Narrator

Ralph Lister

Ralph Lister
  • By the #1 New York Times bestselling author and unparalleled master of historical fiction, James Clavell’s Shōgun is soon to be a major FX/Hulu TV series!

    Shōgun, the classic epic novel of feudal Japan that captured the heart of a culture and the imagination of the world, is now available for the first time in serial format. Part One contains the first half of the complete novel. 

    After Englishman John Blackthorne is lost at sea, he awakens in a place few Europeans know of and even fewer have seen—Nippon. Thrust into the closed society that is seventeenth-century Japan, a land where the line between life and death is razor-thin, Blackthorne must negotiate not only a foreign people, with unknown customs and language, but also his own definitions of morality, truth, and freedom. As internal political strife and a clash of cultures lead to seemingly inevitable conflict, Blackthorne’s loyalty and strength of character are tested by both passion and loss, and he is torn between two worlds that will each be forever changed. 

    Powerful and engrossing, capturing both the rich pageantry and stark realities of life in feudal Japan, Shōgun is a critically acclaimed powerhouse of a book. Heart-stopping, edge-of-your-seat action melds seamlessly with intricate historical detail and raw human emotion. Endlessly compelling, this sweeping saga captivated the world to become not only one of the best-selling novels of all time but one of the highest-rated television miniseries, as well as inspiring a nationwide surge of interest in the culture of Japan. Shakespearean in both scope and depth, Shōgun is, as the New York Times put it, “not only something you read—you live it.” 

    Also available: Shōgun: Part Two

  • Invisibility has fascinated people since time immemorial, but only a decade ago did invisibility become a serious subject of scientific investigation. This lively novel, authored by an expert in the field, takes the listener on a journey to fascinating places and—en passant—on an intellectual adventure involving some of the most fascinating subjects of optics.

    While enjoying the fun and action of a travel story, the listener will gain an accurate notion of the real science of invisibility, of the light and shade of the business of science, as well as glimpses into different cultures. From the first page, you will gradually become immersed in a different world, the world of the science of light. The book includes an appendix providing interested listeners with deeper insights into the fundamental physics of space-time, gravity, and light.

  • A vital, engaging, and hugely enjoyable guide to poetry, from ancient times to the present, by one of our greatest champions of literature

    What is poetry? If music is sound organized in a particular way, poetry is a way of organizing language. It is language made special so that it will be remembered and valued. It does not always work—over the centuries countless thousands of poems have been forgotten. This little history is about some that have not.

    John Carey tells the stories behind the world’s greatest poems, from the oldest surviving one written nearly four thousand years ago to those being written today. Carey looks at poets whose works shape our views of the world, such as Dante, Chaucer, Shakespeare, Whitman, and Yeats. He also looks at more recent poets, like Derek Walcott, Marianne Moore, and Maya Angelou, who have started to question what makes a poem “great” in the first place. This little history shines a light on the richness and variation of the world’s poems—and the elusive quality that makes them all the more enticing.

  • A darkly luminous new anthology collecting the most terrifying horror stories by renowned female authors, presenting anew these forgotten classics to the modern reader

    Readers are well aware that Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein; few know how many other tales of terror she created. In addition to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote some surprisingly effective horror stories. The year after Little Women appeared, Louisa May Alcott published one of the first mummy tales. These ladies weren’t alone. From the earliest days of gothic and horror fiction, women were exploring the frontiers of fear, dreaming dark dreams that will still keep you up at night.

    More Deadly than the Male includes unexpected horror tales by Louisa May Alcott and Harriet Beecher Stowe, and forgotten writers like Mary Cholmondely and Charlotte Riddell, whose work deserves a modern audience. Listeners will be drawn in by the familiar names and intrigued by their rare stories.

    In The Beckside Boggle, Alice Rea brings a common piece of English folklore to hair-raising life, while Helene Blavatsky, best known as the founder of the spiritualist Theosophical Society, conjures up a solid and satisfying ghost story in The Cave of the Echoes. Edith Wharton’s great novel The Age of Innocence won her the Pulitzer prize, yet her horror stories are known only to a comparative few.

    Listeners will discover lost and forgotten women who wrote horror every bit as effectively as their male contemporaries. They will learn about their lives and careers, the challenges they faced as women working in a male-dominated field, the way they overcame those challenges, and the way they approached the genre―which was often subtler, more psychological, and more disturbing.

  • The prolific and delightful Marian Babson has penned another stupendous cozy for cat lovers.

    Vanessa has been rushed to hospital, having been found unconscious at the foot of the stairs. Was it an accident or something else?

    Now, smiling weakly, suffering from a head injury that has left her with complete amnesia about the fall, the events leading up to it, and even the people closest to her, here she is, back in their midst. Or is she?

    In fact, the real Vanessa is still in a coma, and her devoted twin brother Vance, superbly disguised as a woman, has taken her place! At the home of the reclusive millionaire who maintained Vanessa, Vance joins the self-absorbed retinue, determined to discover whether one of them had attempted to kill his sister.

    There is an unsavory roué who claims to be Vanessa’s lover and assorted women who declare themselves her best friends. Others keep silent but seem to be waiting for Vance to put a foot wrong.

    Actually, Vance can handle all those. Only one thing really worries him: Gloriana, Vanessa’s beautiful Angora cat who regards her “mistress” with a dark suspicion. If the cat can’t be won over, then the whole deadly charade will fall apart.

    Only the Cat Knows is part of a long line of wonderful mysteries offering Babson’s special mix of mayhem, murder, and cats!

  • A riveting, comprehensive history of the Arab peoples and tribes that explores the role of language as a cultural touchstone

    This kaleidoscopic book covers almost three thousand years of Arab history and shines a light on the footloose Arab peoples and tribes who conquered lands and disseminated their language and culture over vast distances. Tracing this process to the origins of the Arabic language, rather than the advent of Islam, Tim Mackintosh-Smith begins his narrative more than a thousand years before Muhammad and focuses on how Arabic, both spoken and written, has functioned as a vital source of shared cultural identity over the millennia.

    Mackintosh-Smith reveals how linguistic developments—from pre-Islamic poetry to the growth of script, Muhammad’s use of writing, and the later problems of printing Arabic—have helped and hindered the progress of Arab history, and investigates how, even in today’s politically fractured post–Arab Spring environment, Arabic itself is still a source of unity and disunity.

  • The Club is a blistering, timely, and gripping novel set at Cambridge University, centering around an all-male dining club for the most privileged and wealthy young men at Cambridge and following an outsider who exposes the dark secrets of this group, the Pitt Club.

    As a boy, Hans Stichler enjoys a fable-like childhood among the rolling hills and forests of North Germany, living an idyll that seems uninterruptable. A visit from Hans’ ailing English aunt Alex, who comes to stay for an entire summer, has a profound effect on the young Hans, all the more so when she invites him to come to university at Cambridge, where she teaches art history. Alex will ensure his application to St. John’s College is accepted, but in return he must help her investigate an elite university club of young aristocrats and wealthy social climbers, the Pitt Club. The club has existed at Cambridge for centuries, its long legacy of tradition and privilege largely unquestioned. As Hans makes his best efforts to prove club material and infiltrate its ranks, including testing his mettle in the boxing ring, he is drawn into a world of extravagance, debauchery, and macho solidarity. And when he falls in love with fellow student Charlotte, he sees a potential new life of upper-class sophistication opening up to him. But there are secrets in the club’s history, as well as in its present―and Hans soon finds himself in the inner sanctum of what proves to be an increasingly dangerous institution, forced to grapple with the notion that sometimes one must do wrong to do right.

  • A collection of eighteen crime stories with a diverse range of characters and scenarios, from guilt-ridden fraudsters to lovesick murderers.

  • In a sensational follow-up to Echoes of Sherlock Holmes and In the Company of Sherlock Holmes, a brand-new anthology of stories inspired by the Arthur Conan Doyle canon

    For the Sake of the Game is the latest volume in the award-winning series from New York Times bestselling editors Laurie R. King and Leslie S. Klinger, with stories of Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson, and friends in a variety of eras and forms. King and Klinger have a simple formula: ask some of the world’s greatest writers―regardless of genre―to be inspired by the stories of Arthur Conan Doyle.

    The results are surprising and joyous. Some tales are pastiches, featuring the recognizable figures of Holmes and Watson; others step away in time or place to describe characters and stories influenced by the Holmes world. Some of the authors spin whimsical tales of fancy; others tell hardcore thrillers or puzzling mysteries. One beloved author writes a song; two others craft a melancholy tale of insectoid analysis.

    This is not a volume for listeners who crave a steady diet of stories about Holmes and Watson on Baker Street. Rather, it is for the generations of people who were themselves inspired by the classic tales, and who are prepared to let their imaginations roam freely.

    Features stories by Peter S. Beagle, Rhys Bowen, Reed Farrel Coleman, Jamie Freveletti, Alan Gordon, Gregg Hurwitz, Toni L. P. Kelner, William Kotzwinkle and Joe Servello, Harley Jane Kozak, D. P. Lyle, Weston Ochse, Zoe Sharp, Duane Swierczynski, and F. Paul Wilson

  • In the darkness of a vast cave system, cut off from the world for millennia, blind creatures hunt by sound. Then there is light, there are voices, and they feed. Swarming from their prison, they multiply and thrive. To scream, even to whisper, is to summon death.

    Deaf for many years, Ally knows how to live in silence. Now, it is her family’s only chance of survival. They must leave their home, shun others, and find a remote haven where they can sit out the plague. But will it ever end? And what kind of world will be left?

  • New York Times bestselling author Simon Mawer returns to Czechoslovakia, this time during the turbulent 1960s, with a suspenseful story of sex, politics, and betrayal.

    In the summer of 1968, the year of the Prague Spring with a Cold War winter, Oxford students James Borthwick and Eleanor Pike set out to hitchhike across Europe, complicating a budding friendship that could be something more. Having reached southern Germany, they decide on a whim to visit Czechoslovakia, where Alexander Dubcek’s “socialism with a human face” is smiling on the world.

    Meanwhile, Sam Wareham, First Secretary at the British embassy in Prague, observes developments in the country with a diplomat’s cynicism and a young man’s passion. In the company of Czech student Lenka Konecková, he finds a way into the world of Czechoslovak youth, with all its hopes and new ideas; now, nothing seems off-limits behind the Iron Curtain. But the great wheels of politics are grinding in the background; Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev is making demands of Dubcek, and the Red Army is massing on the borders.

    This shrewd, engrossing, and sensual novel once again proves Simon Mawer is one of today’s most talented writers of historical spy fiction.

  • The Earth is flat, planes are spraying poison to control the weather, actors faked the Sandy Hook massacre, and Elvis is alive and living on an island.

    All these claims are bunk: falsehoods, mistakes, and in some cases, outright lies. But many people passionately believe one or more of these conspiracy theories. They consume countless books and videos, join like-minded online communities, try to convert those around them, and even, on occasion, alienate their own friends and family. Why is this, and how can you help people, especially those closest to you, break free from the downward spiral of conspiracy thinking?

    In Escaping the Rabbit Hole, author Mick West shares over a decade’s worth of knowledge and experience investigating and debunking false conspiracy theories through his forum, MetaBunk.org, and sets forth a practical guide to helping friends and loved ones recognize these theories for what they really are.

    Perhaps counterintuitively, the most successful approaches to helping individuals escape a rabbit hole aren’t comprised of simply explaining why they are wrong. Rather, West’s tried-and-tested approach emphasizes clear communication based on mutual respect, honesty, openness, and patience.

    West puts his debunking techniques and best practices to the test with four of the most popular false conspiracy theories today, providing road maps to help you to understand your friend and help them escape the rabbit hole. These are accompanied by real-life case studies of individuals who, with help, were able to break free from conspiracism.

    Included are sections on:

    • The wide spectrum of conspiracy theories,

    • Avoiding the “shill” label,

    • Psychological factors and other complications, and

    • A look at the future of debunking.

    Mick West has put forth a conclusive, well-researched, practical reference on why people fall down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole and how you can help them escape.

  • Returning us to the extraordinary territory of Jon McGregor’s Man Booker Prize long-listed novel Reservoir 13, The Reservoir Tapes take us deep into the heart of an English village that is trying to come to terms with what has happened on its watch.

    A teenage girl has gone missing. The whole community has been called upon to join the search. And now an interviewer arrives, intent on capturing the community’s unstable stories about life in the weeks and months before Becky Shaw vanished.

    Each villager has a memory to share or a secret to conceal, a connection to Becky that they are trying to make or break. A young wife pushes against the boundaries of her marriage, and another seeks a means of surviving within hers. A group of teenagers dare one another to jump into a flooded quarry, the one weak swimmer still awaiting his turn. A laborer lies trapped under rocks and dry limestone dust as his fellow workers attempt a risky rescue. And meanwhile a fractured portrait of Becky emerges at the edges of our vision―a girl swimming, climbing, and smearing dirt onto a scared boy’s face, images to be cherished and challenged as the search for her goes on.

  • Powers of Darkness is an incredible literary discovery: In 1900, Icelandic publisher and writer Valdimar Ásmundsson set out to translate Bram Stoker’s world-famous 1897 novel Dracula. Called Makt Myrkranna (literally, “Powers of Darkness”), this Icelandic edition included an original preface written by Stoker himself. Makt Myrkranna was published in Iceland in 1901 but remained undiscovered outside of the country until 1986, when Dracula scholarship was astonished by the discovery of Stoker’s preface to the book. However, no one looked beyond the preface and deeper into Ásmundsson’s story.

    In 2014, literary researcher Hans de Roos dove into the full text of Makt Myrkranna, only to discover that Ásmundsson hadn’t merely translated Dracula but had penned an entirely new version of the story, with all new characters and a totally reworked plot. The resulting narrative is one that is shorter, punchier, more erotic, and perhaps even more suspenseful than Stoker’s Dracula. Incredibly, Makt Myrkranna has never been translated or even read outside of Iceland until now.

    Powers of Darkness presents the first ever translation into English of Stoker and Ásmundsson’s Makt Myrkranna. With a foreword by Dacre Stoker, Bram Stoker’s great-grandnephew and bestselling author, and an afterword by Dracula scholar John Edgar Browning, Powers of Darkness will amaze and entertain legions of fans of Gothic literature, horror, and vampire fiction.

  • Following a traumatic incident in London, journalist Jennifer Dorey has returned home to Guernsey, taking a job as a local newspaper reporter. When she finds a drowned woman on a beach, Jennifer uncovers something much bigger and more sinister than she first thought.

    Jennifer enlists the help of DCI Michael Gilbert, an officer on the verge of retirement, to investigate a pattern of similar deaths over the last fifty years. They follow a dark trail of island myths and folklore to the illegitimate son of a Nazi soldier, whose painstakingly executed work has so far gone undetected. But as Jennifer gets closer to the truth of the killer’s identity, she finds herself stepping deeper into his grasp.

    Jennifer thinks she’s safe, but the dark hides sinister things in The Devil’s Claw, Lara Dearman’s exhilarating debut novel.

  • A brand-new anthology of stories inspired by the Arthur Conan Doyle canon

    In this follow-up to the acclaimed In the Company of Sherlock Holmes, expert Sherlockians Laurie King and Leslie Klinger put forth the question: What happens when great writers/creators who are not known as Sherlock Holmes devotees admit to being inspired by Conan Doyle stories? While some are highly regarded mystery writers, others are best known for their work in the fields of fantasy or science fiction. All of these talented authors, however, share a great admiration for Arthur Conan Doyle and his greatest creations, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

    To the editors’ great delight, these stories go in many directions. Some explore the spirit of Holmes himself; others tell of detectives inspired by Holmes’ adventures or methods. A young boy becomes a detective; a young woman sharpens her investigative skills; an aging actress and a housemaid each find that they have unexpected talents. Other characters from the Holmes stories are explored, and even non-Holmesian tales by Conan Doyle are echoed. The variations are endless!

    Although not a formal collection of new Sherlock Holmes stories, some entries do fit that mold while others were inspired by the Conan Doyle canon. The results are breathtaking, for fans of Holmes and Watson as well as listeners new to Doyle’s writing.

  • In the post-Christian context, public life has become markedly more secular and private life infinitely more diverse. Yet many Christians still rely on cookie-cutter approaches to evangelism and apologetics. Most of these methods assume that people are open, interested, and needy for spiritual insight when increasingly most people are not. The urgent need, then, is the capacity to persuade―to make a convincing case for the gospel to people who are not interested in it.

    In his magnum opus, Os Guinness offers a comprehensive presentation of the art and power of creative persuasion. Christians have often relied on proclaiming and preaching, protesting and picketing but are strikingly weak in persuasion―the ability to talk to people who are closed to what is being said. Actual persuasion requires more than a one-size-fits-all approach. Guinness notes, “Jesus never spoke to two people the same way, and neither should we.”

    Following the tradition of Erasmus, Pascal, G. K. Chesterton, C. S. Lewis, Malcolm Muggeridge, and Peter Berger, Guinness demonstrates how apologetic persuasion requires both the rational and the imaginative. Persuasion is subversive, turning the tables on listeners’ assumptions to surprise them with signals of transcendence and the credibility of the gospel.

    This book is the fruit of forty years of thinking, honed in countless talks and discussions at many of the leading universities and intellectual centers of the world. Discover afresh the persuasive power of Christian witness from one of the leading apologists and thinkers of the era.

  • Time seemed to collapse…There was a sharp stabbing sensation in my stomach…Steve crowed, "Now I have you! Now you're gonna die!"

    Dead if he loses—damned if he wins. The time has finally come for Darren to face his archenemy, Steve Leopard, and fight for control of the night. One of them will die. The other will become the Lord of the Shadows … and destroy the world.

    Is the future written, or can Darren trick destiny?

  • "If you step through after Harkat, you might never come back. Is your friend worth such an enormous risk?"

    It's time for Harkat to learn the truth about who he used to be.

    Darren and Harkat face monstrous obstacles on their desperate quest to the Lake of Souls. Will they survive the savage journey full of killer animals, monstrous mutants, and fiery winged beasts? And what awaits them in the murky waters of the dead? The two companions must unravel the riddle of Harkat's identity before they are destroyed.

    Be careful what you fish for.

  • Darren Shan is going home—and his world is going to hell.

    Darren is going back to where it all started, back to where he was reborn as a child of the night. But like Darren, the town has changed a lot over the years. Back home, old enemies await. Scores must be settled. Destiny looks certain to destroy him, and the world is doomed to fall to the Ruler of the Night.

    Travel home with Darren in this, the penultimate book in the saga.

  • Darren Shan, Vampire Prince and "vampaneze" killer, faces his worst nightmare yet—school. But homework is the least of Darren's problems. Bodies are piling up, time is running out, and the past is catching up with the hunters fast. Darren must forge new alliances and try to unravel the mystery behind the malevolent forces that have been set in motion against him.

    In this second part of the Hunters trilogy, the stakes are raised and the pace quickens to keep listeners on the edge of their seats. 

  • The hunters have become the hunted.

    Outnumbered, outsmarted, and desperate, the hunters are on the run, pursued by the vampaneze, the police, and an angry mob. With their enemies clamoring for blood, the vampires prepare for a deadly battle. Is this the end for Darren and his allies?

    This third and final installment in the Hunters trilogy finds Darren and his friends facing their longest night and most testing challenge yet.

  • The Vampire Prince is the stunning final book of a grueling, three-part Darren Shan adventure—but the Saga of Darren Shan will continue.

    Branded a traitor, betrayed by a friend, hunted by the vampire clan—Darren Shan, the vampire's assistant, faces certain death. And even if he survives Vampire Mountain, an all-out catastrophe is headed his way that threatens the entire vampire clan. Can Darren reverse the odds and outwit a vampire prince? Can he avert the coming calamity? Darren's initiation on Vampire Mountain draws to a stunning, bloody conclusion in this sixth book of the Cirque du Freak series.

  • The pursuit begins…

    After six years of living in Vampire Mountain, Darren Shan, the Vampire Prince, leaves on a life or death mission. As part of an elite force, Darren searches the world for the Vampaneze Lord, who is determined to lead his forces to victory against the vampires. But the road ahead is long and dangerous—and lined with the bodies of the damned.

    Hunters of the Dusk is the start of an action-packed, three-part Darren Shan adventure, a tale of quests, friendship, treachery, despair, and bloodshed. 

  • In the fourth book of the bestselling Cirque du Freak series, Darren Shan begins a grueling, three-part adventure. 

    Darren has settled into life as a vampire's assistant and feels at home in the Cirque du Freak. But now he must leave the freak show and his friends behind. With Mr. Crepsley as a traveling companion, he embarks on a dangerous trek to the very heart of the vampire world. But they face more than the cold on Vampire Mountain—the vampaneze have been there before them.

    Will a meeting with the Vampire Princes restore Darren's human side or turn him further toward the darkness? Only one thing is certain: Darren's initiation into the vampire clan is more deadly than he can ever have imagined.

  • Trials of Death is the second book of a grueling, three-part Darren Shan adventure.

    The trials: seventeen ways to die unless the luck of the vampire is with you. Darren Shan must pass five of these fearsome trials to prove himself to the vampire clan—or face the stakes of the Hall of Death. But Vampire Mountain holds hidden threats. Sinister, potent forces are gathering in the darkness. In this nightmarish world of bloodshed and betrayal, death may be a blessing.

    Author Darren Shan's vivid detail and original voice will continue to have young readers glued to their seats in horror.

  • Half-vampire Darren and his new friend are on the hunt for a monster in the third installment of New York Times bestselling Saga of Darren Shan series.

    Darren, the vampire's assistant, gets a taste of the city when he leaves the Cirque du Freak with Evra the snake-boy and Mr. Crepsley. When corpses are discovered—corpses drained of blood—Darren and Evra are compelled to hunt down whatever foul creature is committing such horrendous acts. Meanwhile, beneath the streets, evil stalks Darren and Evra, and all clues point to Mr. Crepsley. Can they escape, or are they doomed to perish in the tunnels of blood?

  • The nightmare continues for the new vampire's assistant in the second installment of the New York Times bestselling Saga of Darren Shan.

    Darren Shan was just an ordinary schoolboy until his visit to the Cirque du Freak. Now, as he struggles with his new life as a vampire's assistant, he tries desperately to resist the one temptation that sickens him, the one thing that can keep him alive. But destiny is calling. The Wolf Man is waiting.

  • In the tradition of Ray Bradbury's Something Wicked This Way Comes, and Stephen King's Salem's Lot, New York Times bestseller Cirque du Freak is the first title in the popular Saga of Darren Shan.

    Darren Shan and his best friend, Steve, get tickets to the Cirque du Freak, a wonderfully gothic freak show featuring weird, frightening half human / half animals who interact terrifyingly with the audience. In the midst of the excitement, true terror raises its head when Steve recognizes that one of the performers—Mr. Crepsley—is a vampire!

    Steve confronts the vampire after the show finishes—but his motives are surprising! In the shadows of a crumbling theater, a horrified Darren eavesdrops on his friend and the vampire, and is witness to a monstrous, disturbing plea. As if by destiny, Darren is pulled to Mr. Crepsley, and what follows is his horrifying descent into the dark and bloody world of vampires.

    This is Darren's story.