Showing results by narrator "Bruce Mann" in All Categories

Cullen McJames will not have his honor sullied, certainly not by his clan's nemesis Laird Erik McQuade. So when McQuade tells the Court of Scotland that Cullen has stolen his daughter's virtue, Cullen steals the daughter instead. Since his brother wed a fetching lass, Cullen's been thinking he, too, needs a wife. A marriage could end the constant war between the clans. And looking on Bronwyn McQuade but once has put her in his dreams for a week.... But Bronwyn won't go quietly.

Evolution is one of the most important processes in life. It not only explains the detailed history of life on earth, but its scope also extends into many aspects of our own contemporary behavior - who we are and how we got to be here, our psychology, our cultures - and greatly impacts modern advancements in medicine and conservation biology. Perhaps its most important claim for science is its ability to provide an overarching framework that integrates the many life sciences into a single unified whole. Yet, evolution has been, and continues to be, regarded with suspicion by many.

Dr. Anya Molokova, a child psychiatrist, is called in to work at MacNeice House, an adolescent mental health treatment center. There she is told to observe and assess Alex Connolly, a keenly intelligent, sensitive ten-year-old coping with his mother's latest suicide attempt. Alex is in need of serious counseling: He has been harming himself and others, often during blackouts. At the root of his destructive behavior, Alex claims, is his imaginary "friend" Ruen, a cunning demon who urges Alex to bend to his often violent will.

Jesus at the Door offers a unique tool - an equipping card to use with anyone you know, anywhere - and practical, step-by-step instructions, helping listeners witness to friends, family, even strangers on the street. This tried-and-tested method is framed around nine points and takes about two minutes from introduction to salvation.

South of the Norman city of Caen, Verrieres Ridge was seen a key stepping-stone for the British Second Army if it was to break out of the Normandy bridgehead in late July 1944. Imposing in height and containing perfect terrain for armored operations, the Germans viewed it as the lynchpin to their defenses south of the city of Caen and east of the Orne river. Following the failure of British Operation Goodwood on 18-20 July and the containment of the Canadian Operation Atlantic, further Allied attacks to seize the ridge would have to defeat the strongest German armored formation in Normandy.

Humans are hard-wired for collaboration, and new technologies of communication act as a super-amplifier of our natural collaborative mindset. This volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series examines the emergence of a new kind of social collaboration enabled by networked technologies. This new collaborative society might be characterized as a series of services and startups that enable peer-to-peer exchanges and interactions though technology.

Is there such a thing as a fundamental reality, something which was around before our universe came into existence and which will still remain when all matter, time, and space itself ultimately disappear? Something fundamental which, in turn, can make space and time and matter arise from seemingly nothing? Under most cosmological and physical models, the last known remnants of reality are the disembodied laws of mathematics - beyond which it is extremely difficult to probe further.

Following the execution of the king in 1649, the new Commonwealth and then Oliver Cromwell set out to drive forward a puritan reformation of manners. They wanted to reform the church and its services, enforce the Sabbath, suppress Christmas, and spread the gospel. They sought to impose a stern moral discipline to regulate and reform sexual behaviour, drinking practices, language, dress, and leisure activities ranging from music and plays to football.

Finance plays a key role in the prosperity of the modern world—but it also brings grave dangers. We seek to manage those threats with a vast array of sophisticated mathematical tools and techniques of financial risk management. Too often, though, we fail to address the greatest risk—the peril posed by our own behavior. Jon Danielsson argues that critical risk is generated from within, through the interactions of individuals and perpetuated by their beliefs, objectives, abilities, and prejudices.

The Economics of Poverty reviews critically past and present debates on poverty, spanning both rich and poor countries. The book provides an accessible new synthesis of current economic thinking on key questions: How is poverty measured? How much poverty is there? Why does poverty exist, and is it inevitable? What can be done to reduce poverty? Can it even be eliminated? The book does not assume that listeners know economics already.

At once a self-styled social scientist, a spy in the baffling adult world, and a budding, hormone-driven emotional explorer, Oliver Tate is stealthily nosing his way forward through the murky and uniquely perilous waters of adolescence. His objectives? Uncovering the secrets behind his parents’ teetering marriage, unraveling the mystery that is his alluring and equally quirky classmate Jordana Bevan, and understanding where he fits in among the mystifying beings in his orbit.

Meet Gerald. Gerald is a griffin - a creature with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle. According to the Code of the Griffins, that means he should be: 1. Brave and fierce in all situations! 2. A guardian of a great treasure! 3. Completely and totally hidden from the human realm! But what if a Griffin isn't brave or fierce? What if he's never found a great treasure (or any treasure, for that matter)? What if he feels like such an embarrassment that the only thing left to do is run away?

In this Very Short Introduction audiobook, Richard Earl gives a sense of the more visual elements of topology (looking at surfaces) as well as covering the formal definition of continuity. Considering some of the eye-opening examples that led mathematicians to recognize a need for studying topology, he pays homage to the historical people, problems, and surprises that have propelled the growth of this field.

Meet Ash Mistry: eighth grader, pretty good video gamer, guy with a massive crush on the beautiful Gemma... Oh, and the Eternal Warrior of the death goddess Kali. Just when Ash has settled back into his everyday London life, his friend Parvati arrives with a mission: The evil Lord Alexander Savage is plotting to steal the Koh-I-Noor diamond from England's crown jewels. Ash and Parvati manage to intercept it, but at a terrible price - Gemma's death. Outcast and heartbroken, Ash returns with Parvati to India, where he meets up with old friends and develops new powers. But he's haunted by Gemma....

Light dances with dark, green fire burns in the night, hopes and dreams follow the wind, to fall in black or white. The prophecy spoke of Thomas Kestrel: outcast, lord, sorcerer, warrior, and perhaps savior of the Kingdoms - if he survives. In The Makings of a Warrior, the fourth book in The Sylvan Chronicles, Thomas risks more than he should for the Princess of Fal Carrach, falling prey to the Dark Magic of Lord Chertney, a servant of the Shadow Lord.

Light dances with dark, green fire burns in the night, hopes and dreams follow the wind, to fall in black or white. The prophecy spoke of Thomas Kestrel: outcast, lord, sorcerer, warrior, and perhaps savior of the Kingdoms - if he survives.

Judah Maccabee is no longer a youth, but a great warrior and the unchallenged leader of the Jewish People. He leads his people to victory after victory on the fields of battle and diplomacy, shocking the leaders of the mighty Seleucid Empire. Relentlessly, the armies of the empire are sent to crush the rebellion in Judea. They will do anything to eliminate the Maccabee army and suppress the Jewish faith. But although the Maccabees are massively outnumbered, they have no choice but to overcome their foes. They know that their defeat would be the end of the Jewish People.

While on vacation with their parents, Matthew Homes and his older brother snuck out in the middle of the night. Only Matthew came home safely. Ten years later, Matthew tells us, he has found a way to bring his brother back... What begins as the story of a lost boy turns into a story of a brave man yearning to understand what happened that night, in the years since, and to his very person.

Commissioned by the Amsterdam Surgeons’ Guild, The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Nicolaes Tulp was the first major Rembrandt work to catapult the young painter to international fame. Taking this painting as its inspiration, Nina Siegal’s novel The Anatomy Lesson opens on the morning of the medical dissection and follows several characters as they prepare for the evening’s big event:

Seventeen-year-old Nedra Brysstain leaves her home in the rural, northern territories of Lunar Island to attend the prestigious Yugen Academy with only one goal in mind: master the trade of medicinal alchemy. Nedra doesn't quite fit in with the other kids at Yugen. Until she meets Greggori "Grey" Astor. Grey is immediately taken by the brilliant and stubborn Nedra, who he notices is especially invested in her studies. And that's for a good reason: A deadly plague has been sweeping through the north, and it's making its way toward the cities, and Nedra is determined to find a cure.