Showing results by narrator "Christopher Hurt" in All Categories

A winner of the National Book Award, The Moviegoer established Walker Percy as an insightful and grimly humorous storyteller. It is the tale of Binx Bolling, a small-time stockbroker who lives quietly in suburban New Orleans, pursuing an interest in the movies, affairs with his secretaries, and living out his days. But soon he finds himself on a "search" for something more important, some spiritual truth to anchor him.

In Getting Ahead, one of the top 50 executive coaches in the United States, Joel Garfinkle reveals his signature model for mastering three skills to take your career to the next level: Perception, Visibility, and Influence. The PVI-model of professional advancement will teach you to: (1) Actively promote yourself as an asset and valuable person inside the organization, (2) Increase your visibility to gain others' recognition and appreciation for your efforts and (3) Become a person of influence who makes key decisions inside the organization.

The year is 1964. Faced with a hard-hitting presidential campaign and a deteriorating situation in Vietnam, Lyndon Johnson dispatches Oakes and a swashbuckling soldier of fortune named Tucker on secret missions to Southeast Asia. Tucker is to figure out how to interdict military traffic along the Ho Chi Minh Trail.

For more than a century before gay marriage became a hot-button political issue, same-sex unions flourished in America. Pairs of men and pairs of women joined together in committed unions, standing by each other "for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health" for periods of 30 or 40 - sometimes as many as 50 - years. In short, they loved and supported each other every bit as much as any husband and wife. In Outlaw Marriages, cultural historian Rodger Streitmatter reveals how some of these unions didn’t merely improve the quality of life for the two people involved but also enriched the American culture.

In Earth in Mind, David W. Orr argues that much of what has gone wrong with the world, is the result of inadequate and misdirected education that: Alienates us from life in the name of human domination; causes students to worry about how to make a living before they know who they are; overemphasizes success and careers; separates feeling from intellect and the practical from the theoretical; deadens the sense of wonder for the created world.

For the past 50 years, popular culture has led us to believe in the left brain vs. right brain theory of personality types. It would be an illuminating theory if it did not have one major drawback: It is simply not supported by science. In contrast, the Top Brain, Bottom Brain theory is based on solid research that has stayed within the confines of labs all over the world—until now.

In this classic 19th century comedy of manners, Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrief masquerade under the name of Earnest in order to win the love of Gwendolyn and Cecily. But first they must match wits with the inimitable Lady Bracknell!

In this incisive new book, Michael Mandelbaum argues that the era marked by an expansive American foreign policy is coming to an end. During the seven decades from the U.S. entry into World War II in 1941 to the present, economic constraints rarely limited what the United States did in the world. Now that will change. The country's soaring deficits, fueled by the huge costs of the financial crash and of its entitlement programs - Social Security and Medicare - will compel a more modest American international presence.

Gregory Lamberson’s well-reviewed first story in his exciting, dark new series The Jake Helman Files (which also includes the second novel, Desperate Souls) is a genre-bender that mixes suspense and horror. When Jake Helman, an elite member of the New York Special Homicide Task Force, faces up against an addiction to cocaine and an elusive serial killer, he finds that the pressure might be too much.

Jilly Farina is 14. Her father is drunk on the day of the Barnstable County Fair, so she goes by herself, and that night her life is transformed. When she walks into a tent to see Millroy the Magician, his eyes lighten from brown to green and fasten upon her. He performs miracles before her spellbound eyes. He tells her that he will train her to be his assistant, and he will give her a sequined costume. But this is only the beginning. Millroy is a magician not just of mere conjuring but of true, baffling magic.

This is the hilarious story of the American Everyboy. Join the society of such unforgettable characters as the miscievous Tom, kindly Aunt Polly, the heart-stoppingly beautiful Becky Thatcher, the malevolent Injun Joe and a free-spirited young lad by the name of Huckleberry Finn.

Selections include "The Robber Bridegroom" by Washington Irving, "The Stolen White Elephant" by Mark Twain, "Chickamauga" by Ambrose Bierce, "The Mission of Jane" by Edith Wharton, and "The Black Cat" by Edgar Allan Poe.

In clear and concise language, Michael Levine, one of the top public relations counselors in the country, reveals the same procedures he uses every day to get press on major stars - and how those strategies can be utilized on little or no budget. Using case histories and tips from his own experiences, Levine shows you how to think like a publicist and map out a strategy for success.

When fledgling novelist Pace Burnette heads home to Smoke, a quiet hamlet in Louisiana, he finds that the mom-and-pop businesses that gave the place its character and charm have been put out of operation by an enormous Monster Mart on the outskirts of town. His best friend, Jay Carnihan, is struggling to keep his family's general store from going under and blames Rayford Holly, the founder of Monster Mart, for his economic woes.

Private investigator Jake Helman has battled a demon, his minions, the walking dead, and beings from the dimensions of the Sphere of Light and the Dark Realm, but now he faces the greatest evil the world has ever known in the third installment of this loosely knit trilogy.

On Shishmaref Island in Alaska, homes are being washed into the sea. In the South Pacific, small island nations face annihilation by encroaching waters. In coastal Louisiana, an area the size of a football field disappears every day. For these communities, sea level rise isn’t a distant, abstract fear: it’s happening now and it’s threatening their way of life. In The Rising Sea, Orrin H. Pilkey and Rob Young warn that many other coastal areas may be close behind.

In this action-packed novel, Jake Helmanthe ex-cop and zombie killer has set up shop as a private investigator in lower Manhattan. When a woman hires Jake to prove that her dead grandson is dealing a deadly new drug called Black Magic on a Brooklyn street corner, Jake uncovers a plot by a vicious drug lord to use voodoo to seize the streets of New York City.

This fanciful, sometimes poignant, collection includes "The Young King", "The Happy Prince", "The Fisherman and His Soul", "The Shelfish Giant" and "The Nightengale and the Rose".

This fourth installment of the Jake Helman Files follows the New York PIon his ongoing quest to save his best friend Edgar Hopkins who’s been transformed into a raven by a powerful witch doctor. In his pursuit through the streets of New Orleans, the nightclubs of Miami, and the jungles of Pavot Island—where undead slaves harvest narcotics for a ferocious dictator named Ernesto Malvado—Jake is joined by beautiful NYPD homicide detective and Edgar’s former partner Maria Vasquez, who is determined to learn Jake’s secrets.

It's not often that an acclaimed historian is revealed to be the author of light verse, but John R. Alden here presents us with 1,707 couplets, quatrains, and other terse verse in the tradition of Ogden Nash. His subject matter ranges from dinosaurs to computers, from Confucius to Darwin, from Jonah to George Bush. His wit, wisdom, and powers of observation are sure to amuse and delight. A sample: "How did Arkman Noah / Provide for protozoa?"