Showing results by narrator "Samantha Desz" in All Categories

In today’s political climate, more and more presidential candidates are espousing socialist - or democratic socialist - policies. Once associated with oppression, socialism is now a current topic of conversation with everyday Americans, including policies like taxing the rich and healthcare for all. But what exactly is socialism and why does it spark such an intense debate? Socialism 101 provides an easy-to-understand, unbiased overview to the nearly 300-year-old origins of this mode of government, its complex history, basic constructs, and modern-day interpretations....

Soon, Rebecca Gray won't be able to see. Diagnosed in her 20s with a degenerative eye disease, each day her world grows a little darker. She's moved to the suburbs to raise her son, Jackson. In the wake of her husband's death, it should be a quieter, easier way of life.

We think of Alexander Graham Bell as the inventor of the telephone, but that’s not how he saw his own career. As the son of a deaf woman and, later, husband to another, his goal in life from adolescence was to teach deaf students to speak. Even his tinkering sprang from his teaching work; the telephone had its origins as a speech reading machine.

Madeleine L’Engle once said, “When we lose our myths we lose our place in the universe.” The Mythic Dream gathers together 18 stories that reclaim the myths that shaped our collective past, and use them to explore our present and future. From Hades and Persephone to Kali, from Loki to Inanna, this anthology explores retellings of myths across cultures and civilizations. 

Budapest, 1952. When Katalin and her father, Márton, are woken by the ringing of the doorbell in the dead of night, it can mean only one thing. The Secret Police have come to arrest him on charges of subversion. But Katalin knows her father is innocent. In a communist society where ordinary people live in fear of the dreaded Secret Police, suspicion and betrayal are rife. While Márton endures the injustice of being wrongly accused, Katalin must find out who among her friends and acquaintances she can truly trust.

In 2010, a brave whistleblower alerted the police to Dr. Stan Li's corrupt pain management clinic in Queens, New York. Li spent years supplying more than 70 patients a day with oxycodone and Xanax, trading prescriptions for cash. Emergency room doctors, psychiatrists, and desperate family members warned him that his patients were at risk of death, but he would not stop.

The Mississippi. The Missouri. The Ohio. America’s rivers are the very lifeblood of our country. We need them for nourishing crops, for cheap bulk transportation, for hydroelectric power, for fresh drinking water. Rivers are also part of our mythology, our collective soul; they are Mark Twain, Led Zeppelin, and the Delta Blues. But as infrastructure across the nation fails and climate change pushes rivers and seas to new heights, we’ve arrived at a critical moment in our battle to tame these often-destructive forces of nature.

When they’re running the Kentucky animal-rescue farm they inherited from their grandparents, Autumn and Ember Somerset are perfectly in sync. At all other times, not so much. Dependable Autumn would rather curl up with a good book than paint the town red with Ember. After the disaster that was Autumn’s last relationship, it’s pure self-protection. But when her high-school crush comes back to town with his adorable young daughter, igniting memories best left forgotten, there’s only one person to whom Autumn can turn....

When an ultra-rich space tourist visits the orbiting International Space Station, NASA expects a $100 million win-win: His visit will bring in much needed funding and publicity. But the tourist venture turns into a scheme of terror. Together with an extremist cosmonaut, the tourist slaughters all the astronauts on board the million-pound ISS - and prepares to crash it into New York City at 17,500 miles an hour, causing more devastation than a hundred atomic bombs. All that stands between them and their deadly goal is the lone survivor aboard the ISS, Kimberly Hasid-Robinson.

A captivating blend of personal history detailing Eleanor’s struggle with issues of marriage, motherhood, financial independence, and femininity, and a vibrant portrait of one of the most famous neighborhoods in the world, this unique work examines the ways that the sensibility, mood, and various inhabitants of the neighborhood influenced the First Lady’s perception of herself and shaped her political views over four decades, up to her death in 1962.

The gift of the Toltec is the ability to transcend ordinary human awareness and achieve personal freedom - the ability to choose how to act rather than react to the events in your life. The three Toltec Masteries of Awareness, Transformation, and Intent are the key to transcending your limitations and experiencing yourself as the creator of your life.

An urgent and definitive collection of essays from leaders and experts championing the Green New Deal - and a detailed playbook for how we can win it - including contributions by leading activists and progressive writers like Varshini Prakash, Rhiana Gunn-Wright, Bill McKibben, Rev William Barber II, and more.

The city of Wichita, Kansas, is wracked with panic over the abduction of toddler pageant princess Lindy Bobo. However, the dealers at The Heart of America Antique Mall are too preoccupied by their own neurotic compulsions to take much notice. Postcards, perfume bottles, Barbies, vinyl records, kitschy neon beer signs - they collect and sell it all.

For 50 years, writers at every stage of their careers have turned to the literary nonprofit organization Poets & Writers and its award-winning magazine for resources to foster their professional development, from writing prompts and tips on technique to informative interviews with published authors, literary agents, and editors. But never before has Poets & Writers marshalled its 50 years’ worth of knowledge to create an authoritative guide for writers that answers every imaginable question about craft and career - until now.

Becca Trevor never intended to come back to pretty little St. Caroline, Maryland, and her family's quilt shop. Growing up, she was the wild child...and the black sheep of the family...and the girl who couldn't get anything right. And she definitely never intended to see Jack Wolfe again. Those 15 minutes she'd spent with him at a graduation party seven years ago? Unforgettable - for a whole lot of reasons.  

The first novel in nearly a decade from Myla Goldberg, the award-winning, New York Times best-selling author of Bee Season - a compelling and wholly original story about a female photographer grappling with ambition and motherhood, a balancing act familiar to women of every generation. 

A young woman is swept into a life of intrigue, revenge, passion, and betrayal when she falls for the world's most notorious prince, Vlad Dracula. The year is 1464. King Matthias controls Hungary, his family, and the fate of the world's most notorious political prisoner, Prince Vlad Dracula. Ilona Szilágy, the king's cousin, is young and ambitious. Dracula is determined to marry into the family. It is love at first sight, but the king has other plans. The Impaler Prince, however, never takes no for an answer.

Demography, literally the study of people, addresses the size, distribution, composition, and density of populations, and considers the impact the drivers which mediate these will have on both individual lives and the changing structure of human populations. This Very Short Introduction considers the way in which the global population has evolved over time and space. Sarah Harper discusses the theorists, theories, and methods involved in studying population trends and movements. 

Teenage Stella Blunt does not know how to win friends. Her size, her snark, and her trust issues are all big problems. Only one person seems to like her...and he's weird as hell. Shy, awkward Howie Mullins is smitten. Stella has curves and brains - what's not to love? Howie can't stop drooling over her in chemistry class. Now, he's offering Stella his heart. Literally. Can Howie convince Stella to take a chance on love? Or will she take him out with a chainsaw?

A sweeping, groundbreaking, and comprehensive treasury of the most essential presidential writings, featuring a richly varied mix of the beloved and the little-known, from stirring speeches and shrewd remarks to behind-the-scenes drafts and unpublished autobiographies.