Search results for ""Author James Naughtie""

‘Secrets and regrets, ambition and venality. I have seldom come across a novel so redolent of le Carré.’ Charles Cumming London, mid-1970s. A sweltering July in Whitehall, and for Will Flemyng, foreign office minister, the temperature rises with each passing hour. A mysterious death exposes secret passions in government, and a political crisis draws him into a familiar world of danger and deceit. Flemyng has a past. Trained as a spy to live with secrets, he is alone again. In the course of one long weekend, friendships face destruction and all his loyalties are put to the test. His hazardous journey takes him to old battlefields and the dark places where London and Washington do their most secret business, in an era brought brilliantly to life by a writer steeped in the story of Flemyng’s world. From one of our best-known BBC broadcasters comes a sophisticated thriller about loyalty, survival and family rivalry deep in the Cold War, drawing on decades of experience as a political insider in Westminster and Washington. 'Hugely satisfying... Grips from the first page to the last.' Kate Mosse ‘Addictive. The reader has to piece together a drip-feed of clues.’ Independent ‘A slow-burning, cerebral and gripping thriller which fuses the entwined professions of politics and espionage.’ Herald

Read more less

From one of our most treasured BBC broadcasters, The Spy Across the Water is the third instalment in James Naughtie''s brilliant spy series, woven around three brothers bound together through espionage.We live with our history, but it can kill us.Faces from the past appear from nowhere at a family funeral, and Will Flemyng, spy-turned-ambassador, is drawn into twin mysteries that threaten everything he holds dear.From Washington, he''s pitched back into the Troubles in Northern Ireland and an explosive secret hidden deep in the most dangerous but fulfilling friendship he has known.And while he confronts shadowy adversaries in American streets, and looks for solace at home in the Scottish Highlands, he discovers that his government''s most precious Cold War agent is in mortal danger and needs his help to survive.In an electric story of courage and betrayal, Flemyng learns the truth that his life has left him a man wi

Read more less

From one of our most treasured BBC broadcasters, The Spy Across the Water is the third instalment in James Naughtie’s brilliant spy series, woven around three brothers bound together through espionage. We live with our history, but it can kill us. Faces from the past appear from nowhere at a family funeral, and Will Flemyng, spy-turned-ambassador, is drawn into twin mysteries that threaten everything he holds dear. From Washington, he’s pitched back into the Troubles in Northern Ireland and an explosive secret hidden deep in the most dangerous but fulfilling friendship he has ever known. And while he confronts shadowy adversaries in American streets, and looks for solace at home in the Scottish Highlands, he discovers that his government’s most precious Cold War agent is in mortal danger and needs his help to survive. In an electric story of courage and betrayal, Flemyng learns the truth: that his life has left him a man with many friends, but still alone. 'A thoughtful and detailed novel of statecraft and spycraft, recommended for fans of le Carré' Ian Rankin 'Naughtie writes sophisticated, complex spy novels, rich in character and incident. The Spy Across the Water is perhaps his finest yet.' Charles Cumming Praise for James Naughtie: ‘As convincing as any of John le Carré’s’ Independent ‘Beautifully written, deftly plotted, skilfully paced, imaginatively conceived’ Robert Littell ‘An involved and beautifully plotted spy story’ Allan Massie 'Hugely gripping and atmospheric' Mail on Sunday 'Complex and psychologically detailed' Charles Cumming 'A tour de force' Kate Mosse

Read more less

'Everything you would expect of a James Naughtie book - droll, absorbing and wonderfully perceptive.' Bill Bryson'A revealing and at times spellbinding tapestry of a nation...It is thought-provoking, constantly surprising and hugely entertaining. Sublime stuff.’ Michael Simkins, Mail on Sunday'An insightful account of living through momentous times...much to enjoy in Naughtie's astute memoir.' Martin Chilton, Independent James Naughtie, the acclaimed author and BBC broadcaster, now brings his unique and inquisitive eye to the country that has fascinated him and drawn him across the Atlantic for half a century. In looking at America, from Presidents Nixon through to Biden, he tells the story of a country that is grappling with a dream. What has it come to mean in the new century, and who do Americans now think they are? Drawing on his travels and encounters over forty years in the ‘Land of the Free’, On The Road is filled with anecdotes, memories, tears and laughter reflecting Naughtie’s characteristic warmth and enthusiasm in encountering the America of Washington, of Broadway, of the small town and the plains. As a student, Naughtie watched the fall of President Richard Nixon in 1974, and subsequently as a journalist followed the story of the country – its politicians, artists, wheeler-dealers and the people who make it what it is, in the New York melting pot or the western deserts. This is a story filled with encounters, for example with the people he has watched on every presidential campaign from the late 1970s to the victory of Joe Biden in 2020. This edition is fully updated to include Naughtie's fascinating insights on the controversial presidential election battle in 2020 between Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

Read more less

Paris, April 1968. The cafes are alive with talk of revolution, but for Will Flemyng – secret servant at the British embassy – the crisis is personal. A few words from a stranger on the metro change his life. His family is threatened with ruin and he now faces the spy's oldest fear: exposure. Freddy Craven is the hero and mentor Flemyng would trust with his life, but when he is tempted into a dark, Cold War labyrinth, he chooses the dangerous path and plays his game alone. As the streets of Paris become a smoke-filled battleground, Flemyng, like his friends and enemies, discovers that where secrets are at stake, lives are too...

Read more less

The making of Music is the story of our musical history, its origins and how it has shaped us. We have all grown up with a common background noise, whether we realise it or not. The tradition of European music that took shape in medieval monasteries, then in churches and courts, and moved into the salons, concert halls and theatres in later centuries, is in our cultural bloodstream. James Naughtie delves into the colourful, turbulent world of music - its characters, traditions and mysterious power - in a delightfully lively and personal way. His story is richly peopled and animated by moments of drama: what it was like at the first night of The Rite of Spring, when the dancers could neither hear their instructions nor could Stravinsky continue conducting because the booing was so loud; how it must have felt for Beethoven to scratch Napoleon's name off the dedication page of the 'Eroica' Symphony because he believed the emperor to have betrayed the French Revolution. As when presenting the Proms, James Naughtie brings to The Making of Music that particular blend of expertise and approachability set to delight the aficionado and the uninitiated alike.

Read more less

Imagine a world without Principia Mathematica, Rights of Man, the Bible, Shakespeare, or the Mahabharata.Books that Changed History features 75 of the world's most momentous titles - from The Art of War to Anne Frank's Diary - and reveals their far-ranging impact.Books are the medium through which scientists, storytellers, and philosophers introduce their ideas. Discover seminal religious and political titles, cornerstones of science such as On the Origin of Species, and ancient texts such as the I Ching, which is still used today to answer fundamental questions about human existence.Get up close to see fascinating details, such as Versalius' exquisite anatomical illustrations in Epitome, Leonardo da Vinci's annotated notebooks, or the hand-decorated pages in the Gutenberg Bible. Discover why Euclid's Elements of Geometry was the most influential maths title ever published, and marvel at rare treasures such as the Aubin Codex, which tells the history of the Aztecs and the early Spanaish colonial period in Mexico.Books that Changed History gathers stories, diaries, scientific treatises, plays, dictionaries, and religious texts into a stunning celebration of the power of books.

Read more less