Showing results by narrator "Ron Butler" in All Categories

Moments after the inauguration of our 45th president, best friends Barack Obama and Joe Biden were escorted to a secret lab run by the world’s greatest scientists. They were asked to take off all their clothes and hold very still in a fetal position until they felt a painful tingling sensation. Then they vanished. They would awake to find themselves apart, and inside their younger bodies and driven to find each other, and to change history for the better.

When a middle-class kid from the suburbs was caught using Facebook to distribute firearms bought legally at Indiana gun shows to notorious gangsters across the border - was he a kingpin or a scapegoat? David Lewisbey received perhaps the harshest sentence ever in a gun-trafficking trial. A college student from the suburban outskirts of Chicago, he allegedly embodied the enterprising swagger of his favorite rap lyrics, moving weapons for stacks of cash. John H. Richardson tours Chicago’s gun-soaked South Side with Lewisbey’s clientele and meets with the “Big Man” himself to unpack the truth.

Millie danced to jazz in her Italian neighborhood. Pedro danced to Latin songs in his Puerto Rican neighborhood. It was the 1940s in New York City, and they were forbidden to dance together…until, first, a band and, then, a ballroom broke the rules. Machito and His Afro-Cubans hit the scene with a brand-new sound, blending jazz trumpets and saxophones with Latin maracas and congas creating Latin jazz: music for the head, the heart, and the hips.

Thomas McGurrin is a fourth-grade teacher and openly gay man at a private primary school serving Portland, Oregon's wealthy progressive elite when he is falsely accused of inappropriately touching a male student. The accusation comes just as Thomas is thrust back into the center of his unusual family by his younger brother's battle with cancer. Although cleared of the accusation, Thomas is forced to resign from a job he loves during a potentially life-changing family drama.

The novel centers on Dickie Cornish, a Black streetwise survivor living in a homeless camp near DC's Smithsonian Museum of Natural History. Framed for the murder of two of his closest friends and facing life in prison, Dickie crosses paths with wealthy ex-Homeland Security Secretary, Jamie Bracht. Bracht offers him a chance at a new life if Dickie can navigate an underground world to uncover a prize Bracht will stop at nothing to acquire.

As the youngest of eight, painfully average Pup Flanagan is used to flying under the radar. He’s barely passing his classes. His lets his longtime crush walk all over him. And he’s in no hurry to decide on a college path. The only person who ever made him think he could be more was his older brother, Patrick. But that was before Patrick died suddenly, leaving Pup with a family who won’t talk about it and acquaintances who just keep saying, “Sorry for your loss.” When Pup excels at a photography assignment he thought he’d bomb, things start to come into focus.

Yes, this is an M/M story, but it is not flaming hot, it is more about the story. Ringo has been a character in my books since day one, and Bananas is the name of the drag queen restaurant in my books that Ringo owns. This book is about an awesome man who looks fabulous in drag, meeting a man who knows he is gay but has never admitted it to anyone, because he lives in a world that he believes will crucify him.

Washington would rather be playing basketball in the tournament instead of traveling to East Texas for a family reunion. He hates to read, but takes off on his own with a book to satisfy his parents. Washington travels back to the past where he encounters his ancestor Square and witnesses the brutal punishment of a slave when he is caught reading.

In contrast to the ways in which young people have been portrayed by researchers, policymakers, law enforcement, and the media, Paula C. Austin draws on previously unstudied archival material to present black poor and working-class young people as thinkers, theorists, critics, and commentators as they reckon with the boundaries imposed on them in a Jim Crow city that was also the American emblem of equality.

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.

Why is the athlete so important to us? Few public figures can dominate the public imagination with such power and authority. Drawing from art, literature, politics, and history, Something like the Gods explores the powerful grip the athlete has always held on the Western imagination. Amidon examines the archetype of the competitor as it evolved from antiquity to the present day, from athlete-warriors such as Achilles and Ulysses to global media icons like Ali, Jordan, and Tiger Woods.

New guy Robert Dulaney would have been content spending his time at the office daydreaming about craft brews and baseball, but strange events begin unfolding during his second week on the job. His employer, Advanced Research Technologies, is racing to beat foreign competitors to market with their solar power storage prototype. They have potentially hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue to gain—and, as it turns out, everything to lose. As the day for testing the prototype rapidly approaches, the danger to those involved in the project increases. Robert is forced to leave his lighthearted life behind and focus on protecting the prototype—and keeping himself alive.

It's 1969 when 15-year-old Huey Fairchild begins high school at Claremont Prep, one of New York City's most prestigious boys' schools. His mother had uprooted her family from their small hometown of Akersburg, Georgia, a few years earlier, leaving behind Huey's white father and the racial unrest that ran deeper than the Chattahoochee River. But for our sharp-tongued protagonist, forgetting the past is easier said than done. At Claremont, where the only other nonwhite person is the janitor, Huey quickly realizes that racism can lurk beneath even the nicest school uniform. After a momentary slip of his temper, Huey finds himself facing legal charges.

This book spotlights John Lewis, known for his role in the Civil Rights Movement, having helped organize the March on Washington and the Selma Voting Rights March, and for his lifelong dedication to public service as a member of the House of Representatives. John Lewis was never afraid to get in good trouble.

HD Schenk is a maker—an inventor, someone who builds cool stuff. He's got a plan for the summer: He'll build his own computer and enter it in the county fair. Then everyone will know who he is and what he can do. To earn enough money for the parts he'll need, HD has promised to clear out his uncle's overflowing basement. No big deal, right? But there's more in that basement than HD bargained for. On his first trip down there, a voice only he can hear starts talking to him. About...sauerkraut?

Adam Hayes has stepped away from the field for the very last time. He's promised his wife that he won't put his life on the line any more, and nothing will make him break that promise. Well... almost nothing. With America withdrawing from Afghanistan and the Taliban closing in, Abdul Nassir reaches out to his old partner, Hayes. Ten years ago, Nassir saved the American's life, and the time has come for repayment. Nassir is desperate to get his family out of the country. He is scared of the Taliban... but he can't trust the Americans either.

There are two rules when it comes to the dragons: don’t let them out of the bag and don’t feed them anything sweet! When Jaxon is sent to spend the day with a mean old lady his mother calls Ma, he finds out she’s not his grandmother—but she is a witch! She needs his help delivering baby dragons to a magical world where they’ll be safe. Hear about Jax’s first three adventures in this collection!

Part guide to Christian living, part spiritual autobiography, The Way of Jesus is Jay Parini's exploration of what Jesus really meant, his effort to put love first in our daily lives. A lifelong Christian who has at times wavered and questioned his beliefs, Parini recounts his own efforts to follow Jesus' example, examines the contours of Christian thinking, and describes the solace and structure one can find in the rhythms of the church calendar.

Condom dresses and space helmets have debuted on fashion runways. A dead body becomes the trend when a coat made of human skin saunters down fashion’s biggest stage. The body is identified as Annabelle Leigh, the teenager who famously disappeared over a decade ago from her boyfriend’s New York City mansion.

The biblical account of Gideon. The ancient story of the Trojan horse. Deceptive techniques have been used in war through the ages. But while the principles have changed very little, the technology behind fooling the enemy has evolved dramatically. Paul B. Janeczko’s fascinating chronology focuses on the American Civil War, World Wars I and II, and the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Gulf Wars to reveal evolving attitudes toward the use and effectiveness of deceptive operations.