Autobiographies and biographies 7 - RNIB Library > Home



Autobiographies and biographies 7Talking BooksThe titles in this booklist are just a selection of the titles available for loan from the RNIB National Library Talking Book Service.Don’t forget you are allowed to have up to 6 books on loan. When you return a title, you will then receive another one.If you would like to read any of these titles then please contact the Helpline on 0303 123 9999 or email helpline@.uk.You can search our online catalogue and add titles directly to your wish list by visiting . You can log onto your account in the My Library section with your customer number and pin number. These can be obtained from Helpline. For any further help in selecting books please contact the Reader Services Team on 01733 37 5333 or email libraryinfo@.uk ContentsEntertainment page 2Authors and journalistspage 4Artists and musicianspage 9Science and engineeringpage 11Politicalpage 13Royaltypage 15Sportpage 17Courage and inspirationpage 18Miscellaneouspage 22EntertainmentBlessed, Brian. Absolute pandemonium: the autobiography. 2015. TB23586.Brian Blessed is a national treasure, an actor whose career spans over 50 years with over 200 TV and film appearances and dozens of iconic roles. He's also an explorer and mountaineer, and a boxer who has sparred with Joe Louis and Mohammad Ali. Now this gifted raconteur is sharing his extraordinary story of a life lived to the full.Read by Brian Blessed. 13 hours 47 minutes. TB23586.Courtenay, Tom. Dear Tom: letters from home. 2001. TB23147.Tom Courtenay was born in Hull in 1937 and brought up near the fish dock where his father worked. When he left home for university, his mother, Annie, wrote to him every week and when her letters became more intimate in response to Tom's unhappiness he kept everyone, not knowing that after her early death they were to become his most treasured possession.Read by Raymond Sawyer. 13 hours 28 minutes. TB23147.Cryer, Barry. Butterfly brain. 2010. TB23914.Barry Cryer has collaborated with some of the great names in comedy from the mid-1950s onwards. Baz recalls, reminisces, recounts and other words beginning with 'R', on a trip down Memory Lane, pausing only for tea and macaroons at the Stannah Stairlift Cafe. What memories, if only he can remember them! Contains swear words.Read by Ric Jerrom. 5 hours 45 minutes. TB23914.Eliot, Marc. James Stewart: a biography. 2007. TB23632.Jimmy Stewart's all-American good looks, boyish charm, and easy going style made him one of Hollywood's greatest stars. After winning an Academy Award for The Philadelphia Story, Stewart was drafted into the Armed Forces and became a war hero. When he returned to Hollywood, Stewart's career thrived and so did his personal life.Read by Stuart Milligan. 17 hours 47 minutes. TB23632.Harris, Bob. Still whispering after all these years: my autobiography. 2015. TB23885.In this fully revised and updated autobiography, Bob tells his story of over 40 years of broadcasting with the BBC, from the young, passionate music fan who moved to London determined to make music his life, to being presented with an OBE for his services to music broadcasting. Bob also reveals all about working with the big names of rock, including the Rolling Stones, Elton John, Led Zeppelin and David Bowie.Read by David Rintoul. 11 hours 4 minutes. TB23885.Hytner, Nicholas. Balancing acts: behind the scenes at the National Theatre. 2017. TB24125.This is the inside story of twelve years at the helm of Britain’s greatest theatre. It is a story of lunatic failures and spectacular successes such as The History Boys, War Horse and One Man, Two Guvnors. The author recounts the opening of the doors of the National Theatre to a broader audience than ever before, and changing the public’s perception of what theatre is for.Read by Nicholas Hytner. 11 hours 9 minutes. TB24125.Izzard, Eddie. Believe me: a memoir of love, death and jazzChickens. 2017. TB24295.The stand-up comedian of his generation. Star of stage and screen. Tireless supporter of charity. Runner. Political campaigner. Fashion icon. Human. There is no one quite like Eddie Izzard. This is the story of how a boy who wanted to become a professional footballer and win the lead in 'Joseph and His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat' found comedy.Read by Eddie Izzard. 14 hours 37 minutes. TB24295.Jason, David. Only fools and stories. 2017. TB24441.David Jason tells us about the many lives he has lived – his characters. From Del Boy to Granville, Pop Larkin to Frost, he takes us behind the scenes and under the skins of some of the best loved acts of his career. And in the process he reflects on how those characters changed his life too. The result told with his characteristic charm and wit is both funny and poignant, honest and heart-warming.Read by David Jason and Michael Fenton Stevens. 7 hours 58 minutes. TB24441.Jones, Tom. Over the top and back. 2015. TB23497.In a career that has spanned six decades, Sir Tom Jones has performed with almost every major recording artist, from Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis and Sinatra, to Robbie Williams, Van Morrison and Jessie J, across every imaginable genre, from rock and pop to country, blues and soul. The one constant throughout has been his unique musical gift and unmistakable voice.Read by Jonathan Price. 12 hours 28 minutes. TB23497.Khorsandi, Shappi. A beginner's guide to acting English. 2010. TB23029.It's 1977 and life in Iran is becoming unpredictable. For five-year-old Shappi Khorsandi all this means is that she must flee, leaving behind everything she has ever known. Shappi and her family arrive in London, without a word of English. If adapting to a new culture isn't troubling enough, it soon becomes clear that the Ayatollah's henchmen are in pursuit.Read by Avita Jay. 12 hours 53 minutes. TB23029.Lenska, Rula. Rula: my colourful life. 2015. TB23363.Rula’s is an extraordinary life. Born in Britain to Polish aristocrats, Rula found fame in the 1970s as Q in the TV series Rock Follies. Shortly afterwards she accidentally conquered America with the infamous VO5 hair advert. But her success has often been tempered with heartache.Read by Rula Lenska. 7 hours 42 minutes. TB23363.Martinez, Francesca. What the **** is normal?! 2015. TB23529.What do you do when you're labelled abnormal in a world obsessed with normality? What the **** do you do if you're, gasp, disabled? When Francesca was two years old, she was diagnosed with cerebral palsy. Her parents were told by a consultant that she would never lead a normal life. For many girls, this would have meant hiding away and accepting some things were beyond their reach. Not this girl.Read by Francesca Martinez. 11 hours 9 minutes. TB23529.Packham, Chris. Fingers in the sparkle jar: lessons in life and death. 2016. TB23535.An introverted, unusual young boy, Chris Packham was only at home in the fields and woods around his suburban home. But when he stole a young kestrel from its nest, he was about to embark on a friendship that would change him forever. In his emotionally exposing memoir, Chris brings to life his childhood in the 70s. But pervading his story is the search for freedom, meaning and acceptance in a world that didn't understand him.Read by Chris Packham. 8 hours 50 minutes. TB23535.Authors and journalistsAaronovitch, David. Party animals: my family and other Communists. 2017. TB24165.David Aaronovitch grew up in a family of devout British Communists. In this idiosyncratic blend of memoir, history and biography, David Aaronovitch uncovers the story of his family's life by picking through letters, diaries and secret service files, which in turn unleash vivid childhood memories of a lost and idealistic world.Read by David Aaronovitch.10 hours 50 minutes. TB24165.Athill, Diana. Alive, alive oh! and other things that matter. 2017. TB23863.Several years ago, Diana accepted that she could no longer live independently, and moved to a retirement home in Highgate. There, she found herself released from the daily anxieties of life, and free to settle into her remaining years. She reflects on what it feels like to be very old, and on the moments in her long life which sustain her in these last years.Read by Sheila Mitchell. 4 hours 23 minutes. TB23863.Barber, Lynn. A curious career. 2014. TB23299.Lynn, by her own admission, has always suffered from a compelling sense of nosiness. This talent for nosiness, coupled with her unusual lack of the very English fear of social embarrassment, is the perfect blend for a celebrity interviewer. Barber takes us through her early career at Penthouse where she started out interviewing foot fetishists, voyeurs, and dominatrices through her later more eminent career at the 'Telegraph' and 'Sunday Times'.Read by Alison Larkin. 6 hours 35 minutes. TB23299.Barnes, Julian. Levels of life. 2013. TB23300.You put together two things that have not been put together before and the world is changed. In Levels of Life Julian Barnes gives us Nadar, the pioneer balloonist and aerial photographer; he gives us Colonel Fred Burnaby, reluctant adorer of the extravagant Sarah Bernhardt; then, finally, he gives us the story of his own grief, unflinchingly observed. This is at once a celebration of love and a profound examination of sorrow.Read by Julian Barnes. 3 hours 13 minutes. TB23300.Bennett, Alan. Keeping on keeping on. 2016. TB23663.Alan Bennett's 'Keeping On Keeping On' contains Bennett's diaries 2005 to 2015, reflecting on a decade that saw four premieres at the National Theatre, a West End double-bill transfer, and the films of 'The History Boys' and 'The Lady in the Van'. There's a sermon on private education given before the University at King's College Chapel, Cambridge, and 'Baffled at a Bookcase' offers a passionate defence of the public library. Contains swear words.Read by Sean Baker. 23 hours 23 minutes. TB23663.Callow, Simon. Orson Welles: the road to Xanadu (Abridged). 2017. TB700039.The first volume of Simon Callow's biography takes us from Welles' birth and boyhood to Citizen Kane. By ten, Orson Welles was an artist, an actor and a poet; by thirteen, he was directing theatre and reviewing opera. Simon Callow writes of Welles' career in the theatre, in radio, and in the cinema, where at the age of twenty-three, with no previous experience in the medium, Welles made Citizen Kane. This is an abridged audiobook.Read by Simon Callow. 5 hours 35 minutes. TB700039.Davies, Hunter. William Wordsworth: a biography. 1980. TB3739.William Wordsworth told his story through his verse. This work on the poet's entire life and times, draws upon the letters and diaries of Wordsworth and his sister Dorothy, and of their contemporaries Coleridge and Southey. Hunter Davies also draws upon his own knowledge of the Lake District, which featured so strongly in Wordsworth life, to present a complete portrait of the poet.Read by Garard Green. 16 hours 11minutes. TB3739.Ellis, Samantha. Take courage: Anne Bronte and the art of life. 2017. TB24037.Anne Bronte is the forgotten Bronte sister, overshadowed by her older siblings. This is Samantha's personal, poignant and surprising journey into the life and work of a woman side-lined by history. A brave, strongly feminist writer well ahead of her time, and her more celebrated siblings, and who has much to teach us about how to find our way in the world.Read by Madeleine Brolly. 10 hours 19 minutes. TB24037.Forsyth, Frederick. The outsider: my life in intrigue. 2015. TB23515.Forsyth was the youngest pilot to qualify with the RAF. He was stationed in East Berlin as a journalist during the Cold War. Then went to Africa covering the bloodiest civil war in living memory. Three years later, broke and out of work, he wrote his game-changing first novel, The Day of the Jackal. Forsyth has seen some of the most exhilarating moments of the last century, travelling the world. He’s been shot at, he’s been arrested, he’s even been seduced by an undercover agent. Read by Robert Powell. 10 hours 21minutes. TB23515.Harman, Claire. Charlotte Bront?: a life. 2015. TB24382.Charlotte Bronte's life contained all the drama and tragedy of the great Gothic novels it inspired. She was raised motherless on remote Yorkshire moors and sent away to a strict boarding school at a young age. She watched as, one by one, her five beloved siblings sickened and died. Throughout her adult life she was haunted by a great and unrequited love.Read by Claire Harman. 15 hours 27 minutes. TB24382.Hawksley, Lucinda. Katey: the life and loves of Dickens's artist daughter. 2006. TB24096.Katey Dickens was a nineteenth-century artist and socialite, and the beautiful daughter of Charles Dickens. Blessed with a privileged upbringing in a family that moved between London, France, Switzerland and Italy, Katey pursued her love of painting, acted in her father's plays, modelled for John Everett Millais and, as the daughter of the most famous writer of the time, enjoyed a high profile in Victorian society. Read by Laura Costello. 15 hours 55 minutes. TB24096.Larman, Alexander. Byron's women. 2016. TB24007.Nine women; one poet named George Gordon, Lord Byron was mad, bad and dangerous to know. The most flamboyant of the Romantics, he wrote literary best sellers; he was a satirist of genius; and he embodied the Romantic love of liberty. He was the prototype of the modern celebrity and he treated women abominably. Alex Larman tells their extraordinary, moving and often shocking stories. Read by Kris Dyer. 13 hours 50 minutes. TB24007.Le Carré, John. The pigeon tunnel: stories from my life. 2016. TB24299.This is a thrilling journey into the worlds of his 'secret sharers' - the men and women, who inspired some of his most enthralling novels. The reader is swept along not just by the chilling winds of the Cold War or by the author's journeys into places of terrible violence but, most importantly, by the author's inimitable voice.Read by John le Carré. 11 hours 47 minutes. TB24299.Lodge, David. Quite a good time to be born: a memoir: 1935-1975. 2015. TB23733.David looks back over his youth, including his years at University College London, where he met Mary, his future wife. After National Service, and two years' postgraduate research, married at last and soon a father, he struggles to make a start as both novelist and academic, until a lucky break brings him a job at the University of Birmingham and a stimulating friendship with a colleague of similar ambition, Malcolm Bradbury.Read by David Timson. 15 hours 22 minutes. TB23733.Mortimer, Roger. Dear Lupin. 2012. TB23333.Nostalgic, witty and filled with characters and situations that people of all ages will recognise, Dear Lupin is the correspondence of a father to his only son, spanning nearly 25 years. Roger Mortimer's sometimes hilarious, sometimes touching, always generous letters to his son are packed with anecdotes and sharp observations, with a unique analogy for every scrape Charlie Mortimer got himself into.Read by David Horovitch and Nicky Henson. 5 hours 2 minutes. TB23333.Pepys, Samuel. The diary of Samuel Pepys: Volume I, 1660-1663. 2015. TB24202.From 1661-1691, Samuel Pepys kept a record of what he saw and heard and the people he met. Volume I covers the opening years of the Restoration and introduces us to many of the key characters family, government and royalty. Pepys was there when Charles II returned to England, and he lived through those opening years of the Stuart monarchy, with its revenge on the regicides. Read by Leighton Pugh. 42 hours 40 minutes. TB24202.Also;Pepys, Samuel. The diary of Samuel Pepys: Volume II, 1664-1666. 2015. TB24204Read by Leighton Pugh. 37 hours 32 minutes. TB24204Pepys, Samuel. The diary of Samuel Pepys: Volume III, 1667-1669. 2015. TB24205Read by Leighton Pugh. 36 hours 6 minutes. TB24205Phinn, Gervase. Road to the Dales: the story of a Yorkshire lad. 2011. TB23160.Gervase tells of a life full of happiness, conversation, music and books shared with his three siblings, mother and father. This title is a snapshot of growing up in Yorkshire in the 1950s - reminisce with Gervase, and share in his personal journey – of school days and holidays as well as his tentative steps into the adult world.Read by Ric Jerrom. 17 hours. TB23160.Thomasson, Anna. A curious friendship: the story of a bluestocking and a bright young thing. 2015. TB23046.The winter of 1924: Edith Olivier, alone for the first time at the age of fifty-one, thought her life had come to an end. For Rex Whistler, a nineteen-year-old art student, life was just beginning. Together, they embarked on an intimate and unlikely friendship that would transform their lives. Gradually Edith's world opened up and she became a writer. Her home, in a corner of the Wilton estate, became a sanctuary for Whistler and the other brilliant and beautiful younger men of her circle: among them Sassoon, Stephen Tennant, William Walton and John Betjeman. Read by Lisa Milne Henderson. 21 hours 13 minutes. TB23046.Uglow, Jennifer S. Mr Lear: a life of art and nonsense. 2017. TB24311.Edward Lear was a man of great simplicity and charm: children adored him, yet his humour masked epilepsy, depression and loneliness. This brings us his swooping moods, passionate friendships and restless travels. Lear lived all his life on the boundaries of rules and structures, disciplines and desires.Read by Annie Aldington. 17 hours 22 minutes. TB24311.Worsley, Lucy. Jane Austen at home. 2017. TB24353.This new telling of the story of Jane Austen's life shows us how and why she lived as she did, examining the places and spaces that mattered to her. It wasn't all country houses and ballrooms, but a life that was often a painful struggle. Lucy Worsley reveals a passionate woman who fought for her freedom and refused to settle for anything less than Mr Darcy.Read by Ruth Redman. 14 hours 17 minutes. TB24353.Artists and musiciansBartlett, Karen. Dusty: an intimate portrait of a musical legend. 2015. TB23826.Dusty Springfield was one of the biggest musical stars of the 20th century. From the launch of her career in 1963, until her departure for Los Angeles, she was Britain's biggest female star. This title reveals new details about the soul diva's upbringing, tumultuous relationships and unbridled addictions, including a lifelong struggle to come to terms with her sexuality.Read by Letsy Pugh. 12 hours 9 minutes. TB23826.Beer, Anna R. Sounds and sweet airs: the forgotten women of classical music. 2016. TB23283.'Sounds and Sweet Airs' reveals the hidden stories of eight remarkable composers, taking the reader on a journey from 17th-century Medici Florence to London in the Blitz. Revealing not just the lives and works of eight exceptional artists, historian Anna Beer also asks tough questions about the silencing of their legacy, which continues to this day.Read by Jane McDowell. 12 hours 48 minutes. TB23283.Callow, Simon. Being Wagner: The Triumph of the Will. 2017. TB23773.Simon Callow plunges headlong into Wagner's world to discover what it was like to be Wagner, and to be around one of music's most influential figures. During a wildly unpredictable sixty-nine year life, Richard Wagner became the hero of his era and the official protagonist of a new unified Germany: his music was its music. As a man, he was a walking contradiction, aggressive, flirtatious, disciplined, capricious, heroic, visionary and poisonously anti-Semitic.Read by Simon Callow. 6 hours 40 minutes. TB23773.Fearnley, James. Here comes everybody. 2015. TB23397.The Pogues' story is told by James Fearnley, founding member and accordion player. The band experienced huge success but relentless touring spiralled into years of drinking and excess which eventually took their toll, most famously on singer-songwriter Shane MacGowan. Fearnley brings to life the youthful friendships, the bust-ups, the amazing gigs, the terrible gigs, the fantastic highs and dramatic lows of life in the Pogues.Read by James Fearnley. 14 hours 56 minutes. TB23397.Hynde, Chrissie. Reckless. 2016. TB23522.Chrissie Hynde knew she had to get out of Akron, Ohio. Wrapped up in the Kent State University riots and getting dangerously involved in the local biker and drug scenes, she escaped to Mexico, Canada, and Paris. Finally in London she caught the embryonic punk scene and formed her own band, the Pretenders. She tells of the long and crooked path to stardom, and for the Pretenders, ultimately, tragedy. Contains sex scenes. Contains swear words.Read by Amy Finegan. 9 hours 19 minutes. TB23522.King, Ross. Mad enchantment: Claude Monet and the painting of the Water lilies. 2016. TB24032.Monet's legendary water lily paintings are in museums all over the world and are among the most beloved works of art of the past century. Yet, ironically, these soothing images were created amid terrible personal turmoil and sadness. Ross King reveals a more complex, more human, more intimate Monet than has ever been portrayed and firmly places his water lily project among the greatest achievements in the history of art.Read by Joel Richards. 11 hours 59 minutes. TB24032.Mackrell, Judith. The unfinished Palazzo: life, love and art in Venice. 2017. TB24185.In the early 20th century the unfinished Palazzo Venier in Venice inspired three fascinating women at key moments in their lives: Luisa Casati, Doris Castlerosse and Peggy Guggenheim. Mackrell tells each life story, weaving an intricate history of these legendary characters and the Palazzo Venier.Read by Joan Walker. 14 hours 37 minutes. TB24185.Morrissey. Autobiography. 2013. TB23501.Steven Patrick Morrissey was born in Manchester on May 22nd 1959. Singer-songwriter and co-founder of the Smiths Morrissey has been a solo artist since 1987 during which time he has had three number 1 albums in England in three different decades. Achieving eleven Top 10 albums (plus nine with the Smiths), his songs have been recorded by many singers. Autobiography covers Morrissey's life from his birth until the present day.Read by David Morrissey. 12 hours 48 minutes. TB23501.Slattery-Christy, David. In search of Ruritania: The life and times of Ivor Novello. 2016. TB24156.Ivor Novello was a revue show composer, film star, successful playwright, actor and the creator of glamorous Ruritanian musicals. This biography explores Novello's homosexuality and his hedonistic, and often bizarre, lifestyle during the 1920s and 30s. It reveals a man who was in turns selfish and kind, petulant and charming.Read by Christopher Oxford. 10 hours 36 minutes. TB24156.Spurling, Hilary. Anthony Powell: dancing to the music of time. 2017. TB24225.Anthony Powell had published five novels before the first volume of A Dance to the Music of Time came out in 1951. This was the first of a critically-acclaimed 12-volume cycle of novels. Drawing on Anthony Powell's letters and journals, and the memories of those who knew him, Hilary Spurling explores his life.Read by Frances Jeater. 17 hours 52 minutes. TB24225.Suchet, John. Mozart: the man revealed. 2016. TB23681.The story of Mozart's life is well known. Austrian-born to a tyrannical father who fiercely worked him; unhappily married to a spendthrift woman; a musical genius who died young thus depriving the world of future glories. Suchet shows us the real Mozart, a man blessed with an abundance of talent yet sometimes struggling to earn a living. His mischievous nature and earthy sense of humour, his ease and confidence in his own abilities. Read by Robin Houston. 10 hours 34 minutes. TB23681.Science and engineeringArianrhod, Robyn. Young Einstein: and the story of E=mc2. 2015. TB23379.Robyn Arianrhod blends biography with popular science to tell the story of how young Einstein developed a theory that, unknown to him at first, contained the seeds of his extraordinary equation E = mc2. Arianrhod makes the ideas behind the equation accessible and sets young Einstein's exploration of these ideas against the backdrop of his first loves, his family and marriage and, his childlike wonder at the nature of the universe.Read by Helen Noonan. 2 hours 25 minutes. TB23379.Close, F. E. Half life: the divided life of Bruno Pontecorvo, physicist or spy. 2015. TB23444.Bruno Pontecorvo, a physicist at Harwell, Britain's atomic energy lab, disappeared without a trace. When he re-surfaced six years later, he was on the other side of the Iron Curtain. One of the most brilliant scientists of his generation, Pontecorvo was privy to many secrets. Yet MI5 insisted he was not a threat. Professor Frank Close exposes the truth about a man marked by the advent of the atomic age and the Cold War.Read by Nigel Anthony. 13 hours 48 minutes. TB23444.Essinger, James. Ada's algorithm: how Lord Byron's daughter launched the digital age through the poetry of numbers. 2015. TB24196.Ada Lovelace was the only legitimate child of Lord Byron. Through the infamous divorce of her parents, Ada Lovelace became the most talked-about child in Georgian Britain. At a time when women were thought to be too fragile to study maths and science, Ada went on to become the world's first computer programmer. But for her era's view on gender, Ada would single-handedly have started the digital age more than two centuries ago.Read by Philip Elstob. 6 hours 47 minutes. TB24196.Glover, Julian. Man of iron: Thomas Telford and the building of Britain. 2017. TB23901.Thomas Telford was born in 1757 in the Scottish Borders. His father died plunging the family into poverty. Telford's life soared to become the greatest engineer Britain has ever produced. He invented the modern road. A stonemason turned architect turned engineer, he built churches, harbours, canals, docks, and bridges. Telford cherished a vision of a country connected to transform mobility and commerce.Read by Daniel Philpott. 13 hours 13 minutes. TB23901.Maddox, Brenda. Rosalind Franklin: the dark lady of DNA. 2003. TB24148.Maddox tells the untold story of the woman who helped discover DNA but who was never given credit for doing so. But could Francis Crick and James Watson have done it without the ‘dark lady’? This is a portrait of a gifted young woman drawn against a background of women’s education, Anglo-Jewry and the greatest scientific discovery of the century.Read by Harriet Dunlop. 11 hours 10 minutes. TB24148.Sobel, Dava. The Glass Universe: The Hidden History of the Women Who Took the Measure of the Stars. 2016. TB23653.In the mid-nineteenth century, the Harvard College Observatory began employing women as calculators, to interpret the observations their male counterparts made via telescope each night. As photography transformed astronomy, the women turned to studying images of the stars captured on glass photographic plates, making extraordinary discoveries that attracted worldwide acclaim. They helped discern what the stars were made of, divided them into meaningful categories for further research, and even found a way to measure distances across space by starlight. Read by Laurence Bouvard. 11 hours 55 minutes. TB23653.Wulf, Andrea. The invention of nature: the adventures of Alexander von Humboldt, the lost hero of science. 2015. TB22963.Alexander von Humboldt (1769-1859) is the great lost scientist: more things are named after him than anyone else. There are towns, rivers, mountain ranges, the ocean current that runs along the South American coast, there's a penguin, a giant squid, even the Mare Humboldtianum on the moon. Taking us on a fantastic voyage in his footsteps, Andrea Wulf shows why his life and ideas remain so important today.Read by Fenella Fudge. 15 hours 54 minutes. TB22963.Wright, Thomas. Circulation: William Harvey's revolutionary idea. 2013. TB23141.William Harvey’s theory of circulation was as controversial in its day as Copernicus’ idea that the earth revolved around the sun. Unleashing intellectual anarchy, derailing established ideas, Harvey’s revolutionary theory went on to permeate the culture and language of 17th century England. Circulation charts the remarkable rise of the yeoman’s son who demolished beliefs held by anatomists since Roman times, going on to become arguably the greatest Englishman in the history of science after Darwin and Newton.Read by John Waite. 7 hours 53 minutes. TB23141.PoliticalBeckett, Francis. Blair Inc: the man behind the mask. 2015. TB23386.Since 2007, the empire of Tony Blair has grown exponentially. As a businessman he has been unprecedentedly successful for a former public servant, with a large property portfolio and an estimated 80 million pounds of earnings accrued in just a few short years. This book takes a close look at the complex financial structures in Blair's world and exposes the private dealings of this very public figure.Read by Roger Davis. 13 hours 47 minutes. TB23386.Benn, Tony. Out of the wilderness: diaries 1963-67. 1988. TB24035.In the first Wilson government of 1964 Benn was made Postmaster General and became known as an innovator. After Labour's landslide victory of 1966 he was appointed to the Cabinet as Minister of Technology, but Labour's honeymoon came to an abrupt end in 1967 with the introduction of devaluation, leading to disillusionment with the Government.Read by Philip Bretherton. 25 hours 57 minutes. TB24035.Casta?eda, Jorge G. Compa?ero: the life and death of Che Guevara. 1998. TB23270.By the time he was killed in the jungles of Bolivia, Ernesto "Che" Guevara had become a synonym for revolution everywhere from Cuba to the barricades of Paris. Casta?eda follows Che from his childhood in the Argentine middle class through the years of pilgrimage that turned him into a committed revolutionary. Read by Jonathan Oliver. 22 hours 36 minutes. TB23270.Hegarty, Neil. Frost: that was the life that was: the authorised biography. 2015. TB23519.Sir David Frost, who died suddenly in August 2013, was the only person to have met and interviewed every British Prime Minister since Harold Wilson as well as seven Presidents of the United States. Written in collaboration with Sir David Frost's wife and three sons, this work features many unpublished writings from Frost and exclusive access to his vast archive. It also offers opinions on Frost from his extraordinary list of friends.Read by Michael Fenner, Rory Bremner, Lady Karina Frost, George Frost, Wilfred Frost. 13 hours 16 minutes. TB23519.Hemming, Henry. M: Maxwell Knight, MI5's greatest spymaster. 2017. TB24421.Maxwell Knight is seen as one of MI5's greatest spymasters, a man who did more than any other to break up British fascism during the Second World War. Known to his agents and colleagues simply as M, and rumoured to be part of the inspiration for the character M in the James Bond series. Knight became a legendary spymaster with a mercurial ability to transform almost anyone into a fearless secret agent.Read by Henry Hemming. 11 hours 5 minutes. TB24421.Holman, Bob. Keir Hardie: Labour's greatest hero? 2010. TB23926.Keir Hardie was a founder and the first parliamentary leader of the Labour Party. Born illegitimate in 1856, his life didn't start gently. Before the age of 10, he was the sole wage earner in his working class, atheist family. He was self-taught, avidly reading books lent him by a kind young clergyman. This led to two major conversions in his life: first to Christianity, and then to socialism.Read by David Monteath. 7 hours 15 minutes. TB23926.Johnson, Alan. Please, Mister Postman. 2014. TB23524.Autobiography: book 2. Born in condemned housing in West London in 1950, Alan Johnson did not have the easiest start in life. But by the age of 18, he was married, a father and working as a postman in Slough. This sequel to Alan's memoir 'This Boy', describes the next period in Alan's life with every bit as much honesty, humour and emotional impact as his bestselling debut. 'Please, Mr Postman' paints a vivid picture of a bygone era; Britain in the 1970s was a very different country to the one we know today.Read by Alan Johnson. 9 hours 26 minutes. TB23524.Also:Johnson, Alan. The long and winding road. 2016. TB24424.Autobiography: book 3.Read by Alan Johnson. 9 hours 57 minutes. TB24424.Lownie, Andrew. Stalin's Englishman: the lives of Guy Burgess. 2015. TB23008.Guy Burgess was the most important, complex and fascinating of 'The Cambridge Spies' - Maclean, Philby, Blunt - all brilliant young men recruited in the 1930s to betray their country to the Soviet Union. An engaging and charming companion to many, an unappealing, utterly ruthless manipulator to others, Burgess rose through academia, the BBC, the Foreign Office, MI5 and MI6, gaining access to thousands of highly sensitive secret documents which he passed to his Russian handlers.Read by Simon Shepherd. 12 hours 27 minutes. TB23008.Qvortrup, Mads. Angela Merkel: Europe's most influential leader. 2016. TB23291.Angela Merkel has transformed German and European politics. Yet she may be the least understood ruler. Her government's hard approach to the crisis in Greece has seen her receive mass criticism worldwide and could well determine the future of the European Union. This title offers an account of the influences that shaped the life of Angela Merkel.Read by Robin Houston. 14 hours 39 minutes. TB23291.RoyaltyMorris, Marc. King John: treachery, tyranny and the road to Magna Carta. 2016. TB23357.King John is familiar to everyone as the villain from the tales of Robin Hood - greedy, cowardly, despicable and cruel. Marc Morris draws on contemporary chronicles and the king's own letters to bring the real John vividly to life. John was dynamic, inventive and relentless, but also a figure with terrible flaws. John's tyrannical rule climaxed in conspiracy and revolt, and his leading subjects famously forced him to issue Magna Carta. Read by Ric Jerrom. 14 hours 5 minutes. TB23357.Russell, Gareth. Young and Damned and Fair: The Life and Tragedy of Catherine Howard at the Court of Henry VIII. 2017. TB23669.England July 1540: Anne Cleves is out. Thomas Cromwell is to be executed and, in the countryside, an aristocratic teenager named Catherine Howard prepares to become fifth wife to the increasingly unpredictable monarch. In the five centuries since her death, Catherine Howard has been dismissed as `a wanton', `inconsequential' or a victim of her ambitious family, but the story of her rise and fall offers not only a terrifying and compelling story of an attractive, vivacious young woman thrown onto the shores of history thanks to a king's infatuation, but an intense portrait of Tudor monarchy in microcosm.Read by Jenny Funnell. 16 hours. TB23669.Seward, Ingrid. The Queen's speech: an intimate portrait of the Queen in her own words. 2015. TB24107.For many years, the Queen's Christmas address was the most-watched programme on television on Christmas Day, and millions still tune in to hear what she has to say. Now, Ingrid Seward uses the Queen's speeches as a starting point to provide a revealing insight into the character of the woman who has reigned over us since the days when Churchill was Prime Minister.Read by Letsy Pugh. 9 hours 59 minutes. TB24107.Tomalin, Claire. Mrs Jordan's profession: the story of a great actress and a future king. 2012. TB24084.Acclaimed as the greatest comic actress of her day, Dora Jordan lived a quite different role off-stage as lover to Prince William, third son of George III. Unmarried, the pair lived in a villa on the Thames and had ten children together until William, under pressure from royal advisers, abandoned her. This is a classic story of royal perfidy and female courage.Read by Ruby Thomas. 12 hours 29 minutes. TB24084.Tremlett, Giles. Isabella of Castile: Europe's first great queen. 2017. TB23952.Historian Giles Tremlett chronicles the life of Isabella of Castile as she led Spain out of the murky middle ages and harnessed the newest ideas and tools of the early Renaissance to turn her ill-disciplined, quarrelsome nation into a sharper, modern state with a powerful, clear-minded, and ambitious monarch at its centre. Her pivotal reign was long, uniting Spain and setting the stage for its golden era of global dominance.Read by Karen Cass. 19 hours 35 minutes. TB23952.Weir, Alison. Henry VIII: King and court. 2017. TB24123.This biography of Henry VIII is set against the cultural, social and political background of his court, the most spectacular court ever seen in England, and the splendour of his many palaces. It tells of the development of both monarch and court during a crucial period in English history. As well as challenging some recent theories, it offers controversial new conclusions based on contemporary evidence.Read by Phyllida Nash. 25 hours 44 minutes. TB24123.SportBeasley, Robert. José Mourinho: up close and personal. 2017. TB24163.Granted privileged access to José Mourinho's inner sanctum, Robert Beasley tells the story of Mourinho, up close and personal. Delving into the workings of the famed manager's mind, as well as the backroom antics and transfer sagas at the game's greatest clubs, we see the world from José's point of view. How close Mourinho came to getting the England and Tottenham jobs and his sometimes tumultuous working relationships are revealed.Read by Ric Jerrom. 10 hours 31 minutes. TB24163.Blofeld, Henry. Over and out: my innings of a lifetime with Test Match Special. 2017. TB24452.Henry Blofeld's book is a celebration of his career commentating on cricket. Henry has been a summariser on Test Match Special for over 40 years. He shares his favourite moments and behind the scenes anecdotes. And he writes of his favourite countries, and experiences while travelling.Read by Henry Blofeld. 7 hours 19 minutes. TB24452.Jones, Bill. Alone: the triumph and tragedy of John Curry. 2014. TB23329.1976, over 20 million people in Britain watched John Curry skate to Olympic glory on an ice rink in Austria. He was awarded the OBE. He was chosen as BBC Sports Personality of the Year. Curry had changed ice skating from marginal sport to high art. And yet the man was, and would always remain, an absolute mystery. Read by Bill Jones. 12 hours 57 minutes. TB23329.Martin-Jenkins, Christopher. CMJ: a cricketing life. 2012. TB23866.Christopher Martin-Jenkins, or CMJ, to listeners of Test Match Special, is perhaps the voice of cricket. CMJ looks back on a lifetime spent in service to this most bizarre and beguiling of sports and tells the stories of the players, coaches and fans he met along the way. this memoir relives the moments that defined modern cricket and which shaped his life in turn.Read by Charles Collingwood. 13 hours 35 minutes.Murray, Judy. Knowing the score: my family and our tennis story. 2017. TB24432.As mother to tennis champions Jamie and Andy, Scottish National Coach, coach of the Fed Cup, and general all-round can-do woman of wonder, Judy Murray is the ultimate role model for believing in yourself and reaching out to ambition. Judy’s memoir charts the challenges she has faced, from desperate finances to hostile press conferences and entrenched sexism.Read by Judy Murray. 8 hours 7 minutes. TB24432.O'Sullivan, Ronnie. Running: the autobiography. 2013. TB23334.World snooker champion Ronnie O'Sullivan reflects on how much of his life has been running away or running towards (often inadvisable) things. In this book he looks at everything that challenged him - an addictive personality, depression, his dad's murder conviction, the painful break-up with the mother of his children, and the difficulty of balancing family life with that of a sportsman.Read by David John. 8 hours 36 minutes. TB23334.Walker, Adam. Man vs ocean: the inspirational story of a toaster salesman who sets out to swim the world's deadliest oceans and change his life forever. 2016. TB23048.Adam Walker is not your everyday record -breaking sportsman. He took on arguably the toughest extreme sport on the planet, to swim non-stop across seven of the world's deadliest oceans wearing only swim trunks, cap and goggles. It is not a test for the faint-hearted: swimmers face freezing temperatures, huge swells and treacherous currents, potentially deadly marine life (from sharks to Portuguese men o' war), vomiting and burning off a week's calories in a single swim.Read by David Thorpe. 7 hours 55 minutes. TB23048.Courage and inspirationBrace, Mike. Don't ask me, ask the dog. 2017. TB24232.Mike Brace was blinded by a firework at the age of ten. Despite this, he has enjoyed incredible sporting success, and has received a CBE for services to disabled sport. We learn about Mike's challenges and successes in his business life, and his part in London's successful Olympic bid. Mike's determination and positive outlook are evident throughout. .Read by John Banks. 5 hours 4 minutes. TB24232.Dauxerre, Victoire. Size zero: my life as a disappearing model. 2017. TB700055.Scouted in the street when she is 17, Victoire’s story started like a dream: within months she was on the catwalks of New York's major fashion shows. When fashion executives and photographers began to pressure her about her weight, Victoire became anorexic. A painful expose of the uglier face of fashion, this is a shocking example of how a young woman was pushed to the point of suicide.Read by Emily Lucienne. 6 hours 33 minutes. TB700055.Edison, Taylor. I know what you are: the true story of a lonely little girl abused by those she trusted most. 2017. TB700043.The moving true story of a little girl with Asperger syndrome. Taylor never knew her father and her mother wasn't around much. Aged just 11 she was easy prey to the gang of drug dealers and petty criminals who groomed and abused her, using her as a form of currency to appease their debtors and amuse their friends. Taylor started to fight back, determined to build a safe future for herself, however long it took.Read by Jessica Ball. 5 hours 29 minutes. TB700043.Glass, Cathy. Nobody's son. 2017. TB700067.Born in a prison and removed from his drug-dependent mother, rejection is all that 7-year-old Alex knows. Cathy is asked to foster Alex, for a month before he goes to live with his permanent adoptive family. He settles easily and is very much looking forward to having a forever family. The introductions and move to his adoptive family go well. What happens next is both shocking and calls into question the whole adoption process.Read by Denica Fairman. 8 hours 51 minutes. TB700067.Haig, Matt. Reasons to stay alive. 2015. TB23713.Aged 24, Matt Haig's world caved in. Struggling with depression and anxiety, he could see no way to go on living. This is the true story of how he came through crisis, triumphed over an illness that almost destroyed him and learned to live again. A moving, funny and joyous exploration of how to live better, love better and feel more alive, this is more than a memoir: it is a book about making the most of your time on Earth.Read by Matt Haig. 4 hours 21minutes. TB23713.Hilling, Wendy. My life in his paws: the story of Ted and how he saved me. 2016. TB23181.Wendy has a rare skin condition which means her skin is very delicate. Every moment is difficult and causes pain. It affects the body inside and out: her throat is very narrow and she can stop breathing at any time. But 8 years ago Wendy's met Ted, a golden retriever, and he became her full-time carer. He has saved her life more times than she can remember, always watching and listening, and she is now entirely reliant on him. This is the story of the unique relationship between a human and animal, and the extraordinary things animals are capable of.Read by Carolanne Lyme. 6 hours 32 minutes. TB23181.Holden, Wendy. Haatchi & Little B: the inspiring true story of one boy and his dog. 2014. TB23520.On a bitterly cold night in January 2012, Haatchi the dog was hit over the head and abandoned on a railway line to be hit by a train. Somehow, the terrified puppy survived. Adopted by Colleen, Will and son Owen (known to his family as Little B for 'little buddy'), the lucky dog moved into the Howkins' family home just six weeks after almost being killed. Owen, now aged eight, has a rare genetic disorder and is largely confined to a wheelchair. When he awoke the morning after Haatchi arrived he immediately fell in love with the severely disabled rescue animal who would, in turn, rescue him.Read by Gabrielle Glaister. 5 hours 56 minutes. TB23520.Jenkins, Allan. Plot 29: A Memoir. 2017. TB700078.1960s Plymouth, Allan and his brother were rescued from their care home and fostered by an elderly couple. There, the brothers started to grow flowers in their riverside cottage. Allan discovers the secrets to why the two boys were in care. What emerges is a vivid portrait of the violence and neglect that lay at the heart of his family. Yet it's also a celebration of the joy to be found in sharing flowers and food with someone you love.Read by Allan Jenkins and Mike Grady. 7 hours 42 minutes. TB700078.Keale, Alice. If you love me: true love, true terror, true story. 2017. TB700020.'You said I was the perfect boyfriend. If you can prove you really love me, perhaps I can be that way again.' This is the chilling true story of a woman trapped in a devastating relationship as she tries to prove her love, over and over again. Alice gave up everything that mattered to her, including her family, her friends and her job. But still it wasn’t enough.Harper Collins simultaneous publication.Read by Penelope Rawlins. 6 hours 53 minutes. TB700020.Koepcke, Juliane. When I fell from the sky: the true story of one woman's miraculous survival. 2012. TB23575.On Christmas Eve 1971, a flight from Lima to Pucallpa went down in dense jungle. 17-year-old Juliane Koepcke fell two miles from the sky, still strapped to her plane seat, into the jungle. She was the sole survivor among the 92 passengers, which included her mother. With incredible courage, instinct and ingenuity, she crawled and walked alone for eleven days in the green hell of the Amazon, before coming across a loggers hut, and, with it, safety.Read by Madeleine Brolly. 8 hours 38 minutes. TB23575.Lewis, Rosie. Taken. 2017. TB700027.Experienced foster carer, Rosie Lewis, takes on the heart-breaking case of Megan, a baby born with a drug addiction and a cleft palate. Addicted to drugs from birth because of her mother's substance abuse during pregnancy, new-born Megan is taken into Rosie's loving care. Rosie is supposed to help Megan find her new permanent home, but it turns out that Megan has already found her `forever mummy' in Rosie.Read by Madeline Gould. 6 hours 28 minutes. TB700027.Milne, Jo. Breaking the silence. 2015. TB23782.Jo Milne had already lived a lifetime surrounded by silence, profoundly deaf from birth, when she began to lose her sight. Just before turning 30, Jo was diagnosed with Usher Syndrome, a rare genetic and progressive condition that will one day rob her of her sight altogether. Jo has always been determined to live her life to the full. In 2014, she had cochlear implants fitted allowing her to hear for the first time. Read by Colleen Prendergast. 8 hours 20 minutes. TB23782.Moreton, Cole. The Boy Who Gave His Heart Away: A Death that Brought the Gift of Life. 2017. TB701872.Marc is a promising young footballer of 15, growing up in Scotland. In England, Martin is a fun-loving 16-year-old. Both are enjoying their summers when they are suddenly struck down by debilitating illnesses. Remarkably, the mothers of these two boys meet and become friends, enabling the extraordinary, bittersweet moment in which a mother who has lost her son meets the boy he saved. Read by James Cameron Stewart. 6 hours 23 minutes. TB701872.Potter, Vanessa. Patient H69; the story of my second sight. 2017. TB24115.Imagine what it would be like to one day wake up and find that you were suddenly completely blind. This is what happened to Vanessa. Over the course of the next six months, Vanessa slowly recovered her vision. Going blind led Vanessa to turn science sleuth to uncover the reality behind her unique condition. With the help of a team of psychologists and neuroscientists, we follow Vanessa's story. Read by Vanessa Potter. 9 hours 20 minutes. TB24115.Rentzenbrink, Cathy. The last act of love. 2016. TB23805.Two weeks before his GCSE results, which turned out to be the best in his school, Cathy’s brother Matty was knocked down on the way home from a night out. He was left in a permanent vegetative state. Cathy and her parents took care of Matty but there came a point at which it seemed the best thing they could do was let him go. Cathy describes the pain of losing her brother and the decision that changed her family's lives forever.Read by Jenny Funnell. 6 hours 36 minutes. TB23805.Westaby, Stephen. Fragile lives: a heart surgeon's stories of life and death on the operating table. 2017. TB700047.Professor Stephen Westaby took chances and pushed the boundaries of heart surgery. He saved hundreds of lives over the course of a thirty-five year career. Westaby details some of his most remarkable and poignant cases - such as the baby who had suffered multiple heart attacks by six months old, a woman who lived the nightmare of locked-in syndrome, and a man whose life was powered by a battery for eight years. Read by Gordon Griffin. 10 hours 26 minutes. TB700047.Wiesel, Elie. Night. 2006. TB23814.Born into a Jewish ghetto in Hungary, Elie was sent to the concentration camps at Auschwitz and Buchenwald. This is his account of that atrocity: the ever-increasing horrors, the loss of his family and his struggle to survive in a world that stripped him of humanity, dignity and faith. Night is among the most personal, intimate and poignant of all accounts of the Holocaust.Read by George Guidall. 3 hours 40 minutes. TB23814.MiscellaneousBeeson, Sarah. The new arrival; the heartwarming true story of a 1970s trainee nurse. 2014. TB24065.On a summer’s day in 1969, 17 year old Nurse Sarah Hill arrives at Hackney General Hospital in London’s East End. Britain is changing and the everyday life of the nurses and patients plays out against a backdrop of a failing government, strikes, immigration and women’s lib. Beeson's memoir captures both the heartache and happiness of hospital life and 1970s London through the eyes of a gentle but determined young nurse.Read by Annie Aldington. 8 hours 13 minutes. TB24065.Cordingly, David. Cochrane the dauntless: the life and adventures of Admiral Thomas Cochrane, 1775-1860. 2008. TB23077.Patrick O' Brian and C.S. Forester based their literary heroes on Thomas Cochrane, but Cochrane's exploits were far more daring and exciting than those of his fictional counterparts. He was a man of action, whose bold and impulsive nature meant he was often his own worst enemy. Drawing on his own travels and original research, Cordingly tells the rip-roaring story of a flawed Romantic hero who helped define his age.Read by Steve Hodson and Mark Elstob. 15 hours 55 minutes. TB23077.Fitzjohn, Tony. Born wild: the extraordinary story of one man's passion for lions and for Africa. 2011. TB23898.This is a story of passion, adventure and skulduggery on the frontline of African conservation. Following Tony Fitzjohn's journey from London bad boy to African wildlife warrior, the heart of the story is a series of love affairs with the world's most beautiful and endangered creatures.Read by John Telfer. 11 hours 28 minutes. TB23898.Johnson, Martyn. What's tha up to? memories of a Yorkshire bobby. 2012. TB21626.No two days were ever the same for bobby on the beat PC Johnson. Whether he was chasing unlikely coal thieves, tracking down peacocks gone AWOL or investigating flying saucers over Sheffield, he faced every new challenge with a smile and a dose of his copper's common sense.Read by Martyn Johnson. 6 hours 51minutes. TB21626.Kalanithi, Paul. When breath becomes air. 2016. TB23601.At the age of thirty-six, about to complete training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with inoperable lung cancer. This book chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a medical student asking what makes a virtuous and meaningful life into a neurosurgeon working in the core of human identity and finally into a patient and a new father. Paul Kalanithi died while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide to us all.Read by Sunil Malhotra and Cassandra Campbell. 5 hours 38 minutes. TB23601.Kerman, Piper. Orange is the new black: my time in a women's prison. 2013. TB23277.With her career, live-in boyfriend and loving family, Piper Kerman barely resembles the rebellious young woman who got mixed up with drug runners and delivered a suitcase of drug money to Europe over a decade ago. But when she least expects it, her reckless past catches up with her; convicted and sentenced to 15 months at an infamous women's prison in Connecticut. From her first strip search to her final release, she learns to navigate this strange world with its arbitrary rules and codes, its unpredictable, even dangerous relationships. Contains swear words.Read by Regina Reagan. 10 hours 54 minutes. TB23277.Mackness, Tracy. Jail bird: the life and crimes of an Essex bad girl. 2013. TB24100.Tracy Mackness has always had a flair for business, not all of it legal. Despite being banged up with some of the UK's toughest female prisoners, she proved to be a model inmate, and found her forte working on the prison farm. Never shy of hard work, Tracy left prison with numerous qualifications in pig husbandry and set up her own business, The Giggly Pig.Contains violence. Contains swear words. Read by Annie Aldington. 6 hours 45 minutes. TB24100.Last, Nella. Nella Last in the 1950s: further diaries of Housewife, 49. 2010. TB23918.'I can never understand how the scribbles of such an ordinary person… can possibly have value.' So wrote Nella Last in her diary on 2 September 1949. This volume sees Nella, now in her 60s, writing about the 1950s and revealing more about life with her increasingly troublesome husband.Contains swear words.Read by Maggie Mash. 12 hours 35 minutes. TB23918.Maclear, Kyo. Birds art life death: a field guide to the small and significant. 2017. TB700052.One winter, Kyo became unmoored. Her father had recently fallen ill and she found herself lost for words. As a writer, she could no longer bring herself to create. But then Kyo met a musician who loved birds. Kyo found herself following the musician for a year, accompanying him on his birdwatching expeditions.Read by Laurel Lefkow. 4 hours 51minutes. TB700052.Miller, Andy. The year of reading dangerously; how fifty great books (and two not-so-great ones) saved my life. 2014. TB23879.Andy has been living a lie. But then again, who hasn't? How many books have you claimed to have read but never actually finished, or started? Books you've really wanted to read, or should have read, but never had the time, or the inclination? Tackling the canon single-handedly, Miller decides to rectify his twenty odd years of lies and silence his nagging guilt and become the literate man he's always claimed himself to be.Read by Andy Miller. 9 hours 5 minutes. TB23879.Rice, Edward. Captain Sir Richard Francis Burton: a biography. 2001. TB23840.Rice's biography is the story of a fierce, magnetic, and brilliant man whose real-life accomplishments are the stuff of legend. From his spying exploits to his startling literary accomplishments (the discovery and translation of the Kama Sutra and his seventeen-volume translation of Arabian Nights), Burton was an engrossing, larger-than-life Victorian figure.Read by Chris Courtenay. 24 hours 33 minutes. TB23840.Solnit, Rebecca. The faraway nearby. 2015. TB23429.One summer, Rebecca Solnit was bequeathed a hundred pounds of apricots; the fruit came from a tree that her mother, gradually succumbing to memory loss, could no longer tend to. From this unexpected inheritance came stories, spun like those of Scheherazade who used her gifts as a storyteller to prolong her life and weave her way into the heart of a king. Solnit draws together the threads of her life with the lives of others.Read by Rebecca Solnit. 7 hours 24 minutes. TB23429.Taylor, Colin. The life of a Scilly sergeant. 2017. TB23932.Sergeant Colin Taylor has been a member of the police force for over 20 years, 5 of which have been spent policing the ‘quiet’ Isles of Scilly. Colin has made it his purpose to keep the streets of Scilly free from drunk anchor thieves, Balance Board riders and other culprits, mostly drunken, intent on breaking the law. This book is the first hand account of how he did it.Read by David Thorpe. 8 hours 26 minutes. TB23932.Tolan, Sandy. The lemon tree: the true story of a friendship spanning four decades of Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 2014. TB23897.In the summer of 1967, not long after the Six Day War, Palestinian Bashir, returned to visit his childhood home in Ramla in Israel. He was met at the door by a young woman named Dalia, who invited him in. In the lemon tree his father planted in the backyard of his childhood home, Bashir sees a symbol of occupation; Dalia, who arrived in 1948 as an infant with her family, sees hope for a people devastated by the Holocaust. Read by Sandy Tolan. 11 hours 22 minutes. TB23897.Walton, Janet. Six little miracles: the heartwarming true story of raising the world's first sextuplet girls. 2015. TB22961.Janet had been told she couldn't have children, so she and her husband Graham were overjoyed to find out she was pregnant. Then they told her the real news, it was not just one baby, but six! On 18 November 1983, Janet Walton gave birth to the world's first all-female sextuplets. Janet takes us through the reality of parenting six children of the same age, the extreme sleep deprivation, the bottle-feeding, and later the chaotic routine of getting six kids to school on time.Read by Laura Morgan. 9 hours 56 minutes. TB22961.Watts, Anne. Always the Children: a nurse's story of home and war. 2011. TB23447.Anne grew up in a village in north Wales in the 1940s. She trained as a nurse and midwife, joined the Save the Children Fund, and was posted to Vietnam in 1967. Over some forty-five years Anne has brought her outrage and compassion to those most in need of help. Woven into this memoir is how Anne's idyllic childhood was shattered by a shocking family tragedy when she was 10 years old. A tragedy that was to shape her destiny.Read by Nerys Hughes. 10 hours 46 minutes. TB23447.Watts, Anne. A nurse abroad: adventures in nursing from the Arctic to the Outback. 2012. TB23448.In the early 1960s, Anne Watts was a newly qualified nurse, her father expected her to work locally, not too far from North Wales and to then settle down and have children. Anne had inherited her father's spirit and set sail for Canada to work in the remote stations in the frozen north of the country. She found a placement among the indigenous Inuit people. Anne later headed for Alice Springs in the Australian outback. Wharton, Kit. Emergency admissions. 2017. TB700015.Kit gives us a fascinating glimpse into the world of ambulance driving. This book is his report from the frontline of that work: 999 calls that hurtle him to critical moments in other peoples' lives. Nothing in this job is normal, every job is different. Kit reveals more about his own upbringing, a childhood pickled in alcohol abuse and bohemian family set ups.Read by Mark Meadows. 4 hours 58 minutes. TB700015. ................
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