Showing results by narrator "Judith West" in All Categories

The American women’s movement has been shrouded in myths, argue three leading scholars in this bold and revisionist history. Eschewing the conventional wisdom that places the origins of the American women’s movement in the nostalgic glow of the late 1960s, Feminism Unfinished traces the beginnings of this seminal American social movement to the 1920s, in the process creating an expanded, historical narrative that dramatically rewrites a century of American women’s history.

From the introduction by James Thompson: Finland, the myths and truths. Internationally, it has a reputation as perhaps the best place in the world to live. A great economy. A low crime rate. Good and nearly cost-free health care. The needy are provided for by the state and live in reasonable comfort. Finns: peaceful and quiet people, living in the perfect example of a social democracy functioning as it should. A tourist, or even a person who has lived here for a length of time, might well view Finland as such.

Disturbed when five books about death are returned overdue to the library, slashed and containing a warning on a bookmark, library employee Kathleen is terrified when people close to her start falling victim to tragic "accidents".

Born into affluence, Mia Stanley is a winsome socialite with a knack for matchmaking. She's also a writer for Godey's Lady's Book magazine, much to the dismay of her family and their society friends. A proper young lady of her social standing isn't meant to labor in such a way, but Mia has always had a way with words. When her writing draws her into the world of downtrodden seamen's wives on Philadelphia's docks, Mia uncovers an alarming scheme that puts her in harm's way.

Sammar is a Sudanese widow working as an Arabic translator at a Scottish university. Since the sudden death of her husband, her young son has gone to live with family in Khartoum, leaving Sammar alone in cold, gray Aberdeen, grieving and isolated. But when she begins to translate for Rae, a Scottish Islamic scholar, the two develop a deep friendship that awakens in Sammar all the longing for life she has repressed. As Rae and Sammar fall in love, she knows they will have to address his lack of faith in all that Sammar holds sacred.

In The Birth of Politics, Melissa Lane introduces the listener to the foundations of Western political thought, from the Greeks, who invented democracy, to the Romans, who created a republic and then transformed it into an empire. Tracing the origins of our political concepts from Socrates to Plutarch to Cicero, Lane reminds us that the birth of politics was a story as much of individuals as ideas.

It's Darcy Thomas' summer home: the Dungeon of Horrors, owned by Jake, the gorgeous green-eyed uncle she's just met. But the gory fun turns to terror when real bodies are found with the mark of a vampire on their throats - and Darcy is targeted as the next victim.

Though Carolyn’s mother never expected to inherit Glanton House from long-lost Aunt Hazel, she wants to make the most of the opportunity. Planning to turn the creaky waterfront mansion into a hotel, she moves Carolyn down to the seashore. But this house has a nightmarish history. As the story goes, Captain Glanton spent so long at sea that his wife, believing him dead, took a new lover. When her husband finally returned, her new love - a mysterious drifter - brutally murdered him, and she went mad with grief.

In 1941, with America at war, Ann Pollock falls in love. Handsome, charming attorney Phillip Coulter is everything she could want in a man and mate. But soon after they marry, Phillip leaves to fight for his country. When he comes home, he's a stranger, his body and spirit broken in a Japanese POW camp. It is only Ann's indomitable will and determination to succeed against all odds that keeps her family together.

When their vehicle is hit by a truck, that did not have its lights on, Gayle and Stephanie seek refuge at the deserted farmhouse of Gayle's Aunt Pat. They soon become suspicious after a series of strange events...

The unimpeachable Elenora Villars is the pride of New Orleans. Her magnificent auburn hair is her crowning glory and her benevolence is the talk of the town. Once a nurse to injured Americans in Niagara, Elenora has become famous for her compassionate works. The widow of a Spanish nobleman, Elenora has secured herself a respected place in high society. But she has a secret that could destroy her good name. Colonel Grant Farrell is the only man who knows what Elenora really is and the secrets she is hiding, but he doesn't care.

The Capulets and the Montagues had nothing on the Ryders and the Morgans! But despite the fact that each one was from one of the rival ranching families, Jenny Ryder and Win Morgan had a passionate summer affair four years ago - one that resulted in pregnancy. They got married and promptly lost the baby. Heartbroken, Jenny let herself be talked into divorcing Win…without ever having revealed the marriage to her family - or his. Now Jenny's back, and one impulsive night means that Jenny and Win are about to be parents again! This time, they have to fess up.

This year, a modern-day Scrooge learns the true meaning of Christmas with the help of a suddenly sexy old friend. A down-on-his-luck baseball star finds a beautiful new beginning with a hometown girl. And a prim-and-proper teacher is determined to bring out the holiday spirit in a grumpy tree farmer. Settle in for the season with this collection of very merry short fiction.

Based on an acclaimed short story that was nominated for the Bram Stoker Award, "Darker Angels" takes the reader from the bloodstained battlefields of Virginia to the slave auctions of Haiti. Walt Whitman, Abraham Lincoln, Lord Byron, and Marie Leveau, the legendary voodoo queen of New Orleans, all have a part to play in the epic tale of a mysterious, one-eyed shaman who dares to raise the dead from the battlefields of the Civil War.

Almost everyone prays: believers, unbelievers, wannabe believers, and might-have-been believers. It assures us all in our many parts and many moods that everything is going to be okay, despite any evidence to the contrary. When people say, “I don’t know how to pray,” what they often mean is “I don’t believe.” Or perhaps they are struggling with disappointment or anger with God and have taken a break from their prayer life.

How do you find love where love does not exist? From out of a barefoot boyhood among endless rows of olive trees, and a forbidden passion for a courageous Moroccan beauty, to a horrific struggle against tyranny in the war-torn streets of 1936 Granada, comes a story where love cannot exist without mercy . . . mercy one carries for one’s whole life as a badge of honor . . . mercy and compassion passed down from generation to generation.

Janet works as a telephone operator in 1950s Richmond, Va. When she patches through a call for help from a child reporting an intruder at an isolated farm, she realizes she knows the family. Enlisting the help of the man she desires, she makes an emergency trip to help someone in danger - or is it, really, to help herself?

Hearing an old lover’s song on the radio while she’s taking her daughter to kindergarten carries the narrator back to her complicated affair with the singer, and to a meditation on what is, what was, and what might have been.

Beginning with "Why Women Fight Pirates," Walley writes, "A real woman will not be content with one man. With one man, she will rage, eat into herself and him. She will jump off the pirate ship onto a ship that is gracefully billowing with sails of humanity and the caring of, a ship full of love, of fools. She will not stay isolated in one man's private war with his maleness."

Five Lessons I Didn't Learn From Breast Cancer is Shelley Lewis' thoroughly modern, slightly contrarian take on "doing" breast cancer in an epiphany-free zone, where the goal is simply to get through it and get the hell back to your life. She proves chemotherapy can eradicate everything except a sense of humor.