Showing results by narrator "Alex Jennings" in All Categories

In the great floating city of Sanctaphrax, blizzards howl through the streets as the Edgeworld descends into an endless winter. Quint, the son of a sky pirate, has just begun his training at the Knights Academy - training that involves heading out over the Edge on tethers to develop his flying skills. But when Quint breaks the rules and head out to Open Sky on his own, he runs into the great sky leviathan known as a cloud-eater.

Brought to you by Penguin. Fourteen-year-old Quint Verginix is the only remaining son of famous sky-pirate Wind Jackal. He and his father have journeyed to the city of Sanctaphrax - a great floating rock, bound to the ground below by a chain, its inhabitants living with their heads literally in...

One of the most important and influential Russian writers of the 19th century, Fyodor Dostoevsky is admired worldwide for his great realist novels, exploring questions of morality, philosophy and the nature of existence. This compilation contains the BBC radio productions of his four most famous novels - as well as three lesser-known works and two bonus documentaries - collected together for the first time.

George Hall doesn't understand the modern obsession with talking about everything. 'The secret of contentment, George felt, lay in ignoring many things completely.' Some things in life, however, cannot be ignored. At fifty-seven, George is settling down to a comfortable retirement, building a...

For 70 years now Desert Island Discs has managed that rare feat - to be both enduring and relevant. By casting away the biggest names of the day in science, business, politics, showbiz, sport, and the arts, it presents a cross-sectional snapshot of the times in which we live. As the decades have passed, the programme has kept pace; never frozen in time yet always, somehow, comfortingly the same.

BBC Radio 4’s Desert Island Discs celebrates its 70 birthday in 2012.

In the summer of 1983, 23-year-old Nick Guest moves into an attic room in the Notting Hill home of the wealthy Feddens: Gerald, an ambitious Tory MP, his wife, Rachel, and their children, Toby and Catherine. Innocent of politics and money, Nick is swept up into the Feddens' world and an era of endless possibility, all the while pursuing his own private obsession with beauty. 

Brought to you by Penguin. 'One of the best books I've ever read' Richard Osman A damaged survivor of the First World War, Tom Birkin finds refuge in the quiet village church of Oxgodby where he is to spend the summer uncovering a huge medieval wall-painting. Immersed in the peace and beauty of...

Dramatisations of some of Kipling’s finest fiction for adults, including ‘The Man Who Would Be King’ and The Light That Failed Well-known for his poems and stories set in India during British Imperial rule, Rudyard Kipling was the first English author to win the Nobel Prize for Literature...

This is one of the defining novels of English writer Julian Barnes. An entertaining melange of stories starting with a contemporary account of the launch of Noah's Ark takes us into unexpected areas of human foibles, activities, and tendencies.

In this incredible companion to the second and third seasons of Netflix's acclaimed series The Crown, renowned biographer and the show's historical consultant Robert Lacey takes us through the real history that inspired the drama. Covering two tumultuous decades in the reign of Elizabeth II, Lacey looks at the key social, political and personal moments and the effect they had not only on the royal family but also on the world around them.

The 150 Psalms contain some of the most inspiring lines in the Old Testament: Psalm 23 "The Lord is My Shepherd" and Psalm 121 "I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills". Yet few know them as a set, and this recording, in Alex Jennings' clear performance, allows us to consider them as a whole. They are not all uplifting and comfortable. Many involve darker sentiments of revenge or punishment; many appear to be by David or about David; others are To the chief Musician upon Gittith.

Smiley, wrestling with retirement and disillusionment, is summoned to a secret meeting with a member of the Cabinet Office. Evidence has emerged that the Circus has been infiltrated at the highest level by a Russian agent. 'Find the mole, George. Clean the stables. Do whatever is necessary.' Reluctantly Smiley agrees, and so embarks on a dark journey into his past a past filled with love, duplicity and betrayal.

Jasper Maskelyne was a world famous magician and illusionist in the 1930s. When war broke out, he volunteered his services to the British Army and was sent to Egypt when the desert war began. Here, he used his unique skills to save the vital port of Alexandria from German bombers and to 'hide' the Suez Canal from them. He invented all sorts of camouflage methods to make trucks look like tanks and vice versa. On Malta he developed 'the world's first portable holes': fake bomb craters used to fool the Germans into thinking they had hit their targets.

The final volume of Susan Cooper's brilliant and absorbing fantasy sequence known as The Dark Is Rising. The Dark is rising in its last and greatest bid to control the world. And Will Stanton--last-born of the immortal Old Ones, dedicated to keeping the world free--must join forces with his...

A master of Russian realism, Anton Chekhov is renowned for his meticulously observed plays and short stories exploring the human condition, in all its joys and sorrows. Included here are six of his best-known dramas, as well as Michael Frayn's adaptation of Wild Honey, drawn from an early, untitled Chekhov play; and one documentary exploring Chekhov's life and work. 

Brought to you by Penguin. Unlikely best friends Thomas and Grace are bound together by questions of faith, love and astronomy in this dazzling summer read from the #1 bestselling author. Thomas Hart and Grace Macaulay have lived all their lives in the small Essex town of Aldleigh. Though...

Since his childhood in the Deepwoods, young Twig has always longed to soar above the forest canopy and explore the sky. Now a lowly crew member on his father's sky pirate ship, the Stormchaser, his dream seems fulfilled. But a much higher destiny awaits Twig as plots and treacheries from many years ago bring the lofty city of Sanctaphrax, home of the Edgeworld's most learned academics, to the point of disaster.

One of Russia's most iconic poets, Alexander Pushkin is often described as the 'father of Russian literature'. A gambler, playboy and social reformer, he was exiled by the Tsar for his controversial poetry and died aged 37 in a duel defending his wife's honour. This BBC Radio anthology includes dramatisations and readings of Pushkin's most famous works - plus biographical programmes and an original play based on his life.

Read by actor Alex Jennings, Patrick Melrose Volume 1 contains the first three novels in Edward St Aubyn's semi-autobiographical series, filmed for Sky Atlantic and starring Benedict Cumberbatch as aristocratic addict, Patrick. Moving from Provence to New York to Gloucestershire, from the...

Simon, Jane and Barney, enlisted by their mysterious great uncle, arrive in a small coastal town to help recover a priceless golden grail stolen by the forces of evil, the Dark. They are not at first aware of the strange powers of another boy brought to help, Will Stanton—nor of the sinister...