Showing results by narrator "Charles Constant" in All Categories

Jade Matthews and Reid Cole have been best friends all their lives. He was the boy who chased away the monsters from under her bed, and she was the girl he knew he was going to spend the rest of his life with. But some friendships aren't always built to last. This is a story about two best friends whose lives change after one night - a night that not even fate could have stopped. In the aftermath, Reid and Jade lose their friendship but soon find that they were destined to be so much more.

When Nick Flynn was 7 years old, his mother set fire to their house. The event loomed large in his imagination for years, but it's only after having a child of his own that he understands why. He returns with his young daughter to the landscape of his youth, reflecting on how his feral childhood has him still in its reins, and forms his memories into lyrical bedtime stories populated by the both sinister and wounded Mister Mann.

Revenge is a seven-letter word that isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s a word for those who have been wronged. Jo Turner has been waiting five, long years to finally turn revenge into vengeance. Using Rider, the pretty-faced manwhore, is simply the price she is willing to pay to satiate her desire for revenge. Little does she know, she makes herself a target from the one thing Rider has sworn to give his life to protect - The Last Riders.

An epiphany is a powerful insight, a revelation that can strike at any moment, in any place, and to anyone. An epiphany enlightens us, provides a deep understanding of reality, and can profoundly impact our lives. Often arising from simple yet impactful experiences, these moments can catch us off guard with a sudden clarity we may have otherwise overlooked. What if these extraordinary moments result from everyday insights that sharpen our ability to see God’s revelations in a new light?

Henry David Thoreau observed that "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them." It's so easy to get caught up in the day to day and forget why you're doing this in the first place. And before you know it, time runs out. So many of us feel as though we're not living our best lives or being our best selves, but what if you had the key to break free from the same old patterns, reignite your passion, and step into the life you were always meant to live?

Plagued by the suicides of both his siblings, heir to alcohol and drug abuse, divorce and economic ruin, James Brown lived a life clouded by addiction, broken promises and despair. In The Los Angeles Diaries, he reveals his struggle for survival, mining his past to present the inspiring story of his redemption. Beautifully written and limned with dark humor, these 12 deeply confessional, interconnected chapters address personal failure, heartbreak, the trials of writing for Hollywood, and the life-shattering events that finally convinced Brown that he must "change or die".

How to Love the Universe is a new kind of science writing by an author truly enamored of the world around him. In 10 short chapters of lyrical prose - each one an ode to a breathtaking realm of discovery - Stefan Klein uses everyday objects and events as a springboard to meditate on the beauty of the underlying science.

Indiana champions shining examples of literary and artistic merit regardless of whether the individual artist or writer is famous; asserts a standard of care and tradition that has nothing to do with the ivory tower establishment; is unafraid to deliver the coup de grâce when someone needs to say the emperor has no clothes; speaks in the same breath—in the same discerning, insolent, eloquent way—about high art and pop culture. Few writers could get away with saying the things Gary Indiana does. And when the writing is this good, it's also political, plus it's a riot of fun.

Governor Charlie Baker, one of the most popular governors in the United States, with a reputation for getting things done, wants to put the service back into public service. Results is the much-needed implementation guide for anyone in public service, as well as for leaders and managers in large organizations hamstrung by bureaucracy and politics. With a broad range of examples, Baker, a Republican, and Kadish, a Democrat, show how to move from identifying problems to achieving results in a way that bridges divides instead of exacerbating them.

Though her songs have sold millions, Eve is an enigma, a bewitching mystery. But to former Delta Force operator Harry Bolt, she is an angel whose sultry, smoky voice brought him back to life after the nightmare of Afghanistan. Nothing else matters. And now a scared, helpless beauty has walked through the door of his San Diego private security firm, running from something secret, something deadly...and Harry knows immediately that this is the woman who saved him. He is the last hope for this intoxicating siren without a past.

Game Changer is the story of how a 23-year-old waiter from Seattle had the outrageous dream of beating industry giants Milton Bradley and Mattel at their own game. With no experience, Rob Angel used his guts, drive, and intuition to create one of the most beloved board games of all time: Pictionary. Rob did it his way. He produced the first 1,000 games by hand in his tiny one- bedroom apartment, disrupted the market by selling to nontraditional retail outlets, and did countless demonstrations at the bottom of the escalator at Nordstrom — a store with no game department.

I'm a magnet for evil and controlling men. Chase, my big business tycoon and love of my life, thinks he can protect me, but he can't. No one can. It became clear far too late how serious my stalker was, that his threats weren't idle. He proved more than once that he would do what it takes, that there were no stakes too high for his sick and twisted games and delusions of worship. We should have been better prepared.

Goose Island opened as a family-owned Chicago brewpub in the late 1980s, and it soon became one of the most inventive breweries in the world. In the golden age of light and cheap beers, John Hall and his son Greg brought European flavors to America. With distribution in two dozen states, two brewpubs and status as one of the twenty biggest breweries in the United States, Goose Island became an American success story and was a champion of craft beer. Then, on March 28, 2011, the Halls sold the brewery to Anheuser-Busch InBev, maker of Budweiser, the least craft-like beer imaginable.

In Criminal (In)Justice, Rafael A. Mangual offers a more balanced understanding of American criminal justice, and cautions against discarding traditional crime control measures. A powerful combination of research, data-driven policy journalism, and the author's lived experiences, this book explains what many reform advocates get wrong, and illustrates how the misguided commitment to leniency places America's most vulnerable communities at risk.

Dreamers and Schemers chronicles how Los Angeles's pursuit and staging of the 1932 Olympic Games during the depths of the Great Depression helped fuel the city's transformation from a seedy frontier village to a world-famous metropolis.

As one of the big names at his family's gym, Legends, MMA star Rory Kavanagh is used to being in the spotlight - until a gruesome leg injury knocks him out of the cage. Rory is left feeling sidelined in more ways than one, battling the inner demons that come with losing the one shot at his dreams. Then Clare walks into his life and gives him a new dream: winning her heart. There aren't many new faces in Woodlawn these days, but this tough, beautiful stranger makes Rory want to get his life back into fighting shape.

At the 1936 Berlin Summer Olympics, track and field star Jesse Owens ran himself straight into international glory by winning four gold medals. But the life of Jesse Owens is much more than a sports story. Born in rural Alabama under the oppressive Jim Crow laws, Owens' family suffered many hardships. As a boy he worked several jobs, like delivering groceries and working in a shoe repair shop, to make ends meet. But Owens defied the odds to become a sensational student athlete, eventually running track for Ohio State.

Grandiosity and exaggerated self-worth. Pathological lying. Manipulation. Lack of remorse. Shallowness. Exploitation for financial gain. These are the qualities of Almost Psychopaths. They are not the deranged criminals or serial killers who might be coined "psychopaths" in the movies or on TV. They are spouses, coworkers, bosses, neighbors, and people in the news who exhibit many of the same behaviors as a full-blown psychopath, but with less intensity and consistency.

When polio paralyzed Franklin Roosevelt at the age of thirty-nine, people wept to think that the young man of golden promise must live out his days as a helpless invalid. He never again walked on his own. But in just over a decade, he regained his strength and seized the presidency. This was the most remarkable comeback in the history of American politics. And, as author James Tobin shows, it was the pivot of Roosevelt's life-the triumphant struggle that tempered and revealed his true character.

Combining the scope of Yuval Noah Harari with the political savvy of Francis Fukuyama, The Origin of Politics, Wade’s work draws from anthropology, evolutionary biology, and historical analysis to explore how human nature shapes the direction of society—and how policies which ignore human nature risk chaos and even extinction. Political scientists agree that the roots of politics must lie in human nature, but then assume that human behavior is infinitely flexible. The Origin of Politics shows that limits set by human evolution cannot be ignored without penalty.