Showing results by narrator "Paul Boehmer" in All Categories

Ernie Davis was an All-American on the gridiron and a man of integrity off the field. A multi-sport high school star in Elmira, New York, Davis went on to Syracuse University, where as a sophomore he led his team to an undefeated season and a national championship in 1959, and earned his nickname: the Elmira Express. Two seasons later, Davis broke the legendary Jim Brown's rushing records and became the first black athlete to be awarded the Heisman Trophy.

Called the brandy of the gods by Victor Hugo, Cognac is a universal symbol of refinement and quality. In the first comprehensive history of this celebrated drink, Kyle Jarrard charts Cognac's birth in the 1500s and its transformation into the world's most coveted brandy. Along the way, he reveals how Cognac distillers weathered vineyard die-offs, the German occupation, and other challenges over the years - and offers a fascinating behind-the-scenes look at Hennessy, Remy-Martin, Courvoisier, Martell, and other legendary brands.

To many people, Lucia Chase (1897-1986) was the American Ballet Theatre, and her reign as the queen of American ballet lasted for more than four decades. It was Chase who brought Nureyev, Bujones, Kirkland, and eventually Baryshnikov to ABT. Under her leadership, the company worked with such legends as Agnes de Mille, Anthony Tudor, Jerome Robbins, and Twyla Tharp. Her drive, ambition, tenacity, and money kept the doors open even during the lean years. A dancer when the company made its debut in 1940, she was artistic director for an unprecedented thirty-five years, from 1945 to 1980.

Revealed for the first time: how the SS rounded up the Nazis' most prominent prisoners to serve as human shields for Hitler in the last days of World War II.

Best known for his masterpiece of horror, Dracula, Bram Stoker wrote a number of other novels and many short stories, all with supernatural themes or filled with a physical terror reminiscent of Poe. The title story, "Dracula's Guest", was originally part of the great novel but was excised and published separately. The accompanying stories, such as "The Squaw", "The Judge's House", and "The Burial of the Rats", are classic tales of the macabre in their own right.

From Nebula Award winner Gregory Benford comes this ambitious hard SF anthology that collects five original novellas. Each one takes the very long view - all are set at least ten thousand years in the future. The authors take a rigorously scientific view of such grand panoramas, confronting the largest issues of cosmology, astronomy, evolution, and biology.

Renowned music historian Simon Morrison reveals the ballet as a crucible of art and politics, beginning with the disreputable inception of the theater in 1776 and proceeding through the era of imperial rule, the chaos of revolution, the oppressive Soviet years, and the recent $680 million renovation project. Drawing on exclusive archival research, Morrison creates a richly detailed tableau of the centuries-long war between world-class art and life-threatening politics that has defined this storied institution.

A compilation of narratives and histories based on the largely unheard or ignored perspectives of Scientologists themselves, Among the Scientologists draws on six years of interviews, fieldwork, and research conducted among members of the Church of Scientology. This groundbreaking work examines features of the new religion's history, theology, and praxis in ways that move discussion beyond apostate-driven and expose accounts.

Executive producer Mark Burnett has revolutionized television. Phrases from his smash-hit reality shows - "The tribe has spoken" and "You’re fired" - have become part of our cultural lexicon. So how did a British immigrant with very little cash and absolutely no connections become his own entertainment empire? The answers can be found in Jump In!, Burnett’s astounding personal saga. Burnett knows better than anyone that jumping into life with both feet first isn’t always easy...

To many, the brain is the seat of personal identity and autonomy. But the way we talk about the brain is often rooted more in mystical conceptions of the soul than in scientific fact.

After a century of imprisonment, demons have broken free of the wardstones surrounding the Worldwound. As fiends flood south into civilized lands, Count Varian Jeggare and his hellspawn bodyguard, Radovan, must search through the ruins of a fallen nation for the blasphemous text that opened the gate to the Abyss in the first place - and that might hold the key to closing it.

As this book argues, every era since Marx's death has reinvented him to fit its needs. There is not one Marx forever and for all time. There are a thousand Marxes. As Thomas Nail contends, one of the most significant contributions of Marx's work is that it treats theory itself as a historical practice. Reading Marx is not just an interpretative activity, but a creative one. As our historical conditions change, so do the kinds of questions we pose and the kinds of answers we find in Marx's writing.

Beginning in the vast North American Boreal Forest that stretches through Canada, and roving across the continent, from the Northern Sierra to Alabama's Paint Rock Forest, from the Appalachian Trail to a ranch in Mexico, Tony Hiss sets out on a journey to take stock of the "superorganism" that is the earth: its land, its elements, its plants and animals, its greatest threats - and what we can do to keep it, and ourselves, alive.

Goblin Nation concludes The Stonetellers trilogy, finding Direfang and his army of goblins and hobgoblins deep in the Qualinesti Forest. Although they are far from the Dark Knights' mining camp they escaped from, they are also far from safe. The forest is fraught with its own deadly dangers - with the entire world seemingly bent on keeping the goblins from founding their new homeland. But Direfang is resolute and will risk all their lives in a final bid for freedom.

In Rome, the assassination of the Pope on Christmas Day sets off a massive investigation that stretches across the globe. But behind the veil of Rex Deus - the Templar cabal that silently wields power in the twenty-first century - the plot has only just begun. When retired Army Ranger Lt. Col. John Holliday uncovers the true motive behind the pontiff's murder, he must unravel a deadly design to extend the Templar influence to the highest levels of power.

Born into a world with only seven days to live, Sim faces the same choice everyone does: How will he spend them? Is there something greater to hope for? A short story from Guys Read: Other Worlds, edited by Jon Scieszka.

Barry Estabrook, author of the New York Times bestseller Tomatoland, now explores the dark side of the American pork industry. Drawing on his personal experiences raising pigs as well as his sharp investigative instincts, he covers the range of the human-porcine experience. He embarks on nocturnal feral pig hunts in Texas. He visits farmers who raise animals in vast confinement barns for Smithfield and Tyson, two of the country's biggest pork producers.

Ray Bradbury warned of a world where our literary history is taken from us. In Burn the Ashes, some of the best science-fiction authors working today continue to explore the dystopic worlds they introduced in Ignorance Is Strength.

Committed Teams: Three Steps to Inspiring Passion and Performance is based on a deceptively simple philosophy: set a direction, try to stay on track, and make adjustments when necessary. Easy to do? Hardly - especially when the typical workday is time-crunched, stressful, and deadline-driven. Drawing on research done at the Wharton School of Business, the authors reveal how to deliver results under these tough conditions.

In the 14th century, Templar knight Jean de Saint-Clair was tasked with piloting the order's treasure-laden fleets off the coast of France. To this end, he used a Jacob's Staff, a world-changing nautical instrument supposedly developed in his own time. Retired Army Ranger John Holliday knows better, for he possesses a similar instrument - one found in the hands of a four-thousand-year-old Egyptian mummy.