Showing results by narrator "Sean Patrick Hopkins" in All Categories

The Best American series, launched in 1915, is the premier annual showcase for the country’s finest short fiction and nonfiction, and it is the most respected—and most popular—of its kind. Jia Tolentino, critically acclaimed essayist, editor, and New Yorker staff writer, selects twenty essays out of thousands that represent the best examples of the form published the previous year.

Stuck inside the virtual, bereft of a physical body and avatar, Rogue watches helplessly as the enemy takes her form and control of the Human forces during the World Match. Win or lose, this is humanity’s last chance. And Rogue isn’t ready to go down, but what can she do?

Before Garrison Keillor and Spalding Gray there was Jean Shepherd: a master monologist and writer who spun the materials of his all-American childhood into immensely resonant—and utterly hilarious—works of comic art. In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash represents one of the peaks of his achievement, a compound of irony, affection, and perfect detail that speaks across generations. In God We Trust, Shepherd's wildly witty reunion with his Indiana hometown, disproves the adage “You can never go back.”

Generation Z has entered the workforce and are challenging leaders in ways they have never experienced before. Gen Zers often bring little work experience following college graduation, with parents encouraging them to focus on academics. Plus, having grown up on screens, they frequently bring lower levels of emotional intelligence than previous youth generations. This can be troublesome, as supervisors may experience a new job candidate who is overconfident, maybe even cocky, yet lacks the interpersonal skills to receive tough feedback.

Jake Powell is racing to get off the island as a powerful hurricane approaches. When he finds his best friend Dallas, the building manager, dead from a blow to the skull, Jake realizes there’s more than the storm to fear. There’s a murderer on the island, maybe even still inside the nearly abandoned building. Dallas had repeatedly run afoul of the wealthy owners of the building by complaining about code violations and the precarious state of the condos. But he’d also once told Jake that every resident had a secret they’d come to Florida to escape. Had one of them killed to conceal their sins?

Four hundred years ago, no one bothered to write down the exact words of stage plays. Characters’ lines were scribbled on small rolls of paper (as in, an actor’s role) and passed around, but no master script was saved for the future. The main reason we’ve heard of Romeo, Juliet, Hamlet, and Shakespeare himself is that a group of people made the excellent choice to preserve the plays after the Bard died. If they hadn’t created the book known as the First Folio, Shakespeare and his works would surely have been lost to history.

Old houses share their secrets only if they survive. Trading the corporate ladder for a stepladder, Lee McColgan commits to preserving the ramshackle Loring House, built in 1702, using period materials and methods and on a holiday deadline. But his enchantment withers as he discovers the massive repairs it needs. A small kitchen fix reveals that the structure’s rotten frame could collapse at any moment. In a bathroom, mold appears and spreads. He fights deteriorating bricks, frozen pipes, shattered windows, a punctured foundation, and even an airborne chimney cap.

North American Union, the near future. Matthew Scott isn’t proud of the world he helped create. Having abandoned his wife to ensure her safety, the ex-CIA operative has found a sliver of peace by escaping the rapidly shifting geopolitical landscape and living off-grid. So somebody’s definitely in his crosshairs when his last remaining friend receives a mysterious ring in the mail and is then tortured...and killed. Forced to jump into the game once more, Scott delves deep into a twisted realm of Templars, rebels, and terrifying globalist schemes.

Using ReInception to rid society of unwanted human behaviors seemed like a noble cause, but thanks to Ward and Leandrea and their high-profile rebellion, the world was about to find out the brutal truth. Powerful political and corporate interests want ReInception to continue, expanding the procedure to prisoners, social dissidents and, most of all, the serving class known as the Prole. They will stop at nothing to keep the truth about ReInception hidden.

Former congressional staffer turned George Washington University grad school professor Casey Burgat leads a diverse team of officials, academics, and experts from both sides of the aisle to expose the lies at the heart of our political dysfunction. They debunk talking points about term limits, lobbyists, money in politics, and more—offering real-world insights into how our government actually works.

Kevin Fagan’s The Lost and the Found, set in San Francisco—one of the wealthiest cities in America—takes an empathic, character-driven approach to exploring the human side of what’s behind the homelessness epidemic. An award-winning journalist and Pulitzer Prize nominee who has covered homelessness for decades and spent extensive time on the streets for his reporting, Fagan experienced it himself as a young man and brings a deep understanding to the crisis.

All Pineda Matlage wants is to get through the school year and maybe pull an epic prank or two with his friends Junior, Ernesto, and Patsy. But class is disrupted when a slew of American soldiers descends upon their rural Texan town of Soledad. They’ll be carrying out a training exercise and taking over everything, from Pineda’s school to the local government. But Pineda knows why they’re really here. For days, he’s hidden the strange creature who fell from the sky in his parents’ barn. He promised her he’d find her family and help them return home.