Showing results by narrator "William Dufris" in All Categories

Soon after the new Constitution took effect and George Washington became president, the United States was in serious danger. A bitter political rivalry between two men who had once been allies, and two surging issues that inflamed the nation, led to grim talk of breaking up the Republic. Then, a single great evening, arguably the most important dinner party in American history, achieved the compromises that led to America's mighty expansion.

A Dog’s Promise is the heartwarming and uplifting story about one dog who fulfils his promise and helps a family who needs him the most. The dog who thinks of himself as ‘Bailey’ knows one thing for sure: all dogs go to heaven after they have fulfilled their purpose on earth. But Bailey’s work on earth is far from finished; there are still so many more humans that need a dog’s talent for unconditional love. There is one family in particular that needs Bailey’s help, a family that is on the verge of breaking apart.

Traitor. Divider. Defender of slavery. This damning portrayal of Robert E. Lee has persisted through 150 years of history books. And yet it has no basis in fact. Weaving forgotten facts and revelations (Lee considered slavery a moral outrage) with striking personal details (for years he carried his weakened mother to and from her carriage), biographer John Perry crafts a compelling treatment of the virtuous warrior who endured withering opposition and sacrificed all to stand for Constitutional freedoms.

"You want to borrow a casket?" Funeral director and part-time sheriff Barry Clayton finds United States Junior Chamber (Jaycee) member Archie Donovan’s request absurd, until he learns the casket will be the centerpiece of the Jaycees’ haunted house, a charity event with all proceeds going to the children’s hospital. But when the president of the Jaycees is murdered in the casket on Halloween, the national press descends upon Gainesboro to cover the bizarre crime.

As Nixie struggles to unite the water witches, the Fae king discovers a spy in his ranks. We're forced to split our focus and our powers between the unrest in Faerie and the rising tensions in Falias. When Nudd's latest gambit puts humanity’s most dangerous weapons into his hands, we can't let anything stand in our way. We'll need help from new contacts and trusted allies if we hope to stop the Fae king's madness.

A trip to the countryside goes very awry in the world premiere piece The Cabin in the Woods. From the outside, it's a lovely old rustic cabin. Inside, however... well that's a different story… there's something unusual about those walls…

Late one night in August 1934, following a yearlong spree of bank robberies across the Midwest, Jason and Whit Fireson are forced into a police shootout and die for the first time. Now it appears that the bank robbers known as the Firefly Brothers by an admiring public have at last met their end in a hail of bullets.

In the spring of 1863, as he faces battle for the first time at Chancellorsville, Virginia, a young Union soldier matures to manhood and finds peace of mind as he comes to grips with his conflicting emotions about war.

A great book for anyone who is interested in real estate investing or planning to buy a new home, Tips & Traps When Negotiating Real Estate covers everything from financing and deposits, to better prices versus better terms, to handling brokers and sellers alike. Best-selling real estate guru Bob Irwin breaks down all the common negotiating points by subject and supplies you with checklists, forms, and boilerplates at every step along the way.

Brooding, edgy, and sometimes violent, Controlled Burn's loosely linked stories are each in some way a distillation of hard time, spent either in prison, the backwoods of Vermont, or the badlands of the American West. Peopled by boxers, drunks, truck drivers, murderers, bounty hunters, drifters traveling under assumed names, and men whose luck ran out a thousand miles ago, these stories feel hard-won from life, and if they are moody and stark, so too are they filled with human longing.

In 1928, the boy who will discover Pluto, Clyde Tombaugh, is on the family farm, grinding a lens for his own telescope under the immense Kansas sky. In Flagstaff, Arizona, the staff of Lowell Observatory is about to resume the late Percival Lowell's interrupted search for Planet X. Meanwhile, the immensely rich heir to a chemical fortune has decided to go west to hunt for dinosaurs, and in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the most beautiful girl in America is going slowly insane.

For any normal teenage boy, having two and a half younger sisters would be enough to deal with. But Simwan Deavy's life isn't normal. His family is non-Ord - short for "non-Ordinary" - which means that at school, he and his sisters learn hexing and enchanting along with history and math. It also means they have a ghost for an uncle and a cat who talks. Still, everything is going well for Simwan - until a bottle of Truth is stolen from the local pharmacy.

No one is more surprised than Lem Altick when it turns out he's actually good at peddling encyclopedias door to door. He hates the predatory world of sales, but he needs the money to pay for college. Then things go horribly wrong. In a sweltering trailer in rural Florida, a couple Lem has spent hours pitching to is shot dead before his eyes, and the unassuming young man is suddenly pulled into the dark world of conspiracy and murder.

Five deranged CIA killers, all of them dependent on their meds and deep in the woods of Maine, are forced to break out of the asylum when someone murders their psychiatrist and frames them for the deed. Crazy and traumatized by their experiences in the CIA, they operate under somewhat skewed perceptions of reality. Their training, however, has prepared them to survive in an unfriendly world, even if that world is the Boston-to-Washington corridor as they chase down the real killer.

The adventures in the northern wilderness of a dog who is part wolf and who eventually makes his peace with man.

Oggie Cooder's charving has already taken him to the top of the world. (Charving, in case you don't know, involves chewing and carving pieces of cheese.) But there's one place Oggie Cooder has never been allowed to go: Donnica Perfecto's pool.

Surprised to find himself reborn as a rambunctious golden-haired puppy after a tragically short life as a stray mutt, Bailey's search for his new life's meaning leads him into the loving arms of eight-year-old Ethan. During their countless adventures, Bailey joyously discovers how to be a good dog. But this life as a family pet is not the end of Bailey's journey. Reborn as a puppy yet again, Bailey wonders - will he ever find his purpose?

The inevitable is understood by each and every one of us who faces the final calling. So too are the effects on those left behind. The memories are there but the empty space, the void can never be refilled. It remains a dark, unreliable pit of loneliness. The sadness and often depression, the lack of will to continue may swamp us all. Unquenchable, undeniable. But loss can, after mourning, give the opportunity to reappraise the lost and how we can each move forward. In the literary world an accessible balance can be given.

Yates is a Futurist. Which is to say he makes a very good living flying around the world dispensing premonitory wisdom, a.k.a. prepackaged bull, to world governments, corporations, and global leadership conferences. He is an optimist by trade and a cynic by choice. He's the kind of man who can give a lecture on successive days to a leading pesticide manufacturer and the Organic Farmers of America, and receive standing ovations at both.

Denby has fun snarking the snarkers, expelling the bums and promoting the true wits, but he is also making a serious point: the Internet has put snark on steroids. In politics, snark means the lowest, most insinuating and insulting side can win. For the young, a savage piece of gossip could ruin a reputation and possibly a future career. And for all of us, snark just sucks the humor out of life. Denby defends the right of any of us to be cruel but shows us how the real pros pull it off. Snark, he says, is for the amateurs.