Showing results by narrator "Dan John Miller" in All Categories

Jessie Bell’s last parole hearing was a disgrace. One board member called her a witch and a harpy and said that, given the chance, he would have her put down like a rabid dog. Ten years in prison for killing her sadistically abusive husband had turned Jessie Bell into a poisoned, embittered, and dangerous person. The parole hearing was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It was payback time. An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth? No, not for Jessie Bell. Her version of justice wasn't just about getting even. It was about taking back twice as much as had been taken from you.

Twenty-one-year-old Lee Shelby plunges into dangerous terrain when blatantly - and foolishly - he robs Aspen, Colorado’s most notorious cocaine dealer, fleeing the scene with five kilos of Peruvian flake and $75,000. Shelby escapes to the sagebrush hills of southwestern Wyoming, hoping to disappear into the wilderness until after the furor dies down. Then he plans to return and wrest his old girlfriend, Laura, from the dealer’s clutches. Shelby’s half-baked scheme goes awry when a chance encounter with a teenage Bonnie and Clyde puts him in the middle of a shootout with two highway patrolmen, intensifying his challenge to stay hidden off the grid.

What songs have made up your life's soundtrack? Which have captured your every mood and deepest sentiments? Pop music, like no other form of entertainment or art, is capable of articulating our feelings, desires, joy, and pain. In a few soul-grabbing minutes, artists from every genre - from Little Richard to Lou Reed, Willie Nelson to Wu-Tang Clan, Sly and the Family Stone to the Rolling Stones - can help us understand our place in our own lives.

April, 1945. As the Americans storm the Buchenwald concentration camp, among the survivors are Jakob and Emmanuelle, barely more than teenagers. Each of them has lost everything and everyone in the unspeakable horrors of the war. But when they meet, they find hope and comfort in each other. They marry and build a happy, prosperous life for themselves and their new family, but their pasts cast a long shadow over the present....

By the shining Big-Sea-Water, lived the hero Hiawatha; Swift and strong and very wise he, friend to everything in nature. Written for children, this introduction to "The Song of Hiawatha" includes many of the trochee metrical stanzas from the poem. Longfellow weaved several Ojibwa Indian words and myths into his narrative, producing a compelling, sentimental, 'noble savage' imagery for his invented hero, which continues to inspire romantic artists and musicians.

Bernard Levy was always a mystery to the community of Guilford, Mississippi. He was even more of a mystery to his son, Mickey Moe, who was just four years old when his father died in World War II. Now it’s 1962 and Mickey Moe is a grown man, who must prove his pedigree to the disapproving parents of his girlfriend, Laura Anne Needleman, to win her hand in marriage. With only a few-decades-old leads to go on, Mickey Moe sets out to uncover his father’s murky past....

The extraordinary new novel from the Orange Prize winning author of ‘We Need to Talk About Kevin’.What do you pack for the rest of your life?Shepherd Knacker is bored with his humdrum existence. He's sold his successful handy-man business for a million dollars and is now ready to embark on his 'Afterlife' - a one way ticket to a small island off the coast of Africa. He tries to convince his wife Glynis to come with him, but she laughs off the idea as preposterous.

Two decades into the twenty-first century, the stagnation of living standards has become the defining trend of American life. Life expectancy has declined, economic inequality has soared, and, after some progress, the Black-white wage gap is once again as large as it was in the 1950s. How did this happen in the world's most powerful country? And what happened to the "American dream"? Pulitzer Prize-winning writer David Leonhardt examines the past century of American history, from the Great Depression to today's Great Stagnation, in search of an answer.

Kate Madison's children are grown and ready to forge lives of their own. Her daughter Isabelle is a dedicated attorney until she falls for a client she represents in a criminal case.... And then there's Julie, who meets a man who seems too good to be true, for good reason. Justin is a struggling writer who pushes for children with his partner before they're ready. And Willie, the youngest child, makes a choice that shocks them all.... Kate can't keep her children from playing against the odds. The hardest lesson will be that she can't protect them from the choices they make.

A teenage boy goes shopping on the Internet, sees something he likes, immediately reaches his mother via cell phone, and in a few short keystrokes, types in her credit card number and gets a shiny new lacrosse stick. Thanks to technological advances, including computers, the Internet, cell phones, and satellites, today's children are faced with a world markedly more complex - and often more distracting - than that of any other preceding generation.

In the vein of Richard Russo and Tom Perrotta, a gripping, suspenseful, and gorgeous debut novel - told hour by hour over the course of a single day - in which a husband and wife try to outrun long-buried secrets, sending their lives spiraling into chaos.

An icon of the last 50 years, Stephen Hawking seems to encapsulate genius: not since Albert Einstein has a scientific figure held such a place in our popular consciousness. In this enthralling memoir, writer and physicist Leonard Mlodinow tells the story of his friend and colleague, offering an intimate account of this giant of science.

Haunted by the disappearance of his mother when he was eight years old, detective Hud Matthews begins his own investigation to find out what really happened so many years before. When a rare murder occurs in the lakeside community, Hud’s veteran skills are called upon to capture the killer. Pulled deep into the threads of the community with ties to the past, Hud quickly becomes a target, not only of the killer, but of those who wish the past to be left alone.

Conrad Wilson, an ex-detective, had less than a month to live. The date of his execution by lethal injection was scheduled for June 1. All legal avenues had been exhausted—the governor of New Hampshire refused to review his case. The only problem was Conrad Wilson was innocent, but no one cared. Or, rather, everyone that cared wanted him executed. His only chance to escape certain death was Judge Regan St. Clair and Jake Westley. Did they have enough time to stop the execution?

It is 1941, and the devastating loss of life following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor leaves best friends Audrey and Lizzie distraught and bereft as they lose someone they both love deeply. As they come to terms with their grief, their resolve to play a worthwhile role towards the war effort is strengthened. As trained nurses they volunteer for the army medivac corps and are sent to England where they join a team who fly on dangerous missions to the Front to bring back wounded soldiers.

Henry Sullivan has spent 17 years renovating houses for wealthy women in Los Angeles. To distance himself from his clients, and the intimate environments he works in, he has devised a set of rules to keep him out of trouble. Over the course of one very complicated summer, he begins breaking those rules when he takes on the houses and the lives of two very different women who used to be friends.

Before he was the swaggering, stadium-packing megastar, Bruce Springsteen was a brooding introvert, desperate to strike a balance between his nuanced songwriting and the heft of his backing band. Clinton Heylin's revelatory biography, E Street Shuffle, chronicles the evolution and influence of Springsteen's E Street Band as they rose from blue-collar New Jersey to the heights of rock stardom.

To Tim Anderson, playing the guitar is as natural - and just about as important - as breathing. He’s already decided he’s going to be a musician. But his father has other career plans for him - all involving college. And now, because Tim is on the verge of flunking math, he’s been forbidden even to touch his guitar. It couldn’t have happened at a worse time. A top record company has just announced a nationwide contest for teenage rock groups - with a recording contract as first prize. Tim is sure his group, The Silver Sunshine, has a good chance of winning.