Showing results by narrator "Bill Homewood" in All Categories

Bored with inactivity following the end of the Civil War, the fanatical members of the American Gun Club in Baltimore look for a project to fulfill their passion for rearms. Their distinguished President, Impey Barbicane, proposes an exciting new endeavor - one that will cement their names in history: They will build the largest projectile ever known to man and shoot it at the moon! The bullet will be hollowed to accommodate Barbicane and two bold companions, along with their dog, and they will claim the moon as America's 37th state.

It is the year 778. The mighty French army, led by Emperor Charlemagne, confronts Saracen forces in the bloody Battle of Roncevaux Pass. In the course of this thrilling epic poem we follow the emperor’s hot-headed nephew Roland into battle. We are privy to the deal struck between the Saracen king Marsilie and Roland’s conniving stepfather Guene.

Here are 35 of the greatest poems in the French language, carefully selected and read in French by Bill Homewood, the bilingual English classical actor who has spent half his life in France. To help those English speakers with just a little French to appreciate the glories of these poems, he provides his own clear English translations.

In The Three Musketeers, one of the greatest adventure stories ever written, we follow the fortunes of the dashing young swordsman D'Artagnan and his daredevil companions Athos, Aramis, and Porthos. As the thrilling story unfolds, "The Four" find themselveds embroiled in duels, love tangles, and sinister intrigues which threaten the furtue of the king, the queen, and France herself.

Somewhere in Africa, a tiny, primitive tribe, the Amahaggers, live secretly amongst the debris of a lost Egyptian civilization, ruled by the beautiful semi-goddess Ayesha, or She-who-must-be-obeyed. Ludwig Horace Holly, a Cambridge academic, is reluctantly drawn into plans for a voyage in search of this legendary queen. With his adopted son, Leo, he sets out on a brave journey, following a trail of clues. Shipwrecked and captured by cannibals, their voyage soon turns into a nightmare.

The heroic and honorable Zorro, an ace with a whip and a demon with a sword, fights for the poor and oppressed - a far cry from the effete young aristocrat Don Diego, who spends his days reading poetry and dreaming of the beautiful Lolita Pulido. When Lolita's family faces ruin and accusations of treason, Zorro must step in to save her family and her honor. But who is this masked caballero?

In the brutal Prussian winter of 1807, Emperor Napoléon Bonaparte’s Grande Armée suffered massive losses to the Russians in the Battle of Eylau. Many thousands died. Young Colonel Chabert falls heroically, his actions having turned the tide of the battle, but he is buried anonymously on the battlefield in a mass grave. Incredibly, he is alive, but severely injured, and digs himself out. On his eventual return to Paris, he finds his wife, the beautiful and ambitious Rosine, now remarried, and his fortune gone.

Step aboard for perhaps the nearest thing to a ride on a ghost train: a thrilling trip into the murky world that lies deep beneath the vast opera house in Paris, famously haunted by a mysterious phantom. Despite a series of terrifying and deadly accidents backstage, the gorgeous voice of divine young diva Christine Daaé is soaring with each performance to ever greater heights of beauty—but why? Who is teaching her? Her adoring lover Raoul fears he is losing her to a force he cannot comprehend.

In his Four Just Men series, Edgar Wallace comes up with something different: the ‘villains’ are not necessarily bad people, and the pursuers of justice, the Four Just Men, as they call themselves, are acting outside the law. They argue that their actions are for the public good, and dispassionately eke the ultimate revenge — death — on their victims. In their turn, the Four Just Men are pursued by the police, but somehow remain our heroes.

Shango and the Amazing Magical Sleeping Spell is one book in a series of books that aim to deal with a number of childhood issues, such as fears, phobias, anxiety, and anger. This book deals specifically with sleep. If a child consistently has difficulty getting to sleep, this could be due to a passing phase or dietary or psychological issues. In the latter, anxiety or depression might be a cause, and if so please see Shango's other books relating to those issues.

The Count of Monte Cristo is a tale of revenge and retribution. Edmond Dantes, a young, energetic sailor, is falsely accused of treason on his wedding day and incarcerated in the forbidding Chateau d'If. His escape and ultimate revenge on those who wronged him makes this one of the most thrilling stories in French literature, as compelling now as when it was first published in 1846.

The story begins in Hamburg, 1863. The brilliant Professor Lidenbrock, inspired by an ancient, encoded manuscript, impetuously decides to take his reluctant nephew Axel on a seemingly insane mission: to travel down volcanic tunnels to the very center of the earth.

Reina de los Angeles is being terrorized by a masked swordsman who marks the faces of his victims with Zorro's trademark Z. But is this the real Zorro? The governor of California offers a reward for the capture of Don Diego Vega (who is known to have previously been Zorro) dead or alive, while an army - led by the ruthless Captain Rocha - is in hot pursuit of the outlaw. Assisted by a coterie of allies and the native Cocopah tribe, Don Diego seeks to establish his innocence and unmask the evil imposter.

Taking the visionary epic, forbidden history, and conspiracy to new levels. Genesis Antarctica is a multi-faceted work "based on ancient documents discovered under the Antarctic ice in 1962 by the Australian Vostok Traverse Expedition". Known as the "Haakon Urn" texts, these unique writings predate all other early civilizations (including legendary Atlantis, Lemuria, and Mu) by several tens of thousands of years.

The year is 1866; the American Civil War is at its height. Five prisoners of war hatch an audacious plan to escape their camp by balloon. After a perilous 6,000-mile journey in a fierce storm, they are ‘shipwrecked’ on an unknown Pacific island. What follows is a thrilling tale of resourcefulness, courage and suspense. Together with our heroes we learn to hunt, to make weapons and pottery, to calculate our position by the sun, to extract iron and even to make explosives from the island’s remarkable natural resources.

Once again, the intrepid Zorro fights for justice! In the fourth of Naxos AudioBooks' Zorro titles, our hero's assistance is sought when the devious Pedro Morelos threatens the fortune of a wealthy heir, Vicente Canchola. Morelos hatches a plot to kidnap the Governor of California and extort profitable trade concessions from him. Zorro overhears this, but will he be able to foil the evil scheme, and stop the Canchola estate from falling into the wrong hands?

The swashbuckling sequel to The Mark of Zorro (The Curse of Capistrano), The Further Adventures of Zorro sees the daring hero out for revenge once more. After Captain Ramon kidnaps the beautiful Lolita Pulido, Zorro takes to the seas and battles pirates in a bid to win her back. Swordfights, death traps, and disastrously tight corners await him. But it is never much more than a challenge as the gallant caballero laughs in the face of danger - nothing can faze him.

In The Just Men of Cordova, written in 1917, the Four move into the treacherous, aristocratic world of gambling, horse-racing and high finance. It seems that police services, even governments, have no power to control this world, where blackmail, poison and murder are commonplace. The Four, working outside the law, take it upon themselves to clean things up in their own way.

The tale of social-climbing arriviste Julien Sorel brilliantly captures the contradictions and hypocrisies permeating French society under the Bourbon Restoration. Using his formidable intellect, innate cunning and charm, Julien clambers his way to the top, manipulating and seducing those who have the power to give him the social status he desires.

Many of the greatest lovers, and the greatest love scenes in Western literature, are to be found in Shakespeare. The fresh but impassioned Romeo and Juliet, the resilient wit of Petruchio and Kate, the ardent exchanges of Lorenzo and Jessica ,and the anguished tragedies of Othello and Desdemona and Antony and Cleopatra - they all show love and courtship in its many forms.