Showing results by narrator "Paul Bellantoni" in All Categories

This extraordinary Strega Prize-winning novel confirms Domenico Starnone's reputation as one of Italy's greatest living writers. Told against the backdrop of Naples in the 1960s, a city that itself becomes a vivid character in this lush, atmospheric novel, The House on Via Gemito is a masterpiece of Italian fiction.

By the early ninth century, the Carolingian empire was at the height of its power. The Franks, led by Charlemagne, had built the largest European domain since Rome in its heyday. Though they jockeyed for power, prestige, and profit, the Frankish elites enjoyed political and cultural consensus. But just two generations later, their world was in shambles. Civil war, once an unthinkable threat, had erupted after Louis the Pious’s sons tried to overthrow him—and then placed their knives at the other’s neck. Families who had once charged into battle together now drew each other’s blood.

As a foster kid in the system, Emerson Duplessis never had two nickels to rub together. He worked harder than anyone else he knew and graduated with a degree in accounting—the safest career he could imagine. But when a round of unexpected layoffs leaves him unable to pay his rent, he resorts to taking temp jobs found for him by friends.

The Quozl just need somewhere to call home. A gentle race of extraterrestrial rabbits, they have a propensity for reproduction that has left their home planet, Quozlene, dangerously overpopulated, and in their search for greener and less-crowded pastures, they have discovered the perfect place to start over: the third planet away from a healthy, warming sun.

George Michael was an extravagantly gifted, openhearted soul singer whose work was both pained and smolderingly erotic. He was a songwriter of true craft and substance, and his music swept the world, starting in the mid-1980s. His fabricated image—that of a hypermacho sex god—loomed large in the pop culture of his day. It also hid—for a time—the secret he fought against revealing: Michael was gay. George Michael: A Life explores the compelling story of a superstar whose struggles, as well as his songs, continue to touch fans all over the world.

Ava Graham's ducks are in a row as she heads off to Italy to complete her final law school credits and fulfill a promise she made to her late mother five years ago. Ava expects her long-term boyfriend to propose before her trip, but instead of giving her a ring, he suggests they use her time abroad as a "break" before settling down. When James Massini arrives—late—to the airport to pick up Ava as a favor to his aunt and uncle, he's surprised to find that she's not a young coed, but a fascinating woman approaching thirty with a superiority complex and a habit of underestimating him.

In How to Be a Lawyer, a team of veteran lawyers and entrepreneurs delivers an eye-opening discussion of how to translate your years of training and education into a running start in the world of practice. The book bridges the gap between law school and practice, whether you hope to be a big firm transactional attorney, a solo criminal lawyer, work for the government or any other legal profession. You'll discover how you can use what you learned in law school and how you can develop the real skills you'll need as you deal with clients and colleagues.

Seduced by the government’s offer of 320 acres per homesteader, Americans and Europeans rushed to Montana and the Dakotas to fulfill their own American dream in the first decade of the twentieth century. Raban’s stunning evocation of the harrowing, desperate reality behind the homesteader’s dream strips away the myth—while preserving the romance—that has shrouded our understanding of our own heartland.

Legendary writing coach Jack Hart spent 26 years at The Oregonian and has taught students and professionals of all stripes, including bloggers, podcasters, and more than one Pulitzer Prize winner. Good writing, he says, has the same basic attributes regardless of genre or medium. Wordcraft shares Hart’s techniques for achieving those attributes in one of the most broadly useful writing books ever written. Originally published in 2006 as A Writer’s Coach, the book has been updated to address the needs of writers well beyond print journalists.

When Quaker Pastor Sam Gardner is asked by the ill Unitarian minister to oversee a wedding in his place, Sam naturally agrees. It's not until the couple stands before him that he realizes they're two women.

Inspired by real events, The Lady of Lake Como follows the story of a lieutenant with the Italian police who, during the height of World War II, is tasked with investigating the unsettling disappearance of two women from his small town. Complicating matters, Ezio receives a detestable order from his superiors to arrest a Jewish man simply for the accident of his birth. While en route to carry out his unbearable duty, Ezio has a crisis of conscience when he encounters a nun whose secret forever changes his heart.

Batman is one of the most compelling and enduring characters to come from the Golden Age of Comics, and interest in his story has only increased through countless incarnations since his first appearance in Detective Comics #27 in 1939. Why does this superhero without superpowers fascinate us? What does that fascination say about us? Batman and Psychology explores these and other intriguing questions about the masked vigilante.

In two previous highly regarded books on the US Senate, Ira Shapiro chronicled the institution from its apogee in the 1970s through its decline in the decades since. Now, Shapiro turns his gaze to how the Senate responded to the challenges posed by the Trump administration and its prospects under President Biden. Shapiro documents the pivotal challenges facing the Senate during the Trump administration, arguing that the body's failure to provide leadership represents the most catastrophic failure of government in American history.

Grab the first three full length, heartwarming romances in B. E. Baker’s Finding Home Series in one convenient set today!

This is not CSI. What you encounter as a true bomb detective-or "Bomb Doctor," as some in the FBI call me-are fields of twisted metal containing soot-covered fragments intermingled with human remains. You have carnage and chaos. As you wade into that sea of wailing sirens and screaming survivors awash with the stench of diesel fuel and decaying bodies, your job is to ferret out forensic clues in a type of macabre scavenger hunt to ultimately reconstruct the scene and the explosive device and determine what happened and what the bomb looked like before it was torn asunder.

Hell Tanner isn't the sort of guy you'd mistake for a hero: he's a fast-driving car thief, a smuggler, and a stone-cold killer. Facing life in prison for his various crimes, he's given a choice: Rot away his remaining years in a tiny jail cell or drive cross-country and deliver a case of antiserum to the plague-ridden people of Boston, Massachusetts.

Chronicler Tsai Yini monitors the tachyon communication system, which transmits data faster than the speed of light. When classified results from an astrobiologist's research are leaked to her, she cannot believe what she reads. The report reveals that intelligent life forms exist on a tropical planet in the Gliese system. Their civilization is still in its infancy but revolves around an artifact of unknown origin that seems to influence their body chemistry.

As new forms of lie detection gain momentum in the present day, Tremors in the Blood reveals the incredible truth behind the creation of the polygraph, through gripping true-crime cases featuring explosive gunfights, shocking twists, and high-stakes courtroom drama. Touching on psychology, technology, and the science of the truth, Tremors in the Blood is a vibrant, atmospheric thriller and a warning from history: beware what you believe.

Wren’s world shattered the day Arrik became king and broke every promise he’d made to her. Fueled by rage and betrayal, she must double-cross her husband to save the realm from war. But with every passing day, as her devilish king tries to entice Wren to stand by his side, she finds herself struggling not to fall for his charms and seduction. After years of scheming, Arrik finally held the world in his hands. But it wasn’t enough.

In The Warwolf, Hermann Löns's acclaimed historical novel, the tragedy and horrors of war in general, and these times in particular are revealed. The Warwolf, based on the author's careful research, traces the life of Harm Wulf, a land-owning peasant farmer of the northern German heath who realizes after witnessing the murder of neighbors and family at the hands of marauding troops that he has a choice between compromising his morals or succumbing to inevitable torture and death.