Showing results by narrator "Ben" in All Categories

Everybody wants breathable air, a healthy population, civil politics. We want a peaceful world, a stable economy. The fundamental point of politics is to deliver them. And yet clearly our political systems are failing. The answer is that politics we aspire to - democracy, equality, solidarity, security and prosperity - is also the politics that creates traps for us. But there is hope. Ansell explains the cul-de-sac of modern politics - and how we can make it better.

Bailey is 17, mixed race, lives with his mum and dad and spends all his time playing guitar or tending to his luscious afro. Indigo is 17 and newly returned to London, having grown up in the care system after being found by her mum's dead body as a toddler. All Indigo wants is to know who she really is. When Bailey and Indigo meet, sparks fly. But when Bailey becomes the target of a homeless man who seems to know more about Indigo than is normal, Bailey is forced to make a choice he should never have to make.

‘Witty, funny, warm and wise’ Marian Keyes Is it a break? Or is it a blip? ‘You’ve just had a holiday,’ I pointed out, trying not to yawn. ‘Wasn’t that enough of a break?’ ‘I don’t mean that kind of break.’ There’s nothing worse than the last day of holiday. Oh wait...

In 1992, the deadliest year in Chicago’s history, seven-year-old Dantrell Davis was shot and killed in front of his elementary school inside the public housing complex Cabrini-Green. What happened to Dantrell led to a truce among Chicago’s gangs, but it also ignited a national panic about poverty and violence in America’s cities. Dantrell’s name would soon be used to demolish all of Chicago’s high-rise public housing, displacing tens of thousands of low-income families.

My name is Jack Steen, and for those who arrive on my "death" ward at the Asylum, I'm the last face many will see before they die. I am the night nurse at an Asylum for the Criminally Insane, and most of my patients know me as their Angel of Death. I know them as mass murderers, rapists, and serial killers—among other things.

Merglan has the source of true magic within reach. Evils not seen in Kartania for hundreds of years wreak havoc on the forces of Westland. The last of the dragonriders must fight for Kartania’s freedom or be extinguished.

An absolutely joyous, gasp-out-loud achievement. - Stephen Fry A cathedral of consciousness - Shakespeare's uncanny insight into human nature finds us, unearthed here. - LionHeart, artist, poet, and BBC Radio London presenter Shakespeare had an ear and hand that was able to capture our everyday...

Being a confident communicator creates success and happiness. Every conversation could be the start of something new: a new career, a new business idea, or a new friendship. When you clam up in public, you close off all of those opportunities as if they never existed. How to Talk to Absolutely Anyone will help you see conversation differently; as an enjoyable, positive activity that might just change your life.  

'Taylor Downing vividly brings to life a terrible year' Max Hastings, Sunday Times 'Taylor Downing is a wonderful historian and a wonderful history communicator.' Dan Snow, History Hit Eighty years ago, Britain stood at the brink of defeat. In 1942, a string of military disasters engulfed...

Nobody talks about the strange happenings in Maimsbury. No one speaks of the hooded figures glimpsed in the woods, nor the children's game that went so horribly wrong. But most of all, nobody dares whisper their doubts about the river they have worshipped for centuries.

Dive amongst the coral in the weird and wonderful Great Barrier Reef in sunny Australia, climb to the coldest heights of Mount Everest and strap in for some splashingly good fun down the rapids at The Grand Canyon. There are many more natural wonders to visit and so much more to learn and discover about them all ,so don't miss out on this global adventure!

On paper, things looked good for Mark Rice-Oxley: wife, children, fulfilling job. But at his 40th birthday party his world crumbled as he succumbed to depression.… Many men suffer from depression yet it remains a taboo subject. By telling his story, Mark Rice-Oxley hopes to enable others to tell theirs. This is a memoir that is brim-full of experience, understanding, and hope for all who read it.

Scientist, resistance fighter and Holocaust survivor, Primo Levi was one of Italy's greatest writers and an internationally renowned chronicler of human nature. In his masterpiece The Periodic Table, he charts his incredible life story through the medium of chemistry, using the titular list of...

Flynn was only a teenager when her parents were killed in a terrible accident. Too young to lose her parents, too young to take on responsibility for her younger sister Kaiya, too young to protect Kaiya from the harshness of their new lives in the following years. Desperate to help her sister, Flynn reaches out to Willa Tomlinson, a grief counsellor renowned for helping her patients cope with profound loss. Under Willa’s influence and care, Kaiya finally seems to turn a corner, joining the climate action collective that Willa leads.

Chef and restaurateur Ben Shewry knows obsession well. Whether it's crispy-edged lasagne, saltwater crocodile ribs or the perfect potato, obsession is what motivates him and what makes him tick. It's also what has propelled his Melbourne restaurant Attica into the league of the most innovative, acclaimed dining experiences in the world, and one of the most vital in Australian history. 

Why did the discipline of the ancients triumph where modern armies failed? In The Art of War, Niccolò Machiavelli challenges the reliance on mercenaries and advocates for a return to the civic virtues of Rome. Written as a spirited dialogue between a renowned commander and Florentine nobles, this masterpiece is a philosophical treatise on the bond between a society and its defenders.

Some people say 'sconn' while others say 'schown'. He says 'bath' while she says 'bahth'. You say 'potayto'. I say 'potahto'. And - wait a second, no one says 'potahto'. No one's ever said 'potahto'. Have they? From reconstructing Shakespeare's accent to the rise and fall of received pronunciation, actor Ben Crystal and his linguist father, David, travel the world in search of the stories of spoken English.

Author Benjamin Lorr wandered into a yoga studio - and fell down a rabbit hole. Hell-Bent explores a fascinating, often surreal world at the extremes of American yoga. Benjamin Lorr walked into his first yoga studio on a whim, overweight and curious, and quickly found the yoga reinventing his life. He was studying Bikram Yoga (or "hot yoga") when a run-in with a master and competitive yoga champion led him into an obsessive subculture - a group of yogis for whom eight hours of practice a day in 110-degree heat was just the beginning. So begins a journey.

This is the true story of a Londoner who gives up his job as an estate agent in the city, moves to the wilds of Exmoor, starts a smallholding and becomes self-sufficient, with a few bumps along the way. Simon's journey from urbanite to self-sufficient smallholder is brimming with incidents - some funny and some tragic - leading him to question Mother Nature, himself, the food he eats and his role in it all.

The Complete Series in a single offering! The Dragon Sovereign—my father—has ruled our land with integrity and wisdom for almost a hundred years. And now, as his time on the throne nears its end, mine is about to begin. But claiming my rightful destiny won’t be easy. The Great Houses plot my family's downfall, and they will oppose me at every turn. Yet the throne stands ready for a new dragon to claim it, and as the last scion of our honored house, I will not allow anyone to stand in my way.