Chris Courtenay has narrated 4 audiobooks on Listento.it by 4 authors, with an average listener rating of 1★ across 1 ratings. The most-rated is Too Big to Walk.
Too Big to Walk
Summary
Ever since Jurassic Park we thought we knew how dinosaurs lived their lives. In this remarkable new book, Brian J. Ford reveals that dinosaurs were, in fact, profoundly different from what we believe, and their environment was unlike anything we have previously thought. In this meticulous and absorbing account, Ford reviews the latest scientific evidence to show that the popular accounts of dinosaurs’ lives contain ideas that are no more than convenient inventions: how dinosaurs mated, how they hunted and communicated, how they nursed their young, even how they moved. He uncovers many surprising details which challenge our most deeply held beliefs - such as the revelation that an asteroid impact did not end the dinosaurs’ existence. Professor Ford’s illuminating examination changes everything. As he unravels the history of the world, we discover that evolution was not Charles Darwin’s idea; there were many philosophers who published the theory before him. The concept of continental drift and plate tectonics did not begin with Alfred Wegener a century ago but dates back to learned pioneers hundreds of years before his time. Ever since scientists first began to study dinosaurs, they have travelled with each other down the wrong path, and Ford now shows how this entire branch of science has to be rewritten. A new dinosaur species is announced every 10 days, and more and more information is currently being discovered about how they may have lived: locomotion, hunting, nesting behaviour, distribution, extinction. Ford brings together these amazing discoveries in this controversial new book which undoubtedly will ruffle a few feathers, or scales if you are an old-school dinosaur lover.
©2018 Brian J. Ford (P)2018 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Prof
Summary
Alan Turing was an extraordinary man who crammed into a life of only 42 years the careers of mathematician, codebreaker, computer scientist and biologist. He is widely regarded as a war hero grossly mistreated by his unappreciative country, and it has become hard to disentangle the real man from the story. It is easy to cast him as a misfit, the stereotypical professor. But actually Alan Turing was never a professor, and his nickname, 'Prof', was given by his codebreaking friends at Bletchley Park. Now Alan Turing's nephew, Dermot Turing, has taken a fresh look at the influences on Alan Turing's life and creativity and the later creation of a legend. For the first time it is possible to disclose the real character behind the cipher-text: how did Alan’s childhood experiences influence the man? Who were the influential figures in Alan's formative years? How did his creative ideas evolve? Was he really a solitary, asocial genius? What was his wartime work after 1942, and why was it kept even more secret than the Enigma story? What is the truth about Alan Turing's conviction for gross indecency, and did he commit suicide? What is the significance of the Royal Pardon granted in 2013? In Dermot's own style he takes a vibrant and entertaining approach to the life and work of a true genius.
©2015 Dermot Turing (P)2016 Audible, Ltd
An Unreliable Man
Summary
From the creative genius of Jostein Gaarder comes a beautiful novel about loneliness and the power of words. Jakop is a lonely man. Divorced from his wife, with no friends apart from his constant companion Pelle, he spends his life attending the funerals of people he doesn't know, obscuring his identity in a web of improbable lies. As his addiction to storytelling spirals out of control, he is forced to reconcile his love of language and stories with the ever more urgent need for human connection. An Unreliable Man is a moving and thought-provoking novel about loneliness and truth, about seeking a place in the world and about how language and storytelling give our lives meaning. Decades after his global best seller Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder has written a poignant and funny book for our times - full of life and hope.
©2017 Jostein Gaarder (P)2018 Orion Publishing Group
Merlin: The Power Behind the Spitfire, Mosquito and Lancaster
Summary
The most iconic planes of WWII, the Supermarine Spitfire, Hawker Hurricane, DeHavilland Mosquito and the Avro Lancaster, were all powered by one engine, the Rolls-Royce Merlin. The story of the Merlin is one of British ingenuity at its height, of artistry and problem-solving that resulted in a war-winning design. Published to coincide with the 80th anniversary of the start of the Battle of Britain, Merlin is the extraordinary story of the development of the Rolls-Royce engine that would stop Hitler from invading Britain and carry the war to the very heart of Germany. The story of the Merlin engine encompasses the history of powered flight, from the ingenuity of the Wright brothers to the horrors of World War I and from the first crossing of the Atlantic to the heady days of flying in the 1920's. There is also the extraordinary story of the Schneider Trophy - an international contest wherein nations poised on the precipice of war competed for engineering excellence in the name of progress. And at the heart of this story are the glamorous lives of the pilots, many of whom died in their pursuit of speed; the engineers, like Henry Royce of Rolls-Royce, who sketched the engine that would win WWII in the sand of his local beach; and perhaps most importantly the Lady Lucy Houston who after the Wall Street Crash single-handedly funded the development of the engine and the iconic Spitfire. Never was so much owed by so many to so few - and without the Rolls-Royce Merlin engine, the few would have been powerless.
©2020 Graham Hoyland (P)2020 HarperCollins Publishers Limited