Showing results by publisher "Spoken Word Inc." in All Categories

Professor Vellitt Boe teaches at the prestigious Ulthar Women's College. When one of her most gifted students elopes with a dreamer from the waking world, Vellitt must retrieve her.

Joining the Marines in 2002, David Rose signed up to go fight...and to go die. On this grim path, rather than finding a violent death, he would find family, purpose, and a brotherhood amid the misfit world of the war fighter. No Joy sees David recounting madcap tales of Muay Thai bouts in seedy garages, a bizarre stint as a street cop, being on the other side of the badge, becoming a veteran of the psych ward, and more. It's an irreverently told story that doesn't just tell one man's tale, but speaks to the necessary question: What really draws modern young men to war?

A "Proustian minimalist on the order of Lydia Davis" ( Kirkus Reviews), Sarah Manguso is one of the finest literary artists at work today. To hear her work is to witness acrobatic acts of compression in the service of extraordinary psychological and spiritual insight. 300 Arguments, a foray into the frontier of contemporary nonfiction writing, is at first glance a group of unrelated aphorisms.

Darcie Wilder's Literally Show Me a Healthy Person is a careful confession soaking in saltwater, a size B control top jet black pantyhose dragged over a skinned knee and slipped into unlaced doc martens. Blurring the lines of the written word, Literally Show Me a Healthy Person is a portrait of a young girl, or woman, or something; grappling with the immediate and seemingly endless urge to document and describe herself and the world around her.

In The Fabric of Autism: Weaving the Threads into a Cogent Theory, Judith Bluestone combines her personal autistic experience with academic research and over 40 years of clinical practice to craft a unique and compelling view of the phenomenon called autism. Bluestone's audiobook is both a significant clinical work and a moving memoir that illuminates the humanity beneath the bewildering facade of autism.

In the midst of Occupy, Barbara Andersen begins spamming people indiscriminately with ukulele covers of sentimental songs. A series of inappropriate intimacies ensues, including an erotically charged correspondence and then collaboration with an extraordinarily gifted and troubled musician living in Germany.

To keep doing what you love, you need to maintain your own systems, not just the ones you write code for. Regular exercise and proper nutrition help you learn, remember, concentrate, and be creative - skills critical to doing your job well. Learn how to change your work habits, master exercises that make working at a computer more comfortable, and develop a plan to keep fit, healthy, and sharp for years to come.

Vievee Francis's poems engage many of the same concerns as her poetic predecessors - faith in a secular age, the city and nature, aging, and beauty. Words certainly do not fail as Francis sets off into the wild world promised in the title. The wild here is not chaotic but rather free and finely attuned to its surroundings. The listener who joins her will emerge sensitized and changed by the enduring power of her work.

In her electric fourth collection, Melissa Broder penetrates the itch of existence and explores numberless deaths: the annihilation of self, the bereavement of love, the destruction of fantasy, the transmutation, even, of our ideas of dying. What emerges is an infinite series of false endings - each a trap door containing the possibility for alchemy, rebirth, and renewal. Last Sext confronts both eternal longing and the mystery of mortality, with language hot, primal, and dark.

Ben Loory returns with a second collection of timeless tales, inviting us to enter his worlds of whimsical fantasy, deep empathy, and playful humor, in the signature voice that drew listeners to his highly praised first collection. In stories that eschew literary realism, Loory's characters demonstrate richly imagined and surprising perspectives, whether they be dragons or swordsmen, star-crossed lovers or long-lost twins, restaurateurs dreaming of Paris or cephalopods fixated on space travel.

Is your team agile and self-organizing? What is your role as a leader? Team leadership is the missing link that connects all the buzzwords you hear these days to the real world where actual people have to learn, implement, and mainly, believe and push for this stuff to happen. This audiobook is meant for software team leaders, architects, and anyone with a leadership role in the software business. Hear advice from real team leaders, consultants, and everyday gurus of management.

An Unferth story lures you in with a voice that seems amiable and lighthearted, but it swerves in sudden and surprising ways that reveal, in terrifying clarity, the rage, despair, and profound mournfulness that have taken up residence at the heart of the American dream. These stories often take place in an exaggerated or heightened reality, a quality that is reminiscent of the work of Donald Barthelme, Lorrie Moore, and George Saunders, but in Unferth's unforgettable collection she carves out territory that is entirely her own.

Many questions and stories circulate about cancer. Are you telling yourself you are a victim of cancer? Are you worried the cancer will come back? Are you stuck in the role of being sick? Christine Egan made a conscious choice to tell a different story. The Healthy Girl's Guide to Breast Cancer is part memoir and part guide revealing the all-too-true story of cancer in this country with a healthy twist.

In Branding Basics for Small Business, marketing expert Maria Ross shares real-life examples and expert interviews to show how organizations of any size can create a winning brand. Small businesses, start-ups, and nonprofits enviously watch the big guys create tribes of loyal followers. How do they do it? What can time- and resource-strapped organizations learn from them? The secret is starting with a strong brand strategy, which goes far beyond a logo.

Impact: A Leadership Fable is an inspirational tale of how to be a quality leader while maintaining values we often lose sight of along the road to success. This is not your typical list of ways to be a better leader. Galen uses storytelling to highlight the seductive traps every would-be leader must avoid, as well as principles to stay on the right course. In this one leadership fable, Galen tells a story, shares tools to help chart a course to leadership success.

If you don't know Melville's letters to Hawthorne, you don't know Melville. These letters are full of passion, humor, doubt, and spiritual yearning, and offer an intimate view of Melville's personality. Lyrical and effusive, they are literary works in themselves. This correspondence has been out of print for decades, and even when it was in print it appeared in scholarly volumes of Melville's complete correspondence, aimed at the academy.

If today you are no longer willing to settle for mediocrity in your work, relationships, and your life, this book is for you. Found here is the powerful secret to unlocking your fullest potential as a career person, a parent, a friend, a mate, a lover, a human being. How? Through getting naked. Getting Naked is about living life as the fullest, most authentic version of you. It's about cutting the crap - releasing the baggage that has held you hostage for so long and embracing all of you.

"I drink, I hurt myself and the people around me, and then I write." Brett is in Central America, away from her husband, when she begins a love affair with his friend, Eduard. Tragedy and comedy are properly joined at the hip in this loosely autobiographical book about infidelity, drinking, and the postponing of repercussions under the sun. Though coming undone is something we all try to avoid, Martin reminds us that going off the rails is sometimes a part of the ride.

Your culture is your number-one competitive advantage. But here's the rub: Inspiring cultures don't happen by accident. You can't buy, borrow, or fake a great culture. You need to be deliberate about building a truly inspiring culture. That's where The Humor Advantage comes in.

These reflections by male inmates, recorded by a prison psychologist, are brief, sometimes only a few lines, but they offer profound insights into the realities of prison life. Some of the inmates are still bewildered that they gave up good opportunities and turned to crime; some fear that they may really like being in prison; others hope they will never return after being released, although they have not kept that vow in the past. Some come from families that abused or neglected them, and others had their every whim indulged.