Showing results by narrator "Anna Bentinck" in All Categories

In 2018 Britain will celebrate the centenary of women getting the vote; during the intervening 10 decades the lives of women in this country have been transformed. Told in their own voices, The Century Girls celebrates seven centenarians who lived that change: what they saw, how they were treated, who they loved, what they did and where they are now. With stories that are intimately knitted into the history of these islands, The Century Girls is a time-travel adventure featuring society’s oldest, most precious national treasures.

This is the diary of Sarah Shaw for the year of 1971, which she recently uncovered whilst clearing out her loft. Working as a secretary for the BBC at the time, Sarah's diary describes the life of a suburban girl who certainly wasn't 'swinging' but who was, ironically, not only working on a cutting edge BBC survey on sex education but also in the throes of an unlikely affair with middle-aged, working-class, Irish lift attendant, Frank.

Eli is an ordinary boy with an extraordinary gift. It will shape the course of his whole life. Cousin Francesca, a charming spinster and a favourite with the children, is harbouring kleptomaniac tendencies. Sarah Palliser, living alone next to a ramshackle graveyard, is more scared of the small box under her stairs than the ghosts outside her window.

Soho in the 1980s is electric. For Eliza, the heady pull of its nightclubs and free-spirited people leads her into the life she has craved - all glamour, late nights and excitement. But it comes at a heavy cost. Cassie is fascinated by her family's history and the abandoned Beaufont Hall. Why won't her mother talk about it? Offered the chance to restore Beaufont to its former glory, Cassie jumps at the opportunity to learn more about her past. Separated by a generation but linked by a forgotten diary, these two women have more in common than they know....

Chile - Culture Smart! provides essential information on attitudes, beliefs, and behavior in Chile, ensuring that you arrive at your destination aware of basic manners, common courtesies, and sensitive issues. This concise guide will tell you what to expect, how to behave, and how to establish a rapport with your hosts. This inside knowledge will enable you to steer clear of embarrassing gaffes and mistakes, feel confident in unfamiliar situations, and develop trust, friendships, and successful business relationships.

The island of Ireland is famous for its timeless beauty, the variety of its landscape, its quiet towns and lively cities, the poetic and literary genius of so many of its citizens, its music and folklore, and its colorful and bloody history. Businesspeople and visitors who don't know Ireland will find this book an invaluable introduction to the people, the country, and the economic opportunities it offers, while if you think you know Ireland and the Irish, you will find plenty here to broaden and deepen that knowledge, and plenty that will surprise you.

Cool Britannia is alive and well today. British culture is at the top of its game - in fashion, popular music, art and entertainment, science and technology, new inventions, and the rediscovered skills and excellence in engineering that make it Germany's leading trading partner in Europe. As a family of nations, the British are inventive, reflective, good humored, funny, focused, and tenacious.

There's more going on in The Street than its inhabitants realize.... In the course of this delightful, quirky and perceptive audiobook, an elderly soldier with incipient Alzheimer's saves the life of a remarkable child, a resting actor finds real purpose, a woman starved of love discovers it in an unexpected place and a beloved cat achieves immortality.

Maria King knows a secret London. Born blind, she knows the city by sound and touch and smell. But surgery has restored her sight - only for her to find she doesn't want it. Jonathan Dark sees the shadowy side of the city. A DI with the Metropolitan Police, he is haunted by his failure to save a woman from the hands of stalker. Now it seems the killer has set his sights on Maria and is leaving her messages in the most gruesome of ways.

Joan Seabrook, a fledgling archaeologist, has fulfilled a lifelong dream to visit Arabia by travelling from England to the ancient city of Muscat with her fiancé, Rory. Desperate to escape the pain of a personal tragedy, she longs to explore the desert fort of Jabrin and unearth the treasures it is said to conceal. But Oman is a land lost in time - hard, secretive and in the midst of a violent upheaval - and gaining permission to explore Jabrin could prove impossible.

Joan Bomford, BBC Countryfile's Farming Hero of 2015, has lived all her life in the lush, rolling countryside of the Vale of Evesham, where cows graze the water meadows of the River Avon and modern life seems far away. Farming is in Joan's blood. Generations of her family have worked the land, and in Up with the Lark, Joan tells us with warmth, wit and great insight what it's been like to live through an era of such enormous change.

In 2006, three-year-old Phoebe Piper went missing. Despite massive publicity, no trace of her was ever found. Seven years later, Molly Jackson, aged 10, finds her great uncle Dan dead in his bed. Molly remembers nothing of her early years, but she's been sure for ages that she is Phoebe. Now, finally, she has proof. Dan's death brings his sister Janice back to Norfolk where she's reunited with Molly's mother Suze, the daughter she gave up for adoption decades earlier.

Jane Gardam reveals again her brilliant diversity and deep understanding of the human condition. In "Light", an evocative, lyrical piece of magic realism, a beautiful Himalayan girl defies the destiny laid out for her by her mother but in so doing destroys the village in which she was born. In "Missing the Midnight", a young woman, having failed her exams and lost the man she loves, journeys home on Christmas Eve to the family she despises.

Winner of the Académie Française award 2010. "In a house on a suburban street in Nagasaki, meteorologist Shimura Kobo lives quietly on his own. Or so he believes. Food begins to go missing. Perturbed by this threat to his orderly life, Shimura sets up a webcam to monitor his home. But though eager to identify his intruder, is Shimura really prepared for what the camera will reveal? This prize-winning novel is a heart-rending tale of alienation in the modern world.

In 1945, two brothers die in the icy Barents Sea and a book is all that survives of them. More than 60 years later, Donny and his mother set out for Suffolk to meet his mysterious great aunt. There is an accident and Donny is taken into care. But are the officials all that they seem and why won't they believe Donny's story? Soon he discovers that his life has been built on a lie.

A middle-class woman at her wits' end and a struggling migrant worker with few options for survival. When tensions boil over, who will be the first to snap? Will it be Theodora, finally breaking under the pressure? Or Mona, desperate to find a way out? Two women. Two stories. Who do you believe?

It is 1841. Patty Clare is married to John Clare: peasant poet, genius, and madman. Travelling home one day, Patty is shocked to find her husband sitting at the side of the road, having absconded from a lunatic asylum. Delighted to see him, she is devastated when it becomes clear that John's mental health has deteriorated, and he now thinks himself married twice: to both Patty and his childhood sweetheart. Patty still loves John deeply but he seems lost to her, obsessed with the idealised memory of another woman. She finds herself consumed with jealousy and struggling to cope with her unruly family.

Rona Parish is asked to write a biography of reclusive artist Ellie by her concerned sister. Ellie has seemingly disappeared, and the mystery surrounding her whereabouts has fuelled a new interest in her work. But when Rona discovers that Ellie’s closest friend committed suicide, Rona wonders whether Ellie, wracked by guilt over her friend’s death, could have been driven to do likewise....

An old school photograph in which someone has been deliberately blacked out marks the start of a new case for Rona Parish. Who was this person and why would someone want to hide his or her identity? Rona sets out to uncover the secret and soon finds that the school in question closed down many years ago due, it was rumoured, to a long-forgotten scandal. Could this be the link that will solve the mystery? Meanwhile, a visit to a stage hypnotist results in more than Rona and her friends bargained for...

Our Island Story by H. E. Marshall is an Edwardian history book for younger listeners (aged six to 12) that tells the story of England, concluding with the reign of Queen Victoria. Antonia Fraser and many other current historians declare that it was this book that opened the delights of history for them. It fell from fashion in the 1960s, but its recent re-release in hardback has seen it become a publishing surprise in the UK, with sales of some 75,000 copies in a few months.