Showing results by narrator "Sean Runnette" in All Categories

So many things have the power to change our lives dramatically - loss, fear, betrayal, failure. When everything goes wrong in life, it's so easy to give in to the pain, frustration, and anger that threaten to overwhelm us. Though we may feel like giving up, there is life - abundant, exciting, and fulfilling - after our world gets turned upside down. In fact, says John Westfall, it's often in the face of fear and loss that we truly learn to live with courage, faith, and surprising joy.

Interfaith marriages fail more often than same-faith partnerships. So what are the chances of survival for the ultimate mixed marriage - one between religious and nonreligious partners? Nearly 20 percent of Americans now self-identify as nonreligious, including millions who are married to religious believers. Despite the differences, many of these marriages succeed beautifully. In this landmark book, popular author and secular humanist Dale McGowan explores some of the stories of these unions.

In the mid-1950s, Kurt Vonnegut takes a job in the PR department at General Electric in Schenectady, where his older brother, Bernard, is a leading scientist in its research lab - or "House of Magic". Kurt has ambitions as a novelist, and Bernard is working on a series of cutting-edge weather-control experiments meant to make deserts bloom and farmers flourish.

Thirty years ago, Roger Fisher and Bill Ury wrote the groundbreaking book Getting to Yes. It established the mutual gains approach to negotiation, or what the popular media likes to call "win-win negotiation". But there are few, if any, negotiating situations in which everyone can get everything they want. In reality, most people want to win at win-win negotiation. And the way to win is to come up with a proposed agreement that is "good" for the other side and "great" for you.

Retired (and exiled) Marine Lieutenant General Colby Edison’s farm is overrun by a horde of alien plants, leafy gremlin-like creatures that begin systematically destroying first his crops and then his home. And not just his farm, but all the surrounding farms as well. The relentless plants have apparently killed his neighbors, and clearly, he and his dog Duke are next. But as a retired Marine, Colby has resources and skills not shared by other farmers on the newly terraformed agricultural world of Vasquez and soon he is bringing the fight to the invaders.

For Mo Collins, surviving the zombie apocalypse isn’t getting any easier. Defeating blunatics, saving survivors, recovering treasure, and securing Guntersville Island has been taking up Mo’s time when he would rather just make time with his girl. But he can’t avoid his scripted destiny; his personal Oracle, Smokes, won’t let him. He can still bitch about it, though.

The author of Breakfast with Buddha brings his characteristic whimsy to a new novel about New York book editor Otto Ringling and Mongolian monk Volya Rinpoche, who embark on a road trip from Rinpoche's meditation center in North Dakota to the glitter and glitz of the Las Vegas strip.

The conclusion to The Last Survivors series. The final battle for Brighton. Winthrop's army is on the move as Jingo and his crew rediscover an ancient secret that might change everyone's fate. Amidst the chaos, Bray vows to fulfill a promise made in the blood of a dying mother. Can the last survivors restore what is left of humanity, or will civilization crumble once again?

Once upon a time, Hoagy had it all: a hugely successful debut novel, a gorgeous celebrity wife, the glamorous world of New York City at his feet. These days, he scrapes by as a celebrity ghostwriter. A celebrity ghostwriter who finds himself investigating murders more often than he'd like. And once upon a time, Richard Aintree was the most famous writer in America. But after his wife's death, Richard went into mourning...and then into hiding. No one has heard from him in 20 years.

Jason Grimshaw has one job. Get the cadets to Colony 115. Just another day. Just another milk run. Or so he thought. When scanners pick up an unidentified alien vessel, it's already too late. With his ship blown out from under him, and his crew scattered across a war-torn planet, his day just keeps getting better. The good news is, one of the pilots survived. The bad news is, it's the biggest pain in his ass, and she's stranded miles away.

When Columbia professor Dickson Despommier set out to solve America's food, water, and energy crises, he didn't just think big - he thought up. The vertical farm has excited scientists, architects, and politicians around the globe. These farms, grown inside skyscrapers, would provide solutions to many of the serious problems we currently face.

In a crumbling futuristic society, Earth is only a myth, the technological advances of centuries have faded into distant memory, and space travel depends on a fleet of run-down, unreliable ships. Only the brave-or foolhardy-undertake such risky journeys. The brave, the foolhardy-and the runners… Jak Rebo is one such runner, whose current job is to deliver a future religious leader to his people, while avoiding assassins.

President Andrew Johnson succeeded to the presidency suddenly, when Abraham Lincoln was killed by an assassin. Confronted with the prospect of Reconstruction—bringing the Union back together after a prolonged Civil War—Johnson tolerated harsh treatment of former slaves in South­ern states, believing that it was up to the states to determine their status.

Understanding wealth in the United States - who has it, how they acquired it, and how they preserve it - is crucial to addressing the economic and political challenges facing the nation. But until now we have had little reliable information. Edward Wolff, one of the world's great experts on the economics of wealth, offers an authoritative account of patterns in the accumulation and distribution of wealth since 1900. A Century of Wealth in America demonstrates that the most remarkable change has been the growth of per capita household wealth.

From late 1872 to 1876, H.M.S. Challenger explored the world's oceans. Conducting deep sea soundings, dredging the ocean floor, recording temperatures, observing weather, and collecting biological samples, the expedition laid the foundations for modern oceanography. Following the ship's naturalists and their discoveries, earth scientist Doug Macdougall engagingly tells a story of Victorian-era adventure and ties these early explorations to the growth of modern scientific fields.

President Warren G. Harding faced a wrecked economy in the after­math of World War I and a period of intense fear and suspicion of foreign threats. Despite a Supreme Court that continued to countenance the sup­pression of citizens’ speech under the First Amendment, Harding bucked his advisers and commuted the sentence of Socialist activist Eugene V. Debs.

In The Age of Intoxication, Benjamin Breen offers a window into a time when drugs were not yet separated into categories - illicit and licit, recreational and medicinal, modern and traditional - and there was no barrier between the drug dealer and the pharmacist.

How did Alan Mulally - an outsider to the auto industry - lead such a spectacular turnaround at Ford? How did Morgan Stanley CEO John Mack keep his company from imploding even as Lehman Brothers collapsed? What is it that enables such extraordinary leaders to galvanize their talents and energy, as well as the talents and energy of those who work for them, to achieve superior performance no matter what challenges they face?

In Breach of Trust, Andrew Bacevich takes stock of the separation between Americans and their military, tracing its origins to the Vietnam era and exploring its pernicious implications: a nation with an abiding appetite for war waged at enormous expense by a standing army demonstrably unable to achieve victory. Among the collateral casualties are values once considered central to democratic practice, including the principle that responsibility for defending the country should rest with its citizens.

Three titans of finance predicted the current economic crisis several years ago, but their warnings went unheeded. A New York Times best-selling author distills the wisdom of all three.

Throughout the violent financial disruptions of the past several years, three men have stood out as beacons of judgment and wisdom: Warren Buffett, George Soros, and Paul Volcker.