Great Authors

The young John Updike’s portrayal of a haughty seminary student working as a lifeguard is witty and poetic, as the naïve hero surveys the beachgoers in his care, and contemplates a future of saving souls as well as bodies.

Nelson Algren brings a deeply personal tone to his reading about Sophie, the doomed wife of card dealer and drug addict Frankie Machine, wanted for murder, as she waits futilely for him to return home.

From the poignant novel about a troubled Southern family, written when he was 26, William Styron reads with tenderness about the disabled younger child finding joy in the magic tricks of a workman, as her mother looks on, knowing her child’s sad fate.

James Baldwin gives an electrifying reading about a young gay American in Paris recalling a dramatic and transforming incident from his boyhood, as he struggles to accept his sexual identity.

In the first passage James Baldwin reads with passion about the suicide of a young black man in despair. The second passage takes place at his funeral service, where Baldwin speaks with both anger and eloquence, in the voice of the minister attempting to comfort his friends and family.

James Jones brings powerful emotion and expression to his reading of the famous passage from his celebrated World War II novel in which Private Prewitt plays a version of Taps that expresses "the requiem of the common soldier".

Do you feel overwhelmed by the many demands of coaching? Do you wish you knew exactly what to do in order to help your team succeed? Whether you want to (1) improve your coaching skills, (2) build a great team, or (3) have a positive impact on your players, this audiobook will get you there. Learn the coaching strategies that can help your team perform like champions. You only live once, so make the most of it! Being an integral part of a highly successful, happy, and highly motivated team is one of the great joys in life.

In this audiobook, you will discover how you can increase your leadership strengths and develop additional skills to shore up your areas of weakness. There's no reason you can't become a true leader. All it takes is time, effort, constant learning, and the willingness to take responsibility for your good choices on the behalf of others.

While 1858 in London may have been noteworthy for its broiling summer months and the related stench of the sewage-filled Thames River, the year is otherwise little remembered. And yet, historian Rosemary Ashton reveals in this compelling microhistory, 1858 was marked by significant, if unrecognized, turning points. For ordinary people, and also for the rich, famous, and powerful, the months from May to August turned out to be a summer of consequence.

On a summer's day in 1858, in a garden behind Christ Church College in Oxford, Charles Dodgson, a lecturer in mathematics, photographed six-year-old Alice Liddell, the daughter of the college dean, with a Thomas Ottewill Registered Double Folding camera, recently purchased in London. Simon Winchester deftly uses the resulting image - as unsettling as it is famous, and the subject of bottomless speculation - as the vehicle for a brief excursion behind the lens, a focal point on the origins of a classic work of English literature.

In a future world where people can buy and sell intelligence, citizens are each allocated 100 1.Q. points at birth. When they turn 16, they can make a choice either to remain as 100s and be cared for by the state, or they can gamble with their intelligence. Those who succeed become high I.Q.s and enjoy all of the benefits this brings; those who fail lead squalid lives and some eventually become I.Q. 30 glidiots, battling in the Glidiot Games in a pop-up maze where they kill one another for I.Q. points and for public amusement.

In a future world where people can buy and sell intelligence, citizens are each allocated 100 1.Q. points at birth. When they turn 16, they can make a choice either to remain as 100s and be cared for by the state, or they can gamble with their intelligence. Those who succeed become high I.Q.s and enjoy all of the benefits this brings; those who fail lead squalid lives and some eventually become I.Q. 30 glidiots, battling in the Glidiot Games in a pop-up maze where they kill one another for I.Q. points and for public amusement.

For acclaimed writer and environmental activist Rick Bass, it can be wearying to dwell relentlessly upon the broken, the fragmented, the dead and dying and doomed to extinction. Activism is a necessary part of the environmental movement, but so is the time-honored celebration of the beauty that inspires us.

To coincide with the bicentennial of Thoreau's birth in 2017, this thrilling, meticulous biography by naturalist and historian Kevin Dann fills a gap in our understanding of one modern history's most important spiritual visionaries by capturing the full arc of Thoreau's life as a mystic, spiritual seeker, and explorer in transcendental realms.

A blockbuster illustrated book that captures what Americans love to read, The Great American Read: The Book of Books is the gorgeously-produced companion book to PBS's ambitious summer 2018 series.

What are America's best-loved novels? PBS will launch The Great American Read series with a two-hour special in May 2018 revealing America's 100 best-loved novels, determined by a rigorous national survey. Subsequent episodes will air in September and October. Celebrities and everyday Americans will champion their favorite novel and in the finale in late October, America's number one best-loved novel will be revealed.

The Great American Read: The Book of Books will present all 100 novels with fascinating information about each book, author profiles, a snapshot of the novel's social relevance, film or television adaptations, other books and writings by the author, and little-known facts. Also included are themed articles about banned books, the most influential book illustrators, reading recommendations, the best first-lines in literature, and more.

Beautifully designed with rare images of the original manuscripts, first-edition covers, rejection letters, and other ephemera, The Great American Read: The Book of Books is a must-have book for all book lovers.

Al Silverman, a noted figure in American publishing, has written a wonderful chronicle of book publishing for all who cherish books. The Time of Their Lives is not only a love song to the industry's golden age, an era that began after World War II and lasted for three-plus decades, but it is also a reflection of the tastes and cultural appetites of the American public.

Many people have the problem of not fully understanding literary classics due to the different time periods and translations. Well, this classics collection audiobook is the perfect solution because it lays character analysis and plot climaxes to help with understanding the material. A lot of people usually have to shop around to to find the classic writers' work, but luckily the Classic Writers Literary Classic Collection audiobook is able to place two classic authors in one book with a character analysis.

Some people seem to be born leaders, while others have leadership thrust upon them. History shows us that many people who come from fairly humble origins have been suddenly transformed into legends in their own time and beyond. The one thing they all have in common is that they are effective communicators, and one might even say "spin doctors". Good communication skills are crucial for a leader if they are to remain a leader. In this guide, we will be looking at business leaders and how good communication skills are an important part of effective leadership.

This book is about the author growing up in the 1940s, '50s and '60s in the small town of Alliance, Ohio. Alliance was written up in Ripley’s Believe It Or Not “as the only city in the United States who’s Main Street was Dead End at both ends". It was a time that children were growing up learning to love their families, friends, nature’s outdoor, religion, and good moral codes and the value of hard work.

A short life of Dickens which celebrates the impact of the theatre on his life and work. Two hundred years after his death, Dickens’s work is more popular than ever, in a variety of media, most of them undreamed of during his lifetime. Over the last few decades of intensive research, Dickens the man has become much better known to us and the sheer originality of his personality blazes forth as never before.