Showing results by narrator "Michael Kramer" in All Categories

Ever wonder how Christian scholars knew which ancient books were to be regarded as Christian Scripture? Ever think about how the Bible came to be translated into English, and eventually the more familiar King James Bible? Ever wonder how we got our Bible? This collection of highly informative articles answers these and many other questions about how God worked through history to accomplish His will.

In a Midwestern city, Parker calmly tosses a firebomb through a plate-glass window, while some newfound partners in crime take down a nearby bank. Making their getaway in the confusion, the bank robbers tell him two things: that this heist was only seed money for a much gaudier one, and that Parker has to loan them his share of the take.

Life on the ranchlands of Montana comes with more than its share of trouble. The unique people who live and work on this untamed stretch of today's American West expect it---and some of them even enjoy it. One of them is Mike Wire, a former homicide detective who once worked the decadent hills and valleys of Hollywood.

In The Republican Noise Machine, David Brock skillfully documents perhaps the most important but least understood political development of the last 30 years: how the Republican Right has won political power and hijacked public discourse in the United States. Brock, a former right-wing insider and the author of the New York Times best seller Blinded by the Right, uses his keen understanding of the strategies, tactics, financing, and personalities of the American right wing to demonstrate how right-wing media has all but subsumed the regular media conversation.

Dun-Cadal has been drinking his life away for years. Betrayed by his friends - who turned their back on their ideals in favour of a new republic - and grief stricken at the loss of his apprentice, who saved his life on the battlefield and whom he trained as a knight in exchange, he's done with politics, with adventure, and with people. But people aren't finished with him - not yet.

Here is a tour de force of American politics from one of journalism's most acclaimed commentators. History turns on a dime. A missed meeting, a different choice of words, and the outcome changes dramatically. Nowhere is this truer than in American politics, and in three dramatic narratives based on memoirs, histories, oral histories, fresh reporting with journalists and key participants, and Jeff Greenfield's own knowledge of the principal players, he shows just how extraordinary those changes would have been.

A cache of diamonds is stolen in Phoenix. The prime suspect is former Maricopa County sheriff Mike Peralta, now a private investigator. Disappearing into Arizona's mountainous high country, Peralta leaves his business partner and longtime friend, David Mapstone, with a stark choice: He can cooperate with the FBI or strike out on his own to find Peralta and what really happened.

For Parker, the amoral super-thief extraordinaire, it will be an excellent haul. The fact that the lead came from his old partners in crime, Elkins and Wiss, is no impediment to his joining their team and going for the score. The goods are a bunch of paintings by Old Masters kept out of sight in a dot-com billionaire's Montana lodge for his personal delight.

Cajun-born Jock Boucher has overcome modest beginnings to assume the prestigious position of U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Louisiana. One of his first cases on the bench involves a scientist who has been hiding in mortal fear for more than 20 years. The fugitive claims that another judge accepted bribes and helped a relentless global energy company steal his intellectual property: a way to recover energy from below the sub-sea bed that could end America's dependence on foreign oil.

An inspired and original compilation for the 2016 election year, God Is in the House is a collection of essays by members of Congress who reflect on their deep faith and how it guides them as legislators. Compiled by Representative Virginia Foxx, who personally asked for contributions from congressional colleagues and coworkers, God Is in the House features essays from 18 members of Congress from both political parties, representing 11 faiths and denominations.

Deeply sourced within Obama's economic team, Noam Scheiber is uniquely qualified to profile the squad of elite administration insiders who have set and managed the president's economic policies from before the start of his term in office, through the crisis, and into our current prolonged recovery. These are people we know - or think we know: Obama, Geithner, Summers, Orszag, and a host of others.

Ballard and his considerably younger lover, Sandrine, have been brought together by a shared erotic obsession of the darkest kind. As they travel down a remote part of the Amazon River on a luxurious yacht, they spend their days indulging in their macabre pastime. Through a haze of pain and pleasure, the lovers are witness to a series of increasingly sinister portents, dreams and visions that haunt their claustrophobic and disturbing world. With Peter Straub's signature, breathtaking twists and an astonishing climax, you'll never forget The Ballad of Ballard and Sandrine.

As the Confederacy felt itself slipping beneath the Union juggernaut in late 1864, the South launched a desperate counteroffensive to force a standoff. Its secret weapon? A state-of-the-art raiding ship whose mission was to sink the U.S. merchant fleet. The raider's name was Shenandoah, and her executive officer was Conway Whittle, a 24-year-old warrior.

On the first day of the Battle of Gettysburg in July 1863, Union artillery lieutenant Bayard Wilkeson fell while bravely spurring his men to action. His father, Sam, a New York Times correspondent, was already on his way to Gettysburg when he learned of his son's wounding but had to wait until the guns went silent before seeking out his son, who had died at the town's poorhouse. Sitting next to his dead boy, Sam Wilkeson then wrote one of the greatest battlefield dispatches in American history.

The literature of the Gettysburg Address tends to fall into one of two extremes. At one end are those books that maintain that Lincoln wrote his speech hastily, even on a scrap of paper on the train en route from Washington to Gettysburg. In this version, Lincoln delivered his remarks to an uncomprehending public, which applauded politely, failing to appreciate his genius. Many of the books that argued this point of view are out of print today, but the myths and legends live on.

On the outer banks of the Carolinas in 1941, fishermen and a few lonely sailors constitute the human population. Dominating the rough yet beautiful landscape is the majestic Killakeet Lighthouse, run for generations by the Thurlow family. But Josh Thurlow, the lighthouse keeper's son, has forsworn his heritage to become the commander of a small Coast Guard patrol boat. Tortured by twenty years of guilt for losing his brother at sea, Josh still searches for him.

This is the stunning story of a young man's psychological reactions to combat. It is a realistic picture of a youth's emotional journey from greenhorn to bloodied veteran of the American Civil War.

The exotic island city of the Florida Keys is being terrorized by murders committed by a mysterious voodoo assassin. With each new kill, it becomes clear that the skeleton-clad executioner has an ecological agenda. The novel propels us through a complex maze populated by defenders of America's only continental reef, rapacious developers, ruthless scammers, destroyers of marine life, and common people engaged in heroic acts to save their paradise. Everyone dreads being the killer's next victim as the clock counts down to the end of hurricane season and a final dramatic explosion of fear and rage.

Our Divided Political Heart will be the must-listen book of the 2012 election campaign. Offering an incisive analysis of how hyper-individualism is poisoning the nation's political atmosphere, E. J. Dionne Jr., argues that Americans can't agree on who we are because we can't agree on who we've been, or what it is, philosophically and spiritually, that makes us Americans.

Thomas Bolden grew up on the streets, his childhood a blur of fragmented memories. But now he's managed to put his past behind him, find the woman he wants to share his life with, and carve out a successful career on Wall Street. Until, in the blink of an eye, his world is turned upside down. A bizarre kidnapping sends him fleeing for his life, his face everywhere on the TV news, and a violent, shadowy organization is framing him for crimes he did not commit.