Showing results by narrator "Ant Richards" in All Categories

At the start of the 1989 uprising in Romania, CIA analyst Bill Hefflin—a disillusioned Romanian expat—arrives in Bucharest at the insistence of his KGB asset, code-named Boris. As Hefflin becomes embroiled in an uprising that turns into a brutal revolution, nothing is as it seems, including the search for his childhood love, which has taken on mythical proportions. With the bloody events unfolding at blinding speed, Hefflin realizes the revolution is manipulated by outside forces, including his own CIA and Boris—the puppeteer who seems to be pulling all the strings of his life.

"The Soul of Man" is an 1891 essay by Oscar Wilde in which he expounds a libertarian socialist worldview and a critique of charity. The writing of "The Soul of Man" followed Wilde's conversion to anarchist philosophy, following his reading of the works of Peter Kropotkin.

Pictures from Italy is a travelogue by Charles Dickens, written in 1846. The book reveals the concerns of its author as he presents, according to Kate Flint, the country "like a chaotic magic-lantern show, fascinated both by the spectacle it offers, and by himself as spectator".

Brady was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1883. In 1889, he was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal church, and was ordained a priest in 1890. His first wife was Clarissa Guthrie, who died in 1890. His second wife was Mary Barrett. FATE OF THE MUTINEERS-COLONY OF PITCAIRN'S ISLAND: The intelligence of the mutiny, and the sufferings of Bligh and his companions, naturally excited a great sensation in England.

When young Lucian Miller visits the house of a friend it is everything he had long fantasised about; decay and grandeur, lofty rooms, dark red shadows and dust. The evening, however, is a disaster, and Lucian finds himself apparently alone with the sophisticated but troubled Miranda Honeyman. They shut all of the doors in an attempt to keep their problems out, but it soon becomes apparent that someone else may have access to the house. On the threshold of adulthood, in a heightening atmosphere of sexual uncertainty and violence, Lucian tries to make sense of what is happening around him.

"NEXT DOOR NEIGHBOURS": The house next door stood empty for nearly two years and the Carringtons soon grew accustomed to the extra psychic space. They took to holding séances in the back garden at odd times of the day and night and, more prosaically, were free to shout to each other from all parts of the house, slam doors whenever they felt like it, and come and go without their every movement being scrutinised.

"The Imp of the Perverse" is a short story by 19th-century American author and critic Edgar Allan Poe. Beginning as an essay, it discusses the narrator's self-destructive impulses, embodied as the symbolic metaphor of The Imp of the Perverse. The narrator describes this spirit as the agent that tempts a person to do things "merely because we feel we should not." The narrator explains at length his theory on "The Imp of the Perverse", which he believes causes people to commit acts against their self-interest.

This is not a love story. Unconditional is a story about love. When Chris and his father Phil decide to spend a long weekend break in Bilbao, their relationship is stretched to the limit. All because of a woman. Chris learns the hard way how actions have consequences. Phil also learns that it takes unexpected blows to put love to the test.

Glen is a travel writer. A weekend break in Madrid turns into a mashup of biblical proportions after a night out with his party loving, short-fused, often violent friend Mark - a South East Londoner now living in Madrid - and his feisty, lunatic Basque girlfriend, Ainhoa. Booze? Of course, and lots of it. Memory loss? You bet! A missing mobile phone? Well, obviously, what would you expect! Your average weekend getaway - what could possibly go wrong?

As he walked over the pebbles down to the sea, the sun was a riot of orange and red. Although it was late in the evening, seals still basked on the rocks beneath the cliff, unfazed by the clattering of his boots.

In the ordinary course of a commercial education, in New England, boys are transferred from school to the merchant's desk at the age of fourteen or fifteen. When I had reached my fourteenth year it was my good fortune to be received into the counting-house of Elias Hasket Derby, Esq., of Salem; a merchant, who may justly be termed the father of the American commerce to India; one whose enterprise and commercial sagacity were unequalled in his day, and, perhaps, have not been surpassed by any of his successors.

Brady was born in Allegheny, Pennsylvania, and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1883. In 1889, he was ordained a deacon in the Episcopal church, and was ordained a priest in 1890. His first wife was Clarissa Guthrie, who died in 1890. YARNS OF THE FORECASTLE: Most of us have passed through a period of life during which we have ardently longed to be, if not actually a rover, a buccaneer, or a pirate, at least and really a sailor!

We had no intention of going away that summer. Carrie had come to stay with me for a couple of weeks before we started at separate universities in the autumn.

Old Father Thames so the song has it but she's more of a mother, that's what I've come to think. She started off young and beautiful, useful, the life-blood of the city.

On a fine day, the dale could hold its own. White clouds scudded across a pale blue sky, casting shape-shifting shadows over the land, and just before dusk a translucent light bathed the fells in a fairy glow.

'Tell me who it is' 'What difference will it make?' 'After six years I'm entitled to know who you're leaving me for.' 'Ok. It's someone I grew up with . . . from the village. It's Marcus Harding.'

It was a murky confusion here and there blotted with a color like the color of the smoke from damp fuel of flying clouds tossed up into most remarkable heaps, suggesting greater heights in the clouds than there were depths below them to the bottom of the deepest hollows in the earth, through which the wild moon seemed to plunge headlong, as if, in a dread disturbance of the laws of nature, she had lost her way and were frightened.

Victor-Marie Hugo (26 February 1802 - 22 May 1885) was a French poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, and dramatist of the Romantic movement. THE MAN AND THE CANNON: One of the carronades of the battery, a twenty-four pounder, had broken loose. This is the most dangerous accident that can possibly take place on shipboard. Nothing more terrible can happen to a sloop of war in open sea and under full sail.

I am not likely to forget that next morning, the 28th of August, (17). It was a fine summer's morning, and there was just a little sea on, with a strongish breeze blowing from the eastward, but not enough to prevent boats coming off from Portsmouth. I counted forty sail-of-the-line, a dozen frigates and smaller ships of war, and well-nigh three hundred merchant vessels, riding, as of course we were, to the flood with our heads towards Cowes.

To Pavlo the steppe was a sea of undulating grass, the stems and seed heads rustling against each other in the rising breeze. In the distance the mountains shimmered in the afternoon heat.