Showing results by publisher "Audible Studios for Bloomsbury" in All Categories

Saul Bellow was easily angered, prone to argument, and palpably vulnerable to criticism, but according to his son, his young father was also emotionally accessible, often soft, and possessed of the ability to laugh at the world's folly and at himself. This memoir gives equal weight to the young Saul Bellow - the rebellious, irreverent, and ambitious young writer - who raised Greg, and the older Saul Bellow, famous and fiercely private. It paints a very human portrait of a man who hid behind parabolic stories, jokes, metaphors, and partial truths, never letting the public see his true self.

When Travis returns home from Afghanistan, his parents are splitting up, his brother's stolen his girlfriend and car, and the nightmares of his best friend getting killed keep him completely spooked. But when he runs into Harper, a girl who despises him for rumors Travis started back in middle school, life actually starts looking up. And as he and Harper see more of each other, he falls deeper in love with her and begins to find his way through the family meltdown and the post-traumatic stress.

John F. Kennedy died half a century ago - yet because of his extraordinary promise and untimely death, his star still resonates strongly. On the anniversary of his assassination, celebrated political scientist and analyst Larry J. Sabato - himself a teenager in the early 1960s and inspired by JFK and his presidency - explores the fascinating and powerful influence he has had over five decades on the media, the general public, and especially on each of his nine presidential successors.

It was as I was walking into the drama class that I remembered the girl I had bumped into and the green sweater just like mine. That was what had got Mrs. Watt mixed up. She had seen the girl in the green sweater and thought it was me. That was the simple explanation. Wasn't it? Fay can't help thinking it odd that people start remarking on conversations she knows she hasn't had, or saying they have seen her when she knows she was somewhere else. But then she starts hearing muffled footsteps behind her...

Connie doesn’t stand a chance with Josh - not when he worships the wonderful Megan. Fed up, she writes a letter to the universe asking for Josh to fall in love with her, and for Megan’s hair to fall out. The next day, Megan’s hair is almost shaved off, and Josh is all over Connie like a rash. It’s like a miracle - except it’s totally unfair! Consumed with guilt, Connie has to put things right....

In October of 1910, only four years before the outbreak of World War I, nobody knew whether planes, dirigibles, or balloons would prevail. Within a period of 17 days, this question was on prime display, as the dirigible America tried to cross the Atlantic; huge crowds gathered at horse-racing tracks to watch airplanes race around overhead; and ballooning teams from around the world took off from St. Louis in pursuit of the Bennett International Balloon Cup, given to the balloon that traveled the farthest.

In the spring of 2010, as we watched oil gushing unstoppably into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico, many Americans turned their focus to the region for the first time, wondering how this could happen and demanding corporate and government accountability. Yet Rowan Jacobsen brings a surprising perspective to the tragedy: as bad as the spill was, it is only the latest chapter in a century-long story of destruction.

During the Nazi occupation of Ukraine, a match was set up between Dynamo Kiev’s players, playing as FC Start, and a German side. Kiev won. And when the Germans fielded a better side, Kiev beat them, too. And again, and again. Until the half-starved FC Start players faced an international-calibre German side, under the threat of execution if they didn’t let the occupiers win.... An astonishing true story.

For years, Elza has gotten by. A divorcee out of culinary school, she started her own little restaurant in the mid-size Hungarian city of Delibab, and she's grown a decent business, cooking quality versions of Hungarian classics and serving them with a smile. But lately her smile has gotten tired. Her loveless affair with her sous-chef has become an irritation. She's getting sick of the same old dishes and the same old customers. And in these nascent years of capitalism, it will take some competition to make her see that her restaurant, and her happiness, are worth fighting for.

On November 1, 1984, a day after the assassination of Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi, a nineteen-year-old student travels back from a class trip with his mentor and chemistry teacher, Professor Singh. As the group disembarks at Delhi station a mob surrounds the professor, throwing a tire over him, dousing him in gasoline, and setting him alight. Years later the student, Raj, is compelled to find his professor's widow, the beautiful Nelly.

In the 1990s, a marine scientist named Brian Kingzett was commissioned to survey Canada's western coast. He saw amazing sights, from the wildest, most breathtaking coasts to the smallest of marine creatures. Along the western side of Vancouver Island, Kingzett nosed into an isolated pocket beach where he found something unusual. Amid the mussels, barnacles, and clams were round oysters - Olympias. Kingzett noted their presence and paddled on.

The surprising truth about how the things our ears hear affect what's between them. Every day, we are surrounded by millions of sounds - ambient ones like the rumble of the train and the hum of air conditioner, as well as more attention-grabbing sounds, such as human speech, music, and sirens. But how do we process what we hear every day? And how does it affect our brains and our minds?

Everyone knows the flooded quarry is a dangerous place. But when Jacob spots the tail of a huge reptile disappearing into the undergrowth, nobody believes him! He needs to get a photo as proof before anyone will take him seriously. And that means hunting the beast himself....

Holly's family move to the old house so her dad can do his job: bulldozing the ancient trees to make way for a housing estate. But there's something haunting the old house. Something old, and angry, that doesn't want the trees cut down. Something alive....

Alex Ostermann lives in an apartment block with his family in East Berlin. He hates the regime and his parents are worried that Alex and his sister, Geli, aren't displaying the correct ‘socialist attitude'. After school they are often followed. Friends suddenly break off relations. The final straw comes when Alex is arrested.

Tom Brady marching the team upfield in the final minute of the 2001 Super Bowl. Troy Brown playing offense, defense, and special teams. The Tuck Rule. A rogue groundskeeper plowing a path for kicker John Smith at the end of a scoreless, snowy game. Gino Cappelletti setting the AFL record for points in a game against the Houston Oilers. These are the moments Patriots fans love to remember, now retold by the players who lived them.

On December 11, 2008, in the middle of a busy baseball offseason, Bernard Madoff was arrested for orchestrating a massive financial fraud. Among his chief investors was Mets owner Fred Wilpon, who not only lost a major revenue stream as a result, but is now being sued for "fictitious profits" that he now owes to other Madoff victims. To the tune of almost a billion dollars. How did this happen? Where did Wilpon go wrong, and why does a fraud victim suddenly owe money?

Lillian Hellman was a giant of 20th-century letters and a groundbreaking figure as one of the most successful female playwrights on Broadway. Yet the author of The Little Foxes and Toys in the Attic is today remembered more as a toxic, bitter survivor and literary fabulist, the woman of whom Mary McCarthy said, "Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the.'" In A Difficult Woman, renowned historian Alice Kessler-Harris undertakes a feat few would dare to attempt: a reclamation of a combative, controversial woman who straddled so many political and cultural fault lines of her time.

In early 1860, pundits across America confidently predicted the election of Illinois senator Stephen A. Douglas in the coming presidential race. Douglas, after all, led the only party that bridged North and South. But the Democrats would split over the issue of slavery, leading Southerners in the party to run their own presidential slate. This opened the door for the upstart Republicans, exclusively Northern, to steal the Oval Office. Dark horse Abraham Lincoln, not the first choice even of his own party, won the presidency with a record-low 39.8 percent of the popular vote.

As the King's young cousin, an admired scholar living in Italy, it falls to Reginald Pole to make the case for Henry's divorce from Katherine of Aragon. And it falls to the hapless Michael Throckmorton - the younger son of an impecunious titled family - to become Thomas Cromwell's messenger to Pole in Rome.