Showing results by narrator "Chris Kayser" in All Categories

These 11 stories by Joshua Ferris, many of which were first published in The New Yorker, are at once thrilling, strange, and comic. The modern tribulations of marriage, ambition, and the fear of missing out as the temptations flow like wine and the minutes of life tick down are explored with the characteristic wit and insight that have made Ferris one of our most critically acclaimed novelists.

Beneath our culture's obsession with wealth and power, status and celebrity, millions of Americans are quietly engaged in a deeply religious struggle to free themselves from petty selfishness and to embrace a life of benevolence and compassion. Drawing on an extensive random survey of 1,200 men and women across the United States, Matthew Lee, Margaret Poloma, and Stephen Post here shed new light on how Americans wake up to the reality of divine love and how that transformative experience expresses itself in concrete acts of benevolence.

Old Vincent Farwell announces at a house party that he will not extend his $1.5 million loan to Ellandy Jewels. The six young people assembled, all with varied interests in the company, leave to consider their options. Then one by one or in pairs, they return to Vincent's house, find he's been murdered, draw assorted conclusions about which of the others did it, and proceed to alter the scene according to their intentions.

Christopher Columbus needed a sponsor for a dangerous expedition, but the King of Portugal wasn't interested. He repackaged his proposal for the Queen of Spain. She put Columbus on retainer and the rest is history. Columbus may not have been the first to discover America, but he had a great publicist. That's where Jeff Blumenfeld comes in. For many years, using a PR specialty called adventure marketing, Jeff has connected explorers and their projects with corporate sponsors looking to demonstrate product performance in extreme conditions.

In The Barefoot Bingo Caller, Antanas Sileika finds what's funny and touching in the most unlikely places, from the bingo hall to the collapsing Soviet Union. He shares stories that span his attempts to shake off his suburban, ethnic, folk-dancing childhood to his divided allegiance as a Lithuanian-Canadian father. Antanas has a keen eye for social comedy.

In the wake of the Dreyfus affair, the murder of two Jews in Lorraine reveals the darker side of human natureIn the wake of the Vernet murders in Aix-en-Provence, magistrate Bernard Martin moves to Lorraine, France, along with his pregnant wife, Claire, who is as fervent about Republican ideals as her husband. They are not there long when an infant boy is found dead, his tiny body mutilated. The wet nurse and mother say that this was a case of “ritual sacrifice” by a “wandering tinker,” or Jew.

A new mystery featuring Enrico Caruso as an amateur detective during the tense premiere of The Girl of the Golden West, at the Metropolitan Opera, in 1910.

Finding Myself in Borneo: Sojourns in Sabah is an honest and buoyant chronicle of a young Canadian man's adventures during 1968-70, while teaching secondary school as a CUSO volunteer in Sabah, Malaysia (North Borneo). Travel with Neill McKee on his unique journey through vibrant Asian cultures as he learns the craft of teaching, the Malay language and local customs, and gains many friends in his small community. He climbs the highest peak in Southeast Asia - Mount Kinabalu, has a love affair, and navigates Borneo's backwaters to make his first of many documentary films.

Christmas season at the Metropolitan Opera in 1920 features Enrico Caruso and Geraldine Farrar in a varied schedule of mostly Italian operas. For members of the Metropolitan chorus, however, the season's main feature is danger. An urn falls on the head of a soprano chorister in Samson and Delilah; a tenor from the chorus is found hanged in a dressing room before the evening's performance of Mefistofele; in I Pagliacci, a trapdoor drops open and three singers fall through.

Lord Deveren Larath joined the thieves of Braedon thinking to expose a killer. Seven years later, he is now their leader, known among them as "Fox". No sooner have the elections been held than Deveren's brother, Damir, ambassador and master spy, comes to Braedon with dire news. The young kind of the neighboring country has been imprisoned by his own counselor, and Damir fears war with Byrn is in the wind. While Damir embarks on a desperate attempt to rescue the young king, "Fox" must deal with troubles closer to home.

Kafka was an attractive, slender, and elegant man - something of a dandy - who captivated his friends and knew how to charm women. He seemed to have had four important love affairs: Felice, Julie, Milena, and Dora. All of them lived far away, in Berlin or Vienna, and perhaps that's one of the reasons that he loved them: he chose long-distance relationships so he could have the pleasure of writing to them, without the burden of having to live with them. He was engaged to all four women, and four times he avoided marriage.

Terry's only sanctuary is the patch of tall reeds behind his house, a hideout where bullies would never think to look. While crying in the reeds, however, Terry encounters a dragon, Hrraushtu, who must kill Terry to keep him from telling other humans about its existence. But when Terry strikes up a deal with Hrraushtu, the two soon discover that they can help each other in ways they never imagined.

The treefolk have always been an enigma to Elodi and her father - that is, until they have a rare chance to save a fallen fairy. Not far away, Germain is coming to terms with having lost his love, Celeste, to the Undereaves.

Igor the fox owes everything to Frankie Mouse, the scientist who brought him back from the dead. However, as Frankie begins to resurrect more and more animals, apparently with the intent of creating an army, Igor finds himself increasingly excluded from his master's plans. Desperate to win back Frankie's confidence, Igor starts down a path that reveals secrets terrifying to both the living and the dead.

Puzwuk the orphan boy tries to save his village from famine, one fish at a time.

For anyone looking for a practical blueprint for creating an additional stream of home-based income, Double Your Income with Network Marketing is for you. This book offers a fresh look at the home-based business industry, offering an original step-by-step plan for home-business success that includes a detailed look at the network marketing industry. By combining specific, turnkey strategies with inspiring stories of successful home-based entrepreneurs, listeners will move through the author's "success blueprint" learning.

Pierre Goodman enjoys an idyllic childhood as the son of a widowed dressmaker in post-World War I England. But paradise is ripped from him at age 10 when he and his mother immigrate to a small town in Alabama. Yearning to regain peace within his own mind and aided by his photographic memory, he begins falsely but completely enveloping himself in the lives of others. He yearns to become not merely a listener to the world, but also a singer in its chorus. In doing so, Pierre’s life becomes an extraordinary document of his time and place as he finds himself a part of history over and over again.

In this modern-day Orpheus tale, one man descends into Paris’s hellish underworld to find his missing wife — and learn the dark secrets of her past. Adam Füst thought he knew his wife, Honnie. But when he begins investigating her sudden disappearance, he’s shocked to find so much of her a mystery. In order to find Honnie, Adam must enter the darkest shadows of the City of Lights. Paris’s sex shops, dark streets, and the people who inhabit them simultaneously repel Adam and draw him deeper, giving him a painfully clear look into Honnie’s past — and his own soul. Adam’s grief eventually gives way to his obsession with finding Honnie, taking his very sanity to the breaking point. Will learning the truth about Honnie push him over the edge?