Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/578806 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Storm’s Edge: Life, Death and Magic in the Islands of Orkney

Author: Peter Marshall

Narrator: Kenny Blyth

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 22 hours 44 minutes

Release date: April 11, 2024

Genres: Europe

Publisher's Summary:

'A surprising page-turner, full of humour and startling details' THE TIMES 'If I read a better history this year, I will be lucky' TOM HOLLAND 'An astonishing tour de force’ SPECTATOR From Peter Marshall, winner of the 2018 Wolfson Prize, Storm’s Edge is a new history of the Orkney Islands that delves deep into island politics, folk beliefs and community memory on the geographical edge of Britain. Peter Marshall was born in Orkney. His ancestors were farmers and farm labourers on the northern island of Sanday – where, in 1624, one of them was murdered by a witch. In an expansive and enthralling historical account, Marshall looks afresh at a small group of islands that has been treated as a mere footnote, remote and peripheral, and in doing so invites us to think differently about key events of British history. With Orkney as our point of departure, Marshall traverses three dramatic centuries of religious, political and economic upheaval: a time when what we think of as modern Scotland, and then modern Britain, was being forged and tested. Storm's Edge is a magisterial history, a fascinating cultural study and a mighty attestation to the importance of placing the periphery at the centre. Britain is a nation composed of many different islands, but too often we focus on just one. This book offers a radical alternative, encouraging us to reorient the map and travel with Peter Marshall through landscapes of forgotten history.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/574469 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Manuscripts Club: The People Behind a Thousand Years of Medieval Manuscripts

Author: Christopher de Hamel

Narrator: Christopher de Hamel, John Lee

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 17 hours 25 minutes

Release date: November 14, 2023

Genres: Europe

Publisher's Summary:

* A New York Times Book Review Editors' Choice * The acclaimed author of Meetings with Remarkable Manuscripts introduces us to the extraordinary keepers and companions of medieval manuscripts over a thousand years of history The illuminated manuscripts of the Middle Ages are among the greatest works of European art and literature. We are dazzled by them and recognize their crucial role in the transmission of knowledge. However, we generally think much less about the countless men and women who made, collected and preserved them through the centuries, and to whom they owe their existence. This entrancing book describes some of the extraordinary people who have spent their lives among illuminated manuscripts over the last thousand years: a monk in Normandy, a prince of France, a Florentine bookseller, an English antiquary, a rabbi from central Europe, a French priest, a Keeper at the British Museum, a Greek forger, a German polymath, a British connoisseur and the woman who created the most spectacular library in America—all of them members of what Christopher de Hamel calls the Manuscripts Club. This exhilarating fraternity, and the fellow enthusiasts who come with it, throw new light on how manuscripts have survived and been used by very different kinds of people in many different circumstances. Christopher de Hamel’s unexpected connections and discoveries reveal a passion that crosses the boundaries of time. We understand the manuscripts themselves better by knowing who their keepers and companions have been. In 1850 (or thereabouts) John Ruskin bought his first manuscript “at a bookseller’s in a back alley.” This was his reaction: “The new worlds which every leaf of this book opened to me, and the joy I had in counting their letters and unravelling their arabesques as if they had all been of beaten gold—as many of them were—cannot be told.” The members of de Hamel’s club share many such wonders, which he brings to us with scholarship, style and a lifetime’s experience.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/568212 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Mosquito: The RAF's Legendary Wooden Wonder and its Most Extraordinary Mission

Author: Rowland White

Narrator: Roy Mcmillan

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 17 hours 29 minutes

Release date: October 12, 2023

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 2 of Total 1

Genres: Europe

Publisher's Summary:

Brought to you by Penguin. Built of lightweight wood, powered by two growling Rolls-Royce Merlin engines, impossibly aerodynamic, headspinningly fast and armed to the teeth, the de Havilland Mosquito was the war-winning wonder that should never have existed: the aircraft the RAF didn't think it wanted then couldn't do without. Flying on operations barely eighteen months after a single prototype was ordered off the drawing board, it was the answer to its pilots' prayers: a stunningly versatile warplane capable of leaving the Luftwaffe in its wake to attack when and where the enemy was least expecting it. Excelling as a spyplane, night-fighter and pathfinder for Bomber Command's heavies the Mossie's reputation was cemented by a series of daredevil bombing raids across occupied Europe, including on Berlin itself, where only surprise, speed and precision could ensure success. So when Churchill's top secret Special Operations Executive needed to destroy the Gestapo HQ in the centre of downtown Copenhagen to prevent a devastating Nazi last stand that might prolong the war for many months, there was only one machine for the job - the Mosquito. This is the story of that legendary aircraft told through that one impossible mission. Like Rowland White's previous books, Mosquito is an unputdownable mix of utterly compelling storytelling, incredible human stories and fascinating technological detail, which sheds never-before-told light on a pivotal mission that helped bring the war to its bloody and brutal close. ©2023 Rowland White (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/603444 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Princess Alexandra

Series: Part of Royal House of Windsor

Author: Helen Cathcart

Narrator: Lorna Bennett

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 8 hours 57 minutes

Release date: September 5, 2023

Genres: Europe

Publisher's Summary:

Born on Christmas Day, 1936, Princess Alexandra's birth was almost overshadowed by the abdication of her uncle, King Edward VIII. Yet public affection for this new addition to the Royal Family has only grown during a lifetime of dedicated royal service. In this biography, Helen Cathcart chronicles the first thirty years of Princess Alexandra's life, from the tragic death of her father when she was just five years old to her wartime childhood at Badminton living with her grandmother Queen Mary, through to schooldays at Heathfield, bridesmaid duties for her first cousin Queen Elizabeth II, and early career working as a nurse. Admired for her style and devotion to royal duty, we accompany Princess Alexandra as she overcomes her youthful self-consciousness to carry out a wide range of royal and official engagements, including her first solo overseas tour to Australia at the age of twenty-two in 1959. We also witness the burgeoning romance between the princess and Angus Ogilvy, and their resplendent wedding at Westminster Abbey in 1963. Princess Alexandra is an exceptionally detailed biography of a loving daughter, wife, and mother, as well as a popular member of the Royal Family.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/603435 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Duchess of Kent

Series: Part of Royal House of Windsor

Author: Helen Cathcart

Narrator: Lorna Bennett

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 8 hours 34 minutes

Release date: July 25, 2023

Genres: Europe

Publisher's Summary:

In this detailed biographical study of Katharine, Duchess of Kent, Helen Cathcart tells an enchanting story of a Yorkshire soldier squire's daughter who grew up to become an admired and popular member of the Royal Family. In this intimate and illuminating account, Cathcart charts the first forty years of the Duchess's life, from her birth during a snowstorm at the family home, Hovingham Hall, and wartime childhood through to schooldays at Castle Howard and early career working in a children's home. We also learn of her first meeting with Prince Edward, the Duke of Kent, and of the affectionate friendship that matured into a royal romance. In The Duchess of Kent we follow the Duchess from Hovingham Hall and Coppins to Hong Kong and Germany as an Army officer's wife. We discover the deep veins of community service in her family, and the author reveals the source of the Duchess of Kent's wide popularity.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/604335 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Goodbye, Eastern Europe: An Intimate History of a Divided Land

Author: Jacob Mikanowski

Narrator: Jacob Mikanowski

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 13 hours 5 minutes

Release date: July 11, 2023

Ratings: Ratings of Book: 5 of Total 3

Ratings of Narrator: 5 of Total 3

Genres: Europe

Publisher's Summary:

In light of Russia's aggressive 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Goodbye, Eastern Europe is a crucial, elucidative read, a sweeping epic chronicling a thousand years of strife, war, and bloodshed, from pre-Christianity to the fall of Communism—illuminating the remarkable cultural significance and richness of a place perpetually lost to the margins of history. 'Eastern Europe' has gone out of fashion since the fall of the Soviet Union. Ask someone today, and they might tell you that Estonia is in the Baltics or Scandinavia, that Slovakia is in Central Europe, and that Croatia is in the eastern Adriatic or the Balkans. In fact, Eastern Europe is a place that barely exists at all, except in cultural memory. Yet it remains a powerful marker of identity for many, with a fragmented and wide-ranging history defined by texts, myths, and memories of centuries of hardship and suffering. Goodbye, Eastern Europe is a masterful narrative about a place that has survived being forgotten. Beginning with long-lost accounts of early pagan life, Mikanowski offers a kaleidoscopic tour of the various peoples who made Eastern Europe their home over the centuries, including the Roma, Jews, and Muslims; the great kingdoms of the medieval period; the rise and fall of the Ottoman, Habsburg, and Russian empires; the dawn of the modern era; the ravages of fascism and Communism; the birth of the modern nation-state and beyond. A student of literature, history, and the ghosts of his own family’s past, Mikanowski paints a magisterial portrait of a place united by diversity and eclecticism, and of people with the shared story of being the dominated rather than the dominating. The result is a loving and ebullient celebration of the distinctive and vibrant cultures that stubbornly persisted at the margins of Western Europe and Russia, and a powerful corrective that re-centers not only our understanding of how the modern Western world took shape but also the ways in which Eastern Europe has evolved throughout history to become what it is today.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/603434 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Queen in her Circle

Series: Part of Royal House of Windsor

Author: Helen Cathcart

Narrator: Lorna Bennett

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 8 hours 7 minutes

Release date: June 20, 2023

Genres: Europe

Publisher's Summary:

Written in Her Majesty's Silver Jubilee year, here is the innermost story of Queen Elizabeth II amid her closest personal friends and working colleagues. Doyenne of royal writers, Helen Cathcart takes the listener on a unique journey from infancy up to the third decade of Her Majesty's reign, highlighting the Queen's influence upon her friends and Household, and their reciprocal influence upon the Sovereign. Along the way we meet the royal relatives, intimate acquaintances, and trusted officials who have supported and guided Her Majesty from early childhood through to heiress presumptive to the throne and ultimately as reigning monarch. With in-depth profiles of the men and women around the Queen, the author has achieved a book of compelling interest—a royal biography in terms of people and events but, above all, people.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/603433 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Queen and the Turf

Series: Part of Royal House of Windsor

Author: Helen Cathcart

Narrator: Lorna Bennett

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 7 hours 49 minutes

Release date: May 30, 2023

Genres: Europe

Publisher's Summary:

Here is the first full story of the Queen's racing enthusiasms and the first authentic account of Her Majesty's personal experience as a racehorse owner and racegoer, told with the help of trainers, jockeys, and others. This exhilarating volume traces the early years of the Queen's racing story, from childhood horse-lover to ebullient racegoer and owner of one of the finest string of racehorses in the world. Helen Cathcart goes behind the scenes to present a vivid picture of royal racing success and failures, from the Queen's frail gift-horse to the spectacular triumphs of Aureole, Carrozza, Alexander, High Veldt, Almeria, Doutelle, Pall Mall, and many others. Winners of lustrous fame, they come thundering on in a cavalcade of high hopes and disappointments, superb victories, and bitter defeat. Here is a royal pageant of the Turf rich in some of the most colorful and interesting sporting stories from the younger Queen's reign.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/604526 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: The Three Lives of the Kaiser

Author: Uli Hesse

Narrator: Michael Fenner

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 10 hours 3 minutes

Release date: May 11, 2023

Genres: Europe

Publisher's Summary:

Franz Beckenbauer is Germany's greatest-ever football player and one of the game's biggest icons of all time, a World Cup winner as player and manager. The Three Lives of The Kaiser is the first English-language account of a truly remarkable existence. Known everywhere as 'the Kaiser', Beckenbauer's compatriots even referred to him as 'the Shining Light'. Not anymore, though. Because what is often described as a blessed life has really been an emotional roller-coaster ride with stunning highs and bitter lows. He rose to fame at the 1966 World Cup in England, where after the final defeat the British press marvelled at the grace of a 'beaten but proud Prussian officer'. However, there was nothing Prussian about the Bavarian boy who flouted authority, disregarded rules and viewed the traditional German work ethic with the disdain of someone to whom everything comes naturally. Beckenbauer grew into one of the game's first truly global stars and transcended sport. He was painted by Andy Warhol and discussed the merits of Wagner with Aga Khan's wife at the Bayreuth Festival. He gently warded off overtures from Rudolf Nureyev and danced with Mick Jagger at Studio 54 in New York. Back home, though, people often wondered what to make of this most famous German athlete who was so un-German. It took his country three decades to learn to love Franz Beckenbauer – but shenanigans surrounding his greatest off-the-field triumph, bringing the 2006 World Cup to Germany, have made him a controversial figure all over again. Uli Hesse assesses his achievements and his legacy in this definitive insight into the life of a sporting icon.

Please visit https://thebookvoice.com/podcasts/1/audiobook/593045 to listen full audiobooks.

Title: Our Hideous Progeny: A Novel

Author: C.E. Mcgill

Narrator: Florence Howard

Format: Unabridged Audiobook

Length: 12 hours 30 minutes

Release date: May 9, 2023

Genres: Europe

Publisher's Summary:

“A gripping Gothic tale of grief and ambition, passion and intrigue.” — Jess Kidd, author of The Night Ship “An immersive blend of historical and science fiction brims with surprises and dark delights. . . . An incisive exploration of women’s rights within the field of science. . . . Readers will revel in Mary’s personal and scientific discoveries and root for her to succeed in an unfair world.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review) A LAMBDA Literary finalist for Lesbian Fiction A Triangle Publishing finalist for Debut Fiction It is not the monster you must fear, but the monster it makes of men . . . Mary is the great-niece of Victor Frankenstein. She knows her great uncle disappeared under mysterious circumstances in the Arctic, but she doesn’t know why or how. . . . The 1850s are a time of discovery, and London is ablaze with the latest scientific theories and debates, especially when a spectacular new exhibition of dinosaur sculptures opens at the Crystal Palace. Mary is keen to make her name in this world of science alongside her geologist husband, Henry—but despite her sharp mind and sharper tongue, without wealth and connections their options are limited. When Mary discovers some old family papers that allude to the shocking truth behind her great-uncle’s past, she thinks she may have found the key to securing her and Henry’s professional and financial future. Their quest takes them to the wilds of Scotland; to Henry’s intriguing but reclusive sister, Maisie; and to a deadly chase with a rival who is out to steal their secret. A queer, feminist masterpiece inspired by Mary Shelley’s classic, Our Hideous Progeny is a sumptuous tale of ambition and obsession, of forbidden love and sabotage and a twisty Gothic adventure that may forever change your view of human nature.