Richard Burnip has narrated 22 audiobooks on Listento.it by 19 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 106 ratings. The most-rated is The War that Ended Peace.
The War that Ended Peace
Summary
The First World War followed a period of sustained peace in Europe during which people talked with confidence of prosperity, progress and hope. But in 1914, Europe walked into a catastrophic conflict which killed millions of its men, bled its economies dry, shook empires and societies to pieces, and fatally undermined Europe's dominance of the world. It was a war which could have been avoided up to the last moment - so why did it happen? Beginning in the early nineteenth century, and ending with the assassination of Arch Duke Franz Ferdinand, award-winning historian Margaret MacMillan uncovers the huge political and technological changes, national decisions and - just as important - the small moments of human muddle and weakness that led Europe from peace to disaster. This masterful exploration of how Europe chose its path towards war will change and enrich how we see this defining moment in our history. Margaret Macmillan is an acclaimed historian and has won the Samuel Johnson Prize, the Duff Cooper Prize and the Hessell-Tiltman Prize for Peacemakers: The Paris Conference of 1919. She is the author of numerous books, and she is the warden of St Anthony's College, Oxford.
©2013 Margaret MacMillan (P)2013 Audible Ltd
The Wicked Deep
Summary
Hocus Pocus and Practical Magic meets the Salem witch trials in this haunting story about three sisters on a quest for revenge - and how love may be the only thing powerful enough to stop them. Welcome to the cursed town of Sparrow...where, two centuries ago, three sisters were sentenced to death for witchery. Stones were tied to their ankles, and they were drowned in the deep waters surrounding the town. Now, for a brief time each summer, the sisters return, stealing the bodies of three weak-hearted girls so that they may seek their revenge, luring boys into the harbor and pulling them under. Like many locals, 17-year-old Penny Talbot has accepted the fate of the town. But this year, on the eve of the sisters' return, a boy named Bo Carter arrives, unaware of the danger he has just stumbled into. Mistrust and lies spread quickly through the salty, rain-soaked streets. The townspeople turn against one another. Penny and Bo suspect each other of hiding secrets. And death comes swiftly to those who cannot resist the call of the sisters. But only Penny sees what others cannot. And she will be forced to choose: save Bo or save herself.
©2018 Shea Ernshaw (P)2018 Audible, Inc.
The Loney
Summary
The British Book Awards Book of the Year 2016. Winner of the Costa First Novel Award 2015. Shortlisted for the Independent Book Week Award 2016. If it had another name, I never knew, but the locals called it the Loney - that strange nowhere between the Wyre and the Lune where Hanny and I went every Easter time with Mummer, Farther, Mr. and Mrs. Belderboss and Father Wilfred, the parish priest. It was impossible to truly know the place. It changed with each influx and retreat, and the neap tides would reveal the skeletons of those who thought they could escape its insidious currents. No one ever went near the water. No one apart from us, that is. I suppose I always knew that what happened there wouldn't stay hidden for ever, no matter how much I wanted it to. No matter how hard I tried to forget....
©2015 Andrew Michael Hurley (P)2015 Hodder & Stoughton
My Name Is Why
Summary
At the age of 17, after a childhood in an fostered family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given his birth certificate. He learned that his real name was not Norman. It was Lemn Sissay. He was British and Ethiopian. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth. Here Sissay recounts his life story. It is a story of neglect and determination. Misfortune and hope. Cruelty and triumph. Sissay reflects on a childhood in care, self-expression and Britishness, and in doing so explores the institutional care system, race, family and the meaning of home. Written with all the lyricism and power you would expect from one of the nation's best-loved poets, this moving, frank and timely memoir is the result of a life spent asking questions, and a celebration of the redemptive power of creativity.
©2019 Lemn Sissay (P)2019 Canongate Books Ltd
Six Four
Summary
Six Four. The nightmare no parent could endure. The case no detective could solve. The twist no listener could predict. For five days in January 1989, the parents of a seven-year-old Tokyo schoolgirl sat and listened to the demands of their daughter's kidnapper. They would never learn his identity. They would never see their daughter again. For the 14 years that followed, the Japanese public listened to the police's apologies. They would never forget the botched investigation that became known as Six Four. They would never forgive the authorities their failure. For one week in late 2002, the press officer attached to the police department in question confronted an anomaly in the case. He could never imagine what he would uncover. He would never have looked if he'd known what he would find.
©2012 Hideo Yokoyama (P)2016 Quercus Publishing Ltd
The Real Great Escape
Summary
In early 1942 the Germans opened a top-security prisoner-of-war camp. Called Stalag Luft III, it soon contained some of the most inventive escapers ever known. They were led by Squadron Leader Roger Bushell who masterminded an attempt to smugglehundreds of POWs down a tunnel built under the noses of their guards. The escape would come to be immortalised in the famous film The Great Escape, but in this book Guy Walters takes a fresh look at this remarkable event and asks what was the true story?
©2013 Guy Walters (P)2013 Oakhill Publishing
Devil's Day
Summary
Book of the year in The Times, The Sunday Times, FT and Mail on Sunday In the wink of an eye, as quick as a flea, The Devil he jumped from me to thee. And only when the Devil had gone, Did I know that he and I'd been one.... Every autumn, John Pentecost returns to the farm where he grew up to help gather the sheep down from the moors for the winter. Very little changes in the Endlands, but this year, his grandfather - the Gaffer - has died and John's new wife, Katherine, is accompanying him for the first time. Each year, the Gaffer would redraw the boundary lines of the village, with pen and paper, but also through the remembrance of tales and timeless communal rituals, which keep the sheep safe from the Devil. But as the farmers of the Endlands bury the Gaffer, and prepare to gather the sheep, they begin to wonder whether they've let the Devil in after all….
©2017 Andrew Michael Hurley (P)2017 John Murray Press
The Quiet Twin
Summary
Vienna, 1939. Professor Speckstein's dog has been brutally killed and he wants to know why. When an unexpected house call leads Doctor Beer to Speckstein's apartment, he finds himself in the bedroom of Zuzka, the professor's niece. Wide-eyed, flirtatious, and not detectably ill, Zuzka leads the young doctor to her window and opens up a view of their apartment block that Beer has never known. Does one of these enigmatic neighbours have blood on their hands?
©2014 Dan Vyleta (P)2014 Oakhill Publishing
Devil's Wolf
Summary
England, 1311. In the dark of the North the devil lies in wait.... Paul Doherty's most popular series character returns in the gripping 19th mystery in the Hugh Corbett series. If you love the historical mysteries of C. J. Sansom, E. M. Powell and Bernard Cornwell you will love this. 1296: King Edward I has led his army to Scotland, determined to take the country under his crown. But the fierce Scots have no intention of submitting to their oppressor and violent and bloody war breaks out. 1311: Sir Hugh Corbett, Keeper of the Secret Seal, finds himself back in Scotland and is revisited by the horrors he witnessed there 15 years ago. An anonymous letter was delivered to the new king. It promised information about a fatal incident that could allow England to finally bow out of the war with the Scots. Tasked with finding out the truth about the murder, Corbett is forced to take risks he would rather avoid and put his faith in the words of strangers. But with an unknown traitor lurking in the shadows and danger around every corner, will Corbett be able to unravel the complex web of plots in time?
©2017 Paul Doherty (P)2017 Headline Publishing Group Ltd.
William Pitt The Younger
Summary
William Pitt the Younger is an illuminating biography of one of the great iconic figures in British history: the man who in 1784 at the age of twenty-four became (and so remains) the youngest Prime Minister in the history of England. In this lively and authoritative study, William Hague himself the youngest political party leader in recent history explains the dramatic events and exceptional abilities that allowed extreme youth to be combined with great power. The brilliant son of a father who was also Prime Minister, Pitt was derided as a schoolboy when he took office. Yet within months he had outwitted his opponents, and he went on to dominate the political scene for twenty-two years (nineteen of them as Prime Minister). No British politician since has exercised such supremacy for so long. Pitt's personality has always been hard to unravel. Though he was generally thought to be cold and aloof, his friends described him as the wittiest man they ever knew. By seeing him through the eyes of a politician, William Hague - a prominent member of Britain's Conservative Party - succeeds in explaining Pitt's actions and motives through a series of great national crises, including the madness of King George III, the impact of the French Revolution, and the trauma of the Napoleonic wars. He describes how a man dedicated to peace became Britain's longest-serving war leader, how Pitt the liberal reformer became Pitt the author of repression, and how - though undisputed master of the nation's finances - he died with vast personal debts.
©2004 William Hague (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Death's Dark Valley
Summary
1311. Murder and mayhem prowl the highways and coffin paths of Medieval England.... Hugh Corbett returns in the 20th gripping mystery in Paul Doherty's ever-popular series. If you love the historical mysteries of C. J. Sansom, E. M. Powell and Bernard Cornwell you will love this. It is four years since the death of King Edward I, but his reign of terror has cast long shadows over the kingdom. At Holyrood Abbey, sheltered in the depths of the Welsh march, the old king's former bodyguards protect his secret relics and watch over a mysterious prisoner who is kept in the abbey's dungeon. But their peaceful existence is shattered when Abbot Henry is poisoned. Summoned to Holyrood, Sir Hugh Corbett, Keeper of the Secret Seal, finds the fortress in chaos. Brothers Anselm and Richard have been brutally slain by nails driven deep into their skulls. No one knows who could be behind the gruesome killings and the news attracts the attention of two unwanted guests: the sinister Marcher Lord Mortimer and King Philip of France's devious envoy De Craon. As more mysterious deaths occur, and a violent snowstorm sweeps through the valley, Corbett must act quickly to identify the malevolent demon who has risen from hell to turn the abbey into a house of murder....
©2019 Paul Doherty (P)2019 Hodder & Stoughton Ltd
Night Train to Jamalpur
Summary
North East India, 1923: On the Night Mail to Jamalpur, a man is shot dead in a first class compartment. Detective Inspector Jim Stringer was sleeping in the next compartment along. Was he the intended target? Jim should have known that his secondment to the East Indian Railway would not be the working holiday he had hoped for. Aside from the Jamalpur shooting, someone is placing venomous snakes in the first class compartments of the railway. Jim also has worries on the home front: His daughter has formed a connection with a Maharajah's son, who may in turn have a connection to the bristling Major Fisher. Jim must do everything he can to keep his family safe from harm.
©2013 Andrew Martin (P)2014 Isis Publishing Ltd
The Baghdad Railway Club
Summary
Baghdad, 1917: Captain Jim Stringer has been dispatched to investigate what looks like a case of treason. He arrives to find his cover blown - his contact dead. The Baghdad heat alone threatens the lives of the British soldiers who occupy the city. But the recently ejected Turks are still a danger - and the local Arabs are none too friendly, either. Aside from his investigation, Jim is working on the railways around the city. His boss, Lieutenant-Colonel Shepherd, presides over the dining society called The Baghdad Railway Club. Jim's search for the truth brings him up against murderous violence as enemies wait around every corner.
©2012 Andrew Martin (P)2012 Isis Publishing Ltd
Trial by Battle
Summary
October 1941. Twenty-one-year-old Alan Mart is posted to India and taken under the wing of the dogmatic, overbearing Acting-Captain Sam Holl. Following the Japanese advance on Singapore, the men are deployed to Malaya. What follows is a quietly shattering and searingly authentic depiction of the claustrophobia of jungle warfare and the indiscriminate nature of conflict.
Based on David Piper's own wartime experience in South East Asia, this new edition of a 1959 classic includes a contextual introduction from IWM which sheds new light on the dramatic true events that so influenced its author.
©2019 David Piper, The Imperial War Museum (P)2019 Headline Publishing Group Ltd
Dorothea's War
Summary
In April 1915 Dorothea Crewdson, a newly trained Red Cross nurse, and her best friend, Christie, received instructions to leave for Le Treport in Northern France. Filled with excitement at the prospect of her first paid job, Dorothea began writing a diary. 'Who knows how long we shall really be out here? Seems a good chance from all reports of the campaigns being ended before winter, but all is uncertain.' Dorothea would go on to witness and record some of the worst tragedy of the First World War firsthand, though somehow always maintaining her optimism, curiosity, and high spirits throughout. The pages of her diaries sparkle with warmth and humour as she describes the day-to-day realities and frustrations of nursing near the frontline of the battlefields or the pleasure of a beautiful sunset or a trip 'joy riding' in the French countryside on one of her precious days off. One day she might be gossiping about her fellow nurses or confessing to writing her diary while on shift on the ward or illustrating the scene of the tents collapsing around them on a windy night in one of her vivid sketches. In another entry she describes picking shells out of the beds on the ward after a terrifying air raid (winning a medal for her bravery in the process). Nearly a hundred years on, what shines out above all from the pages of these extraordinarily evocative diaries is a courageous, spirited, compassionate young woman whose story is made all the more poignant by her tragically premature death at the end of the war, just before she was due to return home. Read by Julia Barrie and Richard Burnip. Introduction, footnotes, and supplementary text (c) Richard Crewdson 2013.
©2013 The estate of Dorothea Crewdson (P)2015 Orion Publishing Group
Hymn to Murder
Summary
1312. The shadows around the English Crown grow ever darker in the 21st instalment of the much-loved Hugh Corbett series by Paul Doherty. An enthralling medieval mystery not to be missed by fans of C. J. Sansom, E. M. Powell and Bernard Cornwell. Hugh Corbett returns in the 21st gripping mystery in Paul Doherty's ever-popular series. If you love the historical mysteries of C. J. Sansom, E. M. Powell and Bernard Cornwell you will love this. Secrets simmer in the lonely wasteland of Dartmoor. Spring, 1312. At Malmaison Manor, Lord Simon is concealing a dark secret - one he arrogantly assumes will never catch up with him. But someone knows about the crime he committed, and they've found a way to make him pay. And he's not alone. When he is found mysteriously slain, other deaths soon follow. Meanwhile, ships on the Devonshire coast are being deliberately wrecked, their crews slaughtered, their cargoes plundered. Sir Hugh Corbett and Lord Simon are bound by the Secret Chancery and their search for one precious ruby - the Lacrima Christi. So, when Corbett learns of Lord Simon's death, he is once more dragged into a tangled web of lies and intrigued, and it's not long before secrets of his own start to surface. As the Hymn to Murder reaches its crescendo, can Corbett confront his past and live to see another day?
©2020 Paul Doherty (P)2020 Headline Publishing Group Ltd
Behind the Scenes at the Museum of Baked Beans
Summary
‘I am fascinated by people turning their daft dreams into a reality. How did they do it and why?’Driven by his own passion for collecting Hunter Davies has packed his notepad and set off in search of Britain’s maddest museums. As he explores these hidden gems he soon discovers that they are everywhere and that they celebrate just about everything, from lawnmowers in Southport to pencils in Keswick. But as Hunter travels up and down the country he comes to realise that it isn’t only the collections that are fascinating, it’s also the people who have put them together. Whether they’re a man who loves his Heinz so much he’s changed his name to Captain Beany or a kleptomaniac Vintage Radio buff, these eccentric collectors are Britain’s finest and could live in no other country in the world. Once you discover these museums and get to know their curators, Great Britain won’t look quite the same again...
©2010 Hunter Davies (P)2011 Random House Audiobooks
Second Innings
Summary
Fast bowler, six-hitter, popular hero, one of the lads, king of the jungle - Andrew Flintoff is all of those things. In Second Innings, his searingly honest yet uplifting autobiography, Flintoff reveals unseen, surprising sides to his career and personality. The restless need to push and challenge himself that led him to take up professional boxing. The complex and troubled relationship with discipline, alcohol and authority during his exhilarating cricket career. The search for an authentic voice as a player, free from the blandness and conformity of modern professionalism. Is Flintoff the last of his kind in any sport? Through all his highs and lows, triumphs and reversals, this book reveals a central tension. There is "Fred" - performer, extrovert, centre of attention. Then there is "Andrew" - reflective, withdrawn and uncertain. Two people contained in one extraordinary life. And sometimes, inevitably, keeping the two in balance proves too much. We are taken backstage, seeing the mischief and adventure that has defined Andrew Flintoff's story. Above all, we observe the enduring power of fun, friendship and loyalty - the pillars of Flintoff's career. At ease with his faults as well as his gifts, Andrew Flintoff has sought one thing even more than success: to be himself.
©2015 Andrew Flintoff (P)2015 Hodder & Stoughton
Target Tirpitz
Summary
Target Tirpitz is gripping WW2 storytelling at its best and a return to the RAF territory of Patrick Bishop’s bestselling Bomber Boys and Fighter Boys. The Tirpitz, Hitler’s greatest weapon, was reputed to be unsinkable and the battleship inflamed an Allied obsession: to destroy her at any cost. More than thirty daring operations were launched against the 52,000 ton monster. Royal Navy midget submarines carried out an attack of extraordinary skill and courage against her when she lay deep in a Norwegian fjord in an operation that won VCs for two participants. No permanent damage was done and the Fleet Air Arm was forced to launch full scale attacks through the summer of 1944 to try and finish her off. But still the Tirpitz remained a significant threat to Allied operations. It was not until November 1944 that a brilliant operation by RAF Lancaster Bombers, under the command of one of Britain's greatest but least-known war heroes finally killed off Hitler’s last battleship. Full of colour, insight and drama, Target Tirpitz is an un-put-down-able account of one of the great epics of the Second World War.
©2012 Patrick Bishop (P)2012 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Black Water
Summary
Harper wakes every night, terrified of the sounds outside his hut halfway up the mountain in Bali. He is afraid that his past as a mercenary has caught up with him and that his life may now be in danger. As he waits to discover his fate, he meets Rita, a woman with her own tragic past, and begins a passionate affair. Their exile makes Harper realise that exile comes in many forms - but can Rita and Harper save each other while they are putting each other very much at risk? Moving between Indonesia, the Netherlands and California, from the 1960s to the 1990s, Black Water turns around the 1965 Indonesian massacres, one of the great untold tragedies of the 20th century.
©2016 Louise Doughty (P)2016 Faber Audio