Michael Jayston has narrated 35 audiobooks on Listento.it by 14 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.3★ across 132 ratings. The most-rated is Countdown to War.
Winston S. Churchill: The History of the Second World War, Volume 3 - The Grand Alliance
Summary
The Blitz continued to rain down on the shell and morale of the nation’s defences. In the cold grey waters of the North Atlantic, wolfpacks of enemy U boats hunted down with ruthless efficiency the supply lines that could keep Britain in the war. Through the year, the enemy produced many of their grandest victories, but Britain was able to stabilise its position in the Middle East although setbacks at the hands of the newly arrived Rommel, the Desert Fox, were encountered in North Africa. But 1941 was to prove strategically decisive; with Hitler’s campaign in the Balkans, vital time was lost to the Wehrmacht for an attack on its former ally Russia. When the 150 divisions hurled themselves forward in June many knew that the long Russian winter would grind the enemy to a standstill before they could reach the safety of their objective cities. In December the third member of 'The Grand Alliance' stepped from the background with the infamous attack of Pearl Harbour. Now Churchill knew in his heart that ultimate victory surely lay with Britain, the United States, and Russia, but the continuing pain, sacrifice, and toll of blood and machine were still to be borne. The overview is read by Winston S Churchill, MP, and the volume narrated by Michael Jayston.
©2011 Word Of Mouth (P)2011 Copyright Group
Winston S. Churchill: The History of the Second World War, Volume 6 - Triumph & Tragedy
Summary
With the beach landings of June 6th in the greatest amphibious assault ever seen the final phase of the war had begun. Churchill could survey his task with an easier mind. His relationship with Stalin was becoming increasingly more difficult as Stalin’s moves replaced one terror with another. Churchill was anxious to move forces through Italy to relieve the military pressure on Normandy and Stalin yet limit the advance of Soviet forces into Central and Eastern Europe. The last major German offensive came in the Ardennes during December 1944. With its repulse their resistance began to melt away. The Russians continued to advance heroically forward into Germany itself. In Italy the collapse resulted into Mussolini’s brutal execution by the Partisans. Two days later on April 30th. Hitler committed suicide in his bunker in Berlin. On May 8th VE Day surrendered Europe to the overwhelming giddiness of liberation. In the Pacific the Americans moved relentlessly forward their massive air power hammered Japanese cities. Their vast armadas of ships disgorged armies to retake the Philippines in the fast diminishing Japanese Empire. But an attack on the Japanese mainland would be debilitating. The new American president, Harry Truman, therefore unleashed a new level of terror with the nuclear bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. Japan surrendered on August 14th 1945 and the world was still and at peace. But for Churchill, the election loomed and the Great Man was swept from office on a Labour landslide. His place in history is not forgotten. The overview is read by Winston S Churchill MP and the volume narrated by Michael Jayston.
©2011 Word Of Mouth (P)2011 Copyright Group
For My Country's Freedom
Summary
It is 1811, and in this, the 22nd Richard Bolitho novel, Alexander Kent's sensitive and compassionate hero is recalled to duty after only two and a half months' peace in Cornwall with his beloved Catherine.
©1995 Bolitho Maritime Productions Ltd (P)2011 AudioGO Ltd
Doctor Who: The Trial of a Time Lord Collection
Summary
Four exciting novelisations in which the Doctor is on trial for his life. In The Mysterious Planet, the Doctor is brought before the court of his fellow Time Lords. If the Valeyard can prove him guilty, the Doctor must sacrifice his remaining regenerations. In Mindwarp, the second piece of evidence against the Doctor is presented to the court. One thing is certain: on the evidence of the Matrix, the Doctor is guilty as charged! In Terror of the Vervoids, the Matrix relates how the Doctor and Mel arrive on a space liner just as a series of grisly murders begins. In The Ultimate Foe, the Doctor asserts that the evidence of the Matrix has been tampered with. In a dramatic intervention, the Valeyard's true identity is revealed.... Lynda Bellingham, Colin Baker, Bonnie Langford and Michael Jayston read these four suspenseful adventures by Robert Holmes, Philip Martin and Pip and Jane Baker.
©2019 Terrance Dicks, Philip Martin, Pip & Jane Baker (P)2019 BBC Worldwide Ltd
Winston S. Churchill: The History of the Second World War, Volume 5 - Closing the Ring
Summary
As the Allies prepared for the Normandy invasion many war councils were held. At Teheran, the first of the Big Three conferences, decisive steps were taken to ensure this. Discussion was opened as to what shape and form the world would take after the defeat of the enemy. But with 185 divisions ranged against them, the primary task was still the prosecution of the war to the unconditional surrender of the enemy. A vigorous debate as to the next stage in the Mediterranean theatre was taken up by Churchill and Roosevelt. Much of this centered on the Americans' caution at the lack of landing craft. Churchill, who had cultivated Roosevelt for many years was able to get almost all of what he wanted but at the cost of delay and less adventurous decisions. Italy was invaded and great advances made until late ’43. In Yugoslavia, Tito’s partisans became a highly effective force in tying down many German divisions away from the front line. In Britain, Churchill prepared his resources for Operation Overlord and the invasion that would at last lift the tyranny and foul shadow of Hitler from Europe. Five years of titanic struggle had now succeeded in 'Closing The Ring'. The overview is read by Winston S Churchill, MP, and the volume narrated by Michael Jayston.
©2011 Word Of Mouth (P)2011 Copyright Group
The Ghost
Summary
The moment I heard how McAra died I should have walked away. I can see that now... The narrator of Robert Harris's gripping new novel is a professional ghostwriter - cynical, mercenary, and with a nice line in deadpan humour. Accustomed to working with fading rock stars and minor celebrities, he jumps at the chance to ghost the memoirs of Britain's former prime minister, especially as it means flying to the American resort of Martha's Vineyard in the middle of winter and finishing the book in the seclusion of a luxurious house. But it doesn't take him long to realise he has made a terrible mistake. His predecessor on the project died in circumstances that were distinctly suspicious, and the ex-prime minister turns out to be a man with secrets in his past that are returning to haunt him - secrets with the power to kill.
©2007 Robert Harris (P)2014 AudioGo Ltd. Published by Random House Audiobooks
Command a King's Ship
Summary
Spithead, 1784. His Majesty's frigate, Undine, sets sail for India and the seas beyond. Europe may be at peace - but in colonial waters the promises of statesmen count for little and the bloody struggle for supremacy still goes on. Richard Bolitho would have cause to remember his admiral's words: 'The task I am giving you would be better handled by a squadron'.
©1975 Alexander Kent (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
A Wedding on the Riviera
Summary
Soundings and Choc Lit present the audio edition of A Wedding on the Riviera. When out-of-work actor Ryan Calder attends a wedding as the plus-one of successful businesswoman, Nadine Wells, he doesn’t expect to get in a scuffle with the groom. But Ryan recognises the groom from another wedding where the same man made a quick getaway, taking the wedding money and leaving the bride heartbroken. It seems he's struck again and Nadine's poor friend is the target. With a group of friends, Ryan and Nadine hatch a plan that will take them to the French Riviera, hot on the heels of the crooked groom. But could their scheme also bring them closer together?
©2020 Evonne Wareham (P)2020 Soundings
Doctor Who: The Ultimate Foe
Summary
Michael Jayston reads this gripping novelisation of a classic Doctor Who adventure, concluding the Trial of a Time Lord story arc.
Snatched out of time and place and brought before the Time Lords of Gallifrey, the Doctor is on trial for his life. While the Doctor asserts that the evidence of the Matrix, the repository of all Time Lord knowledge, has been tampered with, the mysterious and vengeful prosecuting council, the Valeyard, is confident that the Doctor will be sentenced to death. In a dramatic intervention the Valeyard's true identity is revealed but he escapes from the Courtroom into the Matrix, and it is into this nightmare world that the Doctor must follow - to face his ultimate foe....
Michael Jayston, who played the Valeyard in the TV serial Trial of a Time Lord, reads Pip and Jane Baker's complete and unabridged novelisation, first published by Target Books in 1988.
©1988 Pip and Jane Baker (P)2013 AudioGO Ltd
Blood Knot
Summary
Bill Tyrell spent 10 years reporting from the hellholes of the world. Now he has had enough and is back in England living aboard the antique cutter yacht Vixen, taking juvenile delinquents to sea for the good of their souls. But the journalist in him cannot be buried. Not when a Russian naval cadet dies in a stupid accident under the eyes of a cabinet minister and Tyrell becomes the scapegoat.
©1991 Sam Llewellyn (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Cross of St George
Summary
It is February 1813. With convoys from Canada and the Caribbean falling victim to American privateers, Sir Richard Bolitho returns to Halifax to pursue a war he knows will not be won, but which neither Britain nor the United States can afford to lose. England's youngest admiral desires only peace. But peace will not be found in the icy Canadian waters, where a young, angry nation asserts its identity and men who share a common heritage die in close and bloody action. Nor will there be a peace for those who follow the Cross of St George: for the embittered Adam, mourning his lover and his ship, nor for Rear-Admiral Valentine Keen, who must confront both grief and responsibility. Nor will there be peace from those enemies who use this struggle between nations as an instrument of personal revenge.
©1997 Alexander Kent (P)2010 BBC Audiobooks Ltd
The Age of Anxiety
Summary
In his debut novel, rock legend Pete Townshend explores the anxiety of modern life and madness in a story that stretches across two generations of a London family, their lovers, collaborators, and friends. A former rock star disappears on the Cumberland moors. When his wife finds him, she discovers he has become a hermit and a painter of apocalyptic visions. An art dealer has drug-induced visions of demonic faces swirling in a bedstead and soon his wife disappears, nowhere to be found. A beautiful Irish girl who has stabbed her father to death is determined to seduce her best friend's husband. A young composer begins to experience aural hallucinations, expressions of the fear and anxiety of the people of London. He constructs a maze in his back garden. Driven by passion and musical ambition, events spiral out of control - good drugs and bad drugs, loves lost and found, families broken apart and reunited. Conceived jointly as an opera, The Age of Anxiety deals with mythic and operatic themes. Hallucinations and soundscapes haunt this novel, which on one level is an extended meditation on manic genius and the dark art of creativity.
©2019 Pete Townshend (P)2019 Hachette Books
Beyond the Reef
Summary
In March 1808, as Napoleon holds Portugal and threatens his old ally Spain, Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho is dispatched once more to the Cape of Good Hope to establish a permanent naval force there. Setting aside his bitter memories and the anguish of a friendship betrayed, Bolitho takes passage in the ill-fated Golden Plover. With him sail others commanded by duty and lured by danger - and those who wish only to escape. But when shipwreck and disaster overtake the Golden Plover off the desolate coast of Africa, neither the innocent nor the damned are spared. Beyond the tortured hell of the reef, Bolitho’s battle begins - to summon the survivors’ last reserves of courage and hope.
©1992 Highseas Authors Ltd (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Colours Aloft
Summary
Vice-Admiral Sir Richard Bolitho finds himself the new master of the Argonaute, a French flagship taken in battle. With the Peace of Amiens in ruins, he must leave the safety of Falmouth. What lies ahead is the grim reality of war at close quarters - where Bolitho will be called upon to anticipate the overall intention of the French fleet. But the battle has also become a personal vendetta between himself and the French admiral who formerly sailed the Argonaute.
©1986 Highseas Authors Ltd (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Signal, Close, Action!
Summary
As master of France, Napoleon now turns towards the East - and the vast wealth of India. But first he must secure the eastern Mediterranean and Egypt. Now Commodore of a newly-formed squadron in a British fleet stretched to the limit, Richard Bolitho faces one of the toughest commissions of his career: to ascertain the fighting strength of the French - then seek, find, and bring them to battle.
©1974 Bolitho Maritime Productions Ltd (P)2014 Audible, Inc.