Showing results by narrator "Donna Postel" in All Categories

As a pet bereavement counselor, Maggie Brennan uses a combination of empathy, insight, and humor to help patients cope with the anguish of losing their beloved four-legged friends. Though she has a gift for guiding others through difficult situations, Maggie has major troubles of her own that threaten the success of her counseling practice and her volunteer work with a dog rescue organization.

For seventeen years, a serial murderer has used the Presley, Arkansas, Annual Hunt for the Golden Egg to find prey. Or at least that’s what some people believe. Others, like the town’s devoted “Eggheads,” relish the tradition and think the deaths are just unfortunate accidents. But for Nell Holcomb, the town’s annual Hunt dredges up a particularly painful memory: her brother’s death, long believed to be “the Hunter’s” first kill.

A novel based on the emotional conflict centered around a son’s urge to sever the psychological umbilical cord which ties him to a selfish and possessive mother. Completely unsympathetic to his young experiences and inclinations, forever critical of his interests and reactions, she nevertheless appeals to his sympathies and attempts to hold him emotionally. 

We are out of touch. Many people fear that we are trapped inside our screens, becoming less in tune with our bodies and losing our connection to the physical world. But the sense of touch has been undervalued since long before the days of digital isolation. How to Feel explores the scientific, physical, emotional, and cultural aspects of touch, reconnecting us to what is arguably our most important sense. Sushma Subramanian introduces listeners to the scientists whose groundbreaking research is underscoring the role of touch in our lives.

The Galápagos archipelago is often viewed as a last foothold of pristine nature. For 60 years, conservationists have worked to restore this evolutionary Eden after centuries of exploitation at the hands of pirates, whalers, and island settlers. This book tells the story of the islands' namesakes - the giant tortoises - as coveted food sources, objects of natural history, and famous icons of conservation and tourism. By doing so, it brings into stark relief the paradoxical, and impossible, goal of conserving species by trying to restore a past state of prehistoric evolution.

After publishing many books, and after many failed TV opportunities, Bette Roseman finally signs a network contract for a TV series based on her novel The Viagra Diaries and dreams of a hit show. But when WC Network changes her protagonist's age from 60 to 20-something, Bette angrily confronts network CEO Joshua Bitterman. She demands that her protagonist maintain her original age, but he insists the public "wants young". After betrayal, intrigue, and bartering with the network, the impassioned Bette finds herself in the middle of a high-stakes Hollywood legal court battle.

Public defender Julia Geary moves through life in simmering resentment - at her husband, a soldier killed in Iraq, leaving her a single mother; at her low-paying job; and at her overbearing mother-in-law, whose home she shares. She longs for a breakout case, and it arrives when members of the high school soccer team report seeing a teammate - Iraqi refugee Sami Mohammed - assaulting a girl in the locker room.

Your road map to achieving your aspirations, How Women Lead provides hard-won wisdom from women who have reached truly impressive heights in their careers. Written by two women's leadership experts who are themselves successful leaders, How Women Lead gives women the information they need to become high-potential leaders but don't get in business school: how to build a career on their own terms, gain the critical business management skills needed to advance, and advocate successfully for themselves.

Steve Jobs did it at Apple. Indra Nooyi did it at Pepsi. Alan Mulally did it at Ford Motor Company. What did these business leaders do exactly? They brought very real, positive change to their organizations by using their unique CEO brand. Now, executive coach Suzanne Bates explains how you can exert the same kind of influence at your company. Discover Your CEO Brand provides the insight, knowledge, and tools you need to discover your own personal CEO style and then develop it into a powerful presence that extends beyond your typical spheres of influence. 

There's no doubt about it. Mark Zuckerberg's creation has changed the world. Literally. Facebook has single-handedly revolutionized the way more than one-seventh of the world's population communicates, engages, and consumes information. If you run a business or plan to start one, you're probably asking yourself the same question organizational leaders worldwide are asking: What did Mark Zuckerberg do right? At long last, the answer is here. 

1923 in Midland, Texas, and Miss Dara falls in love with her best friend - who also happens to be a girl. Terrified, Miss Dara takes a job at Sugar Land Prison for men, hoping to keep her secret attractions under lock and key. Once there, she befriends inmate and soon-to-be legendary blues singer Leadbelly, who sings his way out (true story) - but only after he makes her promise to free herself from her own prison. Sugar Land is a triumphant, beautiful debut novel about the heart’s refusal to be denied what the heart wants.

When Cheryl Dietrich joined the US Air Force, she began a transformation from overweight introvert and military neophyte into one of the key personnel redesigning the structure of the Air Force within the Pentagon. In this stirring and revelatory memoir, Cheryl - one of only a hundred female officers of colonel rank or higher - explains what it takes to stay the course, overcome male domination issues, break the glass ceiling more than once, and deal with the political issues facing the Pentagon.

In her admired works of fiction, including the recent The Book That Matters Most, Ann Hood explores the transformative power of literature. Now, with warmth and honesty, Hood reveals the personal story behind these works of fiction. Growing up in a mill town in Rhode Island, in a household that didn't foster the love of literature, Hood nonetheless learned to channel her imagination and curiosity by devouring The Bell Jar, Marjorie Morningstar, The Harrad Experiment, and other works.

Two very different women with this in common: Each harbors her own secret, her own reason why she can't just let this go. Neither can yield, not before they've dredged up all that's hidden, even if it has the power to shatter all they've built.

It's the phone call every parent dreads: in the middle of the night, Sandy Cline learns that her twenty-year-old son, Jordan, has been in a car accident. Her nephew, Travis, was also in the car, along with Travis's girlfriend. All three are alive - but barely. The car was smashed against a tree along a remote and winding road, beautiful but deadly, in their rural Texas Hill Country town.

Ned Wallis knows he's forbidden to touch the rifle in the attic. But he can't resist sneaking it out of the house just once. Before he realizes it, Ned takes a shot at a dark shadow. When Ned returns home, he's sure he sees a face looking down at him from the attic window. Who has seen and heard him? Ned's feelings of guilt and fear only get worse when one day, while helping an elderly neighbor, he spots a wild cat with one eye missing. Could this be the thing Ned shot at that night?

Through deep and thoughtful exploration of diaries, letters, and other personal writings penned during the spring and summer of 1865, Martha Hodes, one of our finest historians, captures the full range of reactions to the president's death - far more diverse than public expressions would suggest. She tells a story of shock, glee, sorrow, anger, blame, and fear.

What happens when a person's reputation has been forever damaged? This riveting biography of Mary Mallon by the Sibert medalist and Newbery Honor winner Susan Bartoletti looks beyond the tabloid scandal of Mary's controversial life. How she was treated by medical and legal officials reveals a lesser-known story of human and constitutional rights, entangled with the science of pathology and enduring questions about who Mary Mallon really was. How did her name become synonymous with deadly disease?

After decades making progressive documentary films, Maggie MacGowen did not expect to fall in love with a Los Angeles cop. But Mike Trent, whom she met while investigating her sister’s shooting, is no LAPD stereotype. Tall, with salt-and-pepper hair and a craggy Bogart face, he inspires her to uproot herself and her daughter from San Francisco and move down to L.A. It takes only a week for their new life to collapse.

In 1974, Roy Frady was a perfect cop. Now he's perfect fodder for one of Maggie MacGowen's documentaries. Frady worked narcotics in the 77th Street Precinct as part of a unit nicknamed the Four Whoresmen, a bunch of hard-drinking, womanizing cops that included Maggie's current lover, homicide Detective Mike Flint. They were successful at shutting down the drug trade in their district until a series of brutality charges brought about their downfall.