Showing results by narrator "Charles Armstrong" in All Categories

Glory returns to Fenris. Magnus the Red and his traitorous legion are defeated upon the icy cliffs of the Space Wolves’ home world, their hollow remains scattered into the darkest depths of the World Sea. Yet Ragnar Blackmane, the youngest Wolf Lord in his Chapter’s noble history, does not feel victorious. He is uneasy. Uncertain of his purpose and place in the great war for the Imperium. Until a vision strikes him of a terrible beast, one greater than any he or his warriors have faced before.

For centuries, Swiss banks have served the globe's wealthiest individuals, employing a strict culture of anonymity and gaining massive wealth in the process. But when Credit Suisse collapsed, the veil of secrecy came down and the world was suddenly privy to the corruption, scandal and empty hubris that keep our biggest banks alive.

The Exorcists are a Space Marine Chapter unlike any other. To combat the forces of Chaos, they willingly accept daemonic possession, knowing that once it is purged their shattered souls will no longer be susceptible to corruption. Those who fail the banishment trials become Broken Ones – living prisons for the terrors expelled from their brethren. Should such desperate measures become known to the wider Imperium, the Chapter would stand accused of the vilest of heresies.

The '90s was the decade when British culture reclaimed its position at the artistic centre of the world. Not since the 'Swinging Sixties' had art, comedy, fashion, film, football, literature and music interwoven into a blooming of national self-confidence. It was the decade of Lad Culture and Girl Power, of Blur vs Oasis. When fashion runways shone with British talent, Young British Artists became household names, football was 'coming home' and British film went worldwide.

The Great Bear will descend from the skies and with his paw lash at the ocean. He will devour all the works of Man. Then he will sleep for 10,000 years, and the breath of his sleep will be death. The prophecy had come true. The world spun. Tidal waves lashed the planet, and a new ice age dawned. The few survivors of a once-great empire struggled to rebuild. Then two moons appeared in the skies, unleashing a terrible evil that threatened not only the new empire but the survival of the world itself.

Nature took on a new importance for thousands of people when the coronavirus pandemic arrived in Britain, providing solace in a time of great anxiety - not least because the crisis struck at the beginning of spring, the season of hope and renewal, and furthermore, in an extraordinary conjunction, the spring of 2020 turned out to be the loveliest spring ever recorded in Britain. Three nature writers, living like everyone else under lockdown, but walking out each day to exercise, resolved to record their experiences of the coronavirus spring, in widely contrasting parts of the country.

In this speech training manual, we teach you how to produce all British English sounds. Each chapter in the book covers one sound. First, we explain how to place your tongue, lips, and jaw for the target sound. Then you repeat the sound in words, phrases, sentences, proverbs, famous quotations, verses, and tongue twisters. In addition, you drill contraction exercises, words with silent letters, and French expressions used in business in the English-speaking world. This is the most complete and comprehensive resource for business speech training.

In the immense city of Varangantua, life is cheap, but mistakes are expensive. When Probator Agusto Zidarov of the city’s enforcers is charged with locating the missing scion of a wealthy family, he knows full well that the chances of finding him alive are slight. The people demanding answers, though, are powerful and ruthless, and he is soon immersed in a world of criminal cartels and corporate warfare where even an enforcer’s survival is far from guaranteed.

No one has a better perspective on life on both sides of the channel than Julian Barnes. In these exquisitely crafted stories spanning several centuries, he takes as his universal theme the British in France: from the last days of a reclusive English composer, the beef consuming 'navvies' labouring on the Paris-Rouen railway to a lonely woman mourning the death of her brother on the battlefields of the Somme.

The first in-depth biography of the American actress and humanitarian campaigner who will marry Prince Harry in May 2018, written by the world's best-known royal biographer. When Meghan Markle and Prince Harry were set up by a mutual friend on a blind date in June 2016, little could they know that just 16 months later the resulting whirlwind romance would lead to their engagement in November 2017 and marriage in May 2018.

On 11 September 2001 19 al-Qaeda-inspired jihadists hijacked four aircraft and mounted the deadliest terrorist attack in history. The outrage triggered a chain of events that saw British forces drawn into a lengthy military campaign against a fierce insurgency in Afghanistan. Sergio Miller served in Defence Intelligence in Whitehall throughout the campaign, and Pride and Fall answers the many questions surrounding the conflict. Based on abundant open-source material generated by the war and first-hand testimonies, this is the story of the men and women who served.

Odysseus’s greatest challenge is only just beginning. The armies of Troy have been defeated, and the city lies in ruins. His oath fulfilled, Odysseus can at last sail for Ithaca and the long-awaited reunion with his family. But the gods, who were once his allies, have turned against him. Exiled with the warrior Eperitus, he is thrust into a world of seductive demi-gods and man-eating monsters.

In the final years of his life, Chekhov produced some of the stories that rank among his masterpieces and some of the most highly-regarded works in Russian literature. The poignant 'The Lady with the Little Dog' and 'About Love' examine the nature of love outside of marriage - its romantic idealism and the fear of disillusionment. And in stories such as 'Peasants', 'The House with the Mezzanine' and 'My Life' Chekhov paints a vivid picture of the conditions of the poor and of their powerlessness in the face of exploitation and hardship.

Precipice is dying. For weeks, the space port has been battered by hellish geomagnetic storms, the work of sinister goings-on within the nearby Blackstone Fortress – a vast, ineffable creation that looms in the darkness of the void. Fragile alliances between Precipice’s xenos and human inhabitants crumble as the port’s docking points are destroyed, eroding any hope of escape. Amid this bedlam, opportunistic rogue trader Janus Draik remains coolly unaffected.

Varangantua is in turmoil. After the district of Korsk is obliterated in a fiery cataclysm, the city’s enforcers must pick up the pieces. As sanctioner teams comb the wreckage for survivors, dogged probators such as Agusto Zidarov and Lycia Calix seek to uncover the truth about what happened. Their stories become intertwined with those of petty criminals and desperate citizens, even drawing the vaunted attention of agents beyond Alecto itself, painting a picture of sprawling conspiracy.

From Brexit to Covid, parties to pig culling, the Conservative government has lurched from crisis to crisis. With a front-row seat on the, erm, backbenches, the Secret Tory has picked up on all the petty rivalries, bad decision-making and scandalous affairs that Whitehall has to offer. And he’s got no qualms about sharing it. All. Join the mystery MP as he drunk-texts Liz Truss after a crate of WKD, accompanies Jacob Rees-Mogg (and his kids) to picket a foodbank, takes on the French in the ‘Trawler Wars’, and euthanises Rishi Sunak’s dog—and that’s just October.

Christo Lloyd was recognised as one of the foremost gardeners and garden writers of the 20th century. Here, for the first time, is the definitive collection of his best, most informative, and so often amusing garden writing. Christo on gardening: "ours, in its humble way, is an art as well as a craft. At the same time it keeps us in touch with the earth, the seasons, and with that complex of interrelated forces both animate and inanimate which we call nature. It is a humanising occupation."

Max Hastings grew up with romantic dreams of a life amongst warriors. But after his failure as a parachute soldier in Cyprus in 1963, he became a journalist instead. Before he was thirty he had reported conflicts in Northern Ireland, Biafra, Vietnam, Cambodia, the Middle East, Cyprus, Rhodesia, India and a string of other trouble spots. His final effort was as a war correspondent during the Falklands War. Going to the Wars is a story of his experiences reporting from these battlefields. It is also the story of a self-confessed coward: a writer with heroic ambitions.

In Assad: The Triumph of Tyranny, Con Coughlin, veteran commentator on war in the Middle East and author of Saddam: The Secret Life, examines how a mild-mannered ophthalmic surgeon has transformed himself into the tyrannical ruler of a once flourishing country.

In February 2002 Max Hastings retired from his position as a 'Fleet Street' Editor. His is an enormously illustrious career which started in 1985, when he was offered the Editorship of a national institution – the Daily Telegraph – in a surprise move by its owners. This memoir tells the story of what happened to him, and to a great newspaper, over the next decade. It is all here: the rows with prime ministers, the coverage of great events including the end of the Cold War, the fall of Thatcher, the rise of New Labour and Tony Blair, the Gulf War, and the tribulations of the Royal Family.