Showing results by narrator "Richard Allen" in All Categories

Award-winning jokesmith and self-confessed idiot Stephen K. Amos teams up with some of the world's sharpest comic minds to compile a dummies' guide to being a modern human. From raising children and having a mid-life crisis, to first impressions and facing your fears, who better than a bunch of comedians to lead us through life's existential maze?

Since 1929, the Yankees have issued 73 different numbers to more than 1,500 players. Yankees by the Numbers tells those stories for every Yankee since ’29, providing insightful and humorous commentary about the more memorable players from a fan’s perspective.

Explosive drama erupts when the life of a teen with a tortured past is jeopardized by her secret tattoo. Handwriting expert Claudia Rose joins forces once again with Detective Joel Jovanic, who is investigating a firebombing, a young woman found dead in a dumpster, and the disappearance of a journalist. The investigation heats up when Jovanic uncovers evidence that the same tattoo is linked to his cases.

Slave narratives are extremely rare. Of the 100 or so of these testimonies that survive, a mere handful are first-person accounts by slaves who ran away and freed themselves. Now two newly uncovered narratives, and the biographies of the men who wrote them, join that exclusive group.

This is the story of Twesigye Jackson Kaguri, who grew up in rural Uganda, the son of an irascible small-time farmer and his loving wife. In spite of the family's poverty, Jackson succeeds and graduates from the national university with a calling to work in human rights that leads him to Columbia University. There he falls in love with and later marries an American scientist, Beronda. When Jackson returns to Uganda with his bride, they are overwhelmed by the many villagers who line up to ask for help with food and school fees....

Americans are losing the freedom to make sense of daily choices - teachers can't maintain order in the classroom, managers are trained to avoid candor, schools ban tag, and companies plaster inane warnings on everything: "Remove Baby Before Folding Stroller". Philip K. Howard’s urgent argument is full of examples, often darkly humorous. What’s at stake, Howard explains in this seminal book, is the vitality of American culture.

In Blues City, Ishmael Reed, one of our most brilliant essayists, takes us on a tour of Oakland, exploring its fascinating history, its beautiful hills and waterfronts, and its odd cultural juxtapositions. He takes us into a year in the life of this amazing city, to black cowboy parades and Indian powwows, to Black Panther reunions and Gay Pride concerts, to a Japanese jazz club where a Lakota musician plays Coltrane’s "Naima".

12 Years a Slave is the harrowing account of a Black man, born free in New York State, who was drugged, kidnapped, and sold into slavery in 1841. Having no way to contact his family, and fearing for his life if he told the truth, Solomon Northup was sold from plantation to plantation in Louisiana, toiling under cruel masters for twelve years before meeting Samuel Bass, a Canadian who finally put him in touch with his family, and helped start the process to regain his freedom.

In Baku, Azerbaijan, CIA operations officer Daria Buckingham is arrested for a heinous crime. Her former boss, retired CIA station chief Mark Sava, is sure she’s innocent and tries to help her out - landing him in the middle of the new Great Game, an espionage war over oil that has China, Iran, and the United States clawing at each other’s throats. Back in Washington, DC, Colonel Henry Amato, assistant to the US national security advisor, is keeping a close watch on the situation.

Mark McEwen's stroke was anything but sudden. His symptoms led him to a hospital, where he was misdiagnosed with the flu. Two days later, on an airplane flight just hours before he finally collapsed, flight attendants and airport staff discounted his slurred speech and heavy sweating, passing him off as intoxicated. Misinformation not only delayed his treatment but nearly cost him his life.

The opening line of this call-and-response style verse asks the question that forms the thread throughout: Blues, what do you mean to me? In a magnificent collaboration of words and song, a timeline of the blues is presented in a soulful reading with dramatic musical accompaniment that offers a compelling evocation of the blues experience.

Even though Sewing Annie Coats and her son, Gabriel, have managed to buy their freedom, their lives are still marked by constant struggle and sacrifice. Washington's Georgetown neighborhood, where the Coatses operate a tailor's shop and laundry, is supposed to be a "promised land" for former slaves, but it is effectively a frontier town, gritty and dangerous, with no laws protecting black people.

Nostalgia radio had incredible comedy, mystery, detective, Western, sci-fi, musical, and drama shows that kept Americans glued to their radio sets. Families gathered around their living room radios to hear their favorite Hollywood stars in fully dramatized broadcasts that entertained millions. In this collection of sixteen episodes, you’ll hear “Richard Diamond, Private Detective” with Dick Powell, “Suspense,” starring Gregory Peck, “The Charlie McCarthy Show” with Edgar Bergan and Robert Cummings, “You Bet Your Life” with Groucho Marx, and many more.

Catching up with the greatest Aggies players - newly updated! Since the beginning of A & M football, in 1894, the Aggies have produced some of the greatest athletes to ever come out of Texas. Legendary players have plowed their way to greatness while carving their names into the heart of Texas fans under the Aggies banner. But what happened to these juggernauts after the final score was tallied and the game was over? The answer can only be found in this newly updated edition of Texas A & M Where Have You Gone?

For decades Americans have turned to LIFE magazine to see, understand, and remember the most important events and people of our time. The magazine now focuses its lens on Barack Obama. This book includes a Foreword by the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy and original essays by some of our finest writers, including Gay Talese, Charles Johnson, Melissa Fay Greene, Andrei Codrescu, Fay Weldon, Richard Norton Smith, Bob Greene, and several others.

Who are the best quarterbacks in NFL history? How about running backs? Wide receivers? How can we objectively rate the performance of individual defensive players? And how can we make reasonable judgments about players at different positions and from different eras? Who is the greatest football player of all time? Jerry Rice? Lawrence Taylor? Jim Brown? Such are the questions pondered by pro football writer Steve Silverman late at night (and during the day).

Since losing his fiancée some years ago, atheist biologist Sam Rogers has blazed a trail in immortality studies. He's learned an awful lot about life and death. But when he discovers a mysterious hole beneath his sofa one morning, he's forced to reckon with all that is unmasterable about the universe - and some of it has tentacles.

Achim is 11 years old when he moves from the orphanage to the house by the sea. Here everything is strange and new. But one day he discovers an unusual door that leads to a circular room with walls made of rough stone. The light coming through the window is hazy, as if the room is under water. It is a magic room - which he calls “The Adopted Room” - belonging to another world. And on a bed in the room sits a boy who is waiting to take Achim with him into the realm of the powerful Nameless One.

The first great novel of the war in Afghanistan' Wall Street Journal You’ve had no sleep since the firefight last night. The morning fog beyond the walls of your base lifts to reveal a lone woman approaching the gate. She says she has come to claim the body of her brother killed in last night’s attack. Is she a terrorist? A spy? A lunatic? Or what she says she is – a grieving sister? What should you do? What do you do?

Civility is desirable and possible, but can this fragile ideal be guaranteed? The Importance of Being Civil offers the most comprehensive look at the nature and advantages of civility, throughout history and in our world today. Esteemed sociologist John Hall expands our understanding of civility as related to larger social forces - including revolution, imperialism, capitalism, nationalism, and war - and the ways that such elements limit the potential for civility. The Importance of Being Civil is a decisive and sophisticated addition to the discussion of civil society in its modern cultural and historical contexts.