Good Book Excerpts 4

A fantasy romance, by dazzling new talent Sarah Underwood, inspired by Greek mythology and the tale of Penelope’s twelve hanged maids. 

 ‘Gorgeous, tragic, and timeless, Underwood’s LIES WE SING TO THE SEA makes an age-old story feel new again. This is Greek tragedy at its best: sweeping in scope yet deeply intimate in characterization. This book will break your heart.’ – Grace Li Sunday Times bestselling author of Portrait of a Thief

In the cursed kingdom of Ithaca, each spring brings the hanging of twelve maidens, a gift to the vengeful Poseidon. But when Leto awakens from her death on the shore of a long-forgotten island, its enigmatic keeper Melantho tells her that there’s only one way the curse can be broken. Leto must kill the last prince of Ithaca . . .

In Lies We Sing to the Sea, debut author Sarah Underwood delivers a thrilling and breathtaking tale that will enthral readers from the very first page as they are transported to the cursed shores of Ithaca.

A reclamation of a story from thousands of years ago, Lies We Sing to the Sea is about love and fate, grief and sacrifice, and, ultimately, the power we must find within.

Lies We Sing to the Sea, By Sarah Underwood, Read by Saffron Coomber, Ioanna Kimbook and Sebastian Humphreys

The basis of the Netflix documentary BLOOD BROTHERS, the first book to bring to life the fateful friendship between Malcolm X and Muhammad Ali

In 1962, boxing writers and fans considered Cassius Clay an obnoxious self-promoter, and few believed that he would become the heavyweight champion of the world. But Malcolm X, the most famous minister in the Nation of Islam, saw the potential in Clay, not just for boxing greatness, but as a means of spreading the Nation’s message. The two became fast friends, keeping their interactions secret from the press for fear of jeopardizing Clay’s career. Clay began living a double life—a patriotic “good negro” in public, and a radical reformer behind the scenes. Soon, however, their friendship would sour, with disastrous and far-reaching consequences.

         Based on previously untapped sources, from Malcolm’s personal papers to FBI records, Blood Brothers is the first book to offer an in-depth portrait of this complex bond. An extraordinary narrative of love and deep affection, as well as deceit, betrayal, and violence, this story is a window into the public and private lives of two of our greatest national icons, and the tumultuous period in American history that they helped to shape.

Available March 14, 2023 from Hachette Audio as a digital download from Basic Books. 

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https://libro.fm/audiobooks/9781668633779-blood-brothers
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https://www.kobo.com/us/en/audiobook/blood-brothers-132
https://www.audiobooks.com/audiobook/blood-brothers-the-fatal-friendship-between-muhammad-ali-and-malcolm-x/669578
https://www.audible.com/pd/Blood-Brothers-Audiobook/B0BX4SSMP8?qid=1678722455&sr=1-3&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_3&pf_rd_p=83218cca-c308-412f-bfcf-90198b687a2f&pf_rd_r=X5843NZKHEY7BN9QR4P9&pageLoadId=eIiiW5jxeXsFFxeF&creativeId=0d6f6720-f41c-457e-a42b-8c8dceb62f2c
https://play.google.com/store/audiobooks/details/Randy_Roberts_Blood_Brothers?id=AQAAAEAiFANUMM
https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/blood-brothers-randy-roberts/1122688187?ean=2940178313794
https://www.estories.com/audiobook/723965/Randy-Roberts_Johnny-Smith/Blood-Brothers

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Blood Brothers by Randy Roberts, Johnny Smith Read by David Drummond - Audiobook Excerpt

Jump into a thrilling new series about fairy-tale heroines, ninja moves and epic adventures in this debut book perfect for children aged 5+ 

 CAN THEY SCARE OFF ALL THE BADDIES?

Nothing very exciting EVER happens in the town of Hobbleton. Then Red, Snow and Goldie are trained up as fairytale ninjas, and find that anything is possible…

When Madame Hart is accused of taking Prince Inigo, the fairytale ninjas are sure that she isn’t behind the kidnapping. Can they use their new-found skills to catch the real villain? Or will their ballet teacher stay banished forever?

The Glass Slipper Academy, By Paula Harrison, Read by Beth Chalmers

Thomas Brussig’s classic German satire, translated into English for the first time and introduced by Jonathan Franzen, is a comedic, moving account of life in East Berlin before the Fall of the Berlin Wall 

 Thomas Brussig's slim novel, The Short End of the Sonnenallee, is a satire set, literally, on the Sonnenallee, the famed "boulevard of the sun" in East Berlin.

Within this boulevard lives Michael, an adolescent who faces daily ridicule whenever he steps out of his apartment building and comes into view of the observation platform on the West side. "Look, a real Zonie. Can we take your picture?" Hopelessly in love with the most beautiful girl on the street, Michael is batted away in favour of the Western boys who are free to cross the border. What chance does Michael have, and how much trouble will he get into by pursuing her?

Laugh-out-loud funny and unabashedly silly, Brussig's novel follows the bizarre, grotesque quotidian details of life in the German Democratic Republic. As this new translation shows, the ideas at its heart – freedom, democracy and life’s fundamental hilarity – hold great relevance for today.

The Short End of the Sonnenallee, By Thomas Brussig, Introduction by Jonathan Franzen, Translated by Jonathan Franzen and Jenny Watson, Read by Kris Dyer and Matthew Hendrickson

NINE HISTORIC CRIMES. ONE FAMILIAR OBSESSION. 

 In early modern England, murder truly was most foul. Trials were gossipy events packed to the rafters with noisome spectators. Executions were public proceedings which promised not only gore, but desperate confessions and the grandest, most righteous human drama. Bookshops saw grisly stories of crime and death sell like hot cakes.

This history unfolds the true stories of murder, criminal investigation, early forensic techniques, high court trials and so much more.

In thrilling narrative, we follow a fugitive killer through the streets of London, citizen detectives clamouring to help officials close the net. We untangle the mystery of a suspected staged suicide through the newly emerging science of forensic pathology. We see a mother trying to clear her dead daughter’s name while other women faced the accusations – sometimes true and sometimes not – of murdering their own children.

These stories are pieced together from original research using coroner’s inquests, court records, parish archives, letters, diaries and the cheap street pamphlets that proliferated to satisfy a voracious public.

These intensely personal stories portray the lives of real people as they confronted the extraordinary crises of murder, infanticide, miscarriage and suicide. Many historical laws and attitudes concerning death and murder may strike us as exceptionally cruel, and yet many still remind us that some things never change: we are still fascinated by narratives of murder and true crime, murder trials today continue to be grand public spectacles, female killers are frequently cast as aberrant objects of public hatred and sexual desire, and suicide remains a sin within many religious organisations and was a crime in England until the 1960s.

Great and Horrible News! explores the strange history of death and murder in early modern England, yet the stories within may appear shockingly familiar.

Great and Horrible News: Murder and Mayhem in Early Modern Britain, By Blessin Adams, Read by Jonathan Keeble

What is the nature of things? Must I think my own way through the world? What is justice? How can I be me? How should we treat each other? 

 Before the Greeks, the idea of the world was dominated by god-kings and their priests, in a life ruled by imagined metaphysical monsters. 2,500 years ago, in a succession of small eastern Mediterranean harbour-cities, that way of thinking began to change. Men (and some women) decided to cast off mental subservience and apply their own worrying and thinking minds to the conundrums of life.

These great innovators shaped the beginnings of philosophy. Through the questioning voyager Odysseus, Homer explored how we might navigate our way through the world. Heraclitus in Ephesus was the first to consider the interrelatedness of things. Xenophanes of Colophon was the first champion of civility. In Lesbos, the Aegean island of Sappho and Alcaeus, the early lyric poets asked themselves ‘How can I be true to myself?’ In Samos, Pythagoras imagined an everlasting soul and took his ideas to Italy where they flowered again in surprising and radical forms.

Prize-winning and bestselling writer Adam Nicolson travels through this transforming world and asks what light these ancient thinkers can throw on our deepest preconceptions. Sparkling with maps, photographs and artwork, How to Be is a journey into the origins of Western thought.

Hugely formative ideas emerged in these harbour-cities: fluidity of mind, the search for coherence, a need for the just city, a recognition of the mutability of things, a belief in the reality of the ideal — all became the Greeks’ legacy to the world.

Born out of a rough, dynamic—and often cruel— moment in human history, it was the dawn of enquiry, where these fundamental questions about self, city and cosmos, asked for the first time, became, as they remain, the unlikely bedrock of understanding.

How to Be: Life Lessons from the Early Greeks, By Adam Nicolson, Read by Leighton Pugh

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How to Be: Life Lessons from the Early Greeks, By Adam Nicolson, Read by Leighton Pugh

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