Showing results by narrator "Paul Boehmer" in All Categories

In Bucharest, Romania's capital, Kaplan discovered that few Westerners were reporting on the country - one of the darkest corners of Europe during the Cold War. In an intense and cinematic travelogue, Kaplan explores the history and culture of the only country in the West where the leading intellectuals have been right-wing rather than left-wing; a country that gave rise to the dictator Ion Antonescu, Hitler's chief foreign accomplice during WWII; a country where the Latin West mixes with the Greek East, producing a fascinating fusion of cultures.

Too long to be a short story, too short to be a novel - welcome to the surprisingly potent world of the novelette. The award-winning magazine Orson Scott Card's Intergalactic Medicine Show has been an online haven for this powerful form of storytelling since 2005. Now its editors have selected their all-time favorite science fiction novelettes from the magazine's eight-year history and reprinted them together in one big book of listening pleasure.

In the 1980s, a young adventurer and collector for a government library, Abdel Kader Haidara, journeyed across the Sahara Desert and along the Niger River, tracking down and salvaging tens of thousands of ancient Islamic and secular manuscripts that had fallen into obscurity. The Bad-Ass Librarians of Timbuktu tells the incredible story of how Haidara, a mild-mannered archivist and historian from the legendary city of Timbuktu, later became one of the world's greatest and most brazen smugglers.

The danger is increasing for Grianne Ohmsford, rightful High Druid of Shannara, who has been banished to the harsh world called the Forbidding by a treasonous fellow Druid. Her only hope for rescue is her nephew Pen, but Pen is under siege as well. Both he and his parents are sought by the Druids, who want to make sure that their magic will never help Grianne to return.

The music of Rush, one of the most successful bands in music history, is filled with fantastic stories, evocative images, thought-provoking futures and pasts. In this anthology, notable, best-selling, and award-winning writers each chose a Rush song as the spark for a new story, drawing inspiration from the visionary trio Geddy Lee, Alex Lifeson, and Neil Peart.

Granny Viper is a "people finder," a searcher for lost souls along the roads of a forbidding wasteland. Her latest mission: the safe return of a young woman named Tae, kidnapped eight years ago by vampire nobility and held in Castle Gradinia on the Frontier's far border. But rescuing Tae is only half the battle—Viper knows she and the girl can't cross the formidable expanse to the town of Barnabas alone. After making the fatal mistake of hiring the mercenary Bullow Brothers to help her, Granny turns to the legendary Vampire Hunter D for salvation.

How does one begin to treat such cases, to counsel people whose lives may be changed forever? How does one train the next generation of clinicians to deal with the moral and medical aspects of brain disease? Dr. Ropper and his colleague answer these questions by taking the listener into a rarified world where lives and minds hang in the balance.

The true nature of what actually crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, in 1947 remains classified. Only a select few have ever had access to the truth about what became known as Area 51. But what happened to the remnants of that crash is shrouded in even greater mystery. What began in the high desert of New Mexico ended at Wright-Patterson, an ultra top-secret Air Force base in Dayton, Ohio. The physical evidence of extraterrestrial visitation was buried deep within this nuclear stronghold.

The first title in a new hardcover trilogy from New York Times best-selling author Richard A. Knaak. This direct follow-up to the recent best-selling War of Souls trilogy deals with the minotaurs, a species with which the author is particularly associated in the minds of Dragonlance fans.

After global devastation, the last remnants of Earth sent a handful of colonists of a distant terraformed world to give humanity one last, desperate chance. Unable to provide the technology required for an advanced civilization, the founders instilled in the colonists a strict code of conduct and gave them a few precious imprinting devices: glass helmets that contain all of Earth's scientific knowledge. Once in a generation, the heir to the province of Laal begins the arduous training required to survive the imprinting of the Glass Helm and acquire the knowledge of the lost Earth.

The LGBT agenda, for too long, has been dominated by pragmatic issues like same-sex marriage and gays in the military. It has been stifled by this myopic focus on the present, which is short-sighted and assimilationist. Cruising Utopia seeks to break the present stagnancy by cruising ahead. Part manifesto, part love-letter to the past and the future, Cruising Utopia argues that the here and now are not enough and issues an urgent call for the revivification of the queer political imagination.

The young street urchin Hissune gets his due for helping Lord Valentine regain his throne. As a reward, he is sent into the depths of the Labyrinth, a massive library of memory cubes in which the entire history of Majipoor is preserved. As Hissune prepares for a summons to return to Castle Mount, he relives the lives of Majipoor's most famous and notorious inhabitants.

Birds are highly intelligent animals, yet their intelligence is dramatically different from our own and has been little understood. As we learn more about the secrets of bird life, we are unlocking fascinating insights into memory, relationships, game theory, and the nature of intelligence itself. The Thing with Feathers explores the astonishing homing abilities of pigeons, the good deeds of fairy-wrens, the influential flocking abilities of starlings, the deft artistry of bowerbirds, the extraordinary memories of nutcrackers, and other mysteries.

In the deep forests of Kyonin, elves live secretively among their own kind, far from the prying eyes of other races. Few of impure blood are allowed beyond the nation's borders, and thus it's a great honor for the half-elven Count Varian Jeggare and his hellspawn bodyguard, Radovan, to be allowed inside. Yet all is not well in the elven kingdom: Demons stir in its depths, and an intricate web of politics seems destined to catch the two travelers in its snares.

Army epidemiologist Frank Slater is facing a court-martial, but after his punishment is mysteriously lifted, he is offered a job no one else wants - to travel to a small island off the coast of Alaska and investigate a potentially lethal phenomenon. The permafrost has begun to melt, exposing bodies from a colony that was wiped out by the dreaded Spanish flu of 1918. Frank must determine if the thawed remains still carry the deadly virus in their frozen flesh and, if so, ensure that it doesn't come back to life.

Sometimes rumor, sometimes based on fact and often misunderstood, the tenets of Islamic law and dogma were not set in the religion's founding moments. They were developed, like in other world religions, over centuries by the clerical class of Muslim scholars. Misquoting Muhammad takes listeners back in time through Islamic civilization and traces how and why such controversies developed, offering an inside view into how key and controversial aspects of Islam took shape.

With any great change, there is always strife, and Covenant University has become the front line between pure-bloods who want the Breed Order reinstated and the half-bloods who want the right to control their own destinies. The violence is escalating, and war between the races seems inevitable. Hyperion may be out of commission, but Josie and Seth know that they have only earned a reprieve. Seth must get Josie fully prepared, which means controlling her newfound abilities, and they need to find the other demigods before the Titans do.

50 Things Every Young Gentleman Should Know is a young man's guide to becoming the type of guy that people respect and enjoy. He knows how to shake hands. He knows how to be a good sport. He knows how to give a genuine compliment and how to speak his mind without being offensive. His friends listen to what he has to say, and he returns the favor. He knows how to achieve the perfect knot in a necktie, and more important, he knows when he should be wearing a tie in the first place. Oh, and his favorite ball cap? He knows when to wear it and when to leave it at home on his dresser.

First launched over a decade ago, the Preludes series has continued to prove popular with Dragonlance fans. Riverwind the Plainsman is authored by popular writing team Thompson & Cook.

From the Qur'an to Ramadan, Islam for Dummies introduces you to the origins, practices, and beliefs of Islam, including: Muhammad, the man and the legend; the Five Pillars of Wisdom; the Five Essentials beliefs of Islam; the different branches of Islam and Islamic sects; the Qur'an and Islamic law; and Islam throughout history and its impact around the world. Professor Malcolm Clark explores the roots of Islam, how it has developed over the centuries, and its long, complex relationship with Christianity. He helps puts Islam in perspective as a major cultural, geopolitical force.