Showing results by narrator "Roger Clark" in All Categories

Beasts of the Earth tells the story of Harlen LeBlanc, a dependable if quiet employee of the Carter Hills High School’s grounds department whose carefully maintained routine is overthrown by an act of violence. As the town searches for answers, LeBlanc strikes out on his own to exonerate a friend while drawing the eyes of the law to himself and fending off unwelcome voices that call for a sterner form of justice.

The modern conception of sacrifice is at once cast as a victory of self-discipline over desire and condescended to as destructive and archaic abnegation. But even in the Old Testament, the dual natures of sacrifice, embodying both ritual slaughter and moral rectitude, were at odds. In this analysis, Terry Eagleton makes a compelling argument that the idea of sacrifice has long been misunderstood. Pursuing the complex lineage of sacrifice in a lyrical discourse, Eagleton focuses on the Old and New Testaments, offering a virtuosic analysis of the crucifixion.

Urgency - that frantic feeling that we need to be doing more, and faster - is a destructive force in today's workplace. Unnecessary urgency can be toxic, causing stress and burnout. But not all urgency is bad, and sometimes we really do need to get things done quickly. Too little urgency can lead to inaction and lost productivity. So how do we find the right balance where we can use urgency as a meaningful tool to keep productivity up without generating burnout? Urgent! is a guide to using urgency for good to help achieve your goals, to drive success, and minimize stress.

In 410 CE, arrogant 16-year-old Magonus Sucatus Patricius denounces Christianity as a religion for cowards when the Roman legions withdraw, leaving Britain vulnerable to raiders from the west. Determined to wield a sword despite being the grandson of a priest, the affluent young man is taken captive by barbarians and sold into slavery to a cruel Irish king. On a mountaintop in Eire, a shepherd strips him of his grand Roman name and calls him Padraic, marking him a man of no consequence.

In a May 2019 countrywide referendum, Ireland voted overwhelmingly to make abortion legal; three years earlier, it had done the same with same-sex marriage. With help from prominent Irish and Irish American voices like historian and best-selling author Tim Pat Coogan and the New York Times' Maureen Dowd, A New Ireland tells the story of a modern revolution against all odds.

George Bernard Shaw has been called the second greatest playwright in English (after William Shakespeare) and one of the inventors of modern celebrity as the most famous public intellectual of his time. Beginning in the 1880s, as a critic and as a playwright, he transformed British drama, bringing to it intellectual substance, ethical imperatives, and modernity itself, setting the theatrical course for the subsequent century. That his legacy endures 70 years after his death is testament to the prescience of his thinking and his prolific creativity. 

The first quarter of the new century has seen developments in technology, monetary policy, and the management of large companies that have transformed personal savings and investment around the world. Love it, loathe it, or just not interested in it, this innovation has changed not only the nature of money but our understanding of what it means to invest—whether we want to safeguard our pensions, experiment with personal trading platforms, or simply understand how the markets really work. How to Invest aims to help investors navigate this new world.

The death of Donald Ray in a freak car accident becomes the catalyst for the release of passions, needs, and hurts. Clayton’s discovery of dead Donald Ray upends his longtime emotional numbness. Darlene, the seventeen-year-old widow, struggles to reconnect with her late husband while proving herself still alive. Soon Clayton and Darlene’s bond of loss and death works its magic, drawing them into an affair that brings the loneliness in Clayton’s marriage to a crisis. When Aurilla Cutter, Clayton’s mother-in-law, learns about the affair, her own memories are set loose.

In 1785, a young American named James Leander Cathcart is kidnapped at sea and carried as prisoner to the maverick North African statelet of Algiers. The piratical corsairs of Algiers have decided to exploit the vulnerability of the United States by seizing its mariners and holding them for ransom. Today, the name of James Leander Cathcart has been all but forgotten.

Alan Duncan met Maddy Mills at a party. They fell in love and moved in together. What led to Alan’s murder as he went on his weekly run four years later? In Wiltshire, England, the Crime Review Team was formed to investigate cold cases. Headed by Gus Freeman, the team has several successful cold-case investigations behind them. Gus Freeman suspects that both Alan and Maddy were hiding from someone. The facts of Alan’s murder lead to an intriguing and complex cold case that will take all of Gus’s skills to unravel.

Rising star and spoken word poet Jae Nichelle debuts her luminous thoughts in God Themselves, a new collection of stirring poetry. Nichelle taps into her experiences of growing up in the South as a queer Black woman to courageously confront the effects of a forced religion and the inherent dangers of living life in a female body. God Themselves is divided into three equally moving sections: Everything, Everywhere, and Love. Nichelle braids her wisdom—as seen in the poem “What to Do When There’s Nothing You Can Do”––and witty generational humor—seen in “Sanctity: An Exposé”—into every poem.

She is in hell. Trapped in the shadows, Rainey is unable to do much more than watch while her entire life is destroyed. While the Original Witch's plan continues to fall perfectly in place, it's up to Elijah to put it all on the line and save his hunter. Or die trying.

It's summer, 1942, and after a tough couple of years, DI Tom Tyler is making a fresh start in Ludlow, Shropshire. On the outskirts of town, St. Anne's Convalescent Hospital, staffed by nursing sisters who are Anglican nuns, has been established in an old manor house to help victims of the war to recover. After a horrifying double murder is discovered on the grounds, Tyler must figure out how the crime could have occurred in such a secluded and presumably impenetrable place.

Kendal Guthrie could start an argument in an empty room, but who killed him, and why? The Crime Review Team was formed in Wiltshire, England, to investigate old cold cases. Headed by Gus Freeman, the team has successfully solved several cases, using old witness statements plus fresh clues. Kendal Guthrie argued with five people in a remote country pub on the night he died. How could the killer have reached Guthrie’s farm ahead of him that night? It seemed impossible. Gus Freeman believes that distance, time, and locations are the key to solving the mystery.

Sidney's victory over the undead instills within him the confidence to think that the island is his for the taking, but it becomes clear that others are staking a claim on the same lands. His newest foes use the dirtiest of tactics to employ the unwilling to do his bidding. A whole new weapon must be developed and deployed to ensure that Sidney can lay claim to his new home and create a safe haven for his new people and lay the groundwork for his new empire.

Dennis Gates, a forty-nine-year-old car dealer in Marlborough, was at his office in August, 2010, when a young man drove onto the forecourt of the garage, pulled up by the office door, and calmly walked around the front of the car. Gates came to the door expecting to greet a potential customer. The killer swung a gun up and fired twice from point-blank range, hitting Gates in the throat. The police believed it was a possible contract killing.

In Wiltshire, England, the Crime Review Team is headed by Gus Freeman, pulled back to the police force after three years in retirement. With old witness statements plus fresh clues, the hunt can be on again. Freeman and his team now have several successful cold-case investigations behind them. Ursula Wakeley, a seventy-eight-year-old spinster, was murdered in 2013. Why did the former librarian become a victim? Was it a robbery or something more sinister? Returning to the Crime Review Team is Alex Hardy, and Blessing Umeh is a new member, giving Gus Freeman new hands and new issues.

George Arrow, a good-looking, independently wealthym and single man of 36, has just been diagnosed with a weak heart. A heart so weak, his doctor tells him, he must go to extraordinary lengths to avoid putting the slightest strain upon it. On his doctor's advice, George packs up his life in Dublin and boards a train to the Bay of Galway where he intends to live quietly in a hotel and await the inevitable end. On the train, he meets John Burden, and as they chat, George realizes that his new acquaintance is an odious man.

McCormack's myth-tinged debut novel gives us the unforgettable Crowe and his endlessly curious and self-mythologizing stories. Crowe is born in the remote village of Furnace in the West of Ireland and raised by his grandfather, a man of "madness and bullying love", who teaches him grim lessons about existence. Entirely silent until his third birthday, Crowe becomes an observant and isolated teenager, eventually leaving Furnace for university in a "wrong-footed" and bewildering city. There he meets a woman who will change his life and outlook.

A man is found dead after a house fire. Detective Fiona Moore suspects foul play. It's not the charred remains of Tony Phelan that really trouble Dublin law enforcement, or the traces of accelerant, so much as the bullet hole in his chest. When a weapon is recovered at the back of the still-smoldering house, it will be the first clue that the death is connected to China.