Showing results by narrator "Peter Berkrot" in All Categories

In the early 1930s in Berlin, Germany, a group of leading Eastern European Jewish intellectuals embarked upon a project to transform the lives of millions of Yiddish-speaking Jews around the world. Their goal was to publish a popular and comprehensive Yiddish-language encyclopedia of general knowledge that would serve as a bridge to the modern world and as a guide to help its readers navigate their way within it.

Universities play an indispensable role within modern democracies. But this role is often overlooked or too narrowly conceived, even by universities themselves. In What Universities Owe Democracy, Ronald J. Daniels, the president of Johns Hopkins University, argues that—at a moment when liberal democracy is endangered and more countries are heading toward autocracy than at any time in generations—it is critical for today's colleges and universities to reestablish their place in democracy. For those committed to democracy's future prospects, this book is a vital resource.

Being a University of Michigan football fan should be joyful. Michigan is an elite academic institution whose football team boasts 43 Big Ten championships. But these days, college football is complicated. The NCAA is corrupt and exploitative, and Michigan keeps losing to Ohio State. It’s hard not to wonder, as Ben Mathis-Lilley does in this book: why are we doing this? The Hot Seat is a chronicle of one of the wildest years in Michigan football history, but also a search for the truth about fandom, from the pages of history books to the wilderness of online forums.

The Dreadlord Wizard made his mark in the land of Sol. But now his enemies know where he lives. With a target on his back, his apprenticeship to the great sorcerer will lead him to a dungeon with enough treasure and monsters to make an orc blush. The clock is ticking before the orcs arrive, and our lovable wizard is super excited to meet them. So much so, he's building an outpost out of hard-earned magic and ore. Just like his daddy always used to say. No. No one ever said that. Which means Crucible better learn his Spellscript quickly and hope his Fireballs fire hard and true.

Benjamin Wilder grew up with sparse shelter, infested provisions, and constant abuse dealt to him by his stepfather: Jessup — a.k.a. the Rabid Dog. Without a sober mother to defend him from the Rabid Dog’s wrath, Ben finds reprieve and adventure in a club of misfit boys called the Black Machetes. But the world as Ben knows it comes to an end when he witnesses an act so psychologically appalling that it forces him to run for his life.

Paralyzed by writer's block, Scott Atwood (the award-winning, psychological thriller author) realizes his career is over. He decides to end his life in a way that will thrill fans with his typical mind-blowing finale. But just as Scott resolves to jump in front of a train, he comes up with a plot for his next bestseller—a thriller-suspense writer who wreaks havoc in other people's lives to help create new ideas.

Where do writers go when they die? The forgotten ones, at least, go to the Café of Minor Authors where they drink endless cups of cappuccino, self-obsess, and nurse their shattered dreams. Some authors, it’s rumored, can escape Oblivion if they try hard enough to write something the universe can’t ignore, even after death. This is the story of one ambitious writer stuck in Oblivion who not only risks upturning his own fate but also the fate of his literary hero and that of his great grandmother, Hanna, an aspiring actor in the Yiddish theater in the Prague of 1911.

Though only eight years old, little Horton "Horty" Bluett has known a lifetime of sadness. Tormented and abused by his adoptive family, he's had enough - and with a beloved broken toy he calls "Junky" as his sole companion, the desperate little boy runs away to join a carnival. There, among the fortune tellers, fire-eaters, sideshow freaks, and assorted "strange people", Horty hopes to find acceptance and, at long last, a real home. But disgraced Doctor Pierre "Maneater" Monetre's traveling show is no ordinary entertainment, and its performers are not what they appear to be.

While he is probably best known as a novelist and short-story writer, Lawrence Block has produced a rich trove of nonfiction over the course of a 60-year career. Over the years, Block has written extensively for magazines and periodicals. Generally Speaking collects his philatelic columns from Linn's Stamp News, while his extensive observations of crime fiction, along with personal glimpses of some of its foremost practitioners, have won wide acclaim in book form as The Crime of Our Lives. Hunting Buffalo with Bent Nails is what he's got left over.

Award-winning novelist Michael Pronko examines Tokyo as a place, a culture, and a series of intense experiences, with humor, delicacy, and enchantment. More than just a setting for novels and films, Tokyo is a lively, interactive space that constantly pops up questions: How do you sweat politely, in Tokyo’s sweltering summers? How do you glance sideways, on crowded trains? How do homeowners transform a sliver of space into an impeccable garden? The answers are not what one might expect.

What leads one person to collect stamps and another coins, one fine art and another butterflies? Who can say? But one thing is certain: those who've got the collecting bug care passionately - sometimes violently - about the objects of their obsession.

By July 1, 1942, the United States has been fighting in the Pacific for nearly seven months. The Japanese advance halted west of Australia at the island of Timor, and from Timor the Japanese stage bombing raids on Darwin. In the north, the Japanese hold the former Australian possessions of New Ireland and New Britain, including the town of Rabaul in the north of New Britain. Holding Rabaul gives the Japanese possession of Simpson Harbor, a deep-water port that the Japanese turn into a formidable forward base, swarming with Zeros and antiaircraft weapons.

Jack and Charlie Davis, along with a new companion, Jimmy Ardana, are part of the Allied effort to stop the Japanese at Port Moresby in May 1942. But the Allies have received little in the way of reinforcements, and the only fighter available to face the Japanese Zero is the difficult to handle Bell P-39. Charlie flies dangerous reconnaissance missions to determine the location of the Japanese Navy. Jack, supposedly on his way home to the States, is diverted to be a flight commander in the 8th Fighter Group at Port Moresby.

Covert ops group Vector is sent to Southeast Asia to see if there is more to this disease than meets the eye. When operatives Alex Wolfe and Skylar Cruz visit the hospital where the corpse was taken, their investigation is cut short by a devastating terrorist attack. Wolfe is forced to enlist the help of Tracy Nguyen, woman from his past life with the CIA. Nguyen specializes in counterterrorism operations in Southeast Asia. Together, they must track down the extremist group at the center of this evolving conspiracy.

As the Imperial Japanese Army and Navy rolls south to the oil-rich Netherlands East Indies, a handful of Allied airmen and sailors stand in their way. Two brothers, Jack and Charlie Davis, pilots in the US Army Air Forces, are among that handful who face overwhelming odds to buy time for America to gear up to fight the war in the Pacific.

A CIA field officer monitoring chemical weapon smuggling in Jordan is missing and with him, the trail for those deadly weapons. Skilled Vector operatives Alex Wolfe and Skylar Cruz are deployed to find them before they fall into the wrong hands. But they’re not the only ones on the chase. When Vector is ambushed, they find themselves at the mercy of the strange chemical weapon they were sent to track. A weapon based on technology far more insidious and dangerous than they ever could have imagined...one that affects their very perception of reality.

When a controversial religious leader is immolated in the Mission District of San Francisco, the local police chalk it up to a bizarre suicide. Yet witnesses claim a mysterious robed figure set fire to the priest. When a cult leader in Paris dies under similar circumstances, Interpol asks Grey and Viktor for help. Convinced the culprit is a charismatic New Age prophet who has become an Internet sensation, Grey and Viktor undergo a perilous journey into the world of the occult as they try to penetrate the prophet’s inner circle.

The General. A name whispered in hushed tones among the criminal underworld, from Miami to Buenos Aires. A name even the drug cartels fear. Yet the General is a man without a face. There are no fingerprints on file, no known base of operations, not even a biographical sketch.

When a United States diplomat disappears in front of hundreds of onlookers while attending a religious ceremony in Zimbabwe, Diplomatic Security special agent Dominic Grey, product of a violent childhood and a worn passport, is assigned to investigate. Aiding the investigation is Professor of Religious Phenomenology Viktor Radek, as well as Nya Mashumba, the local government liaison.

At a mausoleum in Cairo’s most notorious cemetery, a mercenary receives a package containing a silver test tube suspended in hydraulic stasis. An investigative reporter tracking rogue biomedical companies is terrified by the appearance of a mummified man outside her Manhattan apartment. A Bulgarian scientist who dabbles in the occult makes a startling discovery in his underground laboratory.