Showing results by narrator "Lloyd James" in All Categories

Not in a generation has conservatism been in as much trouble as it is at the end of the Bush years. A majority of Americans say the country is "on the wrong track." Voters prefer Democrats over Republicans on almost every issue, including taxes. The married, the middle-class, the native-born are dwindling as a share of the population, while Democratic blocs are rising. A generation of young people has turned its back on the Republican party. It's time now for a new approach.

Branding is ultimately the way you differentiate your product from the competition. Whether you're selling a celebrity image, automobiles, or a financial service, your goal is to make your brand the most recognizable by the consumer. But there's much more to effective branding than a memorable slogan and ubiquitous advertising; public relations is becoming key to the entire strategy.

Akashic Books continues its groundbreaking series of original noir anthologies. Each story is set in a distinct neighborhood or location within the city of the book. In the wake of Chicago Noir, Twin Cities Noir, and Kansas City Noir - all popular volumes in the Akashic Noir Series - comes the latest Midwest installment, St. Louis Noir. Masterfully curated by Scott Phillips, author of The Ice Harvest (adapted for film, starring John Cusack and Billy Bob Thornton), this volume will chill the listener with heartland menace.

A queen of punk before her time. A duo on the brink of stardom. A night that will define their story for ever. Opal is a fiercely independent young woman pushing against the grain in her style and attitude, a Black punk artist before her time. Despite her unconventional looks, Opal believes she can be a star. So when the aspiring British singer/songwriter Neville Charles discovers her one night, she takes him up on his offer to make rock music together.

When 14-year-old Micah Darling travels to Los Angeles to reunite with the mother who deserted him seven years ago, he finds himself out of his league in a land of magical freedom. He does new drugs with new people, falls in love with an enchanting but troubled equestrienne named Charlotte, and gets thrown out of school over the activities of a club called the New Luddites. Back in the Midwest, an ethereal young woman comes to Stone City on a mission that will unsettle the lives of everyone she meets - including Micah’s half-sister, Lyris, who still fights fears of abandonment after a childhood in foster care, and Micah’s father, Tiny, a petty thief.

Will you live in FEAR? Or will you live by FAITH? Fear has the deceptive ability to influence and affect our daily lives and the world we live in. What do you fear most in life? What are the greatest threats facing you? Crime? Violence? The economy? Failure? Death? Eternity? Fear Fighters will help you identify and defeat the very source of fear that threatens you from living in peace and joy.

The Last Marlin is an unforgettable memoir of growing up in the 50s. Young Fred is a Jewish boy stretched between the divergent values of parents who cannot tolerate one another. Fred's father, Abe, is a talented salesman whose relentless will drives him to succeed, whatever the cost. He marries Stella, an abstract artist, but also the daughter of a wealthy industrialist. When the marriage flounders, Fred's world is assaulted, and he must negotiate the tense family divide.

Imagine a country where the right to vote is not guaranteed by the Constitution, where the candidate with the most votes loses, and where paperwork requirements and bureaucratic bungling disenfranchise millions. You're living in it. If the consequences weren't so serious, it would be funny. An eye-opening, fact-filled companion to the forthcoming PBS documentary starring political satirist and commentator Mo Rocca, Electoral Dysfunction illuminates a broad array of issues.

Going Low teaches tour-proven strategies so you can break through your individual scoring barrier - whether it's 100, 90, 80, or 70 - for the first time and continue to shoot low golf scores. Drawing heavily from the experience of top professionals and his own work, author Patrick Cohn provides specific instructions that will guide you, lesson by lesson, toward your dreamed-about scoring target. With this book, you will learn how to unlock your self-imposed limits and develop confidence in your play.

Going Low teaches tour-proven strategies so you can break through your individual scoring barrier - whether it's 100, 90, 80, or 70 - for the first time and continue to shoot low golf scores. Drawing heavily from the experience of top professionals and his own work, author Patrick Cohn provides specific instructions that will guide you, lesson by lesson, toward your dreamed-about scoring target. With this book, you will learn how to unlock your self-imposed limits and develop confidence in your play.

What do you do when it seems like everyone in your family has done something magnificent, everyone, that is, except you? That's Andy's problem. He just wants to do something special.

Turning 50-years-old and facing some of life's biggest questions are daunting challenges. A crisis of faith and crisis of health lead towards significant changes in one's life. For Bruce Matson, a family man with a successful law practice, the struggles of health and doubt led to action. Combining podcasts from notable Christian leaders Ravi Zacharias, Allistair Begg, and Tim Keller, careful research and preparation, and encouragement from family and friends, Bruce ran his race for physical and spiritual health.

Ike Schwartz is the sheriff of Picketsville, a small town not far from Washington, D.C. A former CIA agent, Ike remains connected to the Agency through a friend who sometimes still involves him in cases on the side. Ike is also courting Ruth, the fiercely independent president of the town’s new university. All this is usually enough to bring some interesting conflicts Ike’s way.

Todd Wilson’s church was devoted to the gospel and had long aspired to be the kind of city on a hill Jesus talks about in the Sermon on the Mount. They wanted their hurting neighbors to see the light of Christ and be drawn to meet Jesus, and they found the answers they were looking for in Titus. In that often-overlooked book of the Bible, they discovered a call to be zealous for good works. Zealous for Good Works is an exposition of Titus with a particular focus on mobilizing the church towards acting in kindness and goodness toward her neighbors.

Sebastian Prendergast lives in a geodesic dome with his eccentric grandmother, who homeschooled him in the teachings of futurist philosopher R. Buckminster Fuller. But when his grandmother has a stroke, Sebastian is forced to leave the dome and make his own way in town. Jared Whitcomb is a chain-smoking 16-year-old heart-transplant recipient who befriends Sebastian and begins to teach him about all the things he has been missing, including grape soda, girls, and Sid Vicious.

What is Jesus worth to you? It's easy for American Christians to forget how Jesus said his followers would actually live, what their new lifestyle would actually look like. They would, Jesus said, leave behind security, money, convenience, even family for him. They would abandon everything for the gospel. They would take up their crosses daily. But who do you know who lives like that? Do you?

Samuel Patton lost his wife to lung fever two years ago. Now, suffering from lung fever himself and closer to eternity every day, he is traveling south through the mountains with his small son and daughter, hoping somewhere in this savage land he can find a good home for them before time runs out. When the two kids find an unconscious man, the three tend to his wounds, care for his horse, and load him into their wagon. Samuel finds a cache of money in the saddlebags of the man the children have named Mr. Black, and he is certain they have taken an outlaw under wing.

We live in a new world where work and life are blended as opposed to balanced, and feelings of financial security and entitlement are a thing of the past. Job satisfaction is at a record low, a crisis with far-reaching impact. For businesses, a disengaged workforce means lower levels of productivity and service, and ultimately lower growth and profits. For individuals, our emotions at work spill over to the other areas of our lives and take a toll on our health and relationships.

Ike Schwartz, sheriff of Picketsville, Virginia, and his fiancée, Ruth Harris, president of a local university, survived a trying year of academic and local politics and now seek some peace and quiet on Scone Island, a rocky piece of land four miles off the coast of Maine. Its lack of electricity, a reliable water supply, and phone service guarantees their peaceful seclusion. The fact that there has been a suspicious accident resulting in the death of the mysterious Harmon Staley need not concern them at all. And it doesn’t - until Ike’s past as a CIA agent rolls in on him like the area’s famous 12-foot tides.

The place of poetry in modern democracy is no place, according to conventional wisdom. The poet, we hear, is a casualty of mass entertainment and prosaic public culture, banished to the artistic sidelines to compose variations on insipid themes for a dwindling audience. Robert Pinsky, however, argues that this gloomy diagnosis is as wrongheaded as it is familiar.