Follow the adventures of Naval Lieutenant Otto Prohaska in the waning years of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It is the summer of 1916, and as luck would have it, Otto is assigned to the nascent, unreliable and utterly terrifying Imperial and Royal Austro-Hungarian Flying Service. Otto’s aerial chauffeur is the self-willed Sergeant-Pilot Toth, with whom he can only communicate in broken Latin—although when all else fails, screaming may suffice!Once again Biggins uses his sharp wit and meticulous research to reveal the humanity behind the history. On the ground the rickety Habsburg Empire crumbles before the onslaught of WWI, while in the air Otto confronts the winds of change heralding the 20th century.
Fans of Gerard Durrell’s beloved classic My Family and Other Animals and other accounts of his lifelong fascination with members of the animal kingdom will rejoice at The Whispering Land. The sequel to A Zoo in My Luggage, this is the story of how Durrell and his wife’s zoo-building efforts at England’s Jersey Zoo led them and a team of helpers on an eight- month safari in Argentina to look for South American specimens. Through windswept Patagonian shores and tropical forests in Argentina, from ocelots to penguins, fur seals to parrots, Durrell captures the landscape and its inhabitants with his signature charm and humor.
Even more terrible happenings concerning the Baudelaire orphans. Dear Customer, If you have not heard anything about the Baudelaire orphans, then before you listen to even one sentence you should know this: Violet, Klaus and Sunny are kindhearted and quick-witted, but their lives, I'm sorry to say, are filled with bad luck and misery. All of the stories about these three children are unhappy and wretched, and this one may be the worst of them all. If you haven't got the stomach for a story that includes a hurricane, a signalling device, hungry leeches, cold cucumber soup, a horrible villain and a doll named Pretty Penny, then this CD will probably fill you with despair. I will continue to record these tragic tales, for that is what I do. You, however, should decide for yourself whether you can possibly bear the responsibility of exposing others to this miserable story. With all due respect, Lemony Snicket
Having survived the bloody Battle of New Orleans and the loss of their ironclad Yazoo River, captain Samuel Bowater, engineer Hieronymus Taylor, and the survivors of their crew are given new orders – take command of an ironclad warship being built in Memphis, Tennessee.Bowater and his men take passage upriver from "Mississippi" Mike Sullivan, one of the wild, undisciplined captains of the River Defense Squadron, only to find, on their arrival, that their ship is not even half built and the enemy is closing fast. Against their better judgment, Bowater and crew join forces with the mercurial Sullivan on board his ad hoc river gunship the General Page. Outnumbered and outgunned, the Confederates once again fling themselves bravely at the overwhelming power of the Yankee invaders. The deadly back-and-forth fight along the Mississippi ends at last in the massive naval battle of Memphis, and the near-suicidal attempt by the Confederates to hold back the Northern flood.
Portsmouth, 1782. His Britannic Majesty's frigate, Phalarope, is ordered to assist the hard-pressed squadrons in the Caribbean. Aboard is her new commander-Richard Bolitho. To all appearances the Phalarope is everything a young captain could wish for, but beneath the surface she is a deeply unhappy ship-her wardroom torn by petty greed and ambition, her deckhands suspected of cowardice under fire and driven to near-mutiny by senseless ill-treatment.
