Showing results by narrator "XE Sands" in All Categories

From her well-remembered New Yorker essays about the financial demands of big-city ambition and the ethereal, strangely old-fashioned allure of cyber relationships to her dazzlingly hilarious riff in Harper's about musical passions that give way to middle-brow paraphernalia, Daum delves into the center of things while closely examining the detritus that spills out along the way. With precision and well-balanced irony, Daum implicates herself as readily as she does the targets that fascinate and horrify her.

What exactly is the difference between a love letter and a suicide note? Is there really any difference at all? These might be the questions posed by Dear Sweet Filthy World, Caitlin R. Kiernan’s 14th collection of short fiction, comprising 28 uncollected and impossible-to-find stories. Here are 28 tales of apocalypse and rebirth, of miraculous transformation and utter annihilation. Here is the place where professing your undying devotion might be precisely the same thing as signing your own death warrant or worse.

Grayson Ford and Emma Kinglsey - close since they were kids, opposites in every way. He's the stuff high school crushes are made of, Mister Popular, and captain of every team. She's artsy, cute, and not in his league, though fully aware of Summerland's "I Dream of Dating Grayson Ford" support group.

This version of the children's classic, read by Xe Sands, will delight listeners of all ages with its story of wisdom and boundless love.

The Marvel of Martyrdom takes a broad perspective on self-sacrifice and martyrdom, bringing together religion, popular culture, history, psychology, and mythology. Stories of individuals both famous (Gandhi) and obscure (Rodrigo Rosenberg) intertwine with research on altruism, happiness, and radicalization to terrorism. The changing landscape of the book's setting - from The Roman Empire to 19th-century Russia to Nazi Germany to post-World War II India to present day Ukraine - makes the power of self-sacrifice and martyrdom come alive.

Contemporary Christianity seems to be suffering from an epidemic of sameness, uniformity, and monotony. Those trapped inside are often afraid to step beyond established norms and express their creativity, and those on the outside often see little that attracts them. Yet God, out of the abundance of his own creative force, made each one of us unique, peculiar, and irreplaceable. So why so much pressure to conform?

Following A Plague of Giants comes the second novel in the Seven Kennings series - an unforgettable fantasy world of warring giants and elemental magic from the New York Times best-selling author of the Iron Druid Chronicles.

When Olivia James receives a phone call just after midnight, she recognizes her brother's voice. But there's a problem: Her brother has been dead for the past nine weeks. Moving back to her old childhood home in Tennessee - the place where her brother has just died - her young daughter, Teddy, seems troubled, telling her mother that she's being visited by a menacing ghost. When another tragic death occurs and her daughter disappears, Olivia must confront the demonic force that has cursed her family.

When Sydney's engagement ends with Rian, his brother Jake is there to save the day...in more ways than one. Sydney has been the perfect friend, the perfect daughter, and Rian checks off on her perfect fiancé list. But when Sydney notices a strange truck parked in her fiancé’s parking spot, she’s in for the surprise of her life.

Pine Valley librarian Livvy Harmon has big dreams, which include marrying Dr. Slade McKinney. Trouble is, he’s kissed her only once in their four months of dating, and it wasn’t all that great. But Livvy isn’t ready to give up yet on hooking such an amazing man, even though Slade seems to have time for everyone but her.

Grayson and Emma. First love. True love. And they have a daughter. Abandonment is his curse. He left his woman, survived his team, and missed the moment most precious to a father - until now. Love needs to heal all, or they won't survive the collision of their separate lives. Emma must reach deep into her heart that is barely hanging on and find forgiveness. Grayson, wracked with PTSD nightmares, must prove that he's here to stay and able to rebuild his family against all odds.

There comes a time when Emma must face the secret she's kept from Grayson. But she never thought it would be while she stood on stage at Emerald's. The seconds she has to convey that her life is in danger are lost in the devastation that she sees rip through him.

Grace Holm-D’Angelo is at her wit’s end, trying to create a new life from broken pieces. Newly divorced, she is navigating suddenly becoming a single mother to her 14-year-old daughter. Emma, resentful about being uprooted from Chicago to Los Angeles and still reeling from the divorce, is generally giving her mother a hard time. Then Grace’s best friend, Leeza, succumbs to breast cancer after a long battle, and Grace realizes you don’t get a second chance at life. She returns to her hometown of New London, Wisconsin, to try to reconcile with her own mother, Lorraine, from whom she’s been estranged for longer than she cares to remember.

Consie is home for a funeral when she stumbles upon a family letter sent from Germany in 1945, which contains staggering news: Consie's great-uncle Hermann, who was transported to Auschwitz with his wife and three daughters, might have escaped. This seems improbable to Consie. Did people escape from Auschwitz? Could her great-uncle have been among them? What happened to Hermann? Did anyone know? These questions are at the root of Consie's excavation of her family's history as she seeks, 70 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, to discover what happened to Hermann.

A Is for Alien is award-winning author Caitlín R. Kiernan’s first collection devoted entirely to her science-fiction work. It includes the critically acclaimed novelette Riding the White Bull, along with seven other tales of a less-than-utopian future. Ranging from the wastelands and mountains of Mars to the streets of a late 21st-century Manhattan, from the moons of Europa and Saturn to an iceless Antarctica, these tales bring Kiernan’s trademark brand of the eco-gothic to bear on what it means to be human and the paths and decisions that may face mankind....

In 1925 Alice Lind steps off a train in the rain-soaked coastal hamlet of Gordon Bay, Oregon. There she expects to do nothing more difficult than administer IQ tests to a group of rural schoolchildren. A trained psychologist, Alice believes mysteries of the mind can be unlocked scientifically, but now her views are about to be challenged by one curious child.

Drawing on her work at a shelter, her experiences living with two rescue dogs of her own, and years of research, best-selling author and Boston Globe columnist Amy Sutherland takes us on an unforgettable journey into the special world of rescue and shelter dogs - and the growing number of dedicated people who are deeply invested in saving these precious lives.

To Charles Fort, with Love is award-winning fantasist Caitlín R. Kiernan’s third collection of short fiction, a haunting parade of the terrible things which may lie beyond the boundaries of science, the minds which may exist beyond psychology, and the forbidden places which will never be located in any orthodox globe. A deceptively even dozen, this collection includes Kiernan’s celebrated stories “Onion” and “Andromeda Among the Stones”, as well as a number of more obscure pieces.

When Maurie Ledbetter moves back to her hometown to open her dream shop, she calls a local construction crew for help. Former teenage crush Grant Shelton shows up on her front porch, answering the call for the construction job. Seeing Grant again brings back Maurie’s memories of her troubled childhood, and she doesn’t know if spending time around Grant is the best way to move on. But when she discovers Grant has gone through difficulties of his own, Maurie realizes that he might be the key to her own healing.

These 10 classic tales attest to the growing depth of Gurganus's genius. Offering characters antic and tragic, Gurganus charts the human condition as we live it now. His parables recall William Faulkner's scope and Flannery O'Connor's corrosive wit. We encounter a seaside couple fighting to save their dog from Maine's fierce undertow; a mortician whose dedication to his departed clients exceeds all legal limits. A virginal 78-year-old grammar-school librarian has her only erotic encounter with a Joe Exotic-like polyamorous snake farmer.