Showing results by narrator "A. A. Ron" in All Categories

Built in the 1940s atop an infamous Italian slum, Cabrini-Green grew to 23 towers and a population of 20,000 - all of it packed onto just 70 acres a few blocks from Chicago's ritzy Gold Coast. Cabrini-Green became synonymous with crime, squalor, and the failure of government. For the many who lived there, it was also a much-needed resource - it was home. By 2011, every high-rise had been razed, the island of black poverty engulfed by the white affluence around it, the families dispersed.

Dick Young is lent a house in Cornwall by his friend Professor Magnus Lane. During his stay he agrees to serve as a guinea pig for a new drug that Magnus has discovered in his scientific research. When Dick samples Magnus' potion, he finds himself doing the impossible: traveling through time while staying in place, thrown all the way back into Medieval Cornwall. The concoction wears off after several hours, but its effects are intoxicating and Dick cannot resist his newfound powers.

Poor Duncan just wants to color. But when he opens his box of crayons, he finds only letters, all saying the same thing: His crayons have had enough! They quit! Beige Crayon is tired of playing second fiddle to Brown Crayon. Black wants to be used for more than just outlining. Blue needs a break from coloring all those bodies of water. And Orange and Yellow are no longer speaking — each believes he is the true color of the sun.

Forget everything you've been taught about selling: forget the hard sell, forget negotiation strategies, forget those closing techniques. In The Inner Game of Selling, Ron Willingham debunks the familiar myths about "sales skills", showing that those tired methods are too shallow and manipulative to do anything but alienate potential customers and drain you of energy and dignity.

Explore Italy with confidence, from the time you set foot in the airport to the time you say goodbye. With Italian phrases covering all possible scenarios, you can turn your Italian holiday into the most amazing vacation of your life!

Ian is a chief information officer (CIO) who is about to go on a journey of change - whether he likes it or not. He will be expected to explore, challenge and radically recast the complex, often hostile relationships that can exist between a business and the people in its Information Technology (IT) department. On the way, Ian, his chief executive officer, chief financial officer and other key stakeholders, experience a transformation in how a business needs to think about the value of its IT people and the work that they do.

All she has to do is be his lover for a week. And when the man is gorgeous Galen Steele, what woman could possibly say no? Brittany Thrasher has her own hidden motives for accepting Galen's proposal. Only the savvy businesswoman draws the line at actually falling for the sexy playboy. Even if he is the incredible lover of her most taboo fantasies. The moment their paths crossed again at an auction, Galen knew Brittany was special. If she wants the house he just won so badly, how far is she willing to go to get it?

The definitive portrait of Kobe Bryant, from the author of Michael Jordan. Eighteen-time All-Star, scorer of 81 points in a single game, MVP, and one of the best shooting guards in NBA league history: Kobe Bryant is among basketball's absolute greatest players, and his importance to the sport is undeniable. Third on the NBA career scoring list and owner of five championship rings, he is an undisputed all-time great, one deserving of this deep and definitive biography.

Houston freelance writer Gina Grant Farrell just got a job offer too good to refuse-a week on a Texas ranch to interview the ruthless, ambitious, and very handsome millionaire Mitch Farrell, who happens to be none other than her ex-husband! Is Mitch's proposal strictly business? Or is he planning a sizzling seduction and nights filled with strictly pleasure?

The Great Brain is Tom D. Fitzgerald, aged 10. The story is told by J.D., a sometimes confounded but always admiring younger brother. Such people as Mr. Standish, the mean schoolmaster, regret the day they came up against The Great Brain. But others, like the Jensen kids lost in Skeleton Cave, Basil, the Greek kid, or Andy, who has lost his leg and his friends, know that Tom's great brain never fails to find a way home.

Sierra's Homecoming by #1 New York Times bestselling author Linda Lael Miller Sierra McKettrick felt like a fraud. She might be moving to her family’s ancestral ranch with her son, but being a McKettrick by blood isn't enough to make her fit in. And from the moment she meets ranch hand Travis Reid, she knows he'll be a handsome distraction she doesn't need. When Sierra forms a connection with her ancestor Hannah McKettrick—also a woman with a young son and an inconvenient attraction to the wrong man—she begins to realize that there are some bonds that even time can't break.

An alien ship rests over Water Island. For five years, the people of the US Virgin Islands have lived with the Ynaa, a race of super-advanced aliens on a research mission they will not fully disclose. They are benevolent in many ways but meet any act of aggression with disproportional wrath. This has led to a strained relationship between the Ynaa and the local Virgin Islanders, and a peace that cannot last.

Burned-by-love architect Hunter McKay came home to Phoenix to open her own firm, not rekindle her fleeting high school romance with playboy Tyson Steele. But when she runs into the sexy surgeon at a nightclub—and he unleashes that legendary Steele charm—Hunter fears she's headed straight for heartbreak once again. Tyson hasn't forgotten the one who got away. A weeklong fling should be just enough to get the sultry beauty out of his system for good, even if he has to let Hunter set the ground rules.

Polish-born author and mariner Joseph Conrad is widely regarded as one of the greatest English novelists. His 16 years in the merchant navy profoundly shaped his fiction, giving him transformative experiences of adventure and exotic places, and a unique insight into the human psyche. Included here are adaptations of six of his best works, brought together for the first time and collected in chronological order, plus one fascinating bonus programmes exploring his life and art.

Marriage, like a knot, has to be kept tight. Left to itself, it loosens over time and can completely unravel. This highly practical book focuses on the everyday decisions you can make to rejuvenate and restore your marriage. Delving into topics like communication, sex, conflict resolution, and more, it offers the tools you need for life-long marriage health.

There was once a village off the coast of Cornwall, England where people were so poor that they prayed for shipwrecks. They made their living by salvaging food and clothing from the wreckage. Some of them lit fires during a storm to lure ships onto the rocks. Then these "wreckers" made sure that no one survived the wrecks, so there would be no witnesses to their crimes. One stormy night in 1799, 14-year-old John Spencer was unfortunate enough to be on his father's ship when the wreckers did their worst.

Beautiful Country Burn Again narrates a shocking year in American politics, moving from the early days of the Iowa Caucus to the crystalizing moments of the Democratic and Republican national conventions, and culminating in the aftershocks of the weeks following election night. Along the way, Fountain probes deeply into history, illuminating the forces and watershed moments of the past that mirror and precipitated the present, from the hollowed-out notion of the American Dream, to Richard Nixon’s Southern strategy, to the cult of celebrity that gave rise to Donald Trump.

Riding on the high of success after last semester, it looks like Nick’s path through Valcav Academy to become the world’s greatest superhero is clear. But the life of a superhero-in-training is always changing. When it’s announced that the academy is doing an exchange program with Lord Inferno’s own school, everything at Valcav gets turned upside down, especially when Nick’s world-conquering father joins the Valcav staff. Still, it’s nothing Nick can’t handle.

In November 1960, all of America watched as a tiny six-year-old black girl, surrounded by federal marshals, walked through a mob of screaming segregationists and into her school. An icon of the civil rights movement, Ruby Bridges chronicles each dramatic step of this pivotal event in history through her own words.

Thirteen of the most accomplished YA authors deliver a label-defying anthology that includes 10 short stories, a graphic novel, and a one-act play about topics like gentrification, acceptance, untimely death, coming out, and poverty, and ranging in genre from contemporary realistic fiction to adventure and romance. This collection will inspire you to break conventions, bend the rules, and color outside the lines.