Showing results by narrator "William Dufris" in All Categories

The inevitable is understood by each and every one of us who faces the final calling. So too are the effects on those left behind. The memories are there but the empty space, the void can never be refilled. It remains a dark, unreliable pit of loneliness. The sadness and often depression, the lack of will to continue may swamp us all. Unquenchable, undeniable. But loss can, after mourning, give the opportunity to reappraise the lost and how we can each move forward. In the literary world an accessible balance can be given.

Sixth US president John Quincy Adams, a man who knew a lot about effective leadership, maintained that the most successful people were those whose actions inspired others to dream more, learn more, do more, and become more. These people were the ones who left the sidelines, entered the fray, and threw themselves into life. They were the ones who forged a nation and achieved the impossible. They were the ones who truly connected to life, to others, and to themselves. Today, the world needs human connection more than ever. It needs people who strive for deeper relationships, not just surface recognition, who come at life with the enthusiasm, energy, and excitement that bind people together. These people have a powerful impact on all around them.

Stoned out of his skull - this is how we find washed-up New York magazine writer Digby Maxwell when he is offered a last chance to redeem himself by becoming editor of a small philosophy magazine headquartered in a rural Vermont college town. Digby’s assignment is to make the magazine relevant to contemporary culture. For starters, that requires several more tokes, very deep tokes.

For any normal teenage boy, having two and a half younger sisters would be enough to deal with. But Simwan Deavy's life isn't normal. His family is non-Ord - short for "non-Ordinary" - which means that at school, he and his sisters learn hexing and enchanting along with history and math. It also means they have a ghost for an uncle and a cat who talks. Still, everything is going well for Simwan - until a bottle of Truth is stolen from the local pharmacy.

It is 1881. El Paso, the wildest border town in an untamed Texas, is at a crossroads. A booming sin city crawling with corrupt politicians and gunslick outlaws, the town now faces its greatest challenge: the savagery of the notorious Banning Brothers. Dallas Stoudenmire is the marshal El Paso has hired to bring a quick end to the Bannings' reign of terror. Bloodshed erupts as the Bannings hire an assassin to send Stoudenmire to an early grave. Now the former Texas ranger will rely on nerves and a quick gun to save his own life - and bring swift justice to a desperate town....

Sharon MacDonald has a problem. It’s not being under house arrest. It’s not the Iranian guy who just fell from the twenty-fifth floor of her apartment building. It’s not even the police surveillance that’s preventing her from getting to her marijuana grow rooms. Sharon’s problem is a stranger named Ray: He’s too good looking, and his business proposal sounds too good to be true.Detective Gord Bergeron has problems, too.

The armored-car robbery went awry, leaving two people dead, one a member of the gang believed responsible for the crime. Walter Bradshaw, 45, who leads an archconservative, antigovernment group of Mormon polygamists, is captured and charged with capital murder and aggravated robbery.

Ethan Gage is out to foil Napoleon's coronation as emperor, play double agent between France and England, and turn the tide of war - while attempting to save his own life and his marriage. Gage fought beside Napoleon Bonaparte in Egypt and was his agent in Italy, America, and Greece. But this relationship, which at the best of times was uneasy, has gone sour, and now Ethan wants to make Napoleon pay for kidnapping his son, Harry, and nearly killing his wife, Astiza.

Omnius has been hiding a lot from the people of Avilon. The war with the Sythians is not what we thought, but that raises the question: If not the Sythians, then what did Omnius go to fight in the Getties Cluster? Omnius knows what people will do before they do it. He predicts citizens' behavior, and, some suspect, he even makes those predictions come true.

Levi Vogue, chairman of the powerful Utah Board of Pardons and Parole, is gunned down in the driveway of his home as he returns from a late evening tryst with Sue Ann Winkler, an exotic dancer at a Salt Lake City strip club. Sam Kincaid, chief of the Special Investigations Branch of the Utah Department of Corrections, is assigned to help Salt Lake City Police Department homicide detective Lieutenant Kate McConnell solve Vogue’s murder. The investigation soon leads theminto the seedy world of prostitution.

Julian de Laurent needs a temporary wife. Camille Chandler needs a job after he inadvertently gets her fired. If she agrees, he'll pay her five million to marry him. It's just a business deal, but neither could have foreseen what happens next, especially Camille, when she learns he's capable of stealing her heart.

Gen. George S. Patton Jr. comes to life in this audiobook as one of the most colorful, enigmatic, and unfairly maligned leaders in US military history. Often caricatured - as in the big-screen biopic, Patton - the general was a complex blend of battle-tested strengths and nearly fatal personal flaws. Without varnishing over his shortcomings, Patton: The Pursuit of Destiny shatters myths and builds a compelling case for a deeper appreciation of the man who inspired unsurpassed loyalty and admiration from the soldiers who served under him.

We have released the genie from the bottle: climate change is coming, and there's no stopping it. The question, according to Matthew Kahn, is not how were going to avoid a hotter future but how were going to adapt to it. In Climatopolis, Kahn, one of the worlds foremost experts on the economics of the environment, argues that cities and regions will adapt to rising temperatures over time, slowly transforming our everyday lives.

From the comfort of a Portland, Maine radio studio, the Rocky Coast Radio Theatre is about to perform their original tribute to Stephen King on All Hallow’s Eve, a world-premiere love story with a healthy dash of terror. That is, until the show is abruptly interrupted; something truly terrifying is walking the streets outside …and heading right for the station!

Venice: Ethan Gage has escaped after surviving the naval battle of Trafalgar. His plan: To circumvent the French Empire and rescue his wife, Astiza, and son, Harry, from imprisonment by a ruthless mystic who seeks revenge for disfigurement, and from an evil dwarf alchemist who experiments with the occult on Prague's Golden Lane. Using death as his ruse, Gage seeks an unlikely ally in the Jewish Napoleonic soldier Gideon Mandel, who saves Ethan's life at Austerlitz, and Gideon's father, Aaron.

P.I. Bill Smith is sent on a high-stakes chase when an electronically modified voice on his cell phone informs him that Lydia Chin, his occasional partner, has been kidnapped. Now, if Bill wants to keep Lydia alive, he'll have to play an elaborate game of the kidnapper's devising. The first move sends him to an abandoned building, where Bill finds the corpse of a small Chinese woman dressed like Lydia and the building being rapidly surrounded by police. Now he's on the run....

Ilustrado opens with Crispin Salvador, lion of Philippine letters, dead in the Hudson River. His young acolyte, Miguel, sets out to investigate the author's suspicious death and the strange disappearance of an unfinished manuscript---a work that had been planned not just to return the once-great author to fame but to expose the corruption behind the rich families who have ruled the Philippines for generations.

In the middle of the afternoon on a busy downtown Toronto street a man is shot in the head behind the wheel of his SUV. The killer drives away before the light changes. It could be road rage, or it could be a random act of violence. It could be, but it isn’t. What it is, is opportunity. For everyone involved.

The witness, Roxanne Keyes, a real estate agent trying desperately to lease out space in unwanted office space, recognizes the killer - a man who had once looked to rent with her.

Tom Sawyer does not like school. He does not like work, and he never wants to get out of bed in the morning. But he likes swimming and fishing, and having adventures with his friends. And he has a lot of adventures. One night, he and his friend Huck Finn go to the graveyard to look for ghosts.They don’t see any ghosts that night. They see something worse than a ghost – much, much worse.

Who wants to live in a house, wear clean clothes, be good, and go to school every day? Not young Huckleberry Finn, that’s for sure.So Huck runs away, and is soon floating down the great Mississippi River on a raft. With him is Jim, a black slave who is also running away. But life is not always easy for the two friends. And there’s 300 dollars waiting for anyone who catches poor Jim.