Showing results by narrator "Peter Jay Fernandez" in All Categories

"Brother, you have often declared that you would not end your days in slavery. I see no possible way in which you can escape with us; and now, brother, you are on a steamboat where there is some chance for you to escape to a land of liberty. I beseech you not to let us hinder you. If we cannot get our liberty, we do not wish to be the means of keeping you from a land of freedom."

Brimming with enthralling details and personalities, Toby Lester's The Fourth Part of the World spotlights Martin Waldseemüller's 1507 world map and recounts the epic tale of the mariners and scholars who facilitated this watershed of Western history.

Okey Ndibe's funny, charming, and penetrating memoir tells of his move from Nigeria to America, where he came to edit the influential - but forever teetering on the verge of insolvency - African Commentary magazine. It recounts stories of Ndibe's relationships with Chinua Achebe, Wole Soyinka, and other literary figures; examines the differences between Nigerian and American etiquette and politics; and recalls an incident of racial profiling just 13 days after he arrived in the US, in which he was mistaken for a bank robber.

A ragged man dies in the arms of Commander Gray Pierce, apparently the victim of an assassination. A bloody coin found in the man’s hand appears to be a stolen relic that dates back to the Oracle at Delphi, and the man turns out to have been a scientist on a secret mission. As Pierce investigates, he uncovers a team of scientists bioengineering savant autistic children in the hopes of creating the next Buddha, Jesus, or Muhammad. While they trust this prophet will be a harbinger of peace, things quickly spin horribly out of control.

In the fall of 1959, Harvard recruited 18 "Negro" boys as an early form of affirmative action. Four years later they would graduate as African Americans. Some 50 years later, one of these trailblazing Harvard grads, Kent Garrett, began to reconnect with his classmates and explore their vastly different backgrounds, lives, and what their time at Harvard meant.

Hot on the heels of his New York Times best-sellers Altar of Eden and Doomsday Key, James Rollins' The Devil Colony finds the members of Sigma Force pitted against a dark cabal that has been pulling the strings of U.S. history since its founding. Bodies arranged in a ritual manner are discovered in an Indian cave, and only Sigma Force director Peter Crowe recognizes them for what they are—a warning portending further violence.

Curtis Black is no stranger to scandal. Throughout the decades, he has done much in the public eye, both good and evil. But what most people don't realize is that Curtis has been hiding a horrific childhood that has affected him in countless, unspeakable ways. His buried past returns in an unwelcome visit when his estranged sister becomes alarmingly ill and his youngest child, 12-year-old Curtina, becomes the kind of problem daughter that he never imagined she could be. This is only the beginning.

Imagine having everything taken away from you - permanently - with no hope of resuming a normal life. This is the case for many teenagers in America who are tried and convicted as adults for the crime of murder. Here Susan Kuklin takes you behind bars for frank interviews with a collection of young men who will spend the better part of their lives in jail. She lets them speak for themselves, providing the raw details of their incarceration and the anger, despair, and surprising hope they experience every day. Kuklin also provides an in-depth look at the American penal system, highlighting its many intricacies and inequities while focusing on capital cases involving juveniles.

New York Times best-selling authors E. Lynn Harris and Eric Jerome Dickey, and Blackboard best-selling authors Colin Channer and Marcus Major have joined forces in Got to Be Real, a compilation of fresh, funny, and honest love stories. Each one is a unique look at love in the modern, urban age. Harris’ leading man faces one of his greatest fears with a Valentine’s gift that could change his life forever.

A girl walks home from school. She's tall for her age. She's wearing her winter coat. Her headphones are in. She's hurrying. She never makes it home. In the aftermath, while law enforcement tries to justify the response, one fact remains: A police officer has shot and killed an unarmed 13-year-old girl. The community is thrown into upheaval, leading to unrest, a growing movement to protest the senseless taking of black lives, and the arrival of white supremacist counter-demonstrators.

Twelve Years a Slave (Originally published in 1853 with the sub-title: "Narrative of Solomon Northup, a citizen of New-York, kidnapped in Washington city in 1841, and rescued in 1853, from a cotton plantation near the Red River in Louisiana") is the written work of Solomon Northup; a man who was born free, but was bound into slavery later in life. Northup's account describes the daily life of slaves in Bayou Beof, their diet, the relationship between the master and slave, the means that slave catchers used to recapture them and the ugly realities that slaves suffered.

Set in a fictitious post-colonial African nation, the discovery of the body of a drowned prostitute leads to an exploration of the conflict between an individual and the modern African state. A gripping study of truth, silence, and the abuse of power. A young woman runs into the sea and drowns. The last man who spoke to her, a curious individual known as Bukuru, is asked to account for her suicide. His shocking revelations land him in court.

Acts is Volume 26 from Gospel & Acts, the New Testament, from the Unabridged Contemporary English Version Translation of the Holy Bible.

You may never have heard of him, but you've probably heard of the many people civil rights activist Bayard Rustin influenced. He was a mentor to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and refused to move to the back of the bus many years before Rosa Parks did. The son of a freed slave, Bayard Rustin grew up during the peak of the Jim Crow laws, which segregated Blacks and Whites.

Tough-as-nails abduction specialist Jack Carpenter is not easily spooked. But when he witnesses his daughter's college basketball teammate being violently abducted, Jack cannot suppress his horror. The kidnapper's face is one Jack recognizes from an unsolved case early in his career on the police force. With a deadly clock ticking, Jack is determined to rescue the abducted girl before it's too late.

Two years ago, to everyone's surprise, Dillon Whitfield Black, the secret son of Reverend Curtis Black, boldly moved back home, married a woman named Raven, decided he was going to become a minister, and then founded a church right in the center of his living room. Today he's pastor of a 1,000-plus-member congregation, and new members are joining weekly. Sadly, behind closed doors Dillon is far from being a saint. He has become more like the man his father was 30 years ago - consumed with money, power, and lots of women.

Sammy Davis Jr. lived a storied life. Adored by millions over a six-decade-long career, he was considered an entertainment icon and a national treasure. But despite lifetime earnings that topped $50 million, Sammy died in 1990 near bankruptcy. His estate was declared insolvent, and there was no possibility of it ever using Sammy's name or likeness again. It was as if Sammy had never existed.

The son of Maya Angelou, Guy Johnson is a critically acclaimed author and poet in his own right. Echoes of a Distant Summer is the story of Jackson St. Clair Tremain, a San Francisco civil servant who thought he had left his old life far behind. In 1982, Jackson is summoned to Mexico to confer with his dying grandfather, the brutal hustler King Tremain. When King dies, Jackson inherits $50 million - and the unwanted attentions of a malevolent bayou crime lord named Pug DuMont.

A New York Times Outstanding Book of the Year.Joe's decision to leave home is prompted by despair over his Mother's blindness to his younger brother's talents and his older brother's drug addiction.

The Great Decision tells the riveting story of Marshall and of the landmark court case, Marbury v. Madison, through which he empowered the Supreme Court and transformed the idea of the separation of powers into a working blueprint for our modern state.