Showing results by narrator "Christopher Hurt" in All Categories

This is the story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world - and did. Is he a destroyer or a liberator? Why does he fight his hardest battle not against his enemies, but against the woman he loves? Tremendous in scope, breathtaking in its suspense, Atlas Shrugged is Ayn Rand's magnum opus and launched an ideology and a movement. With the publication of this work in 1957, Rand gained an instant following and became a phenomenon.

One of the 20th century's most challenging novels of ideas, The Fountainhead champions the cause of individualism through the story of a gifted young architect who defies the tyranny of conventional public opinion. The struggle for personal integrity in a world that values conformity above creativity is powerfully illustrated through three characters: Howard Roarke, a genius; Gail Wynand, a newspaper mogul and self-made millionaire; and Dominique Francon, a devastating beauty.

Howard Hughes lived one of the greatest, most heroic, misunderstood, mysterious, bizarre, and tragic lives in American history. In this brilliantly documented biography, the mythology that surrounded that life is disentangled from the truth.

Stranger in a Strange Land is the epic saga of an earthling, Valentine Michael Smith, born and educated on Mars, who arrives on our planet with “psi” powers—telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition, telekinesis, teleportation, pyrolysis, and the ability to take control of the minds of others—and complete innocence regarding the mores of man. After his tutelage under a surrogate father figure, Valentine begins his transformation into a kind of messiah.

For years, they were the best of friends: the grand, erratic Humboldt and the ambitious young Charlie. But now Humboldt has died a failure, and Charlie's success-ridden life has taken various turns for the worse. Then Humboldt acts from the grave to change Charlie's life: he has left Charlie something in his will.

In 1931, a young American named Victor Herman accompanied his parents to the Soviet Union, where his father was to set up a Ford Motor Company plant. In 1938, he was inexplicably thrown into a Soviet prison. It was 45 years before he was able to return to America.

Buried deep within the consciousness of Sergeant Raymond Shaw is the mechanism of an assassin, a time bomb ticking toward explosion, controlled by the delicate skill of its Communist masters. Shaw returns from the Korean War to an idolizing and unsuspecting country. What follows is at once a spy story, a love story, and a sobering, yet outrageously funny satire on demagoguery in American politics.

In Getting Ahead, one of the top 50 executive coaches in the United States, Joel Garfinkle reveals his signature model for mastering three skills to take your career to the next level: Perception, Visibility, and Influence. The PVI-model of professional advancement will teach you to: (1) Actively promote yourself as an asset and valuable person inside the organization, (2) Increase your visibility to gain others' recognition and appreciation for your efforts and (3) Become a person of influence who makes key decisions inside the organization.

Howard Hughes lived one of the greatest, most heroic, misunderstood, mysterious, bizarre, and tragic lives in American history. In this brilliantly documented biography, the mythology that surrounded that life is disentangled from the truth.

Who are the Kennedys? Are they the brilliant, heroic, extraordinary people their admirers believe them to be? Or are they arrogant, competitive, self-absorbed children of a willful and immensely rich patriarch, as their detractors claim? In fact, they are all of these things, and more.

Professor Kilmer, a renowned historian of war and diplomacy, is collected from his home and whisked off to Washington. Thrust into the highest levels of government as an adviser to the President, the young historian must come to terms with the seemingly impossible, figure out how to navigate a world where not everything is as it appears, and use all the skills and knowledge he has acquired in his life to help save humanity from a conflict of truly epic proportions.

For more than a century before gay marriage became a hot-button political issue, same-sex unions flourished in America. Pairs of men and pairs of women joined together in committed unions, standing by each other "for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health" for periods of 30 or 40 - sometimes as many as 50 - years. In short, they loved and supported each other every bit as much as any husband and wife. In Outlaw Marriages, cultural historian Rodger Streitmatter reveals how some of these unions didn’t merely improve the quality of life for the two people involved but also enriched the American culture.

Santa Vittoria is a fictional town, still remote from the rest of war-torn Italy, where the citizens, led by their wine-loving mayor Bombolini, scheme and plot to prevent the Germans from locating and looting the town's only treasure - its fabulous wine cellars. A best seller and the inspiration for the famous film starring Anthony Quinn, this warm, rich novel has already drawn thousands upon thousands into the exuberant and perilous life of Santa Vittoria and its affirmation of the fundamental dignity of man.

In a scrap heap within an abandoned factory, the greatest invention in history lies dormant and unused. By what fatal error of judgment has its value gone unrecognized, its brilliant inventor punished rather than rewarded for his efforts?

Gripping crime dramas featuring Scotland Yard’s Detective Inspector John Appleby A double bill of Scottish crime writer Michael Innes’ DI John Appleby novels adapted with a full cast. Written during the golden age of detective fiction, these two gems from the archive are a thrilling listen...

In this classic 19th century comedy of manners, Jack Worthing and Algernon Moncrief masquerade under the name of Earnest in order to win the love of Gwendolyn and Cecily. But first they must match wits with the inimitable Lady Bracknell!

Robert E. Lee, a Christian and a gentleman, was the most remarkable man to emerge from the Civil War and is one of the greatest tragic figures of American history. Reserved and unflappable, savvy and fearless, shrewd and tenacious, fatherly and kind are but a few of the adjectives commonly used to describe this noble hero.

Bill Buckley has created a handsome American hero, Blackford Oakes, who, by coincidence or not, happens to be an irreverent Yale- and CIA-trained superspy. The year is 1954. Stalin has died in Moscow, and a deadly earnest power play nears its conclusion. Meanwhile British and American commandos, their mission to liberate a Soviet satellite country, have met a disastrous end. Jinxed. The communications system between English and American intelligence has been penetrated. Jinxed. There is a spook in their midst. High Jinx.

Jilly Farina is 14. Her father is drunk on the day of the Barnstable County Fair, so she goes by herself, and that night her life is transformed. When she walks into a tent to see Millroy the Magician, his eyes lighten from brown to green and fasten upon her. He performs miracles before her spellbound eyes. He tells her that he will train her to be his assistant, and he will give her a sequined costume. But this is only the beginning. Millroy is a magician not just of mere conjuring but of true, baffling magic.

In Earth in Mind, David W. Orr argues that much of what has gone wrong with the world, is the result of inadequate and misdirected education that: Alienates us from life in the name of human domination; causes students to worry about how to make a living before they know who they are; overemphasizes success and careers; separates feeling from intellect and the practical from the theoretical; deadens the sense of wonder for the created world.