Showing results by narrator "A.K." in All Categories

By twenty-four, Carter Stevenson has stuttered and ticced his way to debilitating shyness. Although his friends accuse him of letting his Tourette's dictate his life, Carter moves from Los Angeles to a quiet California town. He'll keep his head down and avoid people. He doesn't anticipate his new neighbor, Ethan Hart, crashing into his solitude and forcing him to get out and live.

Who are we? What is our place in this vast and ever-evolving universe? Where do science and spirituality meet? If you’ve pondered these questions, you’re not alone. Join some of the most spiritually curious and renowned minds of our time for an exploration into the mystery of being. From founders of the Science and Nonduality (SAND) conference, Maurizio and Zaya Benazzo, On the Mystery of Being brings together an array of visionary spiritual leaders, psychologists, philosophers, scientists, teachers, authors, and healers to celebrate and explore what it means to be human.

This is every omega’s dream…right? Waking up in a stranger's bed and discovering I’m married to one of the wealthiest men on the planet sounds like some crazy dream. Discovering that the man in question is also some holy hot alpha and we’re not only married but bonded, sounds like one of those dreams that turn pretty steamy–a dream many women would give their right arm to be living. But when the alpha whisks me back to his mansion in the city of Rockview, I also discover this alpha has a pack.

As a professional plumber, I pride myself on running an honest business. But with pipes come peculiar situations - you wouldn't believe the things I've pulled out of plumbing systems. Fish, exotic sea life, and even small animals have all found their way into my care. Living a lonely life with only Temple Bar as a safe haven for lesbians in Detroit, love has always been elusive for me. So when Lauren and her new wife invite me over for a couples night, I wonder what they could possibly want with a single woman like me.

Through compelling case studies, including those of Starbucks, Coca-Cola, Sony, Amazon, and Google Books, Vaidhyanathan shows that the modern intellectual property systems reflect three centuries of changes in politics, economics, technologies, and social values. Although it emerged from a desire to foster creativity while simultaneously protecting it, intellectual property today has fundamentally shifted to a political dimension.

Technology has changed the way we date - a single swipe gives new meaning to being rejected. But no matter what the advances - good and bad - the ritual is pretty much the same: meet, connect, and fall in love. And while a positive chemical reaction can boost your confidence, a series of bad dates can lead to depression, giving up, or remaining stuck in a negative dating cycle.

As a boy, Raun Kaufman was diagnosed by multiple experts as severely autistic, with an IQ below 30, and destined to spend his life in an institution. Years later, Raun graduated with a degree in biomedical ethics from Brown University and has become a passionate and articulate autism expert and educator with no trace of his former condition. Thanks to the Son-Rise Program, a revolutionary method created by his parents, Raun experienced a full recovery from autism.

Of all the relationships you will have in your life, none are more critical than your marriage. Your husband or wife is more than your mate. They are your partner in life. When you are in a good marriage, the trials of life are easier, because you have someone to shoulder the burden with you. And yet, according to the most recent census data, the divorce rate in the United States and other developed nations is at 50 percent!

Charlie O’Reilly is an only child. Which is why it makes everyone uncomfortable when he talks about his brother. Liam. His eight-year-old kid brother, who, up until a year ago, slept in the bunk above Charlie, took pride in being as annoying as possible, and was the only person who could make Charlie laugh until it hurt. Then came the morning when the bunk, and Liam, disappeared forever. No one even remembers him - not Charlie’s mother, who has been lost in her own troubles; and not Charlie’s father, who is gone frequently on business trips.

A family doctor with limited surgical experience, Dr. Dave Hnida volunteered for two tours of duty in Iraq - first as a battalion surgeon with a combat unit and then as trauma chief at the busiest Combat Support Hospital (CSH) during the Surge. Like a modern-day M*A*S*H, Dr. Hnida and his team conducted surgery under terrible conditions in a series of tents connected to the occasional run-down building.

As a Keeper of the Peace (Kop) for the mystical world of Alius, my team and I were sent to investigate a series of kidnappings within the supernatural community. It was in the warehouse that I met Nimera. She was a mermaid trapped in a tank, forced to entertain the worst kind of men. But I screwed up, and gunshots were fired. Nimera was suddenly dying in my arms...so I did the only thing I could, making her like me, a vampire.

On one of the coldest nights in Minnesota history, the difference between life and death is literally the blink of an eye for Phil Broker, until recently St. Paul's most successful undercover cop. That blink will convey the urgent warning of a comatose man who knows the dark truth binding Broker to a remarkable cast of characters: a weary anesthesiologist, a brilliant surgeon, a wealthy novelist, his ex-wife (a reformed exotic dancer), and her unrepentant pimp.

Adam is in Doha, Qatar, making a map of the Hijra, a historic migration from Mecca to Medina, and worried about where his next paycheck will come from. Zayneb is in Chicago, where school and extracurricular stresses are piling on top of a terrible frenemy situation, making her miserable. Then a marvel occurs: Adam and Zayneb get the chance to spend Thanksgiving week on the Umrah, a pilgrimage to Mecca and Medina, in Saudi Arabia.

“What doesn’t kill us makes us stronger,” the adage—adapted from Nietzsche’s famous maxim—goes. But how much truth is there to that ubiquitous, inexhaustible saying? Tracing the lives of six people who have experienced profoundly life-changing events, journalist Mike Mariani explores the nuances and largely uncharted territory of what happens after one’s life is severed into a before and after. If what doesn’t kill us does not necessarily make us stronger, he asks, what does it make us?

I was a city girl with humble dreams. Then Dylan O’Dea broke into my flat, held me against the wall, and told me to stay quiet. It was like in the movies, where the universe zeros in on a single scene. I looked into his eyes and knew he was going to change me. For Dylan, the sky was always falling. He showed me how our world is a contradiction of beauty and ugliness. How we choose to ignore the awful and gloss over it with the palatable. How you need just a tiny drop of something unsavoury to create every great scent.

I'm Evan Goodman, budding actor, future star, college freshman. Oh, and let's not forget - recently dumped. If only my family wasn't expecting to meet my new boyfriend over the holiday break. Enter JD Laurens - a sweet and quiet science major who mostly keeps to himself.

The focus of this book is on aliens having visited or living on this Earth. There is lots of evidence that not only are aliens on Earth during the present, but have been here for thousands if not millions of years. There are lots of stories and some good evidence that this is all true. Even today there are videos of alien craft, and stories in the news about our government still studying and reporting on aliens visiting us.

We live in a secular, skeptical, and cynical age. Americans have lost faith in its institutions - including the church. Although the vast majority of Christian leaders serve faithfully, examples of financial fraud, greed, sexual and emotional abuse, and other systemic problems are almost everyday occurrences. And a watching world has a right to ask even those who are faithful ministers of the Gospel: “If you knew this was happening, why didn’t you say something?”

Naomi Mills, a police sergeant out of the Gary Police Department, is emotionally conflicted when it comes to protecting and cleaning up the streets of G.I. When she and her team of detectives run across a murderous group of masked assailants known only as the Death Dealers and whose sole purpose is to terrorize the streets of G.I., Naomi is determined to bring the killers to justice, but when the Death Dealers suddenly target her and her loved ones, she suspects police corruption in her own department.

Homer's epic tale of the warrior Odysseus' decades-long struggle to return home after the Trojan War is simply and beautifully retold, with all the drama intact. Young listeners will thrill at Odysseus' adventures with the man-eating Cyclops; the enchantress Circe, who turns his crew into pigs; and the angry sea god Poseidon.