Showing results by narrator "Ralph" in All Categories

Happily retired in the village of Three Pines, Armand Gamache, former Chief Inspector of Homicide with the Sûreté du Québec, has found a peace he'd only imagined possible. On warm summer mornings he sits on a bench holding a small book, The Balm in Gilead, in his large hands. "There is a balm in Gilead," his neighbor Clara Morrow reads from the dust jacket, "to make the wounded whole." While Gamache doesn't talk about his wounds and his balm, Clara tells him about hers. Peter, her artist husband, has failed to come home. Failed to show up as promised on the first anniversary of their separation. She wants Gamache's help to find him. Having finally found sanctuary, Gamache feels a near revulsion at the thought of leaving Three Pines. "There’s power enough in Heaven," he finishes the quote as he contemplates the quiet village, "to cure a sin-sick soul." And then he gets up. And joins her.

“One morning, as Gregor Samsa was waking up from anxious dreams, he discovered that in bed he had been changed into a monstrous verminous bug.” With this startlingly bizarre sentence, Kafka begins his masterpiece, The Metamorphosis. It is the story of a young traveling salesman who, transformed overnight into a giant, beetle-like insect, becomes an object of disgrace to his family, an outsider in his own home, a quintessentially alienated man. Rather than being surprised at the transformation, the members of his family despise it as an impending burden upon themselves.

Here are 12 acclaimed, exciting, fully dramatized performances of Conan Doyle classics. It's elementary that any Conan Doyle fan will want this splendid set of Sherlock Holmes mysteries, 12 timeless tales performed as radio theater and linked by violin-music interludes.

Darren, the vampire's assistant, gets a taste of the city when he leaves the Cirque du Freak with Evra the snake-boy and Mr. Crepsley. When corpses are discovered - corpses drained of blood - Darren and Evra are compelled to hunt down whatever foul creature is committing such horrendous acts. Meanwhile, beneath the streets, evil stalks Darren and Evra, and all clues point to Mr. Crepsley. Can they escape, or are they doomed to perish in the tunnels of blood?

Flying dark, a plane carrying a team of mercenaries crash-lands on a remote snowy summit. When they come across a mazelike stone fortress, it’s no refuge from the wolves and the freezing wind. It’s more like a trap. What they discover can stop the heart—or worse. As terror takes a new shape, the real battle for survival begins in this unrelenting serialized novel from Academy Award–winning filmmaker and writer Guillermo del Toro.

The trials: There are seventeen ways to die unless the luck of the vampire is with you. Darren Shan must pass five of these fearsome trials to prove himself to the vampire clan - or face the stakes of the Hall of Death. But Vampire Mountain holds hidden threats. Sinister, potent forces are gathering in the darkness. In this nightmarish world of bloodshed and betrayal, death may be a blessing.

Darren is going back to where it all started, back to where he was reborn as a child of the night. But like Darren, the town has changed a lot over the years. Back home, old enemies await. Scores must be settled. Destiny looks certain to destroy him, and the world is doomed to fall to the Ruler of the Night. Travel home with Darren in this, the penultimate book in the saga.

Bloodlands is a new kind of European history, presenting the mass murders committed by the Nazi and Stalinist regimes as two aspects of a single history, in the time and place where they occurred: between Germany and Russia, when Hitler and Stalin both held power. Assiduously researched, deeply humane, and utterly definitive, Bloodlands will be required listening for anyone seeking to understand the central tragedy of modern history.

Few figures have had such an influence on history as Jesus of Nazareth. His teachings have inspired discussion, arguments, even war. Yet few have ever held forth as movingly as Jesus on the need for peace, forgiveness, and mercy.

Although many books on Gettysburg have addressed the role played by Brig. Gen. John Buford and his First Cavalry Division troops, there is not a single book-length study devoted entirely to the critical delaying actions waged by Buford and his dismounted troopers and his horse artillerists on the morning of July 1, 1863. Award-winning Civil War historian Eric J. Wittenberg rectifies this glaring oversight with The Devil’s to Pay.

After six years of living in Vampire Mountain, Darren Shan,the Vampire Prince, leaves on a life-and-death mission. As part of an elite force, Darren searches the world for the Vampaneze Lord, who is determined to lead his forces to victory against the vampires. But the road ahead is long and dangerous - and lined with the bodies of the damned. Hunters of the Dusk is the start of an action-packed, three-part Darren Shan adventure, a tale of quests, friendship, treachery, despair, and bloodshed....

All Things Bright and Beautiful is the beloved sequel to Herriot's first collection, All Creatures Great and Small, and picks up as Herriot, now newly married, journeys among the remote hillside farms and valley towns of the Yorkshire Dales, caring for their inhabitants - both two- and four-legged. Throughout, Herriot's deep compassion, humor, and love of life shine as we laugh, cry, and delight in the portraits of his many varied animal patients and their equally varied owners.

2045, the Arctic Circle. A crew of six aboard the research vessel, The Nox, embark upon a voyage through the melting ice and Arctic dark in search of the last of the polar bears. The mission represents a ray of hope in a world ravaged by climate change, but it quickly becomes clear that some on board are in search of more than bears. Isolation and the disorientation of 24/7 darkness soon have the group losing their grip on reality – accidents, nightmares, or hauntings – no one can be sure, but the voyage seems cursed.

What has been awakened is unbound. The Boy is getting his first taste of freedom. As their comrades fall, fear threatens to consume the survivors in chapter four of The Boy in the Iron Box. Liev’s plan: get his men out of this ancient stone prison, take their chances with the wolves, and descend the summit at first light. But in this snowbound hell, there’s soon to be a frightening new twist to survival.

This volume of short essays and other pieces by C. S.Lewis is part of a larger collection, C. S. Lewis: Essay Collectionand Other Short Pieces. In addition to his many books, letters, and poems,C. S. Lewis wrote a great number of essays and shorter pieces on various subjects. He wrote extensively on Christian theology and the defense of faith but also on ethical issues and the nature of literature and storytelling. Within these pages is a treasure trove of Lewis' reflections on diverse topics.

Mage Errant: Publisher's Pack contains books one and two of the Mage Errant series: Into the Labyrinth and Jewel of the Endless Erg. Hugh of Emblin is, so far as he's concerned, the worst student that the Academy at Skyhold has ever seen. He can barely cast any spells at all, and those he does cast tend to fail explosively.

Darren Shan, Vampire Prince and "vampaneze" killer, faces his worst nightmare yet - school. But homework is the least of Darren's problems. Bodies are piling up, time is running out, and the past is catching up with the hunters fast. Darren must forge new alliances and try to unravel the mystery behind the malevolent forces that have been set in motion against him. In this second part of the Hunters trilogy, the stakes are raised and the pace quickens to keep listeners on the edge of their seats.

Airborne mage armies traverse enemy territory in utter secrecy. Vast city-liches conspire to influence events from afar, while city-states and archmages unleash strange new magics in a rapidly accelerating magical arms race. Nations and great powers that have remained quiescent for years have begun reaching out into the growing power vacuum. Magical superweapons and giant monsters are wielded by every side in a deadly tangle of alliances and factions, as each squabbling force spirals in towards their inevitable final conflict.

When Ned and his identical twin brother tumble from their raft into a raging, bewitched river, only Ned survives. Villagers are convinced the wrong boy lived. Sure enough, Ned grows up weak and slow, and stays as much as possible within the safe boundaries of his family's cottage and yard. But when a Bandit King comes to steal the magic that Ned's mother, a witch, is meant to protect, it's Ned who safeguards the magic and summons the strength to protect his family and community.

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