Audiobooks by Martin Sixsmith

Martin Sixsmith (Author), TBD (Narrator)

Audiobook

"Brought to you by Penguin. Long Live the King. Since his re-election as US president, Donald Trump has made good on things he only dreamed of accomplishing in his first term. In six short months he has smashed constitutional constraints, trampled on free speech, suborned the judiciary, demonised the media and crushed protests on the streets. He has secured the backing of America’s oligarchs and inflated his personal wealth. US foreign policy is no longer based on values but on greed, while at home his administration has intervened in the almost every area of people’s daily lives, bringing the National Guard into America's cities, telling educators what schoolchildren should be taught and threatening universities when they beg to differ. According to Martin Sixsmith, BBC’s Moscow Correspondent when Vladimir Putin came to power, it all looks eerily familiar to what Russia went through in the 1990s. DESPOTS is Sixsmith's exploration of two aspiring dictators who came to power in nominally electoral democracies, then dismantled the pillars of democracy from within, one of them following confidently in the footsteps of the other. As in Putin’s Russia, so in Trump’s America: the US is fast-forwarding through what Russia endured in the first five years under Putin, and the parallels this time are much clearer, more overt, and increasingly terrifying. © Martin Sixsmith and Daniel Sixsmith 2026 (P) Penguin Audio 2026"

Daniel Sixsmith, Martin Sixsmith (Author), TBD (Narrator)

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My Sins Go With Me: A Story of Heroism and Betrayal in the Dutch Resistance

"'Highly engaging . . . The creeping escalation of oppression and rebellion is often thrillingly told . . . A powerful story of a history that remains far from settled' Daily Telegraph In the darkest days of the Nazi occupation of the Netherlands, Anna-Maria van der Vaart sheltered Allied pilots, gave refuge to persecuted Jews and participated in audacious acts of sabotage. She survived when others did not, a witness to their courage and to the terrible treachery that betrayed so many of them to the Nazis. Tens of thousands of Dutchmen elected to fight with the Germans, while many civilians turned over their Jewish neighbours to an almost certain death. Holland's Jewish leaders prevaricated, hoping to save their people and their own skins. But the exploits of the Dutch Resistance produced unimaginable heroism and unparalleled self-sacrifice. A chance meeting with Martin Sixsmith in 2019 led to Anna-Maria telling him her story. In Dutch and German archives, interviews with survivors, personal diaries and contentious memoirs by those with things to hide, Sixsmith came across a drama on a scale he could never have imagined. My Sins Go with Me is a story of remarkable bravery, and of cowardice and betrayal in the hardest of times."

Martin Sixsmith (Author), Julie Teal (Narrator)

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An Unquiet Heart

"From the bestselling author of Philomena comes a beautiful and heartbreaking tale about Sergei Yesenin, one of Russia's most beloved poets. It vividly captures the extraordinary life of a man navigating love, loss and loneliness in the midst of the Russian Revolution. Sergei Yesenin is a young poet, formed by childhood abandonment, set on becoming the most famous poet in Russia in a time of war, revolution and terror. A sensitive soul in a senseless time, searching for meaning through poetry, fame and passionate affairs with both women and men - until a meeting with the beautiful actress Zinaida Raikh changes everything. 'If thou art near, I'll leave all behind, Renounce the world, the call of fame. All I need is to kiss your hand, your lips, And hear you call me by my name.' His success will bring him to the Tsar's family, to Rasputin, Trotsky and to the world's most famous dancer, Isadora Duncan. He befriends other prominent poets and is revered by millions. Schoolchildren learn his verses by heart. Red Army soldiers carry them going into battle. Yuri Gagarin would later take them into space. But Yesenin's obsession with fame is dangerous and destructive, for him, and for those who love him. An Unquiet Heart is a magnificent insight into history, and into the life of a tender, troubled man. This is a story about the power of poetry in turbulent times, about triumph and tragedy and about how true love never fades. "

Martin Sixsmith (Author), Jamie Parker (Narrator)

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Ayesha's Gift: A daughter's search for the truth about her father

"**FROM THE AUTHOR OF THE BESTSELLING PHILOMENA, MADE INTO THE AWARD-WINNING FILM STARRING STEVEN COOGAN AND JUDI DENCH** Ayesha's Gift is the true story of a young woman, born in Pakistan, living in Britain, whose life is thrown into desperate turmoil by the violent death of her father. The Pakistani authorities talk of suicide, but why would Ayesha's happy, gentle father kill himself? Ayesha's quest to find the truth takes her away from her safe English existence and into Pakistan, where she is met with threats, violence and smiling perjurers. She is warned that her life is in danger; powerful, ruthless men have reasons to want her silenced. But there are things she needs to know, that compel her to press on with her search for the truth. Was her father an innocent victim? Can she continue to revere the image of him she grew up with, that of a good, loving parent? Or will she be forced to accept that her father was not the person she thought he was? As the two countries she had considered home reveal themselves as foreign and inimical, Ayesha is forced to confront the tormented issues of identity and belonging. When she travels to Pakistan, Martin Sixsmith goes with her. A shared tragedy and an unlikely friendship lead them both to question the things that give meaning to their lives, and ultimately to find solace in the common human values of kindess and respect. 'Written at thriller pace' Telegraph 'Wonderful . . . What I find so striking about Ayesha's Gift is that it's a book in which the writer is changed by the writing of the book' Andrew Marr"

Martin Sixsmith (Author), Nina Wadia (Narrator)

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Putin and the Return of History: How the Kremlin Rekindled the Cold War

"Bloomsbury presents Putin and the Return of History by Martin Sixsmith, read by Jonathan Keeble. An original history of Russia's thousand-year past, tracing the forces and the myths that have shaped Putin's politics and rekindled the Cold War. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has reshaped history. In the decades after the collapse of Soviet communism, the West convinced itself that liberal democracy would henceforth be the dominant, ultimately unique, system of governance - a hubris that shaped how the West would treat Russia for the next two decades. But history wasn’t over. Putin is a paradox. In the early years of his presidency, he appeared to commit himself to friendship with the West, suggesting that Russia could join the European Union or even NATO. He said he supported free-market democracy and civil rights. But the Putin of those years is unrecognisable today. The Putin of the 2020s is an autocratic nationalist, dedicated to repression at home and anti-Western militarism abroad. So, what happened? Was he lying when he proclaimed his support for freedom, democracy and friendship with the West? Or, was he sincere? Did he change his views at some stage between then and now? And if that is the case, what happened to change him? Putin and the Return of History examines these questions in the context of Russia’s thousand-year past, tracing the forces and the myths that have shaped Putin’s politics of aggression: the enduring terror of encirclement by outsiders, the subjugation of the individual to the cause of the state, the collectivist values that allow the sacrifice of human lives in battle, the willingness to lie and deceive, the co-opting of religion and the belief in Great Russia’s mission to change the world."

Martin Sixsmith (Author), Jonathan Keeble (Narrator)

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The Russia Conundrum: How the West Fell For Putin’s Power Gambit – and How to Fix It

"Brought to you by Penguin. 'I'm a fairly calm fellow; I don't usually get het up about things. But I was, let's say, concerned when I tuned into the Moscow Echo radio station and heard that the Kremlin had put a price on my head. The announcement didn't quite say 'dead or alive'. But it came close...' Mikhail Khodorkovsky, March 2021 Mikhail Khodorkovsky has seen behind the mask of Vladimir Putin. Once an oil tycoon and the richest man in Russia, Khodorkovsky spoke out against the corruption of Putin's regime - and was punished by the Kremlin, stripped of his entire wealth and jailed for over ten years. Now freed, working as a pro-democracy campaigner in enforced exile, Khodorkovsky brings us the insider's battle to save his country's soul. Offering an urgent analysis of what has gone wrong with Putin, The Russia Conundrum maps the country's rise and fall against Khodorkovsky's own journey, from Soviet youth to international oil executive, powerful insider to political dissident, and now a high-profile voice seeking to reconcile East and West. With unparalleled insight, written with Sunday Times bestselling author Martin Sixsmith, The Russia Conundrum exposes the desires and damning truths of Putin's Russia, and provides an answer to the West on how it must challenge the Kremlin - in order to pave the way for a better future. © Mikhail Khodorkovsky & Martin Sixsmith 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022"

Martin Sixsmith, Mikhail Khodorkovsky (Author), Jonathan Keeble (Narrator)

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Russia: The Wild East: The complete BBC Radio 4 series

"Power struggles have a constant presence in Martin Sixsmith’s story of Russia. Collected here in 50 episodes, he chronicles the Mongol hordes invading in the 13th century, through the iron autocratic fists of successive Tsars, to the fall of the Soviet Union and Russia’s re-emergence as a superpower. Ivan the Terrible, Catherine the Great, Peter the Great – all left their mark on a nation that pursued expansion to the East, West and South. Many Tsars flirted with reform, but the gap between the rulers and the ruled widened until, in 1917, the doomed last Tsar, Nicholas II, abdicated. After the whirlwind of the revolution, the Bolsheviks struggled to consolidate their victory. To rescue the economy and save the regime, Lenin made concessions to the people. But after his death, Stalin introduced forced collectivisation and industrialisation, condemning the Soviet people to conditions worse than those experienced under the Tsars. Nikita Khrushchev reversed the worst excesses of Stalinism, and in 1985 Mikhail Gorbachev embarked on radical reforms of the communist system – unleashing unforeseen consequences that swept him from power and destroyed the USSR. Martin Sixsmith brings his firsthand experience of reporting from Russia in the 1980s and ‘90s to his narrative, witnessing the critical moment when the Soviet Union lost its grip on power. He asks if the recurring patterns of Russian history can help us understand what has happened since 1991, when the promise of Western-style democracy aroused so many hopes for change. Eyewitness accounts, archive recordings and personal testimony enrich his narrative, as well as readings from Russian authors and historians such as Alexander Solzhenitsyn and Vasily Grossman, plus music by Stravinsky, Prokofiev and others."

Martin Sixsmith (Author), Martin Sixsmith (Narrator)

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Philomena

"Now a major film starring Judi Dench and Steve Coogan Falling pregnant as a teenager in 1952, Philomena Lee was sent to the convent in Co. Tipperary to be looked after as a fallen woman. She cared for her baby for three years until the Church took him and sold him, like countless others, to America for adoption. She spent the next fifty years secretly searching for him, unaware that he was searching for her from across the Atlantic. A compelling and deeply moving true story of human love and loss, both heart-breaking yet ultimately redemptive."

Martin Sixsmith (Author), John Curless (Narrator)

Audiobook

Audiobooks by Martin Sixsmith

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