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Audiobooks Narrated by Gordon Griffin
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"Bloomsbury presents On Augustine by Rowan Williams, read by Gordon Griffin
Since his retirement as Archbishop of Canterbury and his return to academic life (Master of Magdalene College Cambridge) Rowan Williams has demonstrated a massive new surge of intellectual energy. In this new book he turns his attention to St Augustine.
St Augustine not only shaped the development of Western theology, he also made a major contribution to political theory (City of God) and through his Confessions to the understanding of human psychology.
Rowan Williams has an entirely fresh perspective on these matters and the chapter titles in this new book demonstrate this at a glance - 'Language Reality and Desire', 'Politics and the Soul', 'Paradoxes of Self Knowledge', 'Insubstantial Evil'.
As with his previous titles, Dostoevsky, The Edge of Words and Faith in the Public Square this new study is sure to be a major contribution on a compelling subject. C 2016 Rowan Williams P 2026 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC"
"January 1901. Abigail and Daniel Wilson, often lauded as 'The Museum Detectives', are on their way to the Great Pyramid of Khufu at Giza. Their explorations of the pyramid, including the Robbers' Tunnel, take a very sinister turn when they come upon the dead body of a man who has been brutally garrotted. Investigations by the local police reveal him to be Simeon McGruder, a wealthy American who is financing an excavation of the pyramids. When Daniel and Abigail return to Cairo they are asked by the American Embassy if they can take on the case, but they have a difficult path to tread as they try to keep different factions onside: the British and American authorities, the puppet Egyptian Government and officials, while at the same time facing lies and deviousness from McGruder's associates and friends."
"Bloomsbury presents The Berlin Wall by Frederick Taylor, read by Gordon Griffin
The astonishing drama of Cold War nuclear poker that divided humanity - reissued with a new Postscript to commemorate the thirtieth anniversary of the fall of the wall.
During the night of 12–13 August 1961, a barbed-wire entanglement was hastily constructed through the heart of Berlin. It metamorphosed into a structure that would come to symbolise the insanity of the Cold War: the Berlin Wall. Frederick Taylor tells the story of the post-war political conflict that led to a divided Berlin and unleashed an East–West crisis, which lasted until the very people the Wall had been built to imprison breached it on 9 November 1989.
Weaving together history, original archive research and personal stories, The Berlin Wall, now published in fifteen languages, is the definitive account of a divided city and its people in a time when humanity seemed to stand permanently on the edge of destruction. C 2006 Frederick Taylor P 2026 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC"
"Vienna, 1904. The body of a man—still sitting in a chair—is discovered in an abandoned piano factory on the outskirts of the city. He has been shot dead but his face has been horribly disfigured with acid, making identification impossible. In front of the body are three chairs positioned conspicuously in a straight line. Who were the former occupants? Had they sat in judgement and pronounced a sentence of death? Detective Inspector Oskar Rheinhardt calls on his good friend, Doctor Max Liebermann—psychiatrist and disciple of Sigmund Freud—to assist in an investigation that draws them both into the shadowy and sexually unconventional world of fringe political activism."
"Bloomsbury presents The Downfall of Money by Frederick Taylor, read by Gordon Griffin
A timely narrative account of the biggest financial crisis in modern history and its human consequences by the author of Dresden and The Berlin Wall.
'Excellent … This is a dramatic story, well told' Wall Street Journal
Many theorists believed a hundred years ago, just as they did at the beginning of our twenty-first century, that the world had reached a state of economic perfection, a never before seen condition of beneficial human interdependence that would lead to universal growth and prosperity. And yet the early years of the Weimar Republic in Germany witnessed the most complete and terrifying unravelling of a major country's financial system to have occurred in modern times.
The story of the Weimar Republic's financial crisis has a clear resonance in the second decade of the twenty-first century, when the world is anxious once more about what money is, what it means and how we can judge if its value is true. The Downfall of Money will tell anew the dramatic story of the hyperinflation that saw the once-solid German mark, worth 4.2 to the dollar in 1914, trading at over four trillion by the autumn of 1923. It is a trajectory of events uncomfortably relevant for today's uncertain world.
The Downfall of Money will reveal the real causes of the crisis, what this collapse meant to ordinary people, and also trace its connection to Germany's subsequent catastrophic political history. By drawing on a wide range of sources and making sense for the general reader of the vast amount of specialist research that has become available in recent decades, it will provide a timely, fresh and surprising look at this chilling period in history. P 2026 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC C 2013 Frederick Taylor"
"Bloomsbury presents Dresden by Frederick Taylor, read by Gordon Griffin
The definitive story of the shocking and controversial Allied bombing of Dresden
‘In narrative power and persuasion, he has paralleled in Dresden what Antony Beevor achieved in Stalingrad' Independent on Sunday
‘Well-researched and unpretentious ... fascinating ... Taylor skilfully interweaves various personal accounts of the impact of the raids' Guardian
At 9.51 p.m. on Tuesday 13 February 1945, Dresden's air-raid sirens sounded as they had done many times during the Second World War. But this time was different. By the next morning, more than 4,500 tons of high explosives and incendiary devices had been dropped on the unprotected city.
At least 25,000 inhabitants died in the terrifying firestorm and thirteen square miles of the city's historic centre, including incalculable quantities of treasure and works of art, lay in ruins. In this portrait of the city, its people, and its still-controversial destruction, Frederick Taylor has drawn on archives and sources only accessible since the fall of the East German regime, and talked to Allied aircrew and survivors, from members of the German armed services and refugees fleeing the Russian advance to ordinary citizens of Dresden. C 2004 Frederick Taylor P 2026 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC"
"Bloomsbury presents The Good Book by A. C. Grayling, read by Gordon Griffin
Drawing on the wisdom of 2,500 years of contemplative non-religious writing on all that it means to be human - from the origins of the universe to small matters of courtesy and kindness in everyday life - A. C. Grayling, Britain's most popular and widely read philosopher, has created a secular bible.
Designed to be read as narrative and also to be dipped into for inspiration, encouragement and consolation, The Good Book offers a thoughtful, non-religious alternative to the many people who do not follow one of the world's great religions. Instead, going back to traditions older than Christianity, and far richer and more various, including the non-theistic philosophical and literary schools of the great civilisations of both West and East, from the Greek philosophy of classical antiquity and its contemporaneous Confucian, Mencian and Mohist schools in China, down through classical Rome, the flourishing of Indian and Arab worlds, the European Renaissance and Enlightenment, the worldwide scientific discoveries of the 19th and 20th centuries to the present, Grayling collects, edits, rearranges and organises the collective secular wisdom of the world in one highly readable volume. C 2011 A. C. Grayling P 2026 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC"
"In just a blink of geological time, the human species spread out from Africa and colonised every corner of the globe, and subjugated the new environments they came across to their will. How did humanity become so dominant so quickly? And what did they then do with this new power?
Homo Sapiens tells the story of the species from its earliest evolutions through the development of the first civilizations up to the industrial and information revolutions that have shaped the modern age. William Potter's thrilling new account asks us to reconsider our traditional notions of history by examining the power of the environment, the influence of language, the ideas that have transformed society, the power of transformative technology, and much, much more."
"Bloomsbury presents Thinking of Answers by A C Grayling, read by Gordon Griffin
Thought-provoking short essays by Britain's leading public philosopher that show us how to discover our own answers to life's challenges
‘While most philosophy is written in abstruse and ponderous prose, Grayling's is a model of clarity and elegance' The Times
'An enthusiastic thinker who embraces humour, common sense and lucidity' Independent
~ If beauty existed only in the eye of the beholder, would that make it an unimportant quality?
~ Are human rights political?
~ Can ethics be derived from evolution by natural selection?
~ If both sides in a conflict can passionately believe that theirs is the just cause, does this mean that the idea of justice is empty?
~ Does being happy make us good? And does being good make us happy?
~ Are human beings especially prone to self-deception?
As in his previous books of popular philosophy, including the best-selling The Reason of Things and The Meaning of Things, rather than presenting a set of categorical answers Grayling offers instead suggestions for how to think about every aspect of a question, and arrive at one's own conclusions. As a result Thinking of Answers is both an enjoyable and inspirational collection. C 2010 A. C. Grayling P 2026 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC"
"Bloomsbury presents The God Argument by A. C. Grayling, read by Gordon Griffin.
There has been a bad-tempered quarrel between defenders and critics of religion in recent years. Both sides have expressed themselves acerbically because there is a very great deal at stake in the debate. This book thoroughly and calmly examines all the arguments and associated considerations offered in support of religious belief, and does so in full consciousness of the reasons people have for subscribing to religion, and the needs they seek to satisfy by doing so. And because it takes account of all the issues, its solutions carry great weight. The God Argument is the definitive examination of the issue, and a statement of the humanist outlook that recommends itself as the ethics of the genuinely reflective person. C 2015 A. C. Grayling P 2026 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC"
"Bloomsbury presents The Challenge of Things by A. C. Grayling, read by Gordon Griffin
A. C. Grayling's lucid and stimulating books, based on the idea that philosophy should engage with the world and make itself useful, are immensely popular.
The Challenge of Things joins earlier collections like The Reason of Things and Thinking of Answers, but this time to collect Grayling's recent writings on the world in a time of war and conflict. In describing and exposing the dark side of things, he also explores ways out of the habits and prejudices of mind that would otherwise trap us forever in the deadly impasses of conflicts of all kinds.
Whether he is writing about the First World War and its legacy, free speech, the advantages of an atheist prime minister or the role of science in the arts, his essays are always enlightening, enlivening and hopeful. C 2015 A. C. Grayling P 2026 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC"
"Bloomsbury presents The Age of Genius by A. C. Grayling, read by Gordon Griffin
What happened to the European mind between 1605, when an audience watching Macbeth at the Globe might believe that regicide was such an aberration of the natural order that ghosts could burst from the ground, and 1649, when a large crowd, perhaps including some who had seen Macbeth forty-four years earlier, could stand and watch the execution of a king? Or consider the difference between a magus casting a star chart and the day in 1639, when Jonathan Horrock and William Crabtree watched the transit of Venus across the face of the sun from their attic, successfully testing its course against Kepler’s Tables of Planetary Motion, in a classic case of confirming a scientific theory by empirical testing.
In this turbulent period, science moved from the alchemy and astrology of John Dee to the painstaking observation and astronomy of Galileo, from the classicism of Aristotle, still favoured by the Church, to the evidence-based, collegiate investigation of Francis Bacon. And if the old ways still lingered and affected the new mind set – Descartes’s dualism an attempt to square the new philosophy with religious belief; Newton, the man who understood gravity and the laws of motion, still fascinated to the end of his life by alchemy – by the end of that tumultuous century ‘the greatest ever change in the mental outlook of humanity’ had irrevocably taken place. C 2016 A. C. Grayling P 2026 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC"
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