Showing results by narrator "Charlie Thurston" in All Categories

The rain began nineteen years ago, and it never stopped: more than a foot of rain per day until almost the whole of North America was underwater. Those who survived the first year were forced to take drastic measures, and those who held to the veneer of civilization were few and very far between. Seventeen-year-old Tanner grew up after the rain began. She and her adoptive caretaker, Russell, have long sought a fabled Colorado refuge, a dream that has kept them going through years of brutal trials as they try to stay one step ahead of the “face eaters”.

Writing in the grand American tradition of Annie Dillard and Barry Lopez, Donovan Hohn is an "adventurous, inquisitive, and brightly illuminating writer" (New York Times). Since the publication of Moby-Duck a decade ago, Hohn has been widely hailed for his prize-winning essays on the borderlands between the natural and the human. The Inner Coast collects 10 of his best, many of them originally published in such magazines as the New York Times Magazine and Harper's.

In Living in Data, Thorp proves that thinking about data in a human context makes us better problem solvers and builds a healthier relationship between us and our data - one that puts our well-being front and center - and that there is a path forward beyond the extractive, impersonal nature of the “big data” era.

Paul is a top business executive hoping to be the next CEO of Ascendant - a New York-based tech giant. His fast-paced life is interrupted when he travels to Glastonbury, England, to visit friends in a village rich in history and mysticism. When he returns to New York, his wife, Mary, is skeptical. His journey both scares and intrigues her as she watches him struggle to navigate between the business and spiritual worlds. A series of events draws Paul closer to Glastonbury and Christine, compelling him and a reluctant Mary to return, unaware that their lives will never be the same.

Victory comes at a price. Mare Barrow learned this all too well when Cal's betrayal nearly destroyed her. Now determined to protect her heart - and secure freedom for Reds and newbloods like her - Mare resolves to overthrow the kingdom of Norta once and for all...starting with the crown on Maven's head. But no battle is won alone, and before the Reds may rise as one, Mare must side with the boy who broke her heart in order to defeat the boy who almost broke her. Cal's powerful Silver allies, alongside Mare and the Scarlet Guard, prove a formidable force.

Mario Woods is looking forward to one normal night before he graduates. He's spent most of high school riding solo. But when fate lands him a date for prom, he figures this might be his chance to be less of a loner.

In this epic, mythical debut novel, a newly-wed couple escapes the busy confusion of their homeland for a distant and almost-uninhabited lakeshore. They plan to live there simply, to fish the lake, to trap the nearby woods, and build a house upon the dirt between where they can raise a family. But as their every pregnancy fails, the child-obsessed husband begins to rage at this new world: the song-spun objects somehow created by his wife’s beautiful singing voice, the giant and sentient bear that rules the beasts of the woods, the second moon weighing down the fabric of their starless sky, and the labyrinth of memory dug into the earth beneath their house.

Did you know that it’s believed Galileo was scolded by the Roman Inquisition for sassing his mom? That Isaac Newton loved to examine soap bubbles? That Albert Einstein loved to collect joke books, and that geneticist Barbara McClintock wore a Groucho Marx disguise in public? With juicy tidbits about everything from favorite foods to first loves, the subjects of Kathleen Krull and Kathryn Hewitt’s Lives of the Scientists: Experiments, Explosions (and What the Neighbors Thought) are revealed as creative, bold, sometimes eccentric - and anything but dull.

The bombing of Pearl Harbor and the assassination of US President John F. Kennedy were among the most stunning moments of the 20th century. Imagine that there was evidence proving the US, at its highest levels, knew the intent of both events - ahead of time.

James and Kate are golden children of the late 20th century, flush with opportunity. But an economic downturn and an unexpected pregnancy send them searching for a way to survive. A friend in California's Siskiyou County grows prime-grade marijuana; if James transports just one load from Cali to Florida, he'll pull down enough cash to survive for months. And so begins the life of a mule.

A moose walks into a rural Maine town called Oslo. Pierre Roy, a brilliant 12-year-old, loses his memory in an accident. Three families are changed for worse and better as they grapple with trauma, marriage, ambition, and their fraught relationship with the natural world. Oslo, Maine inspects the strengths and limitations of seven average yet extraordinary people as they reckon with their considerable collective failure around Pierre's accident.

In this stunning, elliptical novel, Louisa Hall has crafted a breathtaking and explosive story about the ability of the human mind to believe what it wants, about public and private tragedy, and about power and guilt. Blending science with literature and fiction with biography, Trinity asks searing questions about what it means to truly know someone, and about the secrets we keep from the world and from ourselves.

In an airport restaurant on Thanksgiving morning, Adam and Marissa meet. Over the course of this day fraught with emotion and expectation, these two strangers will form an unlikely bond as they reckon with their family ties, their pasts, and the choices that will determine their way forward. Joshua Max Feldman focuses his knowing eye on one of the last bastions of classical American idealism, the Thanksgiving family gathering, as he explores our struggles to know - and to be - our best selves.

Colt Clemmons is an agent in a specialized division within the Bureau of Investigation - one that hunts down not just mobsters, but also monsters. For reasons that are kept top secret, Colt is the only person who can resist a siren's voice. But he's never had a chance to test this ability. The last siren left in the world mysteriously disappeared years ago. Then one night, with a single word, she reveals herself. It seems too good to be true. And it is. Because nothing about this siren-her past, her powers, or her purpose - is what it seems....

Conor is a recent graduate from a law school no one has heard of. Without any job prospects and needing to support his chronically ill mother, he takes a summer job teaching tennis at the affluent gated community of Cutters Neck, Massachusetts. One of his first students is Catherine, a magnetic divorcée keen to hire him for more than advice on her serve. What begins as a transactional arrangement soon develops into an intoxicating sexual relationship. Things become even more complicated when Conor encounters Emily, with whom he has his first taste of real intimacy.

Fifteen-year-old Ben Buck and his family spent four years clearing the wilderness to build a new home in Pennsylvania. They fought the Indians and the British, and made sacrifices most people wouldn't have been strong enough to make. All so they could be independent and free. Now someone's trying to take everything away from them...their land, their home, even Ben's best friend, Joe. But the Bucks won't give up without a fight, and Ben knows his family will have to win a war to stay free. But what he doesn't know is that wars sometimes last a very long time. And even if you win in the end, you can lose almost everything along the way.

Brad Johnson is the lone witness to a UFO sighting. The sighting, while odd in itself, is not the only incident that occurs that evening. The incident is followed up with the alien targeting him and his family. The firefight with the alien destroys everything Brad thought he knew about his family and pulls him into an intergalactic battle between two space faring aliens. Brad quickly finds himself leaving Earth struggling to understand his role with the aliens on both sides of the conflict. One group threatens Earth's security, the other group wants something from him.

Life for indentured servants in pioneer Virginia is hard. It is doubly hard for Richard Ayre, a London orphan who had been scooped off the streets as a child and sent to the Jamestown Colony. But a chance encounter with an Indian boy his own age gives him a friend, the first real friend he has had in years - until his master’s plan to raid an Indian village for corn turns Richard’s world upside down.

Late one night, investigative journalist Jack Logan receives a surprise visit from US Senator Malcolm Phillips at his New York apartment. Disheveled and in a panic, the senator swears that he’s about to be murdered and pleads with Jack to protect his wife Taylor, who happens to be the only woman Jack has ever truly loved.

Lily Bennett is less than thrilled to be the new kid as she starts her junior year in high school. But soon after classes begin, she meets a classmate, Cole Drepeau, with whom she forms an immediate and intimate bond. As Cole and Lily grow closer, Lily learns about the murder that divided the town more than 30 years before. In 1985, graduating senior Amber Greeley snapped, killing her boyfriend, Ben - Cole's uncle - and taking her own life.