingham sends her elegant and engaging detective Albert Campion into the eccentric Palinode household, where there have been two suspicious deaths. And, if poisoning were not enough, there are also anonymous letters, sudden...
Award-winning writer Graham Swift returns with his profoundly moving new novel, Mothering Sunday. It is March 30th 1924. It is Mothering Sunday. How will Jane Fairchild, orphan and housemaid, occupy her time when she has no mother to visit? How, shaped by the events of this never to be forgotten day, will...
A Genius Performance by Hugh Fraser! Mrs McGinty died from a brutal blow to the back of her head. Suspicion fell immediately on her shifty lodger, James Bentley, whose clothes revealed traces of the victim’s blood and hair. Yet something was amiss: Bentley just didn’t look like a murderer. Poirot believed...
Master sleuth Hercule Poirot draws upon his detective skills and insight into the human heart as he investigates various crimes in "The Incredible Theft," "Triangle at Rhodes," and the title story. Read by Nigel Hawthorne and Hugh Fraser.
4 short stories featuring the great detective himself… How did a woman holding a pistol in her right hand manage to shoot herself in the left temple? What was the link between a ghost sighting and the disappearance of top secert military plans? How did the bullet that killed Sir Gervase shatter a mirror...
Luke Fitzwilliam could not believe Miss Pinkerton's wild allegation that a multiple murderer was at work in the quiet English village of Wychwood, or her speculation that the local doctor was next in line. But, within hours, Miss Pinkerton had been killed in a hit-and-run car accident.
Just after midnight, a snowdrift stopped the Orient Express in its tracks. The luxurious train was surprisingly full for the time of the year. But by the morning there was one passenger fewer. An American lay dead in his compartment, stabbed a dozen times, his door locked from the inside.
Miss Marple, living a quiet life in St Mary Mead, is saddened to hear of the death of Jason Rafiel. Not that they were friends - the old financier was much too irascible and self-centred for friendship - but they had once been allies in solving a series of murders that took place on the tiny Caribbean island of...
Examines the mission that killed Osama Bin Laden, details the selection and training process for one of the most elite units in the military, and describes previously unreported missions that illustrate the life and work of a SEAL and the evolution of the team after the events of September 11.
When he hears her favourite Beatles song, Toru Watanabe recalls his first love Naoko, the girlfriend of his best friend Kizuki. Immediately he is transported back almost 20 years to his student days in Tokyo, adrift in a world of uneasy friendships, casual sex, passion, loss and desire - to a time when an impetuous...
The Argyle family is far from pleased to discover one of its number has been post-humously pardoned for murder – if Jacko Argyle didn’t kill his mother, who did? The front door of the family home was locked… According to the courts, Jacko Argyle bludgeoned his mother to death with a poker. The sentence was...
We have long attributed man's violent, aggressive, competitive nature to his animal ancestry. But what if we are just as given to cooperation, empathy, and morality by virtue of our genes? What if our behavior actually makes us apes? What kind of apes are we? From a scientist and writer E. O. Wilson has called...
It should have been a cosy scene - log fire, sheepskin rug, Vivaldi on the stereo, Christmas lights and tree. But appearances can be deceptive. For Caroline Hartley, lying quietly on the couch, has been brutally murdered.
The unabridged audio edition of some of Hercule Poirot’s most intriguing cases, read by the inimitable David Suchet. First there was the mystery of the film star and the diamond… then came the ‘suicide’ that was murder… the mystery of the absurdly cheap flat… a suspicious death in a locked gun-room…
This collection of prank Craigslist ads and the real email exchanges that followed is 'hilarious, good fun' and the perfect gift for fans of offbeat humor (Huffington Post) When New York City copywriter Kelly Mahon started posting fake gig ads online as a creative outlet, she was surprised to find that there...
A beginner's roadmap to mindfulness made for the fast-paced real world. Major changes are a part of life, yet dealing with them can be overwhelming. Mindfulness is a simple way to navigate the difficulties you face with more clarity and courage. Real-World Mindfulness for Beginners was written...
New details of the remarkable relationship between two leaders who teamed up to change history. It's well known that Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher were close allies and kindred political spirits. During their eight overlapping years as U.S. president and UK prime minister, they stood united...
The Fun of Getting Thin: This is an entertaining and inspiring story about one man's "journey into fat" and how he was able to reverse that course and get back to his ideal weight. Written many years ago, it's fascinating to hear that people had the same struggles then as now with weight control and that there...
Young Gwenda Reed arrives in England from New Zealand, travelling ahead of her husband Giles and charged with the task of finding the perfect place to make their base. In the quiet village of Dilmouth, she finds a house with immediate appeal. A few renovations will convert it into her ideal home.
Soon after Gwenda moved into her new home, odd things started to happen. Despite her best efforts to modernise the house, she only succeeded in dredging up its past. Worse, she felt an irrational sense of terror every time she climbed the stairs… In fear, Gwenda turned to Miss Marple to exorcise her...
The murderer is also playing a game with Hercule Poirot, alerting him in advance to the locations of the murders. But each time Poirot arrives it is already too late. Intrigued by the psychopath’s mind and methodology Hercule Poirot...
There’s a serial killer on the loose, bent on working his way through the alphabet. And as a macabre calling card he leaves beside each victim’s corpe the ABC Railway Guide open at the name of the town where the murder has taken place. Having begun with Andover, Bexhill and then Churston, there seems little...
Alex-Li Tandem sells autographs. A small blip in a huge worldwide network of desire, it is his business to hunt for names on paper, collect them, sell them, occasionally fake them, and all to give the people what they want: a little piece of Fame. The Autograph Man is a deeply funny, existential tour around the...
When Addie Baum's 22-year old granddaughter asks her about her childhood, Addie realises the moment has come to relive the full history that shaped her. Addie Baum was a Boston Girl, born in 1900 to immigrant Jewish parents who lived a very modest life. But Addie's intelligence and curiosity propelled her to...
Two recently-rediscovered Hercule Poirot short stories by Agatha Christie, read by David Suchet. In 2004, a remarkable archive was unearthed at Agatha Christie’s family home, Greenway - 73 of her private notebooks, filled with pencilled jottings and ideas. Hidden within this literary treasure trove were two...
Sarajevo, in the 1990s, is a hellish place. The ongoing war devours human life, tears families apart and transforms even banal routines, such as acquiring water, into life-threatening expeditions. Day after day, a cellist stations himself in the midst of the devastation, defying the ever-present ...
"The Chrysalids": Ten-year-old David is a happy, ordinary boy, untroubled except for occasional strange dreams about a mysterious city - until he befriends Sophie, who is unlike anybody he has met before: she has six toes. But in the ultra-religious village of Waknut, all abnormality is abhorred as an offence...
A fabulous six-CD audio box-set containing the entire collection of stories by Beatrix Potter, complete and unabridged. The twenty-three tales in this giftset, have never lost their popularity, and sell in their millions all over the world.
Three of David Attenborough's early adventures are collected here, along with a fascinating collection of archive interviews with the broadcaster and naturalist David Attenborough's books and broadcasts have opened up the incredible world of natural history to millions of viewers and listeners.
Lucy Angkatell invited Hercule Poirot to lunch. To tease the great detective, her guests stage a mock murder beside the swimming pool. Unfortunately, the victim plays the scene for real. As his blood drips into the water, John Christow gasps one final word: "Henrietta". In the confusion, a gun sinks to the bottom..
Six people - five women and a man - meet once a month in California's Central Valley to discuss Jane Austen's novels. They are ordinary people, neither happy nor unhappy, but each of them is wounded in different ways, they are all mixed up about their lives and relationships. Over the six months they...
Another title in the ever popular Agatha Christie series. The suave and debonair Colonel Race must solve a question, not of ‘accidental death or suicide’, but ‘murder or double murder’. Pretty, young Anne came to London looking for adventure. In fact, adventure comes looking for her – and finds her immediately...
One minute, silly Heather Badcock had been gabbling on at her movie idol, the glamorous Marina Gregg. The next, Heather suffered a massive seizure. But for whom was the deadly poison really intended? Marina's frozen expression suggested she had witnessed something horrific. But, while others searched...
Roger Ackroyd knew too much. He knew that the woman he loved had poisoned her brutal first husband. He suspected also that someone had been blackmailing her. Now, tragically, came the news that she had taken her own life with a drug overdose. But the evening post brought Roger one last fatal...
An urgent cry for help brings Poirot to France. But he arrives too late to save his client, whose brutally stabbed body now lies face downwards in a shallow grave on a golf course. But why is the dead man wearing his son's overcoat? And who was the impassioned love-letter in the pocket for? Before Poirot can...
When the luxurious Blue Train arrives at Nice, a guard attempts to wake serene Ruth Kettering from her slumbers. But she will never wake again – for a heavy blow has killed her, disfiguring her features almost beyond recognition. What is more, her precious rubies are missing. The prime suspect is Ruth’s estranged..
A millionaire strikes a deal on the seedier side of Paris and a priceless cache of rubies becomes destined for his beloved daughter, Rachel. Two days later Rachel is dead - murdered on a train on her way to the Riviera to meet her scoundrel lover: a mysterious, dark man. The suspects line up only master slueth...
It's Nantucket wedding season, also known as summer-the sight of a bride racing down Main Street is as common as the sun setting at Madaket Beach. The Otis-Winbury wedding promises to be an event to remember: the groom's wealthy parents have spared no expense to host a lavish ceremony at their...
While on a sailing trip in the Baltic Sea, two young adventurers-turned-spies uncover a secret German plot to invade England. Widely recognized as the first modern spy thriller, this 1902 lone masterpiece by World War I Royal Navy officer Erskine Childers was written as a wake-up call to the British government...
A blizzard has hit England. In the tiny village of Sittaford, on the fringes of Dartmoor, a party of six is gathered in Sittaford House, home of Captain Trevelyan. He has rented the house out for the winter and is staying in a nearby village. As evening draws in, a seance is proposed. The lights are lowered and the table...
A chance meeting with Jenny at an Oxford party leaves seventeen-year-old Chris with hope for a summer romance - and no premonition of trouble. Busy with his job and soon in love with Jenny, whose cheerful surface belies the dark uncertainty of her past, Chris misses all the signs of danger. Before he knows...
This is the fourth volume in the "M.C. Beaton" mystery series, starring Penelope Keith. It contains four stories that include "The Wizard of Evesham", "The Moment of Truth", "The Murderous Marriage", and "The Disappearing Trick". "The Wizard of Evesham":
Miss Marple is told that her old friend, Carrie, is in danger and she goes to stay with her at Stoneygates, a home for maladjusted adolescents. While she is there, tragedy strikes as Carrie's step-son, Christian Gulbrandsen, is shot dead. There are at least seven suspects and two more murders follow. But the man...
In This Explains Everything, John Brockman, founder and publisher of Edge.org, asked experts in numerous fields and disciplines to come up with their favorite explanations for everyday occurrences. Why do we recognize patterns? Is there such a thing as positive stress? Are we genetically programmed to...
At an apparently respectable dinner party, a vicar is the first to die… Thirteen guests arrived at dinner at the actor’s house. It was to be a particularly unlucky evening for the mild-mannered Reverend Stephen Babbington, who choked on his cocktail, went into convulsions and died. But when his martini glass was...
Three of Agatha Christie's most enjoyable stories, revamped for radio. In 'Philomel Cottage', everything looks rosy when Alex and Terry set up their own e-commerce company in Philomel Cottage, until money goes missing from Alex's account. Soon she is questioning her partner - and, indeed, the cottage itself...