Showing results by narrator "Ann Richardson" in All Categories

In the late nineteenth century, San Francisco's merchant princes built grand stores for a booming city, each with its own niche. For the eager clientele, a trip downtown meant dressing up—hats, gloves, and stockings required—and going to Blum's for Coffee Crunch cake or Townsend's for creamed spinach. The I. Magnin empire catered to a selective upper-class clientele, while middle-class shoppers loved the Emporium department store with its Bargain Basement and Santa for the kids.

In Control the Conversation, the authors guide you in crafting a response to a question, not just an answer. A response should be multidimensional and include relevant and compelling information that goes beyond a mere answer. The authors help you build and apply this skill set. You will learn how to manage the four areas of disclosure - people, places, things, and events in time. You will also develop competence in techniques that will help you take control and get your message across in any kind of interview.

In From Hoodies to Suits: Innovating Digital Assets for Traditional Finance, leading finance innovator Annelise Osborne bridges the gap between the "hoodies" who invented the technology behind digital assets and the "suits" who run traditional financial markets, in an entertaining and insightful guide for implementing digital assets in an institutional environment.

As a child, artist and potter Dani Bennett witnessed the brutal murder of her parents. With no memory of the incident or her true identity, she was forced to take on a new name and a new life, hidden away in Montana for the past twenty-five years.

Harmony King disappeared from Charleston as soon as she aged out of the foster system. Ten years later, she returns with just as many secrets as she had back then. As her past threatens to overwhelm her, she seeks mercy at the local church. There, the pastor finds her praying like her life depends on it and decides to entrust one of his tiny therapy dogs to her care. Will this special Chihuahua’s love be enough to help Harmony discover her own worth, and can it protect her when the dark past she tried so desperately to leave behind finally catches up to her?

Drowned Worlds looks at the future we might have if the oceans rise, good or bad. Here you'll find stories of action, adventure, romance, and, yes, warning and apocalypse. Stories inspired by Ballard's The Drowned World, Sterling's Islands in the Net, and Ryman's The Child Garden. Stories that allow that things may get worse, but remembers that such times also bring out the best in us all.

Saints are people too. The word saint conjures up images of superstar Christians revered for their spectacular acts and otherworldly piety. But when we take a closer look at the lives of these spiritual heavyweights, we learn that they also experienced struggle, doubt, and heartache. In fact, we learn that in many ways they're not all that different from you and me. Narrating her own winding pilgrimage through faith, Karen Marsh reveals surprising lessons in everyday spirituality from these "saints" - folks who lived and breathed, and failed and followed God.

Everyone suffers disappointment, rejection, injustices, and losses, perhaps even traumatic ones. The spiritual pain born of such suffering can paralyze us, leaving us broken inside and barely getting by with the motions of life. Whether we remain stuck or move forward is determined in large part by our resilience.

Before its foundation, America first flew the Appeal to Heaven flag. It was the banner George Washington used on his navy ships to signal that their only hope against British rule and religious persecution was an appeal to heaven. The crusade continues today. Sparked in part by a revelation Dutch Sheets received over the course of 12 years, the nation is being called back to prayer for a Third Great Awakening. As a result, pockets of revival are breaking out across the nation.

A man who can't read will never amount to anything - or so Nate Webber believes. But he takes a chance to help his family by signing up for the new Civilian Conservation Corps, skirting the truth about certain requirements. He exchanges the harsh Brooklyn streets for the wilds of Yellowstone National Park, curious if the Eden-like wonderland can transform him as well.

Watercolorist Olivia Rutherford has shed her humble beginnings to fashion her image as an avant-garde artist to appeal to the region's wealthy art collectors. When she lands a lucrative contract painting illustrations of Yosemite National Park for a travel magazine, she hopes the money will lift her and her sisters out of poverty. After false accusations cost him everything, former minister Clark Johnson has found purpose as a backcountry guide in this natural cathedral. Now, he's faced with the opportunity to become a National Parks Ranger, but is it his true calling?

It’s 1927, and the National Park Service is in its youth when Margie, an avid naturalist, lands a coveted position alongside the park rangers living and working in the unrivaled splendor of Mount Rainier’s long shadow. But Chief Ranger Ford Brayden is still haunted by his father’s death on the mountain, and the ranger takes his work managing the park and its crowd of visitors seriously. The job of watching over an idealistic senator’s daughter with few practical survival skills seems a waste of resources.

Social isolation can shatter our confidence. In isolating times, we're not only lonely, but we're ashamed of our loneliness because our society stigmatizes people who are alone without support. As a single, 58-year-old woman who finds herself stranded after major surgery, Val Walker has woven into the narrative her own story. A well-established rehabilitation counselor, she was too embarrassed to reveal on social media how utterly isolated she was by asking for someone to help, and it felt agonizingly awkward calling colleagues out of the blue.

As librarian at Castleton Manor, the upscale literary retreat in Lighthouse Bay, Massachusetts, Faith Newberry cheerfully hosts various events for book lovers while accommodating the mansion's quirky guests. But during a poetry retreat, Faith's patience is tested by Emilie Smythe, an ill-mannered lecturer with an uncanny resemblance to Emily Dickinson. Emilie not only looks like Dickinson, but she dresses like her and also owns a Newfoundland named Carlo.

Science and faith are often seen as being in opposition. In this book, award-winning sociologist Elaine Howard Ecklund questions this assumption based on research she has conducted over the past 15 years. She highlights the ways these two spheres point to universal human experiences, showing listeners they don't have to choose between science and Christianity.

How do we define genius? Standardized testing to measure intelligence began in the first half of the 20th century, but a high IQ score is only one way to quantify genius. In this audiobook, Eureka! The Science of Genius, we review the latest research on the nature of intellectual and creative achievement, including traits that geniuses tend to share, how much of their ability is nature versus nurture, the cognitive processes involved during the stages of discovery and creativity, and, most importantly, what we can do to enhance intelligence.

Singular Intimacies is the story of becoming a doctor by immersion at Bellevue Hospital, the oldest public hospital in the country—and perhaps the most legendary. It is both the classic inner-city hospital and a unique amalgam of history, insanity, beauty, and intellect. When Danielle Ofri enters these 250-year-old doors as a tentative medical student, she is immediately plunged into the teeming world of urban medicine: mysterious illnesses, life-and-death decisions, patients speaking any one of a dozen languages, and overworked interns.

Even if others abandon you, you must never abandon yourself. This simple truth became Terry Helwig’s lifeline as she was forced to grow up too soon. Terry grew up the oldest of six girls in the big-sky country of the American Southwest, where she attended 12 schools in 11 years. Helwig’s stepfather, Davy, a good-hearted and loving man, proudly purchased a mobile home to enable his family to move more easily from one oil town to another, where Davy eked out a living in the oil fields.

It's Simmering Suspense Week at the Castleton Manor literary retreat in Lighthouse Bay, Massachusetts. Librarian Faith Newberry has her hands full with a week of author talks and signings planned. But when the bejeweled guest of honor, reigning queen of romantic suspense Gloria Bauer, clears out her luxurious suite and disappears without a trace, Faith must scramble to keep the manor's other guests - and her cranky boss, Marlene Russell - satisfied with one less author.

Faith Newberry is settling in nicely at her job as librarian at the upscale and pet-friendly Castleton Manor literary retreat. Even her cat, Watson, has taken to his new life in Lighthouse Bay on Cape Cod. With a cozy cottage on the grounds of the Massachusetts estate in which to live, and surrounded by books by day and friends by night, Faith thinks life couldn't get much sweeter.