Showing results by narrator "Adam Barr" in All Categories

The United States spends enormous sums on helping people—$3.8 trillion on healthcare, $182 billion on prisons, and $604 billion on higher education—and yet these systems routinely fail us. When we seek to improve how they function, our efforts focus on policy debates, technical solutions, funding, and data. But if these systems are to truly improve, we have to start with the human values behind them. Broken explores the deeply human dimensions we must consider if we want to rebuild the policies, technologies, processes, and most importantly, the heart we use to serve people.

Eddie Sabella is the city columnist at a New York tabloid, a 37-year-old hotshot who is a ferocious reporter and competitor and hard to beat on a story. And now he’s stumbled upon the biggest story of his career: a statue that’s been stolen. And it’s not just any statue: It’s one that seemingly wept real tears only the day before, an event that made headlines.

Belief and Cult argues that belief isn't uniquely Christian but was central to ancient Roman religion. Drawing on cognitive theory, Jacob Mackey shows that despite having nothing to do with salvation or faith, belief underlay every aspect of Roman religious practices—emotions, individual and collective cult action, ritual norms, social reality, and social power. In doing so, he also offers a thorough argument for the importance of belief to other non-Christian religions.

They Called Us River Rats: The Last Batture Settlement of New Orleans is the previously untold story of perhaps the oldest outsider settlement in America, an invisible community on the annually flooded shores of the Mississippi River. This community exists in the place between the normal high and low water line of the Mississippi River, a zone known in Louisiana as the batture. Until now, the stories of this way of life have existed only in the memories of those who have lived here.

Lieutenant Devlin Collins, an Irish American flier in the Royal Flying Corps, expecting to fly on the Western Front, instead finds himself flying antiquated two-seater bomber and photo reconnaissance missions over the Egyptian desert against the forces of the Central Powers that are trying to capture the Suez Canal.

Set against a backdrop of World War II, the Grace family and friends live in and operate out of Gracestone, a Miami Beach luxury estate. Most of them are "Graced", meaning they have special powers: Navigators can get anywhere without a map and are never lost; Incapacitators are never bested in a fight and can turn any item into a weapon; and Knowers can learn all there is to know about any topic just by concentrating on it for a few moments. In Gracestone 1943, the first book in The Grace Family Chronicles, the characters are focused on protecting the children of Gracestone.

Corporal William Buck is on leave in Memphis, visiting his mother, when Martin Luther King, Jr., is shot dead, and the city erupts in a race riot. Rather than leave his mother in the urban war zone, Corporal Buck chooses to become AWOL. When he eventually returns, he is willing to face discipline but refuses to tolerate the hateful taunts of a racist sergeant.

Having survived the sinking of his first ship, Ensign Ash Miller USNR is promoted and assigned to command one of the sleek new additions to "the splinter fleet", a 110-foot wooden submarine chaser armed with only understrength guns and depth charges. His task is to bring the ship swiftly into commission, weld his untried crew into an efficient fighting unit, and take his vessel to sea in order to protect the defenseless Allied merchant vessels which are being maliciously and increasingly sunk by German U-Boats, often within sight of the coast.

The Grace family is back, facing some of their biggest challenges yet as World War II peaks, then reaches its cataclysmic finale. Old situations are put to rest while new ones spring up to set the stage for the follow-up series.

On December 11, 1973, Mark Segal disrupted a live broadcast of the CBS Evening News when he sat on the desk directly between the camera and news anchor Walter Cronkite, yelling, "Gays protest CBS prejudice!" He was wrestled to the studio floor by the stagehands on live national television, thus ending LGBT invisibility. But this one victory left many more battles to fight, and creativity was required to find a way to challenge stereotypes surrounding the LGBT community.

What started as an internal whisper, has become a steady rumble. It’s getting louder, feeling heavier the more you try to ignore it. If you’re a white man in America, you have a decision to make: become an agent of change, or a victim of progress. White men have found themselves entrenched in a privileged status quo for centuries. Old patterns and learned behaviors have contributed to their success, but things are changing; our world is evolving. We’re tackling racism and sexism head-on. White masculinity, as we know it, is in the midst of a revolution.

Step back in time a bit. The year is 1973, and by all appearances, Monty Atkins has a wonderful life. Along with his wife Rose, the girl of his dreams he met in college, they are raising two boys, Eli and Walker. Humble but competitive, Monty is slowly but steadily building a profitable and well-respected law practice in beautiful Charleston, SC.

When a long-lost love comes knocking, a loyally wedded rancher is tempted by old passions. A bartender wrestling with sobriety is pushed to the edge by a familiar barfly. After her husband's death, a famous composer struggles to write a single note. From international flights to hidden grottoes and a nude beach, 12 wayward souls seek to satisfy their deepest hungers and escape their fears. Body Language explores our often-misguided quest for happiness and connection.

In his debut book, Martin Summer aims to help listeners find nature in an urban world. He discusses how our modern lives differ from the lifestyles of our ancestors. He then proceeds to cover six big problems of urbanization and their destructive impact on our lives. Practical solutions follow each discussed danger. In the next part of the book, the author reveals what connecting with nature means in today's world and why it's possible to do so even in a big city. He discusses the tricky subject of finding a compromise between technology and nature.

Twelve stories of wayward travelers. Twelve stamps on the passport of the soul. Bonds of Love & Blood is a poignant collection of prize-winning stories featuring life’s unexpected arrivals and departures. If you like intimate accounts of lives at the crossroads, vibrant portrayals of global locales, and elegantly-crafted prose, then you’ll love Marylee MacDonald’s compelling tales of travel.

A masterful abridgement of the 2017 Across Two Novembers, this book preserves the erudition, poignancy, and occasional quirkiness of the original. It cuts out the lengthy bibliography and some of the daily journal entries, but one is never left wondering what might be missing when a day is skipped. Mentions and fine reviews of dozens of books share the stage with the more personal details. 

Growing up the son of Philadelphia's most notorious mob boss, Nick had two choices: Sell his soul or flee. It seemed like a lose-lose. Dr. Nick Carlotti, a self-centered but gifted plastic surgeon, refused to follow in his father’s ruthless footsteps. For 18 years he remains unscathed by his family’s dark legacy but when his mother dies in a suspicious fiery car crash, he has no choice but to confront the beast head-on.

After the emergency evacuation of Cinq Terras, the Grace family's secret private island, the underwater experts, Arthur and Carlissa, embark on some research. Below the waves near Cinq Terras they find a new sea villainess. Her name is Ampura and she's making herself at home in the island's charmed waters, along with her small army of enchanted seamerckles. Meanwhile, another villain turns up: Antonine, the infamous Atherling arsonist. Amandia's unBecoming has sparked interest in the fire-fearing Atherling community, and Antonine wants her help.

By March 4, 1865, the Civil War had slaughtered more than 700,000 Americans. After a morning of rain-drenched fury, tens of thousands crowded Washington’s Capitol grounds that day to see Abraham Lincoln take the oath for a second term. As the sun emerged, Lincoln rose to give perhaps the greatest inaugural address in American history, stunning the nation by arguing, in a brief 701 words, that both sides had been wrong, and that the war’s unimaginable horrors - every drop of blood spilled - might well have been God’s just verdict on the national sin of slavery.

Private investigator Mason Gray has a reputation for solving impossible cases. But when an ancient artifact inexplicably vanishes from the Field Museum, that reputation will be put to the test. To solve this case, he must delve deeper into Chicago's supernatural world and call on his newly discovered abilities - unless they kill him in the process - to find a thief who's never been caught. But things are never as they appear in the White City, and every answer he uncovers leads to new questions. And new enemies.