Just Reads

Seconds before the Earth is demolished to make way for a galactic freeway, Arthur Dent is plucked off the planet by his friend Ford Prefect, a researcher for the revised edition of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy who, for the last fifteen years, has been posing as an out-of-work actor. Together this dynamic pair begin a journey through space aided by quotes from The Hitchhiker's Guide ("A tow...

Michael Young is a brilliant young history student whose life is changed when he meets Leo Zuckerman, an ageing physicist with a theory that can change worlds. Together they realise that they have the power to alter history and eradicate a great evil. But tinkering with timelines is more dangerous than they can imagine and nothing - past, present or future - will ever be the same again. Book Becom...

1930, New York. In the unbearable heat of summer, Irish immigrant Will Carthy works as a riveter on the tallest skyscraper in the world, spending his days above the clouds and his nights fighting loneliness. When his half-sister, Isobel, sails out to join him, Will hurries to meet her at Ellis Island, only to find that she seems to have vanished before passing through immigration control. And so b...

The autobiography of Paul Britton, one of the foremost offender profilers in the world. What he searches for at the scene of a crime are not fingerprints, fibres or blood stains, he looks for the "mind trace" left behind by those responsible, the psychological characteristics that can help the police to identify and understand the nature of the perpetrator. Over the past dozen years, Britton has a...

He was a radical stand up who dared to question the values of small town America and the evils of American foreign policy. Ruthlessly honest, a voice of reason in what he saw as an insane world, Hicks refused to compromise in spite of the censorship he faced for most of his career. His entire act was once banned from The Late Show with David Letterman because he made fun of pro-lifers and the Pope...

Widely hailed as one of the finest humorist of the twentieth century, James Thurber looks back at his own life growing up in Columbus, Ohio, with the same humor and sharp wit that defined his famous sketches and writings. In My Life and Hard times, first published in 1933, he recounts the delightful chaos and frustrations of family, boyhood, youth, odd dogs, recalcitrant machinery, and the foibles...

BAFTA-winning actor, voice of everything from Monkey to the Cadbury's Caramel Rabbit, creator of a myriad of unforgettable characters from Lady Whiteadder to Professor Sprout, MIRIAM MARGOLYES, OBE, is the nation's favourite (and naughtiest) treasure. Now, at the age of 80, she has finally decided to tell her extraordinary life story - and it's well worth the wait. Find out how being conceived in...

A short story called the Hollow Man by Thomas Burke Good stuff. This selection of 42 stories written between 1829 and 1968 is the first to present the full range and vitality of the English tradition of literary ghost fiction by demonstrating its historical development as well as its major themes and characteristics. The fictional ghost story is demonstrated by English authors, from J. S. Le Fanu...

Stupidity is all around us, from the colleagues who won't stop hitting 'reply all' to the former school friends posting conspiracy theories on Facebook. But in order to battle idiocy, we must first understand it. In this book, some of the world's leading psychologists and thinkers - including a Nobel Prize winner - will show you: why smart people sometimes believe in utter nonsense; how our lazy b...

The creators of The Onion present a collection of hilariously subversive news stories from their popular humor website, including such topical and timely events as "Clinton Deploys Vowels to Bosnia," "Jesus Christ Returns to NBA," and "Microsoft Patents Ones, Zeroes." Original. 150,000 first printing. Book Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/sup...

The acclaimed book Oliver Stone called "the best account I have read of this tragedy and its significance," JFK and the Unspeakable details not just how the conspiracy to assassinate President John F. Kennedy was carried out, but WHY it was done...and why it still matters today. At the height of the Cold War, JFK risked committing the greatest crime in human history: starting a nuclear war. Horrif...

Funnyman Hugh Lloyd's autobiography provides a light-hearted history of more than 60 years of high-profile showbusiness. His was a world populated by the likes of Cliff Richard, Tony Hancock, Anthony Hopkins, Raquel Welch, and Alan Bennett. Book Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/just-reads--6173738/support . Please click 'like' and Subcribe and all the good stuff...

Bob Mortimer’s life was trundling along happily until, suddenly in 2015, he was diagnosed with a heart condition that required immediate surgery and forced him to cancel an upcoming tour. The episode unnerved him but forced him to reflect on his life so far. This is the framework for his hilarious and moving memoir, And Away....Although his childhood in Middlesbrough was normal on the surface, it...

For his many friends and fans, Peter Cook was quite simply the funniest man they'd ever encountered. And nearly eight years since his death, his status as one of Britain's greatest comedians shows no sign of shrinking. Despite his reputation for idleness, Peter Cook was a great comedy writer, who created countless outrageous sketches and articles and was famed for his prolific role in the satire b...

Flann O’Brien (Brian O’Nolan, aka Myles na Gopaleen) adopted not only a new name (George Knowall) for these rarely seen pieces, but also a new persona. Writing his column ‘Bones of Contention’ for the Nationalist and Leinster Times, he took on the character of the quizzical and enquiring humorist who might be found in a respectable public house in Carlow: erudite, urbane and informative, he is the...

Dripping with blood and gold, fetishized and tortured, gateway to earthly delights and point of contact with the divine, forcibly divided and powerful even beyond death, there was no territory more contested than the body in the medieval world. In Medieval Bodies, art historian Jack Hartnell uncovers the complex and fascinating ways in which the people of the Middle Ages thought about, explored an...

London, 1938. Alma Fielding, an ordinary young woman, begins to experience supernatural events in her suburban home. Nandor Fodor - a Jewish Hungarian refugee and chief ghost hunter for the International Institute for Psychical research - begins to investigate. In doing so, he discovers a different and darker type of haunting: trauma, alienation, loss - and the foreshadowing of a nation’s worst fe...

Embark on a journey through the brilliant mind of one of history's greatest thinkers with the thought-provoking book "The World As I See It" by the iconic physicist and author Albert Einstein. Dive into a collection of essays and musings that offer profound insights into the nature of the universe, the human experience, and the interplay between science and philosophy. Albert Einstein, a revolutio...

Titanic - the most magnificent ocean liner of her time - was doomed and destined for disaster before she ever left the docks at Southampton. Doomed by her owner, doomed by her designers, doomed by the men who sailed her -- doomed even by her sister ship. Author Bryan Jackson presents a new and unique look at the many circumstances that came together the night of April 14, 1912 to claim over 1,500...

The Meaning of Liff has sold hundreds of thousands of copies since it was first published in 1983, and remains a much-loved humour classic. This edition has been revised and updated, and includes The Deeper Meaning of Liff, giving fresh appeal to Douglas Adams and John Lloyd's entertaining and witty dictionary. In life, there are hundreds of familiar experiences, feelings and objects for which no...

Titanic - the most magnificent ocean liner of her time - was doomed and destined for disaster before she ever left the docks at Southampton. Doomed by her owner, doomed by her designers, doomed by the men who sailed her -- doomed even by her sister ship. Author Bryan Jackson presents a new and unique look at the many circumstances that came together the night of April 14, 1912 to claim over 1,500...

When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle introduced the world to Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson in 1887's A Study in Scarlet, a true icon of literature was born. Since then, their humble address at 221B Baker Street has become almost as famous as the great detective himself, with the incredible popularity of Sherlock Holmes's adventures never wavering over the last 130 years. Bound in a rich, collector's cover,...

A wildly comic send-up of Irish literature and culture, At Swim-Two-Birds is the story of a young, lazy, and frequently drunk Irish college student who lives with his curmudgeonly uncle in Dublin. When not in bed (where he seems to spend most of his time) or reading he is composing a mischief-filled novel about Dermot Trellis, a second-rate author whose characters ultimately rebel against him and...

Bestselling writer and criminologist Christopher Berry-Dee turns his attention to a new kind of victim: the wives or partners of serial murderers who remained unaware of exactly who they had fallen for until after their other half's arrest or, in some cases, conviction, for multiple murders. Sonia Sutcliffe first discovered that her husband, Peter, was leading a secret existence as 'the Yorkshire...

Written in secret during the darkest days of Stalin's reign, The Master and Margarita became an overnight literary phenomenon when it was finally published it, signalling artistic freedom for Russians everywhere. Bulgakov's carnivalesque satire of Soviet life describes how the Devil, trailing fire and chaos in his wake, weaves himself out of the shadows and into Moscow one Spring afternoon. Brimmi...