Showing results by narrator "Chris Ciulla" in All Categories

A Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist pulls back the curtain on the extraordinary inner lives of America’s most obsessive sports fans. There are fans, and then there are fanatics. In this wondrously immersive look at American sports fandom, George Dohrmann travels the country to find out what...

In late November 1941, two college football teams, Willamette University and San Jose State, set sail for Honolulu for a series of games with the University of Hawaii. Instead of a festive few weeks of football and fun, the players found themselves caught up in the first days of the United States' war with Japan. For two weeks after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor on December 7, the young men were recruited to dig and man trenches, string barbed wire, guard hotels, and join patrols as martial law took hold in Honolulu.

In search of Pippa, an exiled teenage heiress, independent space freighter captain Mike Starrunner accepts a cargo for the Hurtworlds, the most hellish planets in the Cluster. The cargo is dirty, and could land the crew in jail...but that's never stopped Mike before. This time, the prize is not just money, but the truth about the Traveller plot that's turned Mike's life upside-down.

Total surrender to God: the surprising key to experiencing the sense of peace and purpose you crave. There is a gnawing feeling inside all of us that says we could be better. If we would just be more organized or work a little harder, we’d finally have the rich and fulfilling life we want. But...

Barnabas has destroyed the Committee's research facility, but his victory came at a cost: his friend Jeltor remains captive and brainwashed. He isn't going to stand for that. He is going to find and rescue his friend, no matter what it takes. But what will he do when he has to decide between saving his friend...and saving an entire planet?

A young actress, involuntarily committed to City of Roses Psychiatric Hospital, plunges James Flynn into a dangerous new adventure when she claims one of the most powerful producers in Hollywood is trying to kill her. Still convinced he's a secret agent for Her Majesty's Secret Service, Flynn springs into action, helps her escape, and finds himself embroiled in a battle with a dangerous sociopath worth billions. In the process, he uncovers a high-tech conspiracy to control the mind of every human being on Earth.

When the Colonial Marines set out after their deadliest prey, the Xenomorphs, it’s what Corporal Hicks calls a bug hunt—kill or be killed. Here are fifteen all-new stories of such “close encounters,” written by many of today’s most extraordinary authors. Set during the events of all four Alien films, sending the Marines to alien worlds, to derelict space settlements, and into the nests of the universe’s most dangerous monsters, these adventures are guaranteed to send the blood racing—one way or another.

Everyone wonders what it's really like in space, but very few of us have ever had the chance to experience it firsthand. This captivating collection brings together stories from dozens of international astronauts - men and women who've actually been there - who have returned with accounts of the sometimes weird, often funny, and awe-inspiring sensations and realities of being in space.

In The Coming of Democracy, Mark R. Cheathem examines the evolution of presidential campaigning from 1824 to 1840. Drawing on period newspapers, diaries, memoirs, and public and private correspondence, The Coming of Democracy is the first book-length treatment to reveal how presidents and presidential candidates used both old and new forms of cultural politics to woo voters and win elections in the Jacksonian era.

As Norway’s newly appointed minister of justice, child-rights advocate Clara Lofthus has a chance to accomplish something meaningful on behalf of the most vulnerable members of society. It couldn’t be more personal. After her husband’s death, she is the sole caretaker of her twin sons, Andreas and Nikolai. She’s also still haunted by her own traumatic childhood—and the lengths to which she was willing to go to pursue her own brand of vigilante justice. How far? No one ever needs to know. And this is just one of Clara’s secrets.

Independent freighter captain Mike Starrunner has seen it all, but when someone freezes his weapons officer into a six-foot cube of cryonite, even Mike is stumped. Who would have done this and why? And what happened to good old carbonite? On skanky, sweltering hub world Ponce de Leon, there’s no shortage of suspects. Fortunately, Mike is a Shifter - genetically gifted with the ability to shift into animal form. Unfortunately, so are the other guys.

A cantankerous talking cactus reveals the significance of colors in flowers. Each different color means something to pollinators - bees, bats, birds, and more - to help them navigate and pollinate easily! This fun, nonfiction presentation of science combines our favorite pollinators and flowers to present new information that may surprise even some adults! 

After surviving an ambush and a firefight on a glacier, Danny and the other mech operators discover that the aliens have sent out a distress signal, seeking extraterrestrial reinforcements. Realizing that they need to prepare for another potential attack, the operators take refuge in a military base where they learn that the Mech Command plans to conduct operations in space in the near future. Armed with this intel, the operators return to Washington, DC where Danny begins to gather evidence about the activities of the head of the Mech Command, Jonas Vidmark.

Warin is one of a small team charting the demise of the last few inhabitants of Retti 4, a distant planet in the throes of an extinction-level virus. It’s not Warin’s job to intervene in natural evolution or to question the whims of a cruel universe. He is only to observe and report. Until Warin actually steps foot on Retti 4.

When Jamie Paddock learns of his father's suicide, memories of his childhood in West Virginia come roaring back. One of the few people in his town to ever make it out, Jamie is living in New York City now, developing marketing videos for YouTube, struggling to write and partying a lot, all while suppressing the accent that gives him away. Spurred by an artistic curiosity surrounding his silent and private father, Jamie goes home, staying with his disabled mother and sister in their trailer.

‘Chilling’ FINANCIAL TIMES ‘Tom Ripley, eat your heart out’ NPR ‘Eerie, shocking, provoking’ GILLIAN FLYNN A chilling, captivating novel about the dark secrets that surface after the shocking disappearance of a charming, mercurial teacher at an elite boarding school. Who is Francis...

A newly minted graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Medical School in 1890, Dr. Thomas Parks heads to the big timber country of Puget Sound to practice trauma medicine. An hour after stepping off the boat, he's nearly crushed to death by a less-than-sure-footed mule and finds himself a patient rather than a physician. As he convalesces, he discovers that his host, a venerable physician friend of his father's, is running an elaborate medical scam, selling worthless concoctions nationwide, with enormous sales.

It’s the hottest winter on record, but Raymond’s demanding, bedridden mother doesn’t mind. She likes it warm. Lately, however, control over the thermostat has become a nasty struggle. And each morning that she’s still alive is a suffocating new challenge for Raymond. How high can the mercury climb before he boils over?

A one-in-a-million story for anyone who loves to laugh, cry, and think about how extraordinary ordinary life can be. Not to be missed by those who loved The Unlikely Pilgrimage of Harold Fry, Elizabeth Is Missing or The Shock of the Fall. Miss Ona Vitkus has - aside from three months in the summer of 1914 - lived unobtrusively, her secrets fiercely protected. The boy, with his passion for world records, changes all that. He is 11. She is 104 years, 133 days old (they are counting).

"We have your granddaughter. Here's what you need to do." That's the text message Supreme Court Justice Arnold Hirschfeld receives as hearings commence in the US Supreme Court to determine the fate of the 28th Amendment - enacted to criminalize abuse of power on the part of our political representatives. In court to defend the amendment, retired US District Court Judge Cyrus Brooks observes his old friend and law school classmate Hirschfeld acting strangely and dispatches veteran D.C. homicide detective Frank Lotello to find out why.