Showing results by narrator "Joan Walker" in All Categories

Rivers are the great natural arteries that run through our lives. We have navigated them, dammed them and worshipped at them. From the ancient ecosystems of Egypt to the sinking cities of Shanghai and London, what we do with our rivers tells us about who has power and what we value. Now, when a passion for wild swimming is flourishing but the Amazon is on fire and some of our major river systems are dying, it has never been clearer that rivers are intertwined with humanity at our best and our worst.

Nel is the owner of a houseful of animals and the organiser of the farmer’s market in the picturesque Paradise Fields. She is always super-busy, but not so busy to want to preserve the meadow and market she loves when its owner dies. But who can she trust to help her save Paradise Fields? Her sensible boyfriend, Simon? Or Jake, the devilishly handsome man who kissed her under the mistletoe?

How long do you hunt for the missing? A horrible vanishing act.... When a young Josie Masters sees a boy wearing a red football shirt, Dylan Jones, being taken by a clown at a carnival, she tries to alert the crowds. But it's too late. Dylan has disappeared.... Thirty years later, Josie is working as a police officer in Bath. The remains of the body of a child have been found - complete with tatters of a torn red football shirt. Is it the boy she saw vanish in the clutches of the clown? Or is it someone else altogether?

Melissa Craig is enjoying her first winter in the Cotswolds, taking brisk walks through the snowy fields and basking in the winter sunshine. The only thing Melissa is plotting is her Christmas shopping. But after the unexpected death of local writer Leonora Jewell, Melissa is asked to complete Leonora’s final book. However, on her first visit to the cottage, she finds a gruesome object overlooked by the police: a metal bar covered with dried blood.

Since her move to the country, Melissa Craig has become firmly established in village life. So, when one of the older residents fails to show up for a drinks party, Melissa goes to check on her. What she finds chills her to the bone: Her dear neighbor has been murdered, and the killer has painted a hideous smile onto her face. Melissa soon realizes that the death in her village bears the same trademark as a series of recent murders in the Cotswolds.

Imagine if you could hear the trees speak. How would it change your life? Your relationship to the world around you? This is the story of what happened when the trees whispered me to quit my job, leave my life in New York and go on a journey to listen. It is the story of what I learnt from ten trees on five continents–and the lessons that the trees have for all of us on how to be in a rapidly changing world.

Experience Macbeth as a powerful full-cast drama with entertaining and enlightening commentary that explains what's what and who's who as the plot unfolds. To help you get the most out of Shakespeare, the narrator offers historical insights and background information, so you can enjoy the jokes, appreciate the references, and get a real sense of Shakespeare's world.

From the ashes of war rose a song of hope.... A warm-hearted, nostalgic and uplifting saga, The Songbirds of Colliers Row by Jennifer Hart is perfect for fans of Call the Midwife, Donna Douglas and Kate Thompson's Secrets of the Singer Girls and for anyone with a song in their heart.... A village without a voice. That's what the locals are saying about Llandegwen, deep in the Welsh valleys.

Newly married to dashing RAF officer Tom, Irene Farley leaves behind her safe countryside life to move in with his family by the docks in South Shields. Little prepares her for the devastation the Jerry bombers have wreaked on the Sixteen Streets or that they would be living under her mother-in-law's roof, alongside Tom's three brothers and two wives!

Here is the multi award-winning SmartPass study guide, with and without commentary options. This is a full-cast, unabridged performance with comprehensive commentary and analysis to allow any student to fully understand and appreciate the play. Meet literature's greatest villain in this tragedy, fuelled by jealous rage. Journey into the twisted mind of Iago, who freely admits, "I am not what I am", and truly get under the skin of this wondrous play.

Erykah Macdonald has a nice life - the kind of life you're meant to want. But on her 20th wedding anniversary, she's about to cross a line. Several hundred miles away in the shallow waters of a Hebridean island, a body is found. It's been in the water long enough to make identification tricky, but it's clear this is no accidental death. Erykah knows she's about to make a choice she can't reverse - but she's lived with secrets most of her life. She thinks she's ready.

This is Virginia Woolf’s first collection of essays, published in 1925. In them, she attempts to see literature from the point of view of the ‘common reader’ - someone whom she, with Dr Johnson, distinguished from the critic and the scholar. She read, and wrote, as an outsider: a woman set to school in her father’s library, denied the educational privileges of her male siblings - and with no fixed view of what constitutes ‘English literature’. What she produced is an eccentric and unofficial literary and social history from the 14th to the 20th centuries.

In 1895, archaeologists excavating a villa outside Pompeii unearthed a hoard of Roman silverware. Among the treasures was a bowl featuring a female figure with thick, curly hair, deep-set eyes, a slightly hooked nose and a strong jaw, and sporting an elephant scalp headdress. Modern scholars believe this woman to be a depiction of Cleopatra Selene, daughter of the infamous Cleopatra and Mark Antony. Using this discovery as her starting point, Jane Draycott recreates the life and times of a remarkable woman.

Experience Othello as a powerful full-cast drama with entertaining and enlightening commentary that explains what's what and who's who as the plot unfolds. To help you get the most out of Shakespeare, the narrator offers historical insights and background information, so you can enjoy the jokes, appreciate the references, and get a real sense of Shakespeare's world.

After Sappho is Selby Wynn Schwartz's joyous reimagining of the lives of a brilliant group of feminists, sapphists, artists and writers in the late 19th and early 20th century as they battle for control over their lives; for liberation and for justice. Sarah Bernhard—Colette—Eleanora Duse—Lina Poletti—Josephine Baker—Virginia Woolf... these are just a few of the women (some famous, others hitherto unsung) sharing the minutes of a novel as fierce as it is luminous—lush and poetic; furious and funny.

Jess knows it's time to move on from her best friend's couch, where she's been crashing since her boyfriend emptied out her heart, and all her savings. But when she responds to an ad in the newspaper for a lodger on a quiet Notting Hill street, Jess has no idea how life's about to change. Joan has spent too long alone with her memories of the man she walked away from one Manhattan evening years ago. Passing a bedroom door she can't bear to open, she decides to advertise for a lodger. When Jess meets Joan, she recognises a woman left behind by the world, and so she suggests a switch.

May of Teck, only daughter of a noble family fallen from grace, has been selected to marry the troublesome Prince Eddy, heir to the British throne. Submitting to the wishes of Queen Victoria and under pressure from her family, young May agrees. But just as a spark of love and devotion arises between the young couple, Prince Eddy dies of influenza. To her horror, May discovers she is to be married to the brother, Georgie, instead, a cold and domineering man. But what can she do? A gripping account of the life of Queen Mary, one of the most formidable queens of Britain.

Experience Henry V as a powerful full-cast drama with entertaining and enlightening commentary that explains what's what and who's who as the plot unfolds. To help you get the most out of Shakespeare, the narrator offers historical insights and background information, so you can enjoy the jokes, appreciate the references, and get a real sense of Shakespeare's world.

They were reunited at his funeral, school friends with a shared past. A past that is anything but straightforward. A past that harbours secrets and untruths. Karen has a seemingly perfect life. She also has a secret. Sandra's once perfect life is rapidly unravelling. She knows the secret. As the past meets the present, truths are revealed - and both women understand the true cost of betrayal.

Miss Phoebe Westbrook wishes she was anywhere other than at Lord Livesey’s house party. Family loyalty and duty forced her to accept the invitation. When she overhears Lord Livesey’s opinion of her, she knows he feels the same. Determined to make the most of his library whilst visiting, she soon finds herself being drawn into the lives of Lord Livesey and his children, whether she likes it or not. Meanwhile, Lord Livesey has lived a lie. His marriage was not the love match everyone presumed. His children are strangers to him.