Showing results by narrator "Edoardo Ballerini" in All Categories

Lucidly and beautifully written, Peace Is Every Step contains commentaries, meditations, personal anecdotes, and stories from Nhat Hanh's experiences as a peace activist, teacher, and community leader. It begins where the listener already is - in the kitchen, office, driving a car, walking - and shows how deep meditative presence is available now.

They decimated Earth during the Long Winter. Now the Grid has returned, and they won't stop until the human race is extinct. On a ruined world, humanity's last survivors fight against impossible odds. In their darkest hour, they discover a new hope for survival. But it comes at an unthinkable price, with consequences that will change everything.

For centuries, works of art have been stolen in countless ways from all over the world, but no one has been quite as successful at it as the master thief Stéphane Breitwieser. Carrying out more than 200 heists over nearly ten years - in museums and cathedrals all over Europe - Breitwieser, along with his girlfriend who worked as his lookout, stole more than 300 objects, until it all fell apart in spectacular fashion. In The Art Thief, Michael Finkel brings us into Breitwieser’s strange and fascinating world.

The millions of listeners of Amor Towles are in for a treat as he shares some of his shorter fiction: six stories set in New York City and a novella in Los Angeles. The New York stories, most of which are set around the turn of the millennium, take up everything from the death-defying acrobatics of the male ego, to the fateful consequences of brief encounters, and the delicate mechanics of comprise which operate at the heart of modern marriages.

After a harrowing escape from Russian agents on his last mission, Charles Jenkins thinks he’s finally done with the spy game. But then the final two of the seven sisters—American assets who have been deep undercover in Russia for decades—cut off all communication with their handlers. Are they in hiding after detecting surveillance? Or have they turned and become double agents? It’s Jenkins’s duty to find out, but he’s been added to a Russian kill list. It will require all of Jenkins’s knowledge of spycraft—and an array of disguises—to return to the country undetected.

A Wall Street tycoon takes a young woman as his wife. Together they rise to the top in an age of excess and speculation. But now a novelist is threatening to reveal the secrets behind their marriage, and this wealthy man’s story—of greed, love and betrayal—is about to slip from his grasp. Composed of four competing versions of this deliciously deceptive tale, Trust brings us on a quest for truth while confronting the lies that often live buried in the human heart.

When the Buddha set in motion the wheel of Dharma, he knew that the teaching he gave was inexhaustible - that every future generation would find its own skillful ways to convey it to the hearts and minds of those ready to hear. The Buddha Is Still Teaching is testimony to the fulfillment of that promise today. The selections it contains, from today's most highly regarded contemporary Buddhist teachers, bring the Dharma eloquently to life for us in our own time, place, and culture.

Abandoned years ago to the foster-care system, two young brothers end up in an unimaginable hell, and when one dies, the other vows revenge on those responsible. Chicago Fire Department veteran Reed Solliday immediately knows he needs help when an autopsy reveals that a young girl found in the wreckage of an explosion was raped and murdered before fire ripped through the house. Determined to bury herself in work after her partner is shot, Detective Mia Mitchell understands Solliday's case will be her most challenging to date.

Ex-Boston homicide detective Billy Robinson has retreated to a quiet life on the New England coast. Struggling to cope following the death of his beloved wife, he must now run the inn that Siobhan took care of so well. The inn's quirky residents help keep Billy on solid ground as he grieves, and the group soon become an unconventional family. But this small town is in the grips of a growing opioid epidemic, and when a young resident gets hooked into the crisis, Billy knows he must act to save the people in the inn that he has grown to care so much about.

Do you practise meditation because you want to feel good? Or to help you relax and be "happy"? Then frankly, according to Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse, you are far better off having a full-body massage than trying to practise the Dharma. Genuine spiritual practice, not least the Ngndro preliminaries, will not bring the kind of comfort and ease most worldly people crave. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Poca City 1949. Fresh from serving time for a crime he didn’t commit, Aloysius Archer is ready to put the past behind him and start again. Accepting a job as a debt collector for the local tycoon he gets embroiled in a long-running feud between the town’s most dangerous residents. When one of them is found dead, Archer is the number one suspect.

It’s January of 1704, and Matthew Corbett continues his mission to Italy, accompanied by Hudson Greathouse and former enemy Professor Fell. They seek Brazio Valeriani and information about the mirror created by his father, the sorcerer Ciro. Legend claims the mirror can be used to summon demons from beyond. But fate has other plans for Matthew as their ship is disabled by a pod of whales, and they seek refuge on a secluded island. The islanders welcome them with a massive feast, but all is not what it seems.

Berlin, 1931: Ally Keller, a talented young poet, is alone and scared when she gives birth to a mixed-race daughter she names Lilith. As the Nazis rise to power, Ally knows she must keep her baby in the shadows to protect her against Hitler’s deadly ideology of Aryan purity. But as she grows, it becomes more and more difficult to keep Lilith hidden, so Ally sets in motion a dangerous and desperate plan to send her daughter across the ocean to safety.

It's 1986 and a nuclear reactor has exploded in Chernobyl. Syvert Løyning returns home from military service to live with his mother and brother on the outskirts of a town in Southern Norway. One night, he dreams of his late father, and can't shake him from his mind. Searching through his father's belongings for clues and connections, he finds a cache of letters that lead to the Soviet Union.

Intertwining past and present, The Wind Knows My Name tells the tale of two unforgettable characters, both in search of family and home. It is both a testament to the sacrifices that parents make, and a love letter to the children who survive the most unfathomable dangers — and never stop dreaming.

The last book written by the most famous literary critic of his generation, on the sustaining power of poetry.

Cristian has lived his entire life in the grip of a repressive dictatorship. The country is governed by fear. When the secret police blackmail him, Cristian has an impossible choice. Save the life of his sick grandfather by informing on his family, or risk his life—and all of theirs—by resisting? At 17, Cristian dreams of being free but doesn't know where to turn. In this climate of constant suspicion, can he trust his best friend, his girlfriend or even his family?

My Struggle introduces American listeners to the audacious, addictive, and profoundly surprising international literary sensation that is the provocative and brilliant six-volume autobiographical novel by Karl Ove Knausgaard. It has already been anointed a Proustian masterpiece and is the rare work of dazzling literary originality that is intense and irresistible to hear. Unafraid of the big issues - death, love, art, fear - and yet committed to the intimate details of life as it is lived, My Struggle is an essential work of contemporary literature.

On Eos, the last survivors of the Long Winter face their greatest challenge yet - and race to unravel the deepest secrets of the grid. The last survivors of the human race escaped a ruined Earth. Their new homeworld - Eos - seemed perfect at first. Warm. Hospitable. Safe from the grid. But everything isn't as it seems. The first colony of settlers - from the Carthage - have disappeared. Their settlement is still there, but everyone is gone. As James digs into the mystery of the lost colony, he discovers a series of spheres, buried on Eos.

Viktor Orlov had a longstanding appointment with death. Once Russia's richest man, he now resides in exile in London, where he is waging a crusade against the kleptocrats who have seized control of the Kremlin. His mansion is protected by armed bodyguards. Yet somehow, on a rainy summer evening, in the midst of a global pandemic, Russia's vengeful president finally manages to cross Orlov's name off his kill list.