Showing results by narrator "Graham Halstead" in All Categories

In the humdrum town of Moormouth, Walter Mortinson's unusual inventions cause nothing but trouble. After one of his contraptions throws the town into chaos, Walter's mother demands he cut the nonsense and join the family mortuary business. Far off on Flaster Isle, famed inventor Horace Flasterborn plans to take Walter under his wing. When a letter arrives by unusual means offering Walter an apprenticeship, he and the moody one-eyed girl next door run away and journey through a strange landscape of fish-people, giantess miners, and hypnotized honeybees.

The Future—as the richest people on the planet have discovered—is where the money is. The Future is a few billionaires leading the world to destruction while safeguarding their own survival with secret lavish bunkers. The Future is private weather, technological prophecy and highly deniable weapons. The Future is a handful of friends—the daughter of a cult leader, a non-binary hacker, an ousted Silicon Valley visionary, the concerned wife of a dangerous CEO and an Internet-famous survivalist—hatching a daring plan. It could be the greatest heist ever. Or the cataclysmic end of civilization.

Secrets abound in Lorna’s family. Her mother Marika, who survived the Nazi occupation of Holland, abandoned the family when Lorna and her brother Wade were just seven and twelve years old. The reason she left, and her whereabouts afterward, were shrouded in mystery. As is a darker secret Marika has repressed for nearly seventy years. Now that Lorna, a respected psychotherapist, has a child of her own, she’s determined to make Marika a part of their lives. But it’s been a struggle for nearly two decades.

In this installment of the Ask the Experts series, Chemistry, our professors, scientists, and researchers tackle reader questions about the substances that compose all matter, their properties, and how they interact and change. Queries range from elementary questions, such as why some elements change color over a flame, to how chemistry works in everyday life, to how certain substances affect the body and more.

A series of unsolved murders with one thing in common: each of the deaths bears an eerie resemblance to the crimes depicted in classic mystery novels. The deaths lead FBI Agent Gwen Mulvey to mystery bookshop Old Devils. Owner Malcolm Kershaw had once posted online an article titled 'My Eight Favourite Murders,' and there seems to be a deadly link between the deaths and his list - which includes Agatha Christie's The ABC Murders, Patricia Highsmith's Strangers on a Train and Donna Tartt's The Secret History.

The 1950s were a transformative, even revolutionary decade in the history of brain science. Using new techniques for probing brain activity and function, researchers in neurosurgery, psychiatry, and psychology achieved dramatic breakthroughs in the treatment of illnesses like epilepsy and schizophrenia, as well as the understanding of such faculties as memory and perception. Memory was the site of particularly startling discoveries.

In France, the simple act of eating bread is an exercise in creative problem solving, and attempting to spell requires a degree of masochism. But that's just how the French like it - and in WTF?!, Olivier Magny reveals the France only the French know. From the latest trends in baby names to the religiously observed division of church and state, prepare yourself for an insider's look at French culture that is surprising, insightful, and chock full of bons mots.

The fourth book in our Ask the Experts series, The Environment tackles questions about the world around us. In this book, our experts field queries on the weather, natural disasters, natural resources, climate change, and unusual phenomena.

American public opinion tends to be sticky. Although the news cycle might temporarily affect the public's mood on contentious issues like abortion, the death penalty, or gun control, public opinion toward these issues has remained remarkably constant over decades. There are notable exceptions, however, particularly with regard to divisive issues that highlight identity politics. Why have people's minds changed so dramatically on this issue, and why so quickly? Listen, We Need to Talk tests a new theory about how to change people's attitudes on controversial topics.

An unprecedented constellation of experts - leading cancer doctors, policymakers, cutting-edge researchers, national advocates, and more - explore the legacy and the shortcomings from the 50-year war on cancer and look ahead to the future.

NASA’s race with the Russians to land a man on the moon. The meteoric rise of the Beatles, considered by many to have revolutionized the music industry. In the postwar era, each stood as an unprecedented cultural watershed. Together they captured the heady zeitgeist of the 1960s, and ignited the imagination of - just about everyone on the planet.

After barely surviving the attack on the Makanuele Rumble, Balt and Alani set out with their friends on a dangerous journey across the island to find a laboratory that might hold the key to learning what truly happened to Balt's grandparents eight years ago. The Summoners will have to battle mutant Jekuas warped and strengthened by their toxic environment, search for a way to repair the mana leak that threatens to plunge Alani into perpetual soulsickness, and avoid the attention of their enemies.

In this book in praise of wait times, award-winning author Jason Farman passionately argues that the delay between call and answer has always been an important part of the message. Traveling backward from our current era of Twitter and texts, Farman describes how societies have worked to eliminate waiting in communication and how they have interpreted those times' meanings. And in a rebuttal to the demand for instant communication, Farman makes a powerful case for why good things can come to those who wait.

A beguiling story of an adventurous traveler, from the Edgar Award-winning author of the best-selling Deputy Charlie Hood series. Fresh out of college, a young man is hired by a high-end travel agency. His fears that he might be in over his head prove to be well-founded when he is dispatched to a potential new destination, Playa Amazonia. Twenty hours of traveling leads him to a luxurious hotel, the world's most beautiful beach - and an encounter with a highly unusual invasive species.

Their friendship started with a schoolyard tussle. Now the need for revenge is what binds Luke Croft and Red Connover together. When Luke taught himself how to fire a Colt, he never imagined he'd turn into a gunman. But when his stepfather's dodgy business dealings turn his life upside down, Luke asks Red to help him destroy the man who murdered his kin. The road to vengeance is long and hard, and the two friends who are barely out of boyhood will need all the help they can get if they want to catch a cold-blooded killer.

Paris Is Not Dead explores the past, present, and future of the City of Light through the lens of class conflict, highlighting the outsized role of immigrants in shaping the city's progressive, cosmopolitan, and open-minded character--at a time when politics nationwide can feel like they're shifting in the opposite direction. This is the Paris many tourists too often miss: immigrant-heavy districts such as the 18th arrondissement, where crowded street markets still define everyday life. Stangler brings this view of the city to life.

Titus "Crisp" Crespo was raised by his white mother and his Russian grandparents. He has two legacies from his absent father, Mo: his weird name and his brown skin. Crisp has always been the odd kid out, but a fundamentally good kid, with a bright future. But one impulsive decision triggers a horrible domino effect - an arrest; no reason not to accompany his richer whiter friend, Glynnie, on a visit to her weed dealer; and a trip onto his father's old home turf, where he'll face certain choices he's always strived to avoid.

Middle school hasn't been going well for Colin. His teenage sister teases him mercilessly, his autistic brother lashes out at him, and he has a crush on his best friend, Andy. But after the tragic night when his father commits suicide, none of that matters. Diane, Colin's mother, seeks solace in therapy. Colin is awash in guilt, and casts about for someone to confide in: first his estranged grandfather, then a predatory science teacher. But nothing helps as much as the strange writing his father kept in a series of notebooks locked in his study.

After finally reuniting on the Orchard Fortress, it seemed like the team would make a clean getaway...until a magical glimpse into the future revealed their horrible—and imminent—demise. At least they finished their first quest, right? Even if they somehow escape their impending doom in the next thirty seconds and make it back to the Stradivarius, their troubles are far from over. The soulforged vessel is a floating warzone. In addition to all the normal dangers that space travel poses, the derelict ship is packed with fromlirs.

Four future Navy officers, two women and two men, fall under the spell of charismatic leader James Drayton at Officer Candidate School in Newport, Rhode Island. They form a secret society called the Great Lovers, named after a poem by Rupert Brooke. When Drayton dies in a suspicious explosion on an aircraft carrier, the Great Lovers become the chief suspects. The surviving members of the secret society must defend their friend and their own freedom in a court-martial for mutiny. Trial of Honor is a fast-paced naval thriller about honor, both personal and national.