Showing results by narrator "Mel Foster" in All Categories

The Confessions of St. Augustine is one of the most moving diaries ever recorded of a man's journey to the fountain of God's grace. Writing as a sinner, not a saint, Augustine shares his innermost thoughts and conversion experiences, and wrestles with the spiritual questions that have stirred the hearts of the thoughtful since time began.

For decades, books about John or Robert Kennedy have woven either a shimmering tale of Camelot gallantry or a tawdry story of runaway ambition and reckless personal behavior. But the real story of the Kennedys in the 1960s has long been submerged - until now. In Brothers: The Hidden History of the Kennedy Years, David Talbot sheds a dramatic new light on the tumultuous inner life of the Kennedy presidency and its stunning aftermath. Talbot has written a gripping political history.

When homicide detectives Leo Magozzi and Gino Rolseth are called to a crime scene in a heavily-wooded city park, the setting is all too familiar. And when they discover a playing card on the victim's body, their worst fears are confirmed: There's a serial killer operating in the city for the first time in years. As the violence accelerates in Minneapolis, Magozzi and Rolseth soon realize their killer is planning to complete the deck, and they enlist Grace MacBride and her unconventional partners at Monkeewrench Software to help stop the rampage.

The scent is unmistakable - gardenias, sweet and delicate, the same perfume that his beautiful first wife, Jennifer, always wore. Opening his eyes in the hospital room where he's recovering from an accident, New Orleans detective Rick Bentz sees her standing in the doorway. Then Jennifer blows him a kiss and disappears. But it couldn't have been Jennifer. She died 12 years ago....

In 1654, 23 Jewish families arrived in New Amsterdam (now New York) aboard a French privateer. They were the Sephardim, members of a proud orthodox sect that had served as royal advisors and honored professionals under Moorish rule in Spain and Portugal but were then exiled by intolerant monarchs. A small, closed, and intensely private community, the Sephardim soon established themselves as businessmen and financiers. They became powerful forces in society, with some, like banker Haym Salomon, even providing financial support to George Washington's army during the American Revolution.

Houston homicide detective Roland March was once one of the best. Now he's disillusioned, cynical, and on his way out. His superiors farm him out on a variety of punishment details until an unexpected break gives March one last chance to save his career. And his humanity. All he has to do? Find the missing teenage daughter of a Houston evangelist that every cop in town is already looking for. But March has an inside track: a multiple murder nobody else thinks is connected. Battling a new partner, an old nemesis, and the demons of his past, getting to the truth could cost March everything.

Havana Nocturne takes listeners back to Cuba in the years when it was a veritable devil's playground for mob leaders Meyer Lansky and Charles "Lucky" Luciano. Thanks to strong ties with the island's brutal dictator, President Batista, the mob soon owned the biggest luxury hotels and casinos and launched an unprecedented tourist boom. But their dreams collided with those of Fidel Castro, Che Guevara, and others.

The Napoleonic Wars had torn Europe apart, and the peace conference of 1814 was to be held in the continent's grandest city: Vienna. Everyone had an agenda in the postwar world, and spy networks, bitter hatreds, illicit affairs, and tangled alliances ensued.

As the snow melts and the spring approaches, the animal kingdom awakens. In Summer World, Bernd Heinrich, the best-selling author of Winter World, brings us an up-close and personal view of that awakening and rebirth.

Michael K. Simpson, a senior consultant to FranklinCovey, has spent more than twenty-five years training executives to become effective coaches, mentoring and guiding leaders and managers to encourage and develop the talent of their people - the most important asset in any organization. In this guide, you will acquire the skills to coach your personnel from the ground up, maximizing their potential on a personal level, as members of the team, and as contributors to the organization as a whole.

Beloved author Henry Blackaby and his son Richard help those who are listening to discern the voice of God, to identify ways He speaks, and to respond to revelations of His will. God speaks to individuals in ways that are personal and unique to each person. God will never say anything that contravenes what He has said in the Bible. After you learn to listen to God, hearing from God will be as natural as communicating with a close friend.

Excellent Sheep takes a sharp look at the high-pressure conveyor belt that begins with parents and counselors who demand perfect grades and culminates in the skewed applications Deresiewicz saw firsthand as a member of Yale's admissions committee. As schools shift focus from the humanities to "practical" subjects like economics and computer science, students are losing the ability to think in innovative ways.

Is there more to Buddhism than sitting in silent meditation? Is modern Buddhism relevant to the problems of daily life? Does it empower individuals to transform their lives? Or has Buddhism become too detached, so still and quiet that the Buddha has fallen asleep? Waking the Buddha tells the story of the Soka Gakkai International, the largest, most dynamic Buddhist movement in the world today - and one that is waking up and shaking up Buddhism so it can truly work in ordinary people's lives.

A private detective working in Wilmington, North Carolina, is found dead in a gas-station restroom, apparently poisoned. But when her body sets off radiation alarms in the pathologist's office, suspicion falls on the nearby Helios nuclear power plant, a heavily guarded facility with supposedly fail-safe procedures.

One of the largest, fastest, and most beautiful ships in the world, the Andrea Doria was en route to New York from Italy. Departing from the United States was the much smaller Stockholm. On the foggy night of July 25, 1956, 53 miles southeast of Nantucket, the Stockholm sliced through the Doria's steel hull. Within minutes, the sea was pouring into the Italian liner. Eleven hours later, she capsized and sank into the ocean.

Throughout history, thinkers from mathematicians to theologians have pondered the mysterious relationship between numbers and the nature of reality. In this fascinating book, Mario Livio tells the tale of a number at the heart of that mystery: phi, or 1.6180339887.... This curious mathematical relationship, widely known as "The Golden Ratio", was discovered by Euclid more than 2,000 years ago. Since then it has shown a propensity to appear in the most astonishing variety of places.

Brian Cruver first entered the Enron's office complex, in March 2001. He was an eager MBA ready to cash in as a new hire with one of America's most highly valued companies. But, from his first day - when his new boss warned him, "there was a mix-up in the hiring process," but that it was "no big deal...just think of it like you're adopted" - to his last, when he and his colleagues were given thirty minutes to leave the building, Cruver found himself enmeshed in a business cult that each day grew only more bizarre.

America’s Conspiracies and Cover-Ups brings together interviews with the bestselling and brightest minds in the alternative history world to create the definitive guide to our country’s biggest secrets. Jim Marrs and G. Edward Griffin, along with scholar Noam Chomsky and others experts, come together to answer questions about your favorite conspiracies: Is the Federal Reserve System unconstitutional? Was the IRS created to bail out Big Banks? Are cancer cures and cheap alternative energy being suppressed? Are elections made fraudulent by hacked voting machines?

Paul is second only to Jesus as the most important person in the birth of Christianity, and yet he continues to be controversial, even among Christians. How could the letters of Paul be used both to inspire radical grace and to endorse systems of oppression - condoning slavery, subordinating women, condemning homosexual behavior? Borg and Crossan use the best of biblical and historical scholarship to explain the reasons for Paul's mixed reputation and reveal to us what scholars have known for decades: The later letters of Paul were created by the early church to dilute Paul's message.

In this delightful, acclaimed bestseller, one of the world’s leading cognitive scientists tackles the workings of the human mind. What makes us rational—and why are we so often irrational? How do we see in three dimensions? What makes us happy, afraid, angry, disgusted, or sexually aroused? Why do we fall in love? And how do we grapple with the imponderables of morality, religion, and consciousness?