Showing results by narrator "Alexander MacDonald" in All Categories

Lieutenant Michael Lee Lanning went to Vietnam as an eager young patriot who was confident of surviving the war. After six months in-country, he was promoted at age 23 to company commander, and his sense of duty began to shift from his nation to preserving the lives of the men in Bravo Company.

His Majesty's Submarine Unbeaten was last heard from via a signal sent to Flag Officer Submarines on November 1, 1942. The signal simply stated: "Operation Bluestone completed". After this date the 58-meter British U-Class submarine inexplicably disappeared. Unbeaten was fully operational for just over two years. During its short tenure, Unbeaten successfully returned to war-torn Malta many times, symbolically flying its Jolly Roger.

This is the sixth printing of a Joyously inspirational book has been called "one of the truly transformational works of our time." Author Robert Burney has been referred to as "a metaphysical Stephen Hawking" - and his work has been compared to John Bradshaw's "except much more spiritual" and described as "taking inner child healing to a new level."

Michael Lee Lanning's journal of his first tour of duty in Vietnam provides an unvarnished daily account of life in the field. The blood, fear, camaraderie, and tedium of combat and maneuver. Fleshed out with narrative and detail years later, the pages of this memorable book, first published in 1987, show an eager young recruit growing before the reader's eyes into a proud but bloodied combat veteran. Subsequent volumes in his Vietnam Trilogy will detail Lanning's tour as a company commander and his post-war investigation into the mind of the enemy.

Coming of age in a cramped New York tenement, with a mentally-damaged mother who continually threatens to kill herself, is not easy for 19-year-old Dean Cassidy. Having a hot-headed father who goes berserk every time he throws one of his frequent maniacal tirades doesn't help either. Nevertheless, Dean is deeply in love with his girlfriend, and he wants so badly to show her off to his parents. Twice he brings her home, and both times the two kids witness scenes they will never forget.

February 1958. The Worley's, a family of four, are on the way down to Florida. They're moving there in a last-ditch effort to try to save the dysfunctional parents' all-but-shattered marriage. But the two small sons in the back seat have their doubts. They've seen Walter and Wanda fight too many times. They know all too well that when they really got going, they could make Stanley and Stella Kowalski look like June and Ward Cleaver. And being true to form, they start fighting again shortly after leaving their New York apartment.

Frank Giles, a world-weary Key West Conch, has gotten on in his years and doesn't like it one bit. Nothing seems to matter anymore. He's lost all hope for what little future he might have left. But then, when he revisits the favorite fishing spot of his youth one morning, all that changes. From atop the Shark Key Bridge, Frank hooks an enormous fish. And during the titanic tug-of-war that ensues, the old man learns new lessons about defeat, triumph, courage, and the will to go on.

Written with wit and creatively, and packaged in the form of a glossary, it is an important and timely listen. This highly pertinent work has been 40 years in the making. It discussses the anxiety caused by tightened budgets or less participation and the fear surrounding the need to pick up new computer or technical skills. The book reviews and reminds us of the skills needed to maintain a high level of trust and communication within any family or organization.

With a nod to the The Thin Man, Bradley Lewis takes us out of Manhattan and into the rich, dysfunctional, world of Beverly Hills. With Sheila Benniger’s pet schnoodle killed by a Sub-Zero refrigerator accident in a prequel, she is left with only her husband Dr. Brantley Benninger, the local root canal specialist, to schlep around to help investigate her amateur sleuthing hunches.

Over many decades, "contagion" has been a metaphor of choice for everything from global terrorism, suicide bombings, poverty, immigration, global financial crises, human rights, fast food, obesity, divorce, and homosexuality. Essays examine the language of epidemiology used in the war on terror, the repressive effects of global disease surveillance, and films and novels that enact the perplexities of contagion in a global context.

When Henry was a child, something terrible happened in the woods behind his home, something so shocking he could only express his terror by drawing pictures of what he had witnessed. Eventually, Henry's mind blocked out the bad memories, but he continued to draw, often at night by the light of the moon. Twenty years later, Henry makes his living by painting his disturbing works of art. He loves his wife and his son, and life couldn't be better...except there's something not quite right....