John Buchan 12 Classic Action/Adventure & History Audiobooks in 15 MP3 Audio CDs
John Buchan
(1875 - 1940)
John Buchan, 1st Baron Tweedsmuir PC GCMG GCVO CH was a Scottish novelist, historian and Unionist politician who served as Governor General of Canada, the 15th since Canadian Confederation. After a brief legal career Buchan simultaneously began both his writing career and his political and diplomatic career, serving as a private secretary to the colonial administrator of various colonies in Southern Africa. He eventually wrote propaganda for the British war effort in the First World War. Once he was back in civilian life Buchan was elected Member of Parliament for the Combined Scottish Universities, but he spent most of his time on his writing career, notably writing The Thirty-Nine Steps and other adventure fiction. In 1935 he was appointed Governor General of Canada by George V, king of Canada, on the recommendation of Prime Minister of Canada Richard Bennett, to replace the Earl of Bessborough. He occupied the post until his death in 1940. Buchan proved to be enthusiastic about literacy, as well as the evolution of Canadian culture, and he received a state funeral in Canada before his ashes were returned to the United Kingdom.
Greenmantle
Read by Cliff Stone
Running Time:09:44:57 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Hannay is called in to investigate rumours of an uprising in the Muslim world and undertakes a perilous journey through enemy territory to meet his friend Sandy in Constantinople. Once there, he and his friends must thwart the Germans' plans to use religion to help them win the war, climaxing at the battle of Erzurum.
Huntingtower
Read by Simon Evers
Running Time:7:34:27 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Dickson
McCunn, a respectable, newly retired grocer, plans a walking holiday in
the hills of south-west Scotland. He meets a young English poet and
finds himself in the thick of a plot involving the kidnapping of a
Russian princess, who is held prisoner in the rambling mansion,
Huntingtower. This modern fairy-tale is also a gripping adventure story.
The Last Secrets
Read by Steven Seitel
Running Time:06:29:39 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
The
author, John Buchan, maintains that "the main lines of the earth's
architecture have been determined" during the first two decades of the
twentieth century, and all that remains is but "amplifying our knowledge
of the groyning and buttresses and stone-work." In this history of
exploration, he tells of nine of those momentous final discoveries that
placed the earth's last big secrets firmly on the map, from the
mysterious "cloud city" of Lhasa, to the slopes--but not yet the
summit--of Mount Everest.
Mr. Standfast
Read by Nicholas Clifford
Running Time:11:52:00 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
This
is the third of Buchan's Richard Hannay novels, following The
Thirty-nine Steps and Greenmantle. Set, like Greenmantle, during World
War I, it deals Brigadier-General Hannay's recall from the Western
Front, to engage in espionage, and forced (much to his chagrin) to pose
as a pacifist. He becomes a South African conscientious objector, using
the name Cornelius Brand. Under the orders of his spymaster, Sir Walter
Bullivant, he travels in the book through England to Scotland, back to
the Western Front, and ultimately, for the book's denouement, into the
Alps. Those who know Greenmantle will meet some old friends again here,
including Bullivant, the American John Blenkiron, the South African
Peter Pienaar and others.
To quote Hannay's contemporary,
Sherlock Holmes, “The game's afoot!” How will it come out? And though
Hannay is no James Bond, might he perhaps be a literary ancestor of Ian
Fleming's Agent Double-O Seven? Judge for yourself.
Prester John
Read by Grant Hurlock
Running Time:7:44:54 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
This
classic adventure novel by the author of Greenmantle and The
Thirty-Nine Steps relates the first-person exploits of young David
Crawfurd before the age of twenty.
As a boy growing up on the
coast of Scotland, minister's son Davie and two friends were pursued
with murderous intent along the cliffs one night by John Laputa, a
visiting black African preacher, whom they had witnessed performing
un-Christian rites round a campfire on the beach. A few years later,
when his father's death forces Davie to quit college and join the tribe
of wandering Scots, our hero finds himself in South Africa, assistant
shopkeeper in a seemingly sleepy back-veldt store. There he
re-encounters Laputa, now charismatic leader of an incipient native
uprising, secretly preaching the incendiary creed of "Africa for the
Africans," and proclaiming himself heir to the mantle of Prester John, a
legendary 15th-century Christian king of Ethiopia.
Can young
Davie possibly penetrate the megalomaniac's mountain stronghold, foil
the insurrection, prevent a massacre of white settlers, and make off
with the rebels' war-chest of gold and diamonds? It's going to take some
doing - and not a little derring-do!
The Power-House
Read by Expatriate
Running Time:03:07:31 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
The
Power-House is a novel by John Buchan, a thriller set in London,
England. It was written in 1913, when it was serialised in Blackwood's
Magazine, and it was published in book form in 1916. The narrator is the
barrister and Tory MP Edward Leithen, who features in a number of
Buchan's novels. The urban setting contrasts with that of its sequel,
John Macnab, which is set in the Scottish Highlands.
The
Power-House of the title is an international anarchist organization led
by a rich Englishman named Andrew Lumley. Its plan to destroy Western
civilisation is thwarted by Leithen with the assistance of a burly
Labour MP.
The Thirty-nine Steps
Read by Adrian Praetzellis
Running Time:4:20:42 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
Richard
Hannay’s boredom is soon relieved when the resourceful engineer is
caught up in a web of secret codes, spies, and murder on the eve of WWI.
This exciting action-adventure story was the inspiration for Alfred
Hitchcock’s 1939 classic film of the same name. John Buchan (1875-1940)
was Governor General of Canada and a popular novelist. Although
condemned by some for anti-Semitic dialog in The Thirty-Nine Steps, his
character’s sentiments do not represent the view of the author who was
identified in Hitler’s Sonderfahndungsliste (special search list) as a
"Jewish sympathiser."
The Three Hostages
Read by Kimberly Krause
Running Time:11:59:20 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
The
Three Hostages is the fourth of five Richard Hannay novels. The Richard
Hannay novels are action/mystery/spy novels with a James bond feel.
This book starts out with Richard Hannay married to Mary Lamington
living in Fosse Manor. He is asked to work undercover and figure out who
kidnapped three children of prominent people, while Scotland Yard
investigate the abductions officially. Different friends help him solve
the mystery. It's suspenseful and a fun action packed mystery!
A History of the Great War, Volume One
Read by David Reader
Running Time:27:59:48 in 2 MP3 Audio CDs
This is the first of a four-volume history of the First World War, covering the period from its outbreak in the summer of 1914 to the campaign in Neuve Chapelle of March 1915. The author, John Buchan, was most widely known as the writer of the spy-thriller, The Thirty-Nine Steps; and he was also a politician and a diplomat. According to the writer in his preface, this work appeared originally in twenty-four volumes between February 1915 and July 1919, and was thus partially contemporaneous with the war itself. The volume starts with the triggering event, i.e., the assassination of the Archduke Francis Ferdinand; then the author gave a general background of the world's political and social situations that contributed to the more deep-rooted cause to the final showdown between the antagonistic powers. For the rest of the volume, the author narrated, in a chronological fashion, the major individual battles that had been fought; and the gradual escalation of the armed conflicts that were to spread ultimately to almost every part of the world. Details were given to the relative power and military preparation of each belligerent in an emerging battle, the topography of the battle theatre, a blow-by-blow account of the actual fighting, and the strategical significance of its aftermath. There are also interluding chapters to take stock of the overall situation after a series of major campaigns had been played out. In general, the author took a rather formal approach by describing the war from a more macroscopic level, packed with factual details, but from the perspective of a patriotic British national.
A History of the Great War, Volume Two
Read by Multiple Readers
Running Time:29:53:21 in 2 MP3 Audio CDs
This is the second of a four-volume history of the First World War, covering the period from the opening of the Dardenelles Campaign in September 1914 through the first stage of The Battle of Verdun, stopping in mid-April, 1916. As David Reader noted for volume 1, "the author took a rather formal approach by describing the war from a more macroscopic level, packed with factual details, but from the perspective of a patriotic British national."
A History of the Great War, Volume Three
Read by Multiple Readers
Running Time:30:20:37 in 2 MP3 Audio CDs
This is the third of a four-volume history of the First World War, coming in along the Ypres Salient in February 1916 and stopping mid-November 1917. Buchan continues to give us a comprehensive war history that provides clear understanding of the complexities involved without feeling bogged down.
A History of the Great War, Volume Four: Book 3,
The Great Sallies (cont.) and Book 4, The Surrender
Read by Multiple Readers
Running Time:22:25:41 in 1 MP3 Audio CD
This is the fourth of a four-volume history of the First World War, coming in during 1917, when Germany is reorganizing and Russia is about to fall. Buchan continues to give us a comprehensive war history that provides a clear understanding of the complexities that are involved without feeling bogged down.