Showing results by narrator "Derek Perkins" in All Categories

Our culture ignores it. Many within the church seem to be almost embarrassed by it. Many others understand that the cross of Christ is at the very heart of Christian faith and life. This short, listenable book explains clearly and simply what the Bible and Jesus himself say about the cross and how Christians should understand it today.

Juanita di Perli was a young woman when she decided to live the rest of her life on a table-top. She called it God's will, but for the order of nuns that sprang up around her, Juanita's devotion was a curse. For decades they did the bidding of the holy grouch, and the entire island of San Juan el Pirata sighed with relief when she died. Twenty years later, the islanders fight for Juanita's canonization - not because they liked her, but because a local saint would be a tourist boon. The only thing keeping the island poor is the Archduke, who refuses to ask Rome to consider Juanita for sainthood.

Daniel Gray is about to turn 30. Like any sane person, his response is to travel to Luton, Crewe, and Hinckley. After a decade's exile in Scotland, he sets out to reacquaint himself with England via what he considers its greatest asset: soccer. Watching teams from the Championship (or Division Two, as any right-minded person calls it) to the South West Peninsula Premier, and aimlessly walking around towns from Carlisle to Newquay, Gray paints a curious landscape forgotten by many.

Will is football mad, but he's the shortest boy in the year, and one of the slowest. He knows his skills at passing and ball control could make up for his lack of size and strength, but the team coach is only interested in speed and strength. Will Will ever get a chance to show what he can do?

This one-of-a-kind treasury brings together the talents of nearly two dozen best-selling middle-grade authors - including Shannon Hale, Brandon Mull, Ally Condie, and Jennifer A. Nielsen - who have created original short stories and modern-day fairy tales based on the lives and dreams of children they have met who all have two things in common: They have very big hopes and dreams, and they are all cancer patients.

While trying to free a lawyer friend convicted of a crime he didn't commit, New Orleans private investigator Luke Jacobs is drawn into an international web of real estate fraud, pharmaceutical corporation misdealing and murder. Mardi Gras may have to be put on hold.

Through a deft compilation of primary sources—letters, memoirs, and personal accounts from composers, librettists, and performers—Michael Rose re-creates for his readers the circumstances that gave rise to fifteen operatic milestones. From Monteverdi and Mozart to Puccini and Berg, each chapter focuses on a well-known opera and tells the story that lies behind its creation.

In the Scottish Highlands, legend is as powerful as the sword - and nowhere is that more true than in the remote village of Loch Aranoch. Its mysterious ruler, Judith MacAlasdair, is fiercely protective of her land - and her secrets. If anyone were to find out what she really was, she and her entire clan would be hunted down as monsters.

Hell's too full, so the Devil hires ad man Dirk Quigby to pen a travel guide enticing travelers to different afterlives: Hindu, Catholic, Protestant (that one's got a lot of subdivisions), Scientologist, and more. Instead of writing a boffo best seller, Dirk unites all religions in a common goal: kill Dirk. E. E. King grew up in one of those tolerant households that don't force religion down kids' throats. This is the result.

On a tranquil evening in the Bahamas, Calico Jack, long wanted on counts of piracy, makes a surprise appearance at the governor's residence and asks for a pardon for himself and his men. A deal is brokered after Jack reveals the motive for turning himself in: love. When Jack last set sail from the Bahamas two years ago, he left behind a beautiful fiancée, and he recently learned that she remains unmarried.

Ensconced in the comfort of their elegant home in London's Berkeley Square, Malcolm and Suzanne Rannoch are no longer subject to the perilous life of intrigue they led during the Napoleonic Wars. Once an Intelligence Agent, Malcolm is now a Member of Parliament, and Suzanne is one of the city's most sought-after hostesses. But a late-night visit from a friend who's been robbed may lure them back into the dangerous world they thought they'd left behind.

The best-selling book Real Estate: The Sustainable Investment offers advice and stories to make the learning curve a bit less steep and measurably safer - with proven strategies for reaching long-term investment goals by including small income property in your asset allocation. Sustainable investing for sustainable living and a more secure financial future.

Visit a world where a wild-land firefighter must use his mysterious powers to save his crew from a roaring inferno. Follow an eco-tourist's frantic efforts to escape an African quarantine zone ravaged by a deadly virus. Meet a gumshoe journalist as she tracks down a figure that'sable to predict the future with terrifying accuracy. And tune into Texas station KRAP (don't touch that dial, there's KRAP on it!) as a pair of down-home country deejays try their damnedest to stop a murder...while they're still on the air.

What exactly are we? The modern world has many answers to that question, each of which has consequences for the choices we make about our own life and the lives of others. In this short, simple book, Mark Meynell wants to help confused Christians understand what God has said about these questions in the scriptures, and offers a positive and liberating way forward as we discover what true humanity really is.

The Great War of 1914-1918 was the first mass conflict to fully mobilize the resources of industrial powers against one another, resulting in a brutal, bloody, protracted war of attrition between the world's great economies. Now, 100 years after the first guns of August rang out on the Western front, historian William Philpott reexamines the causes and lingering effects of the first truly modern war.

Many Christians experience times of doubt and uncertainty. At various times we can ask: Does God love me? Am I really a Christian? And even, is there a God at all? This short, understandable book unpacks the difference between good and bad doubt and shows us where it comes from and how to deal with it in ourselves and others. It explains clearly and simply the liberating reality of what the Bible tells us about doubt, assurance, and the Christian life.

What passes for investing today is, in fact, gambling: the notion of making money quickly and without effort...and that's just how Wall Street likes it. By charting the development of the modern financial system from its roots in the madness of the first bubbles and Roaring '80s, this book will cast a light on the chicanery of the big banks and hedge funds - and give you the information you need to make the right choices for your own investing future.

This is a short story about a young man who wants to be a wizard. Within, you will encounter one of the most powerful, life-transforming, secrets ever revealed. If you find it, you are ready for The Journey.

In the 1970s, a small group of leading psychiatrists met behind closed doors and literally rewrote the book on their profession. Revising and greatly expanding the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM for short), they turned what had been a thin, spiral-bound handbook into a hefty tome. Almost overnight the number of diagnoses exploded. The result was a windfall for the pharmaceutical industry and a massive conflict of interest for psychiatry at large.

In 1900 the global average life expectancy at birth was 31 years. By 2000 it was 66. Yet, alongside unprecedented improvements in longevity and material well-being, the 20th century also saw the rise of fascism and communism and a second world war followed by a cold war. This book tells the story of the battles between economic systems that defined the last century and created today's world. The 19th century was a period of rapid economic growth, but it also brought great inequality.