Showing results by narrator "Laurel Lefkow" in All Categories

The first part of Willa Cather’s Great Plains trilogy, O Pioneers! follows the tragedies and triumphs of Alexandra Bergson, a strong and independent young woman who inherits the family farm following the death of her father.

Single woman of 29, Lily Bart is Edith Wharton's quintessential trapped heroine. Orphaned following the death of her parents, Lily understands that she must use her beauty, grace, and charm to attain the social position she longs for, but she is caught between her desire for wealth and a strong moral conscience, which sabotages every opportunity she encounters.

Rooted in ancient Chinese culture, Feng Shui is a system that teaches people how to arrange their living space to attract health, wealth, happiness, and good energy—or chi—into their lives.

Meet the Sorenson Family. Marilyn has somehow fallen into motherhood and spent four decades married to David, who's pretty certain he loves her more than anyone has ever loved another person. Wendy, their eldest, a cause for concern, soothes herself with drink after being widowed young, while Violet, lawyer-turned-stay-at-home-mother, is disturbed by the reappearance of a son placed for adoption 15 years earlier.

In 12 years, Michelle Lyons witnessed nearly 300 executions. First as a reporter and then as a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Michelle was a frequent visitor to Huntsville's Walls Unit, where she recorded and relayed the final moments of death row inmates' lives before they were put to death by the state. Michelle was in the death chamber as some of the United States' most notorious criminals, including serial killers, child murderers and rapists, spoke their last words on earth, while a cocktail of lethal drugs surged through their veins.

A place of myths, rumours and secrets, The Hotel looms over the dark Fens, tall and grey in its Gothic splendour. Built on cursed land, a history of violent death suffuses its very foundations - yet it has a magnetism that is impossible to ignore. Here are the stories of The Hotel: stories of children, mothers, monsters, cult film-makers, thrill-seekers and workers on the night shift, all with their own tales of its strange power, of the horrors of Room 63, and of desperate but failed attempts to escape its seductive pull.

Almost every day we are bombarded with the seemingly incontrovertible message that we must reduce our consumption of meat and dairy—or eliminate them from our diets altogether. But what if the pervasive message that the plant-based diet will improve our health and save the planet is misleading—or even false? What if removing animal foods from our diet is a serious threat to human health, and a red herring in the fight against climate change.

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and best-selling author of Backlash comes In the Darkroom, an astonishing confrontation with the enigma of her father, and the larger riddle of identity consuming our age. When the feminist writer learned her 76-year-old father - long estranged and living in Hungary - had undergone sex reassignment surgery, that investigation would turn personal and urgent. How was this new parent who identified as "a complete woman now" connected to the silent, explosive, and ultimately violent father she had known?

The Italian folklore tradition is one of the most ancient unbroken chains of wisdom on Earth. Discover the previously unwritten secrets of an Italian American family’s magical tradition passed down from generation to generation. This spellbook provides easy, step-by-step introductions to the basics of authentic Italian American magical practice.

A powerful, blazingly honest memoir: the story of an 1100-mile solo hike that broke down a young woman reeling from catastrophe and built her back up again. At 22, Cheryl Strayed thought she had lost everything. After her mother's death, her family scattered and her own marriage was destroyed. Four years later, with nothing more to lose, she decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail from the Mojave Desert through California and Oregon to Washington State - alone. She had no experience as a long-distance hiker, and the trail was little more than an idea: vague, outlandish, and full of promise.

The second novel by Donna Tartt, best-selling author of The Goldfinch (winner of the 2014 Pulitzer Prize), The Little Friend is a grandly ambitious and utterly riveting novel of childhood, innocence and evil. The setting is Alexandria, Mississippi, where one Mother’s Day a little boy named Robin Cleve Dufresnes was found hanging from a tree in his parents’ yard. Twelve years later Robin’s murder is still unsolved and his family remains devastated.

Based on letters and documents - not seen for 70 years - written by the Catholic Sisters of Notre Dame de Namur during the Nazi occupation of Belgium, this audiobook tells the remarkable story of these brave and faithful women and how they served to resist the German forces. In great detail, these letters document the lives of the sisters and convents under the Nazi regime, detailing the hardships of bombings, hunger and the executions of innocents. But they also tell the story of how these brave and faithful women worked to defeat the Nazis.

On September 6, 1970, twelve-year-old Martha Hodes and her thirteen-year-old sister were flying unaccompanied back to New York City from Israel when their plane was hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and forced to land in the Jordan desert. Too young to understand the sheer gravity of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Martha coped by suppressing her fear and anxiety. Nearly a half-century later, her memories of those six days and nights as a hostage are hazy and scattered.

On a perfect August morning, Elle Bishop heads out for a swim in the pond below 'The Paper Palace'—her family's holiday home in Cape Cod. As she dives beneath the water she relives the passionate encounter she had the night before, against the side of the house that knows all her darkest secrets, while her husband and mother chatted to their guests inside.... So begins a story that unfolds over 24 hours and 50 years, as Elle's shocking betrayal leads her to a life-changing decision—and an ending you won't be able to stop thinking about.

Life has the capacity of great moments and attainment, of lives well lived, fulfilling for ourselves and for those we touch. But for others life is arduous. There is no spark to ignite the curiosity, to explore and achieve a stability and a growth to their lives. Indeed their lives, in their own eyes, become almost meaningless, their sense of themselves subsumed under a myriad of problems, whether real or imagined. Seismic events in a life might crush them; the loss of a loved one for instance. Coping is difficult, support hard to find and isolation abounds.

Exploring more than 80 of the big ideas and key theories in the field of sociology in a clear and simple way, narrated by Laurel Lefkow. This is the perfect introduction to the study of how humans live and interact with each other. Covering diversity and equality, globalization, human rights, modern urban living, and the role of work and institutions, The Sociology Book looks at the big questions of how we cooperate: What is society? What makes it tick? Why do we interact in the way that we do with our friends, co-workers, and rivals?

The Heroine’s Journey describes contemporary woman’s search for wholeness in a society where she has been defined according to masculine values. Drawing on cultural myths and fairy tales, ancient symbols and goddesses, and the dreams of contemporary women, Murdock illustrates the need for — and the reality of — feminine values in Western culture.

In an elaborate house known as the Cloisters, Maud Wainwright rules supreme. The queen of society in the small town of Beverly, she has a table long enough to seat 100, and she keeps an iron grip on the guest list. Her right-hand woman is Pat Abbott, a local girl who is beautiful, innocent, and kind. Pat has no idea how cutthroat high society can be, but she's about to get a deadly first lesson.

Jessica Fletcher has had plenty to worry about over her storied career, both as a best-selling novelist and as a part-time sleuth. But she's never had any reason to doubt her longtime publisher and trusted friend, Lane Barfield. When mounting evidence of financial malfeasance leads to an FBI investigation of Lane, Jessica can't believe what she's reading. So when it appears that Barfield has committed suicide, Jessica takes on the task of clearing his name. Sure enough, Jessica turns up several inconsistencies in the case against Barfield, as well as signs he might have been murdered.

Prosecutor Justine Boucher has only asked for the death penalty once, in a brutal murder case. In doing so, she put her own life on the line. Because, if the convicted are later found innocent, the lawyer who requested the execution will be sentenced to death. Justine had no doubt that the man she sent to the chair was guilty. Until now. Presented with evidence that could prove his innocence, Justine must find out the truth before anyone else does. Her life depends on it.