Showing results by narrator "William Hootkins" in All Categories

"Call me Ishmael." Thus starts the greatest American novel. Melville said himself that he wanted to write "a mighty book about a mighty theme" and so he did. It is a story of one man's obsessive revenge-journey against the white whale, Moby-Dick, who injured him in an earlier meeting. Woven into the story of the last journey of The Pequod is a mesh of philosophy, rumination, religion, history, and a mass of information about whaling through the ages.

A 23-year-old law student commits suicide in broad daylight in Moscow's Alexander Gardens. Fandorin is put on the case to find out what drove him to it, a case that deepens as he discovers that the young man was the son of a rich and influential factory owner. The story is enhanced by its authentic backdrop of 19th century Russia. After all, it's difficult to keep your mind on a case when the new Dostoyevsky novel has just hit the shops.

Four gripping historical dramas centred around key figures who shaped America in the 20th century. Award-winning writer Mike Walker has created many acclaimed docudramas and historical dramas for Radio 4, including The Stuarts, Tsar, Caesar! and Plantagenet. This collection includes four nuanced dramas featuring a trio of controversial men who stamped their mark on American history: J Edgar Hoover, Lyndon Baines Johnson and Richard Baines Nixon. Among the casts are William Hootkins, Bob Sherman, Lorelei King, Nathan Osgood and Alex Lanipekun.

The godfather of the hard-boiled detective novel, Dashiell Hammett is widely acknowledged as one of America's greatest mystery writers. This collection brings together the BBC radio adaptations of his works for the first time, including the iconic The Maltese Falcon featuring his most famous...

A collection of dramas by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author David Mamet A novelist, playwright, filmmaker and director, David Mamet ranks among America’s most famous living writers. He has penned more than 40 stage plays and over 20 screenplays, won numerous awards including the Pulitzer Prize...

Longfellow's great narrative poem has been unjustly neglected in recent years though it gives a sympathetic portrait especially of Hiawatha, reared by Nokomis, daughter of the Moon, and his bride Minehaha.

On 15 March 1878, Lord Littleby, an English eccentric and collector, is found murdered in his Paris house together with nine members of his staff. A gold whale in the victim's hand leads Erast Fandorin to board the Leviathan, the world's largest steamship, as the murderer is one of the 142 First Class passengers.

When the Bates Motel looms up out of the storm, Mary Crane thinks it is her salvation. The rooms are musty but clean. The manager, Norman Bates, seems like a nice enough fellow, if a little strange. Then Mary decides to take a shower, and the nightmare begins....

Walt Whitman said, "...poetry is the voice of the nation, expressing its deepest concerns, ambitions and longings," which is certainly true of the great classic poetry of America. This wide-ranging anthology, from the earliest poets of the 16th century to the present day, reflects the changing preoccupations and visions of Americans, including Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Edgar Allan Poe, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost, E.E. Cummings, and more.

The abridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Jack London's haunting classic, White Fang, read by the actor William Hootkins, star of Star Wars, Batman and Raiders of the Lost Ark. Born in the wilds of the freezing cold Yukon, White Fang - half-dog, half-wolf - is the only animal in the litter...

Terry Malloy is a hoodlum, caught between the beginnings of a conscience and the racketeers for whom he works. Katie is that conscience. But she is torn between her love for him and her belief he killed her brother. Together with a slum-reared Catholic priest, Father Pete Barry, Terry and Katie take on the gangster-ridden waterfront unions of Johnnie Friendly....

A triumphant return by the author of Snow Falling on Cedars, as an attempted suicide becomes a life-enhancing diversion. Following the death of his wife Rachel and diagnosis of his own medical condition, Dr Ben Givens left his home in Seattle – heading east with his Winchester and hunting dogs...

Poetry can sometimes be elusive, the real meaning layered beneath another. In this volume American poets give voice to their nation, their hopes, and their aspirations. Whitman, Emerson, and Dickinson are joined by Poe, Holmes, Dunbar, and others to pleasure our ears and minds with a rambling stroll through their works. It doesn’t define America, but it captures her mood and the flavours of her soul in the early days of the American dream.