Showing results by narrator "Kiff VandenHeuvel" in All Categories

They surged into Washington by the tens of thousands in the spring of 1971. Fiery radicals, flower children, and militant vets gathered for the most audacious act in a years-long movement to end America’s war in Vietnam: a blockade of the nation’s capital. And the White House, headed by an increasingly paranoid Richard Nixon, was determined to stop it.

In The Forgotten, Ben Bradlee, Jr., reports on how voters in Luzerne County, a pivotal county in a crucial swing state, came to feel like strangers in their own land - marginalized by flat or falling wages, rapid demographic change, and a liberal culture that mocks their faith and patriotism.

The Saint Makers chronicles the unlikely alliance between Father Hotze and Dr. Andrea Ambrosi, a country priest and a cosmopolitan Italian canon lawyer, as the two piece together the life of a long dead Korean War hero and military chaplain and fashion it into a case for eternal divinity. Joe Drape offers a front row seat to the Catholic Church's saint-making machinery—which, in many ways, has changed little in 2,000 years-and examines how, or if, faith and science can coexist.

For years, Pastors John Siebeling and Wayne Francis have led thriving congregations that are the embodiment of diversity; Siebeling in Memphis and Francis in New York City. Many churches and leaders have sought their counsel, hoping to emulate their success. At the height of the Black Lives Matter protests in Summer 2020, they pooled their insights and experiences to help others facilitate conversations about racism. The guide they developed is the basis of God and Race.

Beetle-browed, nearly bald, with a head that rode his collarbones like a bowling ball returning on rails, his waist size more than half his five-foot, eight-inch height, Two Ton Tony Galento resembled, according to Collier's magazine writer Jack Miley, ''a taxi driving away with its top down.'' By all measures he stood no chance when he stepped into the ring against the Brown Bomber, Joe Louis, the finest heavyweight of his generation.

The only book-length account of the life of Wendell Scott, the one-time moonshine runner who broke the color barrier in stock-car racing in 1952 and, against all odds, competed for more than 20 years in a sport dominated by Southern Whites.

Lieutenant Colonel Allen Forrester receives the commission of a lifetime when he is charged to navigate Alaska's hitherto impassable Wolverine River with only a small group of men. The Wolverine is the key to opening up Alaska and its rich natural resources to the outside world, but previous attempts have ended in tragedy. Forrester leaves behind his young wife, Sophie, newly pregnant with the child he had never expected to have.

A pause-resisitng narrative about Marissa Mayer's efforts to remake Yahoo as well as her own rise from Stanford University undergrad to CEO of a $30 billion corporation by the age of 38. When Yahoo hired star Google executive Mayer to be its CEO in 2012 employees rejoiced. They put posters on the walls throughout Yahoo's California headquarters. On them there was Mayer's face and one word: Hope. But one year later, Mayer sat in front of those same employees in a huge cafeteria on Yahoo's campus and took the beating of her life.

When an American Airlines plane explodes in the sky, detectives Alex Cross and John Sampson are first on the scene. They don't hear the gunfire. At first. The weapon that took down the plane is a remote-controlled Vietnam-War-era machine gun. The list of those who possess the training and expertise to operate the stolen .50-caliber weapon is short. And time runs even shorter. But this isn't the only case the pair must solve. They're also tracking a serial killer who's ambushing young men in what the media are calling the 'Dead Hours' murders.

The experts say that America's best days are behind us, that mediocre long-term economic growth is baked in the cake, and that politically, socially, and racially, the United States will continue to tear itself apart. But David Smick - hedge fund strategist and author of the 2008 best seller The World Is Curved - argues that the experts are wrong.

While many volumes devoted to the punk and hardcore scenes in America grace bookstore shelves, Canada’s contributions to the genre remain largely unacknowledged. For the first time, the birth of Canadian punk - a transformative cultural force that spread across the country at the end of the 1970s - is captured between the pages of this important resource. Delving deeper than standard band biographies, this book articulates how the advent of punk reshaped the culture of cities across Canada, speeding along the creation of alternative means of cultural production, consumption, and distribution.

Widely regarded as one of the greatest ever sportspeople, Roger Federer is a global phenomenon. From his humble beginnings as a temperamental teenager to becoming symbol of enduring greatness, The Master is the definitive biography of a global icon who is both beloved and yet intensely private. But his path from temperamental bleach-blond teenager with dubious style sense to one of the greatest, most self-possessed and elegant of competitors has been a long-running act of will, not destiny. He not only had a great gift. He had grit.

The Invasion of Okinawa was one of the bloodiest battles in the Pacific Theatre, and Roy Wilkes, USMC, was unfortunate enough to have a front-row seat. True, gripping stories of being a scared 17-year-old Combat Marine trying to stay alive behind enemy lines. He witnessed 23 of his friends die in a bombing. True, gripping stories and pictures reveal the mind, heart, and soul of a fighting WWII Marine. This fascinating book is also a perfect history lesson for war buffs and students since it covers all aspects of the Battle of Okinawa: Mental, emotional, historical, and personal.

Michael Bennett says a prayer every time he witnesses a death. In his line of work, it happens too often. But lately he’s attended so many police funerals that his deepening sadness is crossing into the zone of suspicion. Bennett must find the person responsible for the deaths of his friends – before he becomes their next target.

"Suddenly, from across the hall, came a cry - sharp, uncanny, terrible. I ran out in the direction from which it had come and stood on the threshold of the Drew dining room. A table was set with gleaming silver and white linen, and in its center stood a cake, on which fifty absurd pink candles flickered bravely. There appeared to be no one in the room. On the other side of the table, a French window stood open to the fog, and I went around to investigate. I had taken perhaps a dozen steps when I stopped, appalled...."

Andrew Birch is a Company Man - a spy, a soldier, a saboteur... a corporate terrorist by any other name. He is one of the top operatives for Astradyne, one of the giant corporations that now rule the irradiated world he lives in. Among his peers, his ruthless efficiency and his love for the company are legendary. Then, on a routine mission, a chance encounter puts an all-too-human face on the consequences of corporate rule. As Birch begins to question the world he has helped build, corporate war breaks out - and he finds himself a pawn in a game that goes deeper than he imagined.

Based on WSJ. Magazine's "Columnist" page, which debuted in 2013, On Point collects the very best of the publications interviews, from Dwayne Wade on Discipline and Simone Biles on Impulse to Yoko Ono on Patience and Sarah Jessica Parker on Transformation. The result is a book that informs, delights, and inspires.

Richard MacMurray, a cable news talking head, is paid handsomely to pontificate on the issues of the moment. On New Year's Day he is scheduled to be a guest on a prominent morning talk show. As he awaits the broadcast, the network interrupts with news that a jet airliner has crashed in Dallas and that everyone aboard has perished. Within an hour, amateur videotape surfaces of the plane's last moments, transforming the crash into a living image: familiar, constant, and horrifying. Richard learns that his sister, Mary Beth, was aboard the doomed flight, leaving behind her six-year-old son, Gabriel.

Hollows Bend is a picture-perfect New England town where tourists flock to see fall leaves and eat breakfast at the Stairway Diner. The crime rate – zero – is a point of pride for Sheriff Ellie Pritchett. The day the stranger shows up is when the trouble starts. The sheriff and her deputy investigate the mysterious teenage girl. None of the locals can place her. She can’t – or won’t – answer any questions. She won’t even tell them her name. While the girl is in protective custody, the officers are called to multiple crime scenes leading them closer and closer to a lake outside of town.

Carl Chesterfield wishes he could speak up - whether that means being honest with his father about the family's new (and failing) food truck, reaching out to a potential friend, or alerting others to the fact that monsters might be secretly overrunning his hometown of Pittsburgh. There's plenty to fret over. And plenty to question.