Simon Vance has narrated 434 audiobooks on Listento.it by 286 authors, with an average listener rating of 4.5★ across 15,736 ratings. The most-rated is Dune.
The Aleppo Codex
Summary
A true-life thriller about the journey of one of the world's most precious manuscripts - the 10th-century annotated Hebrew Bible known as the Aleppo Codex - from its hiding place in an ancient Syrian synagogue to the newly founded Israel. Using his research, including documents that have been secret for 50 years and interviews with key players, AP correspondent Friedman tells a story of political upheaval, international intrigue, charged courtroom battles, obsession, and subterfuge.
©2012 Matti Friedman. (P)2012 2012 HighBridge Company
The Small House at Allington
Summary
The Small House at Allington introduces Trollope's charming heroine, Lily Dale, to the Barsetshire scene. Lily is the niece of Squire Dale, an embittered old bachelor living in the main house on his property at Allington. He has loaned an adjacent small house rent free to his widowed sister-in-law and her daughters, Lily and Bell. But the relations between the two houses are strained, affecting the romantic entanglements of the girls. Lily has long been unsuccessfully wooed by John Eames, a junior clerk at the Income Tax Office. The handsome and personable Adolphus Crosbie looks like an enticing alternative, but Adolphus has his eye on the rigid Lady Alexandrina de Courcy, whose family is in a position to further his career. Bell, meanwhile, must choose between the local doctor, James Crofts, and her wealthy cousin, Bernard.
(P)2007 Blackstone Audio Inc.
Mirror, Mirror
Summary
Everyone deplores narcissism, especially in others. The vain are by turns annoying or absurd, offending us whether they are blissfully oblivious or proudly aware of their behavior. But are narcissism and vanity really as bad as they seem? Can we avoid them even if we try? In Mirror, Mirror, Simon Blackburn, the author of such best-selling philosophy books as Think, Being Good, and Lust, says that narcissism, vanity, pride, and self-esteem are more complex than they first appear and have innumerable good and bad forms. Drawing on philosophy, psychology, literature, history, and popular culture, Blackburn offers an enlightening and entertaining exploration of self-love, from the myth of Narcissus and the Christian story of the Fall to today’s self-esteem industry.A sparkling mixture of learning, humor, and style, Mirror, Mirror examines what great thinkers have said about self-love—from Aristotle, Cicero, and Erasmus to Rousseau, Adam Smith, Kant, and Iris Murdoch. It considers today’s “me”-related obsessions, such as the “selfie,” plastic surgery, and cosmetic enhancements, and reflects on connected phenomena such as the fatal commodification of social life and the tragic overconfidence of George W. Bush and Tony Blair. Ultimately, Mirror, Mirror shows why self-regard is a necessary and healthy part of life. But it also suggests that we have lost the ability to distinguish—let alone strike a balance—between good and bad forms of self-concern.
©2014 Simon Blackburn. Published by Princeton University Press. (P)2014 Audible, Inc.
Cold
Summary
James Bond is on a mission that will become an obsession. It starts the night Flight 229 is torn apart at Washington airport, killing 435 passengers. But the victim who matters to Bond is the Principessa Sukie Tempesta: once his lover, still his friend. The search for Sukie's killers will turn out to be the most complex and demanding assignment of Bond's career. Across continents and through ever-changing labyrinths of evil, he follows the traces of clues into the center of a fanatical society more deadly than any terrorist army. Its code name is COLD.
©1996 Ian Fleming Publications Ltd. (P)2015 Brilliance Audio, all rights reserved. James Bond and 007 are registered trademarks of Danjaq, LLC, used under licence by Ian Fleming Publications Ltd.
A Burnable Book
Summary
In Chaucer's London, betrayal, murder, and intrigue swirl around the existence of a prophetic book that foretells the deaths of England's kings. London, 1385: Surrounded by ruthless courtiers - including his powerful uncle, John of Gaunt, and Gaunt's artful mistress, Katherine Swynford - England's young king, Richard II, is in mortal peril. Songs are heard across London - catchy verses said to originate from an ancient book that prophesies the ends of England's kings - and among the book's predictions is Richard's assassination. Only a few powerful men know that the cryptic lines derive from a "burnable book", a seditious work that threatens the stability of the realm. To find the manuscript, wily bureaucrat Geoffrey Chaucer turns to fellow poet John Gower, a professional trader in information with connections high and low. Gower discovers that the book and incriminating evidence about its author have fallen into the unwitting hands of innocents, who will be drawn into a conspiracy that reaches from the king's court to London's slums and stews - and potentially implicates Gower's own son. As the intrigue deepens, it becomes clear that John Gower, a man with secrets of his own, may hold the key to saving the king, and England itself. Medieval scholar Bruce Holsinger draws on his vast knowledge of the period to add colorful, authentic detail - on everything from poetry and bookbinding to court intrigues and brothels - to this highly entertaining and brilliantly constructed literary mystery that brings medieval England gloriously to life.
©2014 Bruce Holsinger (P)2014 HarperCollins Publishers
The Silver Arrow
Summary
"I loved every page. This is middle grade fiction at its best." (Ann Patchett) From the number one New York Times best-selling author of The Magicians comes a must-listen, wholly original middle-grade debut perfect for fans of the Chronicles of Narnia and Roald Dahl. Dear Uncle Herbert, You've never met me, but I'm your niece Kate, and since it is my birthday tomorrow and you are super-rich could you please send me a present? Kate and her younger brother, Tom, lead dull, uninteresting lives. And if their dull, uninteresting parents are anything to go by, they don't have much to look forward to. Why can't Kate have thrilling adventures and save the world the way people do in books? Even her 11th birthday is shaping up to be mundane - that is, until her mysterious and highly irresponsible Uncle Herbert, whom she's never even met before, surprises her with the most unexpected, exhilarating, inappropriate birthday present of all time: a colossal steam locomotive called the Silver Arrow. Kate and Tom's parents want to send it right back where it came from. But Kate and Tom have other ideas - and so does the Silver Arrow - and soon they're off to distant lands along magical rail lines in the company of an assortment of exotic animals who, it turns out, can talk. With only curiosity, excitement, their own resourcefulness and the thrill of the unknown to guide them, Kate and Tom are on the adventure of a lifetime...and who knows? They just might end up saving the world after all. This thrilling fantasy adventure will not only entertain young listeners, but inspire them to see the beautiful, exciting, and precious world around them with new eyes.
©2020 Lev Grossman (P)2020 Hachette Audio
The Cartographer: Complete Series
Summary
This set includes all three books in AC Cobble's Cartographer Series. A pair of unlikely investigators walk a dangerous path into the past, uncovering secrets best left alone in this dark, fantasy thriller. The fate of empire is to crumble from within. A heinous murder in a small village reveals a terrible truth. Sorcery, once thought dead in Enhover, is not. Evidence of an occult ritual and human sacrifice proves that dark power has been called upon again. Twisting threads of clues lead across the known world to the end of a vast empire, and then, the trail returns home. Duke Oliver Wellesley, son of the king, cartographer, and adventurer, has better things to do than investigate a murder in a sleepy fishing hamlet. For Crown and Company, though, he goes where he’s told. As the investigation leads to deeper and darker places, he’ll be forced to confront the horrific spectres rising from the shadows of his past. When faced with the truth, will he sacrifice what is necessary to survive? Samantha serves a Church that claims to no longer need her skills. She’s apprenticed to a priest-assassin that no one knows. Driven by a mad prophecy, her mentor has prepared her for a battle with ultimate darkness, except, sorcery is dead. When all is at stake, can she call upon an arcane craft the rest of the world has forgotten? The fate of empire is to crumble from within. Do not ask when, ask who.
©2020 AC Cobble (P)2020 AC Cobble
Wedding Station
Summary
The prequel to David Downing's best-selling Station series introduces John Russell, an Englishman with a political past who must keep his head down as the Nazis solidify their power. Berlin, 27 February 1933. A month after Hitler's inauguration as Chancellor of Germany, the Reichstag parliament building is set ablaze. The Nazis use the torching to justify a campaign of terror against their political opponents. John Russell's recent separation from his wife threatens his right to reside in Germany and any meaningful relationship with his six-year-old son Paul. He has just secured work as a crime reporter for a Berlin newspaper, and the crimes which he has to report - the gruesome murder of a rent boy, the hit-and-run death of a professional genealogist, the suspicious disappearance of a Nazi-supporting celebrity fortune-teller - are increasingly entangled in the wider nightmare engulfing Germany. Each new investigation carries the risk of Russell's falling foul of the authorities, at a time when the rule of law has completely vanished, and the Nazis are running scores of pop-up detention centers, complete with torture chambers, in every corner of Berlin.
©2021 David Downing (P)2021 Recorded Books Inc.
We Shall See God
Summary
Prepare to experience paradise... No author in history has more material in print than Charles Spurgeon. Today, more than a century after his death, countless people continue to have a passion for this London preacher, and more and more discover him every day. Some of Spurgeon’s most powerful sermons were those he preached on Heaven. Up until now, however, very few of these sermons have been available to a modern audience. In what is sure to become an instant classic, best-selling author Randy Alcorn has compiled fifty of the most profound spiritual insights on eternity from these sermons and arranged them into an easily accessible, highly inspirational format complete with his own comments and devotional thoughts. Whether you are familiar with the works of Charles Spurgeon or not, you are in for a treat as Alcorn invites you to sit at the feet of the “prince of preachers” and discover timeless pearls of wisdom about Heaven from one of the greatest theologians of all time.
Public Domain (P)2011 Oasis
Sky High!
Summary
"The Dragon Detective Agency. Dirk Dilly speaking." When a visitor turns up unannounced at Dirk's office with a new case for him and Holly to solve, all is not as it seems. A Sea Dragon has disappeared, and the only clue left at the scene of the crime is the ashy outline of an elusive Sky Dragon. As their investigations take them from a dodgy billionaire's HQ to the top of the city's tallest skyscraper, trouble is set to soar sky high for this dragon detective and his partner-in-solving-crime. Will they be able to hunt down the suspect and find the missing dragon before they both disappear into thin air? The third installment in a fun and action-packed detective series for fans of Toto the Ninja Cat, How to Train Your Dragon, and Tom Fletcher's children's books!
©2021 Gareth P. Jones (P)2021 Listening Library
A Bit on the Side
Summary
William Trevor is truly a Chekhov for our age, and a new collection of stories from him is always a cause for celebration. These 12 stories include: The waiter who divulges his shocking life of crime to his ex-wife. A woman repeats the story of her parents' unstable marriage after a horrible tragedy. The schoolgirl who regrets gossiping about the cuckolded man who tutors her. A middle-aged couple meet in a theatre bar for a squalid blind date. The disappointed priest who fears an innocent young girl may run away from home. Two self-certain sisters visit a newly widowed local woman. And, in the volume's title story, a middle-age accountant offers his reasons for ending a love affair. From these slender moments Trevor creates whole lives, conjuring up characters marked by bitterness and loss. William Trevor's graceful prose is a wonder in itself, and as convincing when inhabiting the mind of a school lunchmaid, an adulterous Irish country librarian, or a murderer on the London streets. And as is always the case with William Trevor, venom and tragedy are never far from the still surface of the stories. At the heart of this stunning collection is Trevor's characteristic tenderness and unflinching eye for both the humanizing and dehumanizing aspects of modern urban and rural life.
©2004 William Trevor (P)2004 Tantor Media, Inc.
The Path of Giants
Summary
Jon is the hand and will of the king against the growing shadow. Dark power stirs, giants about to clash. Jon has tasted the stench of death, and he knows he cannot face these challenges alone. Betrayal and suspicions among Jon’s trusted friends threaten to tear asunder their fragile plans. A chance encounter with a powerful, unknown mage from the enemy kingdom could shift the delicate balance in Jon’s favor. Can he look beyond his own suspicions and protect her long enough to earn the trust of his closest allies? Battles loom, forces are aligned, and help is in high demand. Taking risks is pivotal, and the fate of Jon’s meager allies rests upon his decisions as never before. In Jon’s journey to bring peace and stability to the kingdom, he will first have to harness chaos.
©2021 B.T. Narro (P)2021 Podium Audio
The Ranger's Path
Summary
A ranger’s duty. The rotten heart of a king. Rebellion spilled from the blood of family. In the second book of The King's Ranger series, Rew leads the search for a missing companion and is drawn deeper into the swirling currents of the Investiture. Protecting his new charges forces Rew to confront secrets from his past that he's spent the last decade trying to forget. The King’s Ranger is a classic fantasy adventure, perfect for fans of Michael J. Sullivan, Brent Weeks, James Islington, and AC Cobble’s Benjamin Ashwood series.
©2021 AC Cobble (P)2021 AC Cobble
Shadow of the Raven
Summary
"CSI meets the Age of Reason with a well-drawn, intriguing cast of characters" (Karen Harper) in Tessa Harris' superbly plotted historical mystery series, featuring 18th-century anatomist and pioneering sleuth Dr. Thomas Silkstone. In the notorious mental hospital known as Bedlam, Dr. Thomas Silkstone seeks out a patient with whom he is on intimate terms. But he is unprepared for the state in which he finds Lady Lydia Farrell. Shocked into action, Thomas vows to help free Lydia by appealing to the custodian of her affairs, Mr. Nicholas Lupton. But when Silkstone arrives at the Boughton Estate to speak to Lupton, he finds that sweeping changes threaten to leave many villagers destitute. After a man dies in the woods, it appears that someone has turned to murder to avenge their cause. But for Thomas, a postmortem raises more questions than answers, and a second murder warns him of his potentially fatal situation. Soon he discovers a conspiracy far more sinister than anything he has ever faced.
©2015 Tessa Harris (P)2015 Blackstone Audio, Inc.