Showing results by narrator "Kirby" in All Categories

With his signature acerbic wit and hilarious voice, 20-something author, blogger, and entrepreneur Shane Burcaw is back with an essay collection about living a full life in a body that many people perceive as a tragedy. From anecdotes about first introductions where people patted him on the head instead of shaking his hand, to stories of passersby mistaking his able-bodied girlfriend for a nurse, Shane tackles awkward situations and assumptions with humor and grace.

Their journey will break them - or save them. A moving and complicated love story for our time, The Reckless Oath We Made redefines what it means to be heroic. Zee has never admitted to needing anybody. But she needs Gentry. Her tough exterior shelters a heart that's loyal to the point of self-destruction, while autistic Gentry wears his heart on his sleeve, including his desire to protect Zee at all costs. When an abduction tears Zee's family apart, she turns to Gentry - and sets in motion a journey and a love that will change their lives forever.

Welcome to the town of Smellville, where 10 kids all live in a big tumbledown house and have as much fun as they possibly can. People may think that they’re gross and weird and slobby and strange, but they’re not bad kids - they just don’t know any better. In this hilarious series from best-selling author R. L. Stine, the Garbage Pail Kids - from Adam Bomb to Brainy Janey - get into mischief at their middle school. These all-new stories are guaranteed to amuse and entertain listeners of all ages.

Earth has been conquered by an alien race known as the Assembly. The adult human population is gone, having succumbed to the Tone - a powerful, telekinetic supersignal that has reduced them to a state of complete subservience. But the Tone has one critical flaw: it only affects those over the age of twenty, which means that there is one group left to fight - teens.

Jay Gardiner has given himself a fool’s errand—to find the remains of his deceased father in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of Monastery Beach. He knows it’s a long shot, but Jay feels it’s the only way for him to lift the weight of guilt he has carried since his dad’s death by suicide the previous year.

My name is Drew Hayes, and for the past six years I've made my living as a writer. In that time, I've published 20 books, written hundreds of thousands of words, and made countless mistakes - most of which I like to think I've learned from. Underqualified Advice (and Other Amusing Diversions) is my attempt to compile those lessons and share them with others, as well as have some fun along the way. Half of the book is dedicated to detailing specifics about writing, maneuvering the industry, and keeping fiscally afloat in largely unstable waters.

Am I happy enough? This has been a pivotal question since America's inception. "Am I not happy enough because I am depressed?" is a more recent version. Psychotherapist Gary Greenberg shows how depression has been manufactured---not as an illness but as an idea about our suffering, its source, and its relief. He challenges us to look at depression in a new way.

The instant New York Times best seller. In the summer of 1989, a Baton Rouge neighborhood best known for cookouts on sweltering summer afternoons, cauldrons of spicy crawfish, and passionate football fandom, is rocked by a violent crime when 15-year-old Lindy Simpson - free spirit, track star, and belle of the block - is attacked late one evening near her home. As the dark side of this idyllic stretch of Southern suburbia is revealed, the close-knit neighborhood is irreversibly transformed.

Meet Gerald. Gerald is a griffin - a creature with the body of a lion and the head of an eagle. According to the Code of the Griffins, that means he should be: 1. Brave and fierce in all situations! 2. A guardian of a great treasure! 3. Completely and totally hidden from the human realm! But what if a Griffin isn't brave or fierce? What if he's never found a great treasure (or any treasure, for that matter)? What if he feels like such an embarrassment that the only thing left to do is run away?

Across the ocean in America, people have been enjoying years of plenty since the Great War. Electricity in every home, shiny new automobiles lining the streets, roaring new music, shocking new clothing styles—a whole nation wanting nothing more than to let loose and get rich. But beneath the glittering surface, the economy's foundation has already begun to crumble.

Deftly plotted, defiantly honest, Where You Once Belonged sings the song of a wounded prairie community in a narrative with the earmarks of a modern American classic. In prose as lean and supple as a spring switch, Haruf describes a high school football star who wins the heart of the loveliest girl in the county and the admiration of men twice his age. Fun-loving, independent, Burdette engages in the occasional prank. But when he turns into a man, his high jinks turn into crimes.

We have somehow internalized the unbiblical idea that the immaterial aspect of our being (our soul or spirit) is inherently good while the material aspect (our body) is at worst inherently evil and at best neutral - just a vehicle for our souls to get around. So we end up neglecting or disparaging our bodies. But we don't have bodies; we are our bodies. And God created us that way for a reason. Theologian Gregg Allison presents a holistic theology of the human body from conception through eternity to equip us to address pressing contemporary issues related to our bodies.

Spanning the human galaxy, the Empire is all-powerful: No human or alien forces have been able to stand against its power. But now, on the planet Accord, the Ecolitan Institute bids fair to challenge the might of the Empire, at last. Major Jimjoy Earle Wright, secret agent of the Empire, is intelligent and highly trained. But he succeeds all too well in overthrowing a military dictatorship - and the result is a new government inimical to the Empire and disgrace for Jimjoy.

In the world of Recluce, powerful mages can wield two kinds of magic - the white of Chaos or the black of Order. Beltur, however, has talents no one dreamed of, talents not seen in hundreds of years that blend both magics. On the run from a power-hungry white mage, Beltur is taken in by Order mages who set him on the path to discover and hone his own unique gifts and in the process find a home. However, when the white mage he fled attempts to invade his new home, Beltur must hope his newfound power will be enough to save them all.

One planet. Three sapient species living peacefully together. And one deadly virus that could wipe out every world in the Starways Congress, killing billions. Is the only answer another great Xenocide?

Mary Catherine grew up in a comfortable life despite an array of health issues, including a congenital heart condition (which she quietly obsesses over). She loves her parents, who are quite wealthy, but the lifestyle never appealed to her. Instead she pursues meaning through an abundance of charity work, always giving away a part of herself in service of others.

My name is Isobel Drake. And I have a dangerous secret. I'm a half-human, half-dragon hybrid hiding in plain sight in the humans-only city of Yerba Buena. There are others like me, pretending to be fully human, in a world where dragons are exiled to reservations and face the death penalty if caught in a human settlement. When a half-dragon warrior demands my help to find a stolen dragon's egg, I realize I can't hide anymore. Now, the fate of a helpless dragon hatchling lies in my hands. I have to save her...even if it means confronting dangerous enemies and risking my secret.

Even before Myristal went out, before the battle of the Heavens and the Earth broke out, before the Black General was imprisoned on the Mountain of Skulls, a wizard had wandered the endless expanses of the Nameless World in search of his past and his future. This is the legend of Ash, the Master of a Thousand Words, the Bloody General. What's true and what is fiction is up to you to decide.

Seventeen-year-old Leopold Berry is seeing weird things around Los Angeles. A man who pops a tooth into a parking meter. A glowing trapdoor in a parking lot. A half-mechanical raccoon with its tail on fire that just won’t leave him alone. Every hallucinatory moment seems plucked from a cheesy 1990s fantasy TV show called Max's Adventures in Sunderworld—and that’s because they are. Not a good sign.

Natural-born healer Emma Starling once had big plans for her life, but she’s lost her way. A medical school dropout, she’s come back to small-town Everton, New Hampshire, to care for her father, who is dying from a mysterious brain disease. Clive Starling has been hallucinating small animals, as well as having visions of the ghost of a long-dead naturalist, Ernest Harold Baynes, once known for letting wild animals live in his house. This ghost has been giving Clive some ideas on how to spend his final days.