Showing results by narrator "Michael Kramer" in All Categories

Deeply sourced within Obama's economic team, Noam Scheiber is uniquely qualified to profile the squad of elite administration insiders who have set and managed the president's economic policies from before the start of his term in office, through the crisis, and into our current prolonged recovery. These are people we know - or think we know: Obama, Geithner, Summers, Orszag, and a host of others.

TV evangelist scandals. More varieties of Christianity that Baskin-Robbins has flavors. These are times of pluralism and disenchantment with organized religion. How do Christians today know which leaders and companions in faith to trust? For help, Gerald McDermott returns to the work of Jonathon Edwards, the 18th century preacher and college president widely regarded as the greatest American theologian ever.

War has torn Tarsynium asunder. However, the true war lies just ahead...After the defeat of the king’s army at Dunmar City, a letter arrives from the Conclave's High Magus seeking a truce. The Nightingales, in desperate need of friends, leave their mountain stronghold to forge a new alliance with rangers and mages, to unite themselves against the king. But when political intrigues lead our young heroes into a trap, they face a punishment reserved for only the vilest of criminals: Exile.

Foreign correspondent Neely Tucker and his wife, Vita, arrived in Zimbabwe in 1997. After witnessing firsthand the devastating consequences of AIDS on the population, especially the children, the couple started volunteering at an orphanage that was desperately underfunded and short-staffed. One afternoon, a critically ill infant was brought to the orphanage from a village outside the city. She'd been left to die in a field on the day she was born.

The demons have been defeated in the Emberwood, and Owyn and Zara must travel to the capital city of Tarsys to bring word to the Conclave. However, not everything is as it seems in the city of mages. Assassins lurk in the shadows and whispers of demon plots follow a mysterious - and deadly - cult. The Arc of Radiance is failing, and if the heroes of Forest Hill aren't careful, they may help hasten its demise.

After months recuperating in hospital, US Marine Jack Cohen hoped a Caribbean cruise would help him recover from the horrific injuries he sustained fighting in the Middle East. Instead, when the ship is attacked, he is once again thrust into battle to protect Atlantica against the ruthless enemy hunting her, and the insidious threat already aboard.

Adam flees to the desert to save his life, and discovers the need to save his soul. In the searing heat of Death Valley, lonely land of prospectors and hermits, he confronts his baser instincts as he struggles to survive, striving to rise above them. Wanderer of the Wasteland is Zane Grey’s most personal novel: a thinly veiled autobiography written in remarkably poetic language. Filled with colorful characters, and vibrant descriptions of the southwestern desert landscape he so loved, this is the story of one man’s internal battle to save his better self, or die trying.

Rydel, a young elf boy, is left with a grizzled blademaster to become something the like the world has never seen - a Hidden. A rare rank of elves that were thought to be myth, masters of combat in all forms. Now, with his two young companions who become brothers, he must train day and night in a brutal fashion until he is a weapon himself. Yet if the training doesn't kill him, then the final trial almost certainly will.

Continuing the award-winning epic of a world where faith and dreams become reality, Mythborn Three follows Masters Silbane and Kisan, the young blade-master Ash, and Princess Yetteje as they journey into the ethereal realm Arcadia, home to the Celestial Lilyth and her Aeris demons. They search for Silbane's apprentice, Arek, and the lost prince of Bara'cor, Niall, as the two explore Arcadia for clues to the mystery of Arek's origin. Is he the son of the demon queen Lilyth, as she claims?

Dewey “Mac” McKenzie is wanted for a killing he didn’t commit. He saved his hide once by signing on as a cattle drive chuckwagon cook and bolting the territories. Turned out Mac was as good at fixing vittles as he was at dodging bullets. But Mac’s enemies are hungry for more — and they’ve hired a gang of ruthless killers to turn up the heat....

In a Midwestern city, Parker calmly tosses a firebomb through a plate-glass window, while some newfound partners in crime take down a nearby bank. Making their getaway in the confusion, the bank robbers tell him two things: that this heist was only seed money for a much gaudier one, and that Parker has to loan them his share of the take.

Pope Francis, the first Jesuit pope and the first from the Americas, offers a challenge to his Church. Can he bring about significant change? Should he? Garry Wills argues that changes have been the evidence of life in the Catholic Church. It has often changed, sometimes with bad consequences, more often with good - good enough to make it perdure. In this brilliant and incisive study, he gives seven examples of deep and serious changes that have taken place within the last century.

Anuka Sandbar is the most interesting half-goblin alive. Just ask him. When Papa disappears, Anuka sets out to find him. While sailing to a sleazy port city to begin his search, Anuka and some unlikely companions are enslaved by pirates. They wind up the property of an emissary for the Silver DragonLord, Shimmer. The emissary offers them manumission if they discover the source of massive amounts of illegal DragonsBlood flooding the country. With different dragon factions on the precipice of war, revealing the truth could mean the destruction of mortal civilization.

This darkly satirical drama by Gore Vidal finds two presidential contenders seeking the endorsement of an aging ex-president, and explores how personal agendas can change the course of a nation's destiny. The political intrigues rampant in Vidal's 1960 setting are strangely similar what is going on today. Includes an interview with actors Fred Thompson and Marsha Mason.

Cal Claxton is determined to reinvent himself as a small-town lawyer in the aftermath of his wife's suicide. Once a hard-charging Los Angeles prosecutor, he nowlives in solitude in an old farmhouse overlooking Oregon's wine country. When a scruffy, tattooed kid shows up asking for help in solving a cold case - that of his mother's murder - Cal wants to say no. Times are tough, and he's no private eye, anyway. But the kid, who calls himself Picasso, has ridden a bicycle in the rain all the way from Portland, and something about his determination touches Cal.

What was once the Peradaini Empire is now a wasted landscape of burned, empty cities and abandoned farmlands. The Blessing, now more numerous than ever, continues to spread across the continent, driving refugees to the dubious safety of the city walls. Unharvested crops mean that few strongholds have enough provisions to last the winter, although most know the grunts will take them before starvation will. But hope survives.

J. Paul ("Little Paul") Getty III, the grandson of Getty Oil founder J. Paul Getty, may have been cursed by money and privilege from the moment he was born. Falling in with the wrong people and practically abandoned by his famous family, Getty was a child of his international jet-set era, moving from Marrakesh to Rome, nightclubs to well-appointed drug dens. His high-profile kidnapping defined the decade - and was permanently memorable for the ear that was mailed to his mother as evidence of the kidnappers' intentions.

As the Confederacy felt itself slipping beneath the Union juggernaut in late 1864, the South launched a desperate counteroffensive to force a standoff. Its secret weapon? A state-of-the-art raiding ship whose mission was to sink the U.S. merchant fleet. The raider's name was Shenandoah, and her executive officer was Conway Whittle, a 24-year-old warrior.

Felix Castor is a freelance exorcist, and London is his stamping ground. At a time when the supernatural world is in upheaval and spilling over into the mundane reality of the living, his skills have never been more in demand. A good exorcist can charge what he likes - and enjoy a hell of a lifestyle - but there's a risk: sooner or later he's going to take on a spirit that's too strong for him. After a year spent in 'retirement', Castor is reluctantly drawn back to the life he rejected and accepts a seemingly simple exorcism case - just to pay the bills, you understand.

Built on top of the gates of Hell, Grimm City is the Devil's capital on earth. A place where every coffee shop, nightclub and shopping mall is the potential hunting ground for any of the supernatural entities that inhabit the Grimm City world. Death's 17-year-old apprentice, Nathaniel, comes into his own as he leads an uprising against the Devil with the help of a half-dead wraith and a giant hit-man. What results is a bloody, brutal revolt that calls upon the loyalties of both the living and the dead.