Showing results by publisher "Recorded Books" in Words, Language & Grammar

This unforgettable children’s classic has been captivating children and adults alike for almost a century. Rebecca’s widowed mother has a failing farm, meager resources, and seven children to raise. When her spinster sisters offer Rebecca a home and an education, Mrs. Randall bundles her second eldest into a stagecoach with a kiss and an admonition to stay out of mischief. Could she be asking too much of the free-spirited imp with sparkling eyes and insatiable curiosity?

Stalky & Co. is a book published in 1899 (following serialization in the Windsor Magazine) by Rudyard Kipling, about adolescent boys at a British boarding school. It is a collection of linked short stories in format, with some information about the charismatic Stalky character in later life. The character Beetle, one of the main trio, is partly based on Kipling himself. Stalky is based on Lionel Dunsterville, M'Turk is based on George Charles Beresford, and Mr. King is based on William Carr Crofts.

Le Guin’s sharp and witty voice is on full display in this collection of twenty-four essays, revised by the author a decade after its initial publication in 1979. The collection covers a wide range of topics and Le Guin’s origins as a writer, her advocacy for science fiction and fantasy as mediums for true literary exploration, the writing of her own major works such as A Wizard of Earthsea and The Left Hand of Darkness, and her role as a public intellectual and educator.

The renowned author of Brave New World, Aldous Huxley, made his literary debut with the 1921 classic Crome Yellow. Set in post-WWI England, this perennial favorite satirizes the fads and fashions of the time with the tale of a hapless couple who join a colorful mix of British aristocrats attending a party at a rural country estate.

Over time, literary agent Elizabeth Kracht noticed that many submissions had similar problems, so she began to make a list of the pitfalls. She knew that even excellent projects could be rejected based on these surmountable issues because those on the receiving end of proposals most often don’t have the time to walk writers through needed adjustments. The checklist Kracht has created helps writers make their manuscripts good to go. It offers short, easy-to-implement bites of advice, illustrated by inspiring - and cautionary - real-world examples.

Between You & Me features Norris' laugh-out-loud descriptions of some of the most common and vexing problems in spelling, punctuation, and usage - comma faults, danglers, "who" vs. "whom", "that" vs. "which", compound words, gender-neutral language - and her clear explanations of how to handle them.

This highly respected veteran newsman shares the stories he's long kept under wraps. Schieffer goes beyond the news everyone is familiar with to share the compelling anecdotes only his colleagues were previously privy to. Says the author, "I want to tell you about the parts that didn't get on television or in the paper." The result is an eye-opening glimpse behind the scenes of the news business.

Communication expert and popular speaker Quentin Schultze offers a practical, accessible, and inspiring guide to public speaking, showing readers how to serve their audiences with faith, skill, and virtue. This thoroughly rewritten and expanded edition has been tested and revised with input from Christian undergraduates and contains new chapters on timely topics, such as speaking for video, conducting group presentations, and engaging society civilly. A complete public speaking textbook for Christian universities, it includes helpful sidebars, tips, and appendixes.

A beloved writing teacher and essayist lays out the rules for crafting a remarkable personal essay, the kind that tells a story, moves readers, and reveals insights into the human condition — the kind that AI can’t write.

A moving reflection on a subject that touches us all, by the best-selling author of Claire of the Sea Light. Edwidge Danticat's The Art of Death: Writing the Final Story is at once a personal account of her mother dying from cancer and a deeply considered reckoning with the ways that other writers have approached death in their own work. A moving tribute and a work of astute criticism, The Art of Death is an audiobook that will profoundly alter all who encounter it.

Twelve short stories: "The Prussian Officer", "Goose Fair", "The Thorn in the Flesh", "The Shades of Spring", "Daughters of The Vicar", "A Fragment of Stained Glass", "Second Best", "The Shadow in the Rose Garden", "The White Stocking", "A Sick Collier", "The Christening", "Odour of Chrysanthemums".

A baby is found by wood nymphs in the forest of Burzee. They raise him as their own and give him the name Neclaus. When he grows up, Neclaus has to leave the forest so he makes a home for himself in the laughing valley of Hohaha, where he lives amongst humans for the first time. He discovers there that many children are very poor and neglected so, to cheer them up, he whittles wooden toys as gifts. Eventually he makes presents for all the children and so the story of Santa Claus is born.

In Stories Are What Save Us, Chrisinger shows - through writing exercises, memoir excerpts, and lessons he's learned from his students - the most efficient ways to uncover and effectively communicate what you've learned while fighting your life's battles, whatever they may be.

“So many people have written and claimed that their families were the original of the Forsytes,” wrote Galsworthy, “that one has almost been encouraged to believe in the typicality of an imagine species.” It is the Spring of 1920, 34 years on from the beginning of the Saga. “Young Jolyon” is married to Irene after her divorce from Soames, and they now have a son, Jon. Soames has re-married and has a daughter, Fleur. A new generation of Forsytes comes of age and the Saga continues.

New York Times best-selling author Richard Miniter is an award-winning investigative journalist whose insights have shed light on many of today¹s most vital issues. With Disinformation he takes the popular media to task for the myths they spread about the War on Terror. Miniter has spoken to high-profile sources, sifted through countless information, and traveled the globe to learn that 22 of the most common beliefs about the War on Terror are nothing more than urban legends.

F--k the F--kity F--kin' F--ker. Fans of Katherine Dunn won't be surprised that this was her father's favorite sentence, or that, as a young girl, she heard it as a kind of profane poem, a secret song. For many of us, the language of Geek Love carries a similar staying power, born of Dunn's agile use of language and her strange, beautiful diction. And as a true exegete of the expletive, she remained undividedly devoted to obscenity - both as scholar and practitioner.

Legendary writer Zane Grey earned legions of devoted fans with his gritty westerns. In To the Last Man, he dramatizes the events of the Pleasant Valley War of Arizona, a bloody feud that nearly wiped two families off the face of the Earth. Jean Isbel has settled in Oregon and is growing comfortable with his new home when an urgent letter arrives from his father. Trouble is brewing in Arizona between the Isbel cattlemen and the Jorth clan of sheepmen. Rushing to his father’s side, Jean arrives just before the first bullets start flying. But matters are complicated when Jean and Ellen Jorth, daughter of the sheepmen’s leader, fall in love.

On any given day, at any given hour, across the various platforms constituting what we call social media, someone is angry. Facebook. Instagram. Twitter. Reddit. 4Chan. In The Rhetoric of Outrage: Why Social Media Is Making Us Angry, Jeff Rice addresses the critical question of why anger has become the dominant digital response on social media. He examines the theoretical and rhetorical explanations for the intense rage that prevails across platforms and sheds new light on how our anger is not merely a reaction against singular events but generated out of aggregated beliefs and ideas.