Showing results by narrator "Roger Clark" in All Categories

When Company A of the US 116th Regiment landed on Omaha Beach in D-Day's first wave on June 6, 1944, it lost 96 percent of its effective strength. Sixteen teams of US engineers arriving in the second wave were unable to blow the beach obstacles, as first wave survivors were still sheltering behind them. This was the beginning of the historic day that Landing on the Edge of Eternity narrates hour by hour.

George Bernard Shaw has been called the second greatest playwright in English (after William Shakespeare) and one of the inventors of modern celebrity as the most famous public intellectual of his time. Beginning in the 1880s, as a critic and as a playwright, he transformed British drama, bringing to it intellectual substance, ethical imperatives, and modernity itself, setting the theatrical course for the subsequent century. That his legacy endures 70 years after his death is testament to the prescience of his thinking and his prolific creativity.

The Cleveland Street scandal, involving a homosexual brothel reputedly visited by the queen's grandson, shocked Victorian Britain in 1889. This is the first full-length account of one of its key players, Jack Saul, a working-class, Irish-Catholic rent boy who worked his way into the upper echelons of the aristocracy, and wrote the notorious pornographic memoir The Sins of the Cities of the Plain.

A rip roaring high seas adventure set in Elizabethan England when dashing privateers known as sea hawks banded together to guard their country and their queen against the Invincible Armada being amassed by Spain. Simon Dante, the Pirate Wolf, meets his match in battle and in love when he crosses swords with Isabeau Spence. Together, they join forces with Sir Francis Drake on a daring attack on Cadiz.

Christophe Guilluy, a French geographer, makes the case that France has become an "American society" - one that is both increasingly multicultural and increasingly unequal. The divide between the global economy's winners and losers in today's France has replaced the old left-right split, leaving many on "the periphery".

It's late 1942; World War II is still raging. Detective Inspector Tom Tyler is settling into his placement in Ludlow, Shropshire, a small town jammed with people sent there by the conflict. On the outskirts is an Italian PoW camp. Tyler's job is both to keep the peace and to enforce wartime regulations. Then a troubled old man goes missing in a winter storm. The next day his body is discovered in a secret hideout supposedly known to very few. It soon becomes clear that a crime has been committed, and there is no shortage of suspects.

In Drugged, Miller takes listeners on an eye-opening tour of psychotropic drugs, describing the various kinds, how they were discovered and developed, and how they have played multiple roles in virtually every culture. Drugged brims with surprises, revealing the fact that antidepressant drugs evolved from rocket fuel, highlighting the role of hallucinogens in the history of religion, and asking whether Prozac can help depressed cats. Entertaining and authoritative, Drugged is a truly fascinating book.

Hunting vampires is her legacy. Detective Rainey Astor walks a dangerous line between the human and supernatural worlds. As a vampire hunter, she's a formidable opponent, having killed hundreds of their kind. Yet, when her latest foray into the supernatural world goes terribly wrong, she finds herself rescued by the very creature she's vowed to kill.

The Brain-Based Classroom translates findings from educational neuroscience into a new paradigm of practices suitable for any teacher. The human brain is a site of spectacular capacity for joy, motivation, and personal satisfaction, but how can educators harness its potential to help children reach truly fulfilling goals? Using this innovative collection of brain-centric strategies, teachers can transform their classrooms into deep learning spaces that support their students through self-regulation and mindset shifts.

When William the Conqueror died in 1087, he left the throne of England to William Rufus . . . his second son. The result was an immediate war as Rufus's elder brother Robert fought to gain the crown he saw as rightfully his; this conflict marked the start of 400 years of bloody disputes as the English monarchy's line of hereditary succession was bent, twisted, and finally broken when the last Plantagenet king, Richard III, fell at Bosworth in 1485.

In a May 2019 countrywide referendum, Ireland voted overwhelmingly to make abortion legal; three years earlier, it had done the same with same-sex marriage. With help from prominent Irish and Irish American voices like historian and best-selling author Tim Pat Coogan and the New York Times' Maureen Dowd, A New Ireland tells the story of a modern revolution against all odds.

In this Very Short Introduction, Bernard O'Donoghue provides a fascinating look at the many different forms of writing which have been called "poetry" - from the Greeks to the present day. As well as questioning what poetry is, he asks what poetry is for, and considers contemporary debates on its value. Is there a universality to poetry? And does it have a duty of public utility and responsibility?

In this compelling account, eminent literary critic Terry Eagleton explores the nuances of tragedy in Western culture-from literature and politics to philosophy and theater. Eagleton examines the political nature of tragedy, looking closely at its connection with periods of historical transition. The dramatic form originated not as a meditation on the human condition, but at moments of political engagement, when civilizations struggled with the conflicts that beset them. Tragedy, Eagleton demonstrates, is fundamental to human experience and culture.

Mark Malone’s BMW had tinted windows, a lowered suspension, and a loud car stereo. He drove it at speed along the Beckhampton road late at night back in 2015. That wasn’t unusual. It was hard to resist speeding on that stretch of road, and hundreds of drivers have been caught speeding there every year. Several died in high-speed accidents.

In Hitler's Death, author and expert Luke Daly-Groves rigorously looks at the question: Did Hitler shoot himself in the Führerbunker or did he slip past the Soviets and escape to South America? Countless documentaries, newspaper articles, and internet pages written by conspiracy theorists have led the ongoing debate surrounding Hitler's last days. Historians have not yet managed to make a serious response. Until now. This book is the first attempt by an academic to return to the evidence of Hitler's suicide in order to scrutinize the most recent conspiracy arguments.

The modern conception of sacrifice is at once cast as a victory of self-discipline over desire and condescended to as destructive and archaic abnegation. But even in the Old Testament, the dual natures of sacrifice, embodying both ritual slaughter and moral rectitude, were at odds. In this analysis, Terry Eagleton makes a compelling argument that the idea of sacrifice has long been misunderstood. Pursuing the complex lineage of sacrifice in a lyrical discourse, Eagleton focuses on the Old and New Testaments, offering a virtuosic analysis of the crucifixion.

From the Plantation of Ulster in the 17th century to the entry into peace talks in the late 20th century, the Northern Irish people have been engaged in conflict - Catholic against Protestant, Republican against Unionist. Marc Mulholland explores the pivotal moments in Northern Irish history - the rise of republicanism in the 1800s, Home Rule and the civil rights movement, the growth of Sinn Fein and the provisional IRA, and of the opposition, the DUP, led by Dr. Ian Paisley.

Declan Walsh is one of the New York Times's most distinguished international correspondents. His electrifying portrait of Pakistan over a tumultuous decade captures the sweep of this strange, wondrous, and benighted country through the dramatic lives of nine fascinating individuals. On assignment as the country careened between crises, Walsh traveled from the raucous port of Karachi to the salons of Lahore, and from Baluchistan to the mountains of Waziristan. He met a diverse cast of extraordinary Pakistanis....

Caught in a bidding war for his sister’s freedom he can hardly hope to win, Van Delano embarks on his most challenging quest yet: to locate previously undiscovered Old World ruins for the outlaw queen Nine-Fingered Nan.

A deal goes bad...and Van Delano is left to die in the desert. But most folk say he’s been cursed with a double-barreled shotgun of mulishness. So, when his first attempt at bargaining for his kidnapped sister’s freedom lands him with a dead horse, a bullet in his leg, and miles of desert between him and the nearest town, he’s not about to give up. He’ll fight and claw, cheat and steal, even kill, if he has to.