Showing results by narrator "Francis Greenslade"

During his wanderings and work over the last 30 years as a Buddhist monk, Ajahn Brahm has gathered many poignant, funny and profound stories. While traditional Buddhist philosophy is at the heart of this collection, these thoughtful stories are written like playful parables, which are used to launch into a deeper exploration of subjects such as mindfulness, suffering, forgiveness, hope, wisdom, and unconditional love.

Here at last is a clear, easy-to-follow interpretation of the classic Chinese text The Art of War by Sun Tzu which incorporates modern business lessons to make this relevant and accessible to today's executive facing strategic and competitive challenges.

For years, business schools and professional consultants have turned to Sun Tzu's 2,500-year-old Chinese text for its invaluable commentary on such topics as leadership, strategy, organization, competition and cooperation.

Joel thinks nothing is going on in his small town. But he's wrong. One day, a miracle happens to him. He's very nearly run over by a bus, but is miraculously unhurt. Shouldn't he show gratitude somehow? Surely a good deed of some sort is in order. But what?

Joel is growing up. He is getting interested in girls. Just look at his New Year's resolutions: 1 - to see a naked lady; 2 - to toughen himself up so that he can live to be a hundred; and 3 - to see the sea. They all look pretty impossible for a motherless boy in Northern Sweden. Especially as his sailor dad is keen to drown his sadness in drink, and all the local matrons are narrowly watching the pair of them.

On an icy night in Northern Sweden Joel is drawn outside to haunt the streets. He finds the night-time activity of his stolid town mesmerizing in its unexpectedness and variety. But can he deal with the knowledge that he gains about his neighbors, his father, and himself?

Drawing on research from a wide variety of subject areas, from neuroscience to psychology, from motivation theory to accelerated learning, from memory to diet, this book shows how everyone has the capacity to succeed and how most people use only a very small portion of their talents.

Deep in the heart of London, the Monsalvat Bank is small, secretive, and fabulously wealthy. When Ellie Stanton, an impoverished graduate student, is unexpectedly invited to join the firm, the privileged world they offer looks too good to turn down. But the bank is more than it seems. Soon Ellie realises that her life belongs to her employers – and they’re watching her every move. For buried in their medieval vaults lies a closely-guarded treasure of immeasurable power....

Jack did something awful with an ice cream: now it's his turn to get licked. The girl sucks Jack's eye. Her tongue is huge and spongy and dribbly. The tip of it goes up one nostril.

Sprocket's lost his memory; Amy's lost her dad. So now the two of them are on a quest that will take them to the weirdest nudist colony in the world - a hidden community whose dangerous experiments are keeping the nudists alive artificially. Now that their secret is out, are Amy and Sprocket's lives in peril?

Eight hundred years ago, one man wrote the legend that became the greatest quest in history.... Deep in the heart of London, the Monsalvat Bank is small, secretive, and fabulously wealthy, with roots going far back into the middle ages. When Ellie Stanton, an impoverished graduate student, is unexpectedly invited to join the firm, the privileged world they offer looks too good to turn down. But the bank is more than it seems. Soon Ellie realises that her life belongs to her employers - and they're watching her every move.

To reach the living, navigate the dead...In a villa on the coast of Montenegro, Abby Cormac witnesses the brutal murder of her lover, diplomat Michael Lascaris. The last thing she remembers is a gun pointed directly at her. She wakes to find herself at the centre of a diplomatic nightmare. Everyone wants an answer but no one wants to listen. Even her employers at the Foreign Office believe she's hiding something. She is completely alone.

Stephen's bra is starting to slip. His pantyhose are sagging. His knickers keep falling down. Oh, the shame of it. He stole a gizmo, and now it's paying him back. Another crazy yarn from Australia's master of madness.

Richard Derrington is 28 and single. More single than he'd like to be. More single than he'd expected to be, and not coping well. Since Anna trashed him six months ago he's been trying to find his way again. He's doing his job badly, he's playing tennis badly, his renovating attempts haven't got past the veranda, and he's wondering when things are going to change. Zigzag Street covers six weeks of Richard's life in Brisbane's Red Hill. Six weeks of rumination, chaos, poor judgement, interpersonal clumsiness...and, eventually, hope.

When Jack left the police force to join the Forensic Science Unit in Canberra, he thought his days of visiting crime scenes were over. But while he's on leave in Sydney, his old friend Bob asks him to help out with a series of grisly murders. Someone is horribly mutilating and murdering convicted paedophiles the moment they are released from jail. Still grieving from the collapse of his marriage and the disappearance of Jacinta, his teenage daughter, four years earlier, Jack tries to make sense of what is happening.

Awake and asleep, Tom has increasingly different lives. Awake he is a climber, scaling the cliffs by Tower Rock; and asleep, he finds himself in a vivid dream-world where he is the carrier, responsible for a strange and beautiful child, and forever in search of the elusive Sleeper. Tom can no longer dismiss his night journeys as just dreams once his sleeping and waking lives start to merge. The real-life versions of characters in Tom's dream-world start to fall into inexplicable, deathlike comas, and Tom realizes that his two lives are heading towards an inevitable collision.

Here's a comic story of modern love and life when you're 20-something, single, and male. It is the mess Jon Marshall makes of his life when it stops making sense – a comedy of fallibility and misjudgements.

A few months ago, Dan had to make a choice. Go to Geneva with his parents for a year, board at school, or move into a house with his 22-year-old bass-playing aunt, Jacq, and her friend, Naomi. He picked Jacq's place.

Now he's doing his last year at school and trying not to spin out, trying to master calculus, and trying to pick up a few skills for surviving in the adult world. Problem is, he falls for Naomi, and things become much more confusing.

What's the worst thing that can happen to a man with three secret families? He falls in love. This is the story of John Wonder, a man with three families, each one kept secret from the other, each one containing two children, a boy and a girl. As he travels from family to family in different cities, he works as an authenticator, verifying world records, confirming facts, setting things straight, while his own life is a teetering tower of breathtaking lies and betrayals.

Reptile spun the wheel and expertly changed gear. We screeched round a corner. I was flung back against the seat. Desperately I hung on to the howling baby. 'When your father finds out what you've done', I yelled at the blond boy, 'you're in for it.' I stared at them trying to take it in. I was being kidnapped at high speed in a military vehicle by a bunch of little brats.... Uncovering deadly secret after deadly secret, Amy and Sprocket are lured deeper into a mystery that gets more exciting with every minute.

Andy Tremain has a terrifying ability. Using virtual reality, he can create monsters from his unconscious mind. And he's obsessed with dinosaurs. A psychiatrist in the United States promises a cure, but when Andy and his brother and sister realise they are prisoners rather than guests in Dr Kaplan's luxurious desert complex, Andy's dream becomes a nightmare. When his powers change and reality itself begins to shift and tear, Andy is so dangerous that society clearly cannot afford to let him live.