Showing results by author "William Thomas" in All Categories

We live in a culture of consumerism. We are constantly told buying more products will improve our quality of life and bring us happiness. However, out of the madness of mass consumerism, a new trend is developing. This new trend emphasizes “less is more” and people who follow it strive to live their best life with as little as possible. This trend is called minimalism.

Abolitionism was the movement that strove to end slavery in the United States. The abolitionists saw slavery as a stain and an affliction on the United States and made it their goal to eradicate slave ownership. Abolitionists produced anti-slavery literature, sent petitions to Congress, and ran for political office.  

To become a millionaire, you have to think like on. The Millionaire Mind shows you how. Also available: The Millionaire Next Door.

The finest voices reading a wonderful selection of poetry accompanied by selected classical music.

After several years in the military, Kirby Jackson just moved back to his coastal hometown to open up his dream coffee shop. But his best friend and co-owner, Ryan, just had to add his own flair: Comic books. And the business isn't off to a good start. On the cusp of telling Ryan the grim news, he finds his friend with a knife in his back. The shop’s mascot, a stubborn dachshund named Gambit, might hold the keys to solving the case. But he ain't talking. His woofs are only for treats...Or are they?

A collection of the funny, curious verse written during the 19th and 20th centuries, read by some of Britain's most renowned actors. Humorous and whimsical verse are collated together in these timeless readings of poetry from our funniest writers. Performed by Sir John Gielgud; Imogen Stubbs; Tim Pigott-Smith; Peter Orr; Wendy Hillier.

At this time of the year, as the nights close in and the temperature drops, winter seems like a season that nobody really enjoys, and we look forward all the more to spring. For many children, however, it is the bounty of Christmas that steals their attention, and for others the renewal of the New Year. But for Nature it is a pause for breath, to take stock of what has gone by in the year to date and ready herself for the energies and dramatic development to the landscape that spring will bring.

Rangers take their promises seriously, and when a squad with the 75th Rangers makes a solemn vow to their gravely wounded platoon sergeant, they will move heaven and earth to honor it. When the political structure of the US shifts, the former Rangers will have to go to great lengths to keep their vow.  

Unlike the other arts, American literature has been a powerful, influential, and leading aspect of American culture. By turns sedate and mercurial and possessing a moral mind set of various social values, the American short story reveals in its pages the psyche of a growing, sprawling nation whose sense of destiny has always been larger than life. Here are seven masterpieces that will make you smile, make you frown, and leave you pondering the mystery that surrounds the soul of a great nation.

This essay explores the political theory of Ayn Rand, a topic that catapulted to the national stage during the last presidential election following the nomination of Rep. Paul Ryan (a self-described enthusiast of Rand's ideas and novels) to the Romney ticket. Ayn Rand's ideas continue to generate public debate in political and cultural circles, but those ideas are frequently misunderstood and misrepresented.

This monumental work made the Arthurian cycle available for the first time in English. Malory took a body of legends from Celtic folklore that had been adapted into French literature, gave them an English perspective, and produced a work which ever since has had tremendous influence upon literature.

With more than 1 million copies in circulation, it remains the best-selling family business book of all time. Much of its success is owed to the deeply original message about the dangers of gifting an operating business to family. It offers business owners and their family a proven process for building wealth and protecting family relationships by exploring whether the business should be sold inside or outside the family. Every Family's Business includes 12 questions to help guide this emotional transition.

With the nation descending into turmoil and disarray, the former Rangers attempt to protect their charges while advancing to safety. Carrying few supplies, but embracing past training and experiences, can Book, Shadow, and Blaster reach the sanctuary before the nation falls further into destruction and despair...while chaos reigns? 

For over seventy years and five generations, the enslaved families of Prince George's County, Maryland, filed hundreds of suits for their freedom against a powerful circle of slaveholders, taking their cause all the way to the Supreme Court. Between 1787 and 1861, these lawsuits challenged the legitimacy of slavery in American law and put slavery on trial in the nation's capital. Piecing together evidence once dismissed in court and buried in the archives, William Thomas tells an intricate and intensely human story of the enslaved families.

Read by Juliet Stevenson and Simon Callow, A Literary Christmas is a seasonal anthology that collects together poems, short stories, and prose extracts by some of the greatest poets and writers in the English language. Like Charles Dickens’ ghosts of Christmas Past and Present, they are representative of times old and new - from John Donne’s Elizabethan hymn over the baby Jesus to Rudyard Kipling’s "Christmas in India", from Thomas Tusser counting the cost of a Tudor feast to Laurie Lee’s "Cider with Rosie".

The perfect poison.... Kirby Jackson is excited when Memaw’s book club plays host to his favorite mystery author. But the night ends on a sour note with the death of Memaw’s friend, Barb. The only secrets Barb Simone ever kept were those about herself. No one knew she had cancer. No one knew she had a boyfriend. And no one knew she was the basis for a character in a best-selling mystery series. But it wasn’t cancer that killed Barb. Kirby suspects foul play. Can the sleuth and his dog solve another case? Find out today!

Though many of us might answer "yes" to that question, attracting more joy into our lives is not always easy - life and stress can seem to hinder our well-being, despite our best efforts. What’s worse, studies have shown that pressuring yourself to feel happy and upbeat when you feel down can actually take a toll on us psychologically! So, where do you begin? The solution lies in understanding the innate psychological forces that conspire against us.

Dance with a lobster, telephone an elephant or knock on a moonlit door - this collection includes magical, macabre, dramatic, funny, bizarre, absurd, delightful, moving and charming poems by Lewis Carroll, A.A. Milne, Edward Lear, Hilaire Belloc, Kenneth Grahame and many others. Readers such as Anton Lesser, Simon Russell-Beale and Timothy West bring the lines beautifully to life and make this an ideal introduction to some of the best-loved children's poetry.

John Donne, Andrew Marvell, George Herbert, Thomas Carew, and Henry Vaughan: these were some of the 17th-century writers who devised a new form of poetry full of wit, intellect and grace, which we now call Metaphysical poetry. They wrote about their deepest religious feelings and their carnal pleasures in a way that was radically new and challenging to their readers. Their work was largely misunderstood or ignored for two centuries, until 20th-century critics rediscovered it, finding in it a deep originality and a willingness to experiment.

The Pareto Principle, or the 80/20 Rule, is the product of the mind of Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923). In a nutshell, it asserts that, in most situations, 80% of outcomes are the product or outcome of 20% of efforts. In this audiobook, you will hear how America's new political and social landscape is impacting this principle and how this alteration may affect your life, and the life of others.