Showing results by narrator "Christopher Ragland" in All Categories

This book identifies the seven key emerging Internet-related technologies: Internet of things, smart everything, big data, cloud computing, cybersecurity, software-defined networking, and online education. This book provides an introduction, applications, benefits, and challenges for each technology.

The Definitive War Novels Collection is a collection of 8 works that all centre around the destruction of war, and span out to encompass themes from family to love and beyond. Read by esteemed cast of award-winning narrators, included here are novels and epics from George Orwell; Ernest Hemingway; Leo Tolstoy; Homer; Rebecca West; and many more.

Late one spring night, Driss Guerraoui, a Moroccan immigrant in California, is walking across a darkened intersection when he is killed by a speeding car. The repercussions of his death bring together a diverse cast of characters: Guerraoui's daughter Nora, a jazz composer who returns to the small town in the Mojave she thought she'd left for good; his widow Maryam, who still pines after her life in the old country....

Two men meet in the picturesque backstreets of Athens. Chester MacFarlane is a conman with multiple false identities, near the end of his rope and on the run with his young wife Colette. Rydal Keener is a young drifter looking for adventure: He finds it in one evening as the law catches up to Chester and Colette, and their fates become fatally entwined.

The American literary tradition has, in a far shorter span of time than others throughout history, achieved a glowing and glittering reputation. From its transatlantic roots it has absorbed the sons and daughters of other cultures, other lands and made them part of her own. Within this melting pot of styles, genres and wordplay one fact stands out: In the American short story, literary tradition has a strong, vibrant and almost inclusive history, if you know where to look.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on 4th July 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, a town synonymous with the earlier Salem Witch Trials. It was instrumental in Hawthorne’s later use of American Gothic and dark romanticism in his writing. He was a mere four years old when his father died and his mother took him and his two sisters to live with her family and then on to their own home in Raymond, Maine. The young Hawthorne had a passion for fiction and poetry and voraciously read the works of Ann Radcliffe, Henry Fielding and Lord Byron.

Edward Everett Hale was born on April 3rd, 1822, in Boston, Massachusetts. He was a prodigy, gifted with extraordinary literary skills. At only 13 he graduated from Boston Latin School and enrolled at Harvard College. There, he settled in with the literary set, won two Bowdoin prizes and was elected Class Poet. He graduated in 1839. His literary career started quite late. It wasn’t until 1859 that he was first published in the Atlantic with his short story "My Double and How He Undid Me." In 1863 the Atlantic published perhaps his best-known work "The Man Without a Country."

In this series we explore the many facets of love through literary talents that span both time and country. Love is good. It’s positive, a source of joy, nourishment and all over goodness. But sometimes other more malevolent forces come to play. They infect that love, they see their form as better. Instinctively we would shy away but sometimes its pull is too powerful, almost attractive. We are drawn closer into the shadows.

‘If you care about the planet, and about the people and animals who live on it, there are two ways to think about this. You can keep on hoping that catastrophe is preventable, and feel ever more frustrated or enraged by the world’s inaction. Or you can accept that disaster is coming, and begin to rethink what it means to have hope.’ The honesty and realism of Jonathan Franzen’s writings on climate have been widely denounced and just as widely celebrated.

In a world ravaged by the effects of climate change, sixteen-year-old Joe has been left with nothing but mountains full of junk. When Joe and his friends are caught in an avalanche of waste, six-year-old Lily is left deathly ill, and Joe sets out towards a mysterious city to seek out help. Nothing could prepare him for what he finds on the way: a dangerous prince wearing a suit made of stars, the wolf from Red Riding Hood bearing its teeth, and the reality-changing power of storytelling aloud.

Daily Guideposts 2018 centers on the theme “Unfailing Love” from Psalm 33:22, and is filled with brand-new devotions from forty-nine writers. Each day listeners will enjoy a Scripture verse, a true first-person story told in an informal, conversational style, which shares the ways God speaks to us in the ordinary events of life, and a brief prayer to help focus the listener to apply the day’s message. For those who wish for more, “Digging Deeper” provides additional Bible references that relate to the day’s reading.

Being an English author in a new and different culture seems to work its magic when these two are placed together in the same spot with a rich vocabulary; ideas seem more fully formed and characters have another edge to their existence. For the outsider looking in, more can be revealed and shared with ourselves.

William Sydney Porter was born on 11th September 1862 in Greensboro, North Carolina. At age 3 his mother died from tuberculosis. From an early age it was clear Porter had a large appetite for reading as he absorbed the world around him. In December 1899 in McClure’s Magazine he published a short story as O Henry.

When there is no more room in hell, the dead will walk the Earth. George A. Romero's iconic film and novel terrified generations. Now Dawn of the Dead is back to terrify once more. The world is being devastated by zombies. No one knows how far they have spread, or how to stop them. And as the living fight to save themselves, society collapses. Four people escape the chaos of downtown Philadelphia and find shelter in a shopping mall. As the survivors exhaust their greed and the undead scrape at the doors, the refuge becomes a prison. And soon there will be nowhere left to hide....

An unusual love. Two broken hearts. What difference does 10 years make? Annika Rose has always been different. Sensory overload is a constant problem for her. She has a hard time reading people and feels lost in social situations. She's a brilliant chess player but can't pull an outfit together to save her life. In her last year of college, she's the weird girl whose only real friend is her roommate, Janice. Then, one day, Jonathan joins the chess club and is immediately captivated by the mysterious girl whose attention is completely fixed on her game.

Andy Prescott is the most laid-back young lawyer in Austin, Texas. Specialising in traffic law, he operates from a small room above a ramshackle tattoo parlour. He rides a trail bike and spends way too much time drinking beer in the sunshine. Ambition has never been Andy's strong point - he prefers to take it easy. That is, until one of Texas's wealthiest men walk into his office.

John Carter risks everything to rescue his wife, Princess Dejah Thoris, from the clutches of his evil adversaries, but he is always just one step behind! His battles cover the face of the red planet, as his quest carries him ultimately to the mysterious northern pole. Will this civilization, submerged in ice, prove fatal to our hero?

Richard Edward Connell Jr was born on the 17th October 1893, in Poughkeepsie, New York. During the First World War Connell served in France with the US Army and was the editor of his camp's newspaper. After the war he turned to writing short stories, and eventually wrote over 300 of them for the periodicals and journals of the day, including regular contributions to The Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s. The attention of his audience kept him popular for decades. He is perhaps best remembered for his macabre short story ‘The Most Dangerous Game’, written in 1924.

Art and life. Each the mirror of the other. This then is the classic definition of what ‘Realism’ as a writing form really is. Some might call it a fancy term for the mundane day to day pursuits but in the hands of an author it comes alive. We are drawn into characters and landscapes that we can empathize with, we can, metaphorically speaking, help shoulder their burden, be on the long trail with them whatever the landscapes, the hurdles, incidents and other people may place in their literary way.

O Henry is perhaps the master of the American short story across his 600 works. Slices of life, vignettes of narrative are told with verve and poise and words that simply flow as he wanders through society revealing characters and stories of instant appeal.