Showing results by narrator "Simon Hester" in All Categories

"White Nights" is one of Dostoyevsky's shorter works told from the standpoint of an ultimate introvert, brought briefly out of his shell by love. It might have been written 170 years ago, but certain aspects of it are very relatable to the modern listener, especially to those of us who gravitate toward solitude and introversion.

John Bunyan's classic allegory of the Christian journey of pilgrimage has never lost its power to teach the important truths of faith. A Pilgrim's Progress speaks to us as plainly as it has to generations before about the simple yet profound truths of the Christian faith. Narrated by Simon Hester with original music.

"This is a history and not a glorification of Mr. Polly, and I tell of things as they were with him.” So writes H.G Wells toward the end of his story of Mr. Polly, and indeed, the narrator’s voice throughout the book leaves us altogether ambivalent about his protagonist. The diminutive Everyman of the story is neither fully hero nor villain.

One would think that after the momentous events of 1969 H.G Wells’ science fiction adventure The First Men in the Moon would have lost any fascination for the modern listener. Yet, of course, Wells is never concerned merely with the mechanics of science fiction. It is surely the human reaction to these events that grips us and causes us to return again and again to this story.

In the pursuit of Christian maturity and guidance, few works have stood the test of time with as much reverence and wisdom as The Imitation of Christ by Thomas à Kempis. Written in the 15th century, its profound insights continue to resonate with seekers of truth across generations. This timeless masterpiece simply and clearly points us towards Jesus Christ as the authour of faith and the exemplar of Christian living.

Two boys—one a prince, the other a pauper—look so much alike that no one can tell them apart! Join them in the days of old England as they switch places—the prince becoming a pauper and the pauper becoming a prince.

The ghosts of war leave no footprints. When legendary Ottoman seaman Dragut Rais attacked the Maltese islands in 1551, his army left Gozo a smoking ruin emptied of its entire population. Among the 5,000 carried into slavery is Augustine Montesa, father of Domenicus and Katrina. Wounded and broken, Domenicus vows to find his father, even if it means abandoning Angelica, his betrothed.

Today we take for granted the exploration of the fascinating submarine depths of the oceans, so ubiquitous are its many representations on our screens. It is therefore surprising to realise that in his thrilling 1869 novel Jules Verne was anticipating much which was then not even imagined by science. The enigmatic Captain Nemo takes his awe-inspiring Nautilus around the Oceans of the world exploring the deep with its wonders and horrors.

Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (commonly shortened to Alice in Wonderland) is an 1865 novel written by English author Charles Lutwidge Dodgson under the pseudonym Lewis Carroll. It tells of a young girl named Alice falling through a rabbit hole into a fantasy world populated by peculiar, anthropomorphic creatures. The tale plays with logic, giving the story lasting popularity with adults as well as with children.

The violent clash between the Ottoman Empire and the Knights of St John on the island fortress of Malta serves as the backdrop to Eight-Pointed Cross. Young siblings Domenicus and Katrina Montesa live under constant threat of raids by the Ottoman Turks, the staunchest enemies of the Christian knights. All the while, hundreds of leagues away in Istanbul, Demir's dream of becoming an imperial horseman in the Sultan's cavalry is his only salvation against relentless torment by his cruel brother.

1565. Malta stands on the precipice of one of the bloodiest battles in history. An elite Ottoman army, 50,000 strong, prepares to depart Istanbul, the seat of the Empire. Deeply conflicted, Demir must sail alongside the host determined to conquer his mother’s homeland and crush the Order of St John once and for all. Testing his loyalty is the knowledge that Angelica, the half-sister he has never met, dwells on the tiny island.

Perhaps the most famous and most accessible of Dickens' stories, which can be enjoyed every year afresh at Christmastime, as we never tire of the inspirational story of Scrooge's redemption and transformation.

John Buchan himself stated that he set out to write a book in the style of the ubiquitous American “Dime Novel”. What he actually succeeded in creating was a relatively unique and new genre for British literature, the Spy Novel. Those thrilling elements of the fleeing innocent man hunted through the wilds by sinister and undefined dark forces have been explored countless times in books and on screen ever since.

Initially when one thinks of the possibility of becoming invisible the potential results are both intriguing and faintly comical. For H.G Wells however the subject is developed into a narrative that takes the concept of invisibility to its disturbing conclusion. For the author it is always the impact of science upon the Human heart and mind which is of interest and here results in a classic of science fiction.

Wild rabies runs rampant through the woods. The foxes are gaining ground, boldly making their way into the village. In Dichtersruhe, an insular yet charming haven stifled by the Swiss mountains, these omens go unnoticed by all but the new parish priest. The residents have other things on their mind: literature. Everyone’s a writer - the nights are alive with reworked manuscripts. So when the devil turns up in a black car claiming to be a hot-shot publisher, unsatisfied authorial desires are unleashed and the village’s former harmony is shattered.

Far from its popular image, the story of Frankenstein as told by Mary Shelley is not a tale that finds horror in a hideous "monster", or a "crazed" scientist. The darkness in the narrative is found in the profound loneliness of both Creator and Created, as they seek one another in a tragic cycle of unfulfilled longing and revenge.

This powerful novel, first published in 1818, still surprises and shocks us with the fundamental questions about the moral boundaries of human discovery, and helps us to question what it means to be human.

The shadow of Conan Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes would inevitably fall across much of the crime fiction that followed that most famous of detectives. However, in 1910, G.K Chesterton's unassuming, devout, and unprepossessing Father Brown made his first appearance and proved no less of a fascinating figure who would stands firmly on his own two ecclesiastical feet. Head Stories presents the first in a series of the complete Father Brown, read by Simon Hester with original music.

An author who kills off his hero in so dramatic a fashion relatively early in that hero’s literary career (and then of course returns him to life in an equally dramatic manner) has, perhaps, little else to offer us in the final stories of his famous character. Yet in this final series of short stories Conan Doyle does not cease from developing his famous detective, giving us a fascinating selection of tales.

Jerome. K. Jerome allows us to laugh, with and at, both himself and ourselves, in his writing. As we peruse his “Idle Thoughts” on subjects ranging from babies to ambition, from dogs to poverty, we find that the dust of over a hundred years have not dimmed the mirror in which we look. Jerome, as in his other comic works, presents a seeming stream of consciousness that can shift in a moment from the ridiculous to the sublime, from self-deprecation to intense longing.

The Picture of Dorian Gray is a novel which shocks us still. The sensibilities of its original Victorian readership may have blanched at the exoticism and barely disguised eroticism which drip from Wilde’s prose, but for us today who barely look twice at such things, we find something much more horrific at the heart of the book.