Showing results by narrator "David George" in All Categories

February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln’s beloved eleven-year-old son, Willie, lies upstairs in the White House, gravely ill. In a matter of days, despite predictions of a recovery, Willie dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery. “My poor boy, he was too good for this earth,” the president says at the time. “God has called him home.”

For the last 20 years, George Saunders has been teaching a class on the Russian short story to his MFA students at Syracuse University. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, he shares a version of that class with us, offering some of what he and his students have discovered together over the years. Paired with iconic short stories by Chekhov, Turgenev, Tolstoy, and Gogol, the seven essays in this book are intended for anyone interested in how fiction works and why it’s more relevant than ever in these turbulent times.

When Megan discovers photographs of her estranged identical twin sister on her husband's phone, she wants answers. Leah already has everything Megan ever wanted. Fame, fortune, freedom to do what she wants. And when Megan confronts Leah, an argument turns to murder. The only way Megan can get away with killing her twin is to become her. But then lockdown hits. How can she continue living two lives? And what happens if someone else knows her secret?

Poet, novelist, critic and campaigner Walter Scott invented the historical novel and shaped the world’s image of Scotland. His tales of heroism, romance and adventure were hugely successful, outselling Jane Austen and Lord Byron, and are still popular today. Included here are adaptations of five of the best-loved books in his ‘Waverley’ series, as well as two bonus programmes.

Julian the Apostate, nephew of Constantine the Great, was one of the brightest yet briefest lights in the history of the Roman Empire. A military genius on the level of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, a graceful and persuasive essayist, and a philosopher devoted to worshipping the gods of Hellenism, he became embroiled in a fierce intellectual war with Christianity that provoked his murder at the age of thirty-two, only four years into his brilliantly humane and compassionate reign.

Archbishop Rowan Williams is the most gifted Anglican priest of his generation. His views are consistent and orthodox and yet he has been consistently misunderstood - especially in relation to his views on contemporary society, public morality, and the common good. In this, the final published work of his Archepiscopate, Dr Williams has assembled a series of chapters on matters of immediate public concern and the relationship of Christianity to these issues.

I should be happy. My childhood best friend and I are living our wildest dream—making music and touring the world as famous rock stars. I've got everything I could wish for. Except him. I'll never have Silas. Not the way I want. Our onstage behavior gives fans a lot to speculate over, but it's only an act. The truth is, I die inside every time we touch. It might be pretend for Silas, but for me, it's a constant reminder that I can't have him the way I truly desire.

Zen monk Santoka Taneda (1882 - 1940) is one of Japan's most beloved modern poets, famous for his "free-verse" haiku, the dominant style today. This book tells the fascinating story of his life, liberally sprinkled with more than 300 of his poems and extracts from his essays and journals - compiled by his best friend and biographer Sumita Oyama and elegantly translated by William Scott Wilson.

Living as a Black woman in America, Lisa Victoria Fields understands the tension of relying on God in a broken world. While pursuing her calling in full-time Christian ministry—an often white, male-dominated vocation—she saw the contentions many people have with Christianity. She heard the theological questions, but instead of arguing for her faith, she listened to the barriers and heard the pain in their hearts: I’m not welcomed or wanted. There is no justice in this world. God didn't intervene and protect me. Doesn’t God want me to be happy?

If you are at all interested in life on our planet, then you need to know about insects. They are the most successful group of animals ever to have lived on Earth. Making up three quarters of all animal species, insects conquered the planet long ago. They were among the very first animals to appear on land and were the first to take to the air. Their total biomass is at least 10 times that of all humans and our livestock combined.

Within each of us is an ancient mechanism that eliminates toxic materials, initiates fat burning, and protects cells from becoming dysfunctional - or turning cancerous. It’s called autophagy, and when it’s turned on, the complex operation not only can slow down the aging process, it can optimize biological function as a whole, helping to stave off all manner of diseases and affording us the healthy life spans we never thought possible. It’s the body’s ultimate switch to life.

We live on a planet alive with song, music, and speech. David Haskell explores how these wonders came to be. In rain forests shimmering with insect sound and swamps pulsing with frog calls we learn about evolution’s creative powers. From birds in the Rocky Mountains and on the streets of Paris, we discover how animals learn their songs and adapt to new environments. Below the waves, we hear our kinship to beings as different as snapping shrimp, toadfish, and whales.

David Haskell's award-winning The Forest Unseen won acclaim for eloquent writing and deep engagement with the natural world. Now, Haskell brings his powers of observation to the biological networks that surround all species, including humans. Haskell repeatedly visits a dozen trees around the world, exploring the trees' connections with webs of fungi, bacterial communities, cooperative and destructive animals, and other plants.

From the Man Booker Prize-winning, New York Times best-selling author of Lincoln in the Bardo, a literary masterclass on how to become both a better writer and reader, on what makes great stories work and what they can tell us about how to live. In A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, George Saunders guides the listener through seven classic Russian short stories he's been teaching for 20 years as a professor in the prestigious Syracuse University graduate MFA creative writing program.

True-crime podcaster Jess Keeler has returned to Deeton County, North Carolina, to pick up where her grandfather left off. Sheriff’s Deputy Big Jim Ballard, her grandfather, was a respected detective—until it all came crashing down during a 1972 murder investigation. For Jim, solving the murders of two teens should have been the highlight of his already storied career. Instead, he battled his own mind, unsure where his hunches ended and the truth began.

Unfolding in a graveyard over the course of a single night, narrated by a dazzling chorus of voices, Lincoln in the Bardo is a literary experience unlike any other, for no one but Saunders could conceive it. February 1862. The Civil War is less than one year old. The fighting has begun in earnest, and the nation has begun to realize it is in for a long, bloody struggle. Meanwhile, President Lincoln's beloved 11-year-old son, Willie, dies and is laid to rest in a Georgetown cemetery.

In the modern world, we are assaulted on all sides by noise; but silence can change your life and this book explains why and how. Silence is a mysterious and unfathomable realm, perhaps the most under-used of all resources, and one our modern culture has all but obliterated by turning up the volume control. Graham Turner explores the power that can be found in silence through interviewing monastics, religious leaders, composers, actors, psychotherapists, prisoners and peace workers about their experiences of practicing silence.

Pastor James Elba loses more than his faith when his daughter perishes in a tragic murder. After moving back to his hometown of Savannah, Georgia, his wife is now at the mercy of his own dark past, locked away in the forgotten shadows of a derelict rice plantation seeped in bloody history. But will his renovations stir up more than just long suppressed memories of a childhood dare, an incantation that summoned...what?

Seven strangers wake up in a sealed compound with no idea how they got there. They are informed by a computer-generated voice that they must complete tasks in order to leave, and that failure to complete any of the tasks or breaking any of the rules results in a strike. The first two strikes induce extreme pain. The third strike is death. As they struggle to survive without turning on each other, they have no idea that their actions and choices could doom humanity. Or save it.

Ember's defiance has always been a frustration to the rest of her island community. But even she didn't expect to be selected as the next sacrifice, years before another is due. She can't help but wonder if it relates to the strange new ability that's just begun to stir within her. She doesn't intend to go down without a fight—in fact, the chance to confront the monster demanding sacrifices is a more welcome path than the marriage her parents had arranged to a local farmer.