Showing results by narrator "Michael Kramer" in All Categories

We don't understand the reactionary mind. As a result, argues Mark Lilla in this timely book, the ideas and passions that shape today's political dramas are unintelligible to us. The reactionary is anything but a conservative. He is as radical and modern a figure as the revolutionary, someone shipwrecked in the rapidly changing present, and suffering from nostalgia for an idealized past and an apocalyptic fear that history is rushing toward catastrophe.

It was an annus horribilis for Iran's Supreme Leader. The Green Movement had been crushed, but the regime was on edge, anxious lest democratic protests resurge. International sanctions were dragging down the economy while talk of war with the West grew. Hooman Majd was there for all of it. A new father at age fifty, he decided to take his blonde, blue-eyed Midwestern yoga instructor wife Karri and his adorable, only-eats-organic infant son Khash from their hip Brooklyn neighborhood to spend a year in the land of his birth.

Heir to the Bear Clan of Valheim, young Raknar anticipates the day he will become chief and lead his clan across the sea to pillage foreign shores. When his village is sacked, his clan put to the sword, Raknar must forge a new destiny, alone. Captured during a raid on the Kingdom of Acheron, Raknar is enslaved by the diabolical Queen Zakara. She forces him to fight as a gladiator in the pits, but her true interest in Raknar lies in the fulfillment of a dark prophecy that will provide her an heir and unlock unworldly power.

Worlds Apart tracks the Bride’s epic westward journey from California to the Straits of Gibraltar, with adventures in Hawaii, Japan, China, and India. The wrongs he encounters and the attempts to silence him are a constant reminder of his true mission: Ease the suffering of those unfortunate enough to be in the path of blind greed posing as God’s will. He and his men confront tyranny, lend a hand to resistance fighters, and attempt to overcome the savagery of a corrupt enemy impervious to the values that define humanity.

It all began with Ragnarok, with the Children of the Light and the Tarnished ones battling to the death in the ice and the dark. At the end of the long battle, one Valkyrie survived, wounded, and one valraven - the steeds of the valkyrie. Because they lived, Valdyrgard was not wholly destroyed. Because the valraven was transformed in the last miracle offered to a Child of the Light, Valdyrgard was changed to a world where magic and technology worked hand in hand.

Built on top of the gates of Hell, Grimm City is the Devil's capital on earth. A place where every coffee shop, nightclub and shopping mall is the potential hunting ground for any of the supernatural entities that inhabit the Grimm City world. Death's 17-year-old apprentice, Nathaniel, comes into his own as he leads an uprising against the Devil with the help of a half-dead wraith and a giant hit-man. What results is a bloody, brutal revolt that calls upon the loyalties of both the living and the dead.

Interviewing scores of line workers, union leaders, hog farmers, and local politicians and activists, Genoways reveals an industry pushed to its breaking point. Along the way, he exposes alarming new trends: sick or permanently disabled workers, abused animals, water and soil pollution, and mounting conflict between small towns and immigrant labor.

On Secret Service is the story of a war within a war on various levels: the North versus the South, the Union's Pinkerton Detective Agency versus the Confederacy's agent provocateurs, and youthful idealism versus youthful lust. It chronicles the lives and times of four young Americans, from the war's early tremors in January 1861 through its bloody conclusion: Lincoln's assassination and John Wilkes Booth's murder in May 1865.

It has been two decades since Detective Francis X. Loughlin solved his first big case, the brutal murder of a woman doctor. The young man convicted of the killing, Julian Vega, is back on the streets now, released on a technicality after years of appeals. Not long after his release, another murder takes place, one so similar to that long-ago case that Julian is the first suspect in Detective Loughlin's sights.

Oscar-winning actor Richard Dreyfuss has spent nearly five decades on the stage and silver screen. However, through his longtime interest in political and social activism, Dreyfuss has emerged as a leading voice in the area of civic engagement and active citizenship, earning posts at St. Antony's College, the University of Oxford, and the Board of Directors of the Los Angeles ACLU Foundation.

The current-day city of Fort Brazos, Texas, and the nearby Joint Reserve Base awaken to find that they have been abducted — scooped up whole and deposited inside a vast 4000-mile-long hollow alien world. Thousands have been killed in the wake of this harrowing event, leaving those who remain to fend for themselves in the absence of any outside aid. In the midst of this chaos, a power struggle between military and civilian leadership threatens to further complicate the situation.

In 1936, against a backdrop of swastikas flying and storm troopers looming, an African-American son of sharecroppers set three world records and won an unprecedented four gold medals, single-handedly crushing Hitler's myth of Aryan supremacy. The story of Jesse Owens at the 1936 Olympics Games is that of a high-profile athlete giving a performance that transcends sports. But it is also the intimate and complex tale of the courage of one remarkable man.

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.

T.C. Boyle has crafted a captivating tale with memorable characters and a rollicking plot that will delight both his longtime devotees and a legion of new fans. The Inner Circle is a love story narrated by John Milk, a virginal young man, who in 1940 accepts a job as an assistant to Dr. Alfred Kinsey, a charming professor of zoology at Indiana University who has just discovered his life's true calling: sex.

An incurable sickness has infected a fishing village along the coast of Ishalar. The sick do not die - they vanish, leaving behind footprints and ashen shadows. Delanis, the fourth throne of Ishalar, has already lost his wife to The Vanishing, and now his daughter is deep in the throes of the illness. More in his village are succumbing almost every day.  

Expedition, the explosive second novel in the Locus series.

The sins of the distant past echo far into the future.

An uneasy peace settles over the strange new world into which the M/S Atlantica has been thrust by the Locus. The cruise ship leads her war-weary fleet on its first, tentative steps beyond simple survival. But an expedition to the mainland changes everything, sparking a chain of events leading to a devastating new conflict.

Most people know Ted Danson as the affable bartender Sam Malone in the long-running television series Cheers. But fewer realize that over the course of the past two and a half decades, Danson has tirelessly devoted himself to the cause of heading off a looming global catastrophe---the massive destruction of our planet's oceanic biosystems and the complete collapse of the world's major commercial fisheries.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, but it takes Josh Redmont a while to figure that out. The first check arrived when Josh was 27, $1,000, issued by "United States Agent" through an unnamed bank with an indeterminate address in Washington, D.C. The checks continued to arrive once a month, even when Josh changed addresses, with nary an explanation or a peep from the IRS.

Too Stupid to Fail is an examination of the effects self-consciousness, doubt, and anxiety have on one’s ability to succeed and achieve their goals. By challenging and eventually overcoming these barriers, one will gain a renewed self-confidence, leading to success in both personal and professional settings. Too Stupid to Fail is the completion of many years exploring the power and limits of human potential. A common narrative encourages people to work hard and go to school as a launching pad for success.

When the bus Bear and Mandy Logan are traveling in breaks down, they find refuge with a mysterious traveler in a small Illinois town. A place to stay for a few days while waiting for a ride out. Amid the peaceful surroundings lies a dark secret. One which has left members of the community shaken, unable to go about their daily lives without fear of retribution. Bear wants to remain uninvolved. But when Mandy witnesses a murder, the duo has a target firmly planted on their back, and a decision must be made.