Showing results by narrator "Pam Ward" in All Categories

From the Tea Party to Occupy Wall Street, however divergentt heir political views, these groups seem united by one thing: outrage over a system of power and influence that they feel has stolen their livelihoods and liberties. Increasingly, protesters on both ends of the political spectrum and the media are using the word corrupt to describe an elusory system of power that has shed any accountability to those it was meant to help and govern. But what does corruption and unaccountability mean in today's world?

Tragedy strikes on the opening night of the Fall Crafters Fair when a woman is killed in the parking lot of Daisy's Quilt Shop and the only material witness is one of Melinda Byer's boys. The investigation takes a more bizarre turn when detective Shane Black becomes convinced the killer was actually after Callie. This time it's a madman loose in the largest crowd of the year, and he's looking for something or someone. If they can't figure out what - or who - one of Deborah and Callie's close circle of friends may be next.

It's a sad duty that brings Alafair Tucker and her two daughters to Enid, Oklahoma, in the fall of 1915. Her sister Ruth Anne's husband, Lester, is not long for this world, and the family is gathering to send him to his reward. But her niece's irresponsible husband, Kenneth, has disappeared at a most inconvenient time.

When her once-glamorous and witty novelist-mother got Alzheimer's, Eleanor Cooney moved her from her beloved Connecticut home to California in order to care for her. In tense, searing prose, punctuated with the blackest of humor, Cooney documents the slow erosion of her mother's mind, the powerful bond the two shared, and her own descent into drink and despair.

It’s always somebody else’s kid - until it’s yours. When Katherine James and her husband found out their son was using heroin, their responses ran the gamut: disbelief, anger, helplessness, guilt. As they struggled to come to grips with their son’s addiction and decide how best to help him, their home became a refuge for an unlikely assortment of their son’s friends, each with their own story, drawn by the simple love and acceptance they found there - “the Lost Boys”, James calls them.

Instead of a quail, Shaw’s dog, Buttercup, retrieves an old boot with the bones of a foot inside. Buttercup then leads the men to a shallow grave and a skeleton with a bullet hole in the skull.

After they are settled that night in their tents, Shaw awakens to see a pair of moccasin-clad legs strolling by his tent flap. He chases the intruder, who has disappeared so completely that Shaw wonders if he imagined seeing anyone. Had he also imagined the ghostly voice that called his name?

Afghanistan has been described as "the worst nation in the world to be a woman". More than 50 percent of girls who are forced into marriage are 16 or younger. Too many women live in fear, and in many areas education and employment for women are still condemned. The women featured in We Are Afghan Women are fighting to change all that.

MSNBC anchor and media maven Greta Van Susteren presents the most practical, thorough, and accessible guide around to living well on social media. From answering basic questions like "What's the best site for you?" to "How to Tweet" and "What does it mean to 'tag' someone?" to addressing important moral and behavioral issues like how to protect your privacy, how to avoid being roasted online, and whether it's okay to get your news from Facebook, this is the essential handbook for anyone who wants to stay up to date with today's changing technology.

From the author of The New York Times number one best-selling novel The Carpetbaggers comes the story of Madison Dupre, a young and ambitious art curator who is fixated on reaching the top of the rarefied world of priceless antiquities - an insular playground of the mega-rich, the super-privileged and even the occasional money launderer. This glamorous world is also a world of unimaginable ugliness and ego.

Conventional wisdom holds that John F. Kennedy was the first celebrity president, in no small part because of his innate television savvy. But as Kathryn Brownell shows, Kennedy capitalized on a tradition and style rooted in California politics and the Hollywood studio system. Since the 1920s, politicians and professional showmen have developed relationships and built organizations institutionalizing Hollywood styles, structures, and personalities in the American political process.

A woman goes about certain rituals of sex with her second husband, sharing the bed with the ghosts of her sexual past. A beautiful young art student embarks on an affair with a much older, married, famous artist. A middle-aged woman struggles with the decline of her mother, once glamorous and still commanding; their fraught relationship causes unexpected feelings, both shaming and brutal. A man finds that his father has died while in the midst of extramarital sex and wonders what he should do with the body.

Ruth Graham - third child and youngest daughter of Billy and Ruth Bell Graham - offers a rare, inside look at the 20th century's most influential evangelist. In this substantive portrait, Ruth reflects on several different subjects, including her father's love for the world, his humility, grace, and loyalty. She concludes the book with a chapter on authenticity, written just after Dr. Graham's final crusade, which was held in New York in June 2005.

When Raelene Phillips first spotted her, Dixie Lee was a cuddly furball, sitting on a pillow in a small cage. It wasn’t long before the puppy was whisked to her new home where she proceeded to warm the hearts of everyone. Chuckle along with the Phillips as you enjoy the canine antics that have delighted them so much.

Surveys and reports from across America indicate that 20 million couples have stopped being sexually intimate. But isn't a lower libido inevitable with age? Not necessarily, contend hormone experts Genie James and Dr. C. W. Randolph. They unveil the real sex-life saboteur to be the shift in hormone production that begins for women in their 30s and men in their 40s. In the Mood Again offers a medically proven solution to safely and naturally restore optimum hormone balance.

Containing powerful strategies and tools from several key areas and combines them into a concise practical guide, Make the Most of Your Workday challenges you to actively manage and make the most of workday possibilities and problems. With drive, determination, and optimism, it offers solutions to workday predicaments from strengthening your mindset and self-awareness to identifying needs and goals, from prioritizing your time and energy to communicating effectively and managing the unexpected.

With the country in the midst of World War II, you can be sure that the small town of Elderberry, Georgia, will pull together to find a missing child. And you can be equally certain that first-grade teacher Miss Dimple Kilpatrick will be in the rescue party - especially since Peggy Ashcroft is one of her students. Miss Dimple carves out a search path all her own and, once again, the sharp-as-a-tack teacher is right on point. She finds Peggy in the woods, but the child is too sick to walk and it's too difficult for Miss Dimple to navigate the uneven terrain in the dark.

This groundbreaking anthology presents 40 narratives, both nonfiction and fiction, that together capture the impact and complexity of Alzheimer’s and other dementias on patients, as well as their caregivers and family. Deeply personal, recounting the wrenching course of a disease that kills a loved one twice - first they forget who they are, and then the body succumbs - these stories also show how witnessing the disease and caring for someone with it can be powerfully transformative, calling forth amazing strength and grace.

From the New York Times reporter whose beat is culture and ideas comes a fascinating, revelatory, and timely social history of the concept of middle age. For the first time ever, the middle-aged make up the biggest, richest, and most influential segment of the country, yet the history of middle age has remained largely untold. This important and immensely listenable book finally fills the gap.

The Washington Post’s must-read guide to health-care reform traces how President Obama and the Democrats achieved this historic overhaul, explains the legislation itself, and shows how it will impact individual Americans.

At President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's behest, Page Wilson left the US to serve in London with Ambassador Joseph Kennedy as he took up his post just before World War II began and the Blitz commenced. With the conflict in Europe already underway, Wilson, working with Kennedy, shares the grip of war with the men and women who are engaged against Germany.