Showing results by narrator "Roy McMillan" in All Categories

One in four adults sleeps badly. Sleeping pill prescriptions have increased dramatically over the last three decades, and our bookshelves and browser histories are littered with experts promising to 'fix' our insomnia. But is this so-called sleep crisis anything new? Our relationship to sleep has always been irregular and changeable, shaped by social conventions, commercial imperatives and personal psychologies. Look beneath the headlines and it seems that there is no such thing as a perfect night's sleep. Here Darian Leader reveals the history and pathology of sleeplessness.

Penguin Audio presents The Plant Messiah by Carlos Magdalena, read by Roy McMillan. Carlos Magdalena of Kew Gardens is not your average botanical horticulturist. He's a man on a mission to save the world's most endangered plants from ecological destruction and thieves hunting for wealthy collectors. He is a plant messiah. From the planet's tiniest waterlily - the Nymphaea thermarum - to Huarango trees with roots over 50 metres long, Carlos has a miraculous ability to bring breathtakingly beautiful plants back from the brink of extinction.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Jeremy Paxman's Great Britain's Great War. Read by the actor Roy McMillan, this magnificent history of the First World War tells the story of the war in one gripping narrative from the point of view of the British people. We may think we know about it, but what was life really like for the British people during the First World War?

The Pax Britannica trilogy is Jan Morris’ magnificent history of the British Empire from 1837 to 1965. This final volume charts the decline and dissolution of what was once the largest empire the world had known. From the first signs of decay in the imperial ambition in the Boer Wars, through the global shifts in power evident in the two World Wars, it offers a perspective that is honest, evocative, and occasionally elegiac.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of 'Broadsword Calling Danny Boy' by Geoff Dyer, read by Roy McMillan. From the acclaimed writer and critic Geoff Dyer, an extremely funny scene-by-scene analysis of Where Eagles Dare - published as the film reaches its 50th anniversary. A thrilling Alpine adventure starring a magnificent, bleary-eyed Richard Burton and a coolly anachronistic Clint Eastwood, Where Eagles Dare is the apex of 1960s war movies, by turns enjoyable and preposterous. 'Broadsword Calling Danny Boy' is Geoff Dyer's tribute to the film he has loved since childhood.

As war spreads like wildfire, the Smoke Thieves face their greatest challenges yet. With her father tightening his grip on the Northern Plateau, Catherine sends her loyal bodyguard Ambrose into the dragon's den on a desperate mission to disrupt the supply of smoke. In Calidor, Edyon and March face a future divided while, trapped in the demon world, Tash wrestles with the price of her past. But as the battle for the human kingdoms reaches its climax, the demon realm reveals a final, terrible secret.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Face of Britain by Simon Schama, read by Simon Schama and Roy McMillian. Churchill and his painter locked in a struggle of stares and glares; Gainsborough watching his daughters run after a butterfly; a naked John Lennon five hours before his death. Simon Schama has written a tour de force about British portraits over the centuries.

After everything Leif has been through in Arena 13, it's finally time for him to fulfil his destiny and accompany his father's people beyond the barrier that imprisons all mankind. Meanwhile, Kwin, the girl he loves, is making waves in the arena as the first woman ever to grace its fighting floor. In their own ways, each of them is fighting to bring down the superhuman monsters that threaten the last people on earth. They might have picked fights they can't win. But freedom could be something worth dying for.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Athelstan: The Making of England by Tom Holland, read by Roy McMillan. The formation of England happened against the odds - the division of the country into rival kingdoms, the assaults of the Vikings, the precarious position of the island on the edge of the known world. But King Alfred ensured the survival of Wessex, his son Eadweard expanded it, and his grandson Æthelstan finally united Mercia and Wessex, conquered Northumbria and became Rex totius Britanniae.

This is the story of our love affair with books, whether we arrange them on our shelves, inhale their smell, scrawl in their margins or just curl up with them in bed. Taking us on a journey through comfort reads, street book stalls, mythical libraries, itinerant pedlars, radical pamphleteers, extraordinary bookshop customers and fanatical collectors, Canterbury Bookseller Martin Latham uncovers the curious history of our book obsession - and his own.

Demobilised officer, finding peace incredibly tedious, would welcome diversion. Legitimate if possible; excitement essential. When Captain Hugh Drummond, DSO, MC placed that advertisement, he was looking for adventure. What he finds is an international plot headed by the greatest criminal mastermind in the world.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of George and the Ship of Time by Lucy Hawking, read by Roy McMillan and Sophie Aldred. When George finds a way to escape the spacecraft Artemis, where he has been trapped, he is overjoyed. Surely now he can return to Earth. But when George touches down, he knows immediately that something is wrong. There’s a barren wasteland where his home town used to be, intelligent robots roam the streets and no one will talk to George about the Earth that he used to know.

John Donne, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert, Thomas Carew, and Henry Vaughan: these were some of the 17th-century writers who devised a new form of poetry full of wit, intellect and grace, which we now call Metaphysical poetry. They wrote about their deepest religious feelings and their carnal pleasures in a way that was radically new and challenging to their readers. Their work was largely misunderstood or ignored for two centuries, until 20th-century critics rediscovered it, finding in it a deep originality and a willingness to experiment.

Anyone who has ever gone for a run, a jog or even a walk knows that uplifting, happy feeling they get at the end of their journey. Some call it the runner's high; others put it down to endorphins. Here William Pullen teaches us focus that incredible energy to experience our emotions in motion. In Run for Your Life, Pullen argues that we need a radical new approach to mindfulness - an approach which originates in the body itself.

The fifth in the new Naxos AudioBooks series "In a Nutshell", The French Revolution is a short and accessible introduction to one of the most important periods in European history. It brings vividly to life the implacable Robespierre, the frightened Marie Antoinette and the iconic image of the guillotine. But it also demonstrates the key role the Revolution played in the development of European politics.

Melanie Lange has disappeared. Her father, Sir Peter Lange, says she is a danger to herself and has been admitted to a private mental health clinic. Her ex-husband, Finn, and best friend, Nell, say she has been kidnapped. The media will say whichever gets them the most views. But whose side are you on?

Laila and her husband, James, arrive for a week's holiday in the Maldives, much in need of a fresh start. While James spends his time exploring the island, Laila relaxes by the pool and finds herself drawn to the seemingly perfect family who arrived on the same flight as them. Emilia is on holiday with her husband and 12-year-old twin boys. She has no idea who Laila is or that she has been watching her family since they arrived. Emilia is enjoying her holiday far too much to worry about anyone else. But five days later Emilia's world is blown apart by a horrifying accident.

This is our blue planet: a beautiful blue marble suspended in a sea of stars. Unlike billions of other worlds in the Milky Way, 71 percent of our blue planet is covered by ocean. It's home to the greatest diversity of life on Earth but is our least explored habitat; we've better maps of Mars than of the ocean floor. With so much more to discover, take a deep breath...and dive into a wondrous world beneath the waves. Explore coral reefs that shimmer in a kaleidoscope of colours. Venture to the bottom of the ocean, where creatures beyond your wildest imagination live in the dark.

Welcome to Frozen Planet II. Dive under the ice ceiling and learn to swim with the seal pups, take to the skies with frozen flamingos, and settle in for a snooze with a windy walrus. Watch orcas sneak up on bowhead whales while they're relaxing in the spa, meet a Greenland shark that is easily 250 years old, and witness the polar bears who are finding their food closer and closer to humans. Hold your breath in the frozen forest where wolves play hide-and-seek with bison, and meet the lemmings that outwit an arctic fox by building their home right under her feet, buried deep beneath the snow.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of The Shadow Hour by Kate Riordan, read by Eve Webster, Rachel Bavidge, Andy Secombe, Roy Mcmillan, Helen Fraser, Daniel Weyman and Steven France. Nineteen twenty-two. Grace has been sent to the stately and crumbling Fenix House to follow in her grandmother's footsteps as a governess.