Showing results by narrator "John McLain" in All Categories

Bestselling author Michael Foley dives deep into the history of Christmas and the customs that surround this beloved holiday. Learn about the fascinating origins of your favorite Christmas food, drink, observances, and songs. Discover how Saint Nicolas, a fourth-century Catholic bishop, became Santa Clause and who Santa’s global competitors are (some of them will shock you). And dig into the forbidden history of the Yuletide season’s dark and ghoulish side.

Americans are understandably squeamish about official racial and ethnic classifications. Nevertheless, applying for a job, mortgage, university, citizenship, government contracts, and more involves checking a box stating whether one is Black, White, Asian, Hispanic, or Native American. In an increasingly diverse society with high rates of intergroup marriage, the American system of racial classification is getting even more absurd. Classified argues that the time has come to consider abolishing official racial classification and replace it with the separation of race and state.

With the African continent engulfed by World War II, John Clayton, Lord Greystoke, abandons his role as Lord of the Jungle in order to combat the spreading Nazi menace. Flying a P-40 Tomahawk warplane, Clayton is sent on his first mission: to rescue the missing British Military Intelligence officer code-named Ilex. But the daring task plunges him into his savage past after he’s forced down in a lost land that seems hauntingly familiar.

From the award-winning author of Occupational Hazards come nine more tales of blue-collar fiction, including The Destroyer (sequel to Jar Baby) and the author's autobiographical Memoir of a Murderer, narrated by an all-star cast of performers. There's horror, there's humor, there's horrific humor. It slices, it dices, it makes julienne fries. Treat yourself. You deserve it.

Almost one year has passed since the earth shook up Matt Horning and his coastal village. Now, the world’s foremost scientists have flocked to the remote town to study the aftereffects on the sea and land. Turns out, one of them isn’t a nice man. Famous geologist British Lord Phineas Stuart goes missing. As the investigation into Stuart’s disappearance gets underway, Matt and his colleagues quickly realize they’re not hurting for suspects who wish the geologist harm. Has Stuart just taken off somewhere, or is a jealous competitor responsible for the missing scientist?

The George Floyd riots that have precipitated great changes throughout American society were not spontaneous events. Americans did not suddenly rise up in righteous anger, take to the streets, and demand not just that police departments be defunded but that all the structures, institutions, and systems of the United States—all supposedly racist—be overhauled. The 12,000 or so demonstrations and 633 related riots that followed Floyd’s death took organizational muscle. The movement’s grip on institutions from the classroom to the ballpark required ideological commitment.

A skeleton with a bullet in its skull. A natural disaster. Relationship problems with not one, but two women in his life. What else could possibly go wrong for Port Stirling Police Chief Matt Horning? Woken by the ˜Big One', an earthquake at his Oregon beach-front home, things would only get worse from there for Matt Horning.

A brutally murdered federal agent. Distrust among his close colleagues.

Horning, escaping professional troubles in Texas, accepts the vacant job in Port Stirling, Oregon, looking for a fresh start in what he thought would be a peaceful coastal town where the far west meets the mighty Pacific Ocean. Nothing much ever happens here…or does it?

In AD 2076, Earth has been conquered and humanity brutally enslaved under the cruel tyranny of the Kalkar invaders whose evil was spawned from Va-nah, the Moon’s hollow interior. But when a desperate plea comes from the planet Barsoom, Julian Seventh - descendant of the great hero who nearly defeated the Kalkars - is hurled upon a lonely quest into the heart of Va-nah. There he must team up with a U-ga princess and a fierce alien quadruped to launch a daring rescue to save a lost Barsoomian ambassadorial mission.

News of the passing of a dear friend spurs John Carter, Warlord of Mars, to investigate a series of perplexing mysteries in the forbidding icy northern reaches of Barsoom. The enigmas only deepen as he embarks upon a journey to the far-flung treasure city of Gathol with his spirited daughter Tara and an unexpected stowaway. Ensnared in an insidious conspiracy that reaches from his early years on the Red Planet back into the dim recesses of the ancient past, John Carter and his trusted longsword are now all that stand in the way of a dreadful menace.

Massachusetts horticulturalist Peter Shandy is famous for his rutabagas, but he comes to Maine with a loftier plant in mind. Specifically, he wants to size up the world-renowned lupines of Frances Rondel, a nonagenarian whose legendary flowers are even more beautiful in life than they are in myth. Shandy is bitterly jealous but finds a major distraction in the dining room of the country inn where he's staying. He may grow wretched lupines, but no gardener can solve a murder like Peter Shandy.

The giant hogweed, a creeping menace known for crushing the life out of any plant foolish enough to get in its way, has put the hedgerows and pastures of the English countryside in jeopardy. Fishermen find their streams clogged, young lovers are caught with rashes in embarrassing places, and the English nudist colony has been all but exterminated. Only Peter Shandy, the famed horticulturalist responsible for the world's finest rutabaga, can save the day.

Wilderness guide and lifelong Alaskan Bjorn Dihle weaves personal experience with historical and contemporary accounts to explore the world of brown bears - from encounters with the Lewis and Clark Expedition to frightening attacks including the famed death of Timothy Treadwell, the controversies related to bear hunting, the animal's place in native cultures, and the impacts on the species from habitat degradation and climate change.

Not so long ago, conservative intellectuals such as William F. Buckley Jr. believed universities were worth fighting for. Today, conservatives seem more inclined to burn them down. In Let's Be Reasonable, conservative political theorist and professor Jonathan Marks finds in liberal education an antidote to this despair, arguing that the true purpose of college is to encourage people to be reasonable. Drawing on the ideas of John Locke and other thinkers, Marks presents the case for why, now more than ever, conservatives must not give up on higher education.

C. S. Lewis is best known for his Narnia tales and Christian apologetics, works that have sold more than 100 million copies. But Lewis was also a trained philosopher and a professor at Cambridge and Oxford. An intellectual giant, he fiercely and extensively critiqued the fashionable dogma known as scientism - the idea that science is the only path to knowledge, and matter the fundamental reality.

People are changed and inspired through everyday interactions, so you don’t need to be big or bold to impact those around you. By recognizing your ability to be a positive influence, you unlock your power to change lives for the better. With over three million copies of his books in print, best-selling author Stan Toler is a trusted voice on leadership and making a difference. In The Power of Your Personal Impact, Stan examines how you can profoundly change both your own life and the world you live in.

Pat Ruger is a retired detective in Denver, Colorado, who does freelance PI work. An old friend, Angel, is a long-time weed dealer who refers a case to Pat- a missing woman suspected of being kidnapped and radicalized by Islamic extremists. Pat’s new client and her best friend are young women of the street and they eagerly help him recover from mourning over his late wife. When Pat uncovers a terrorist plot, can he find a large explosive device set to kill thousands of people and disarm it in time?

Big Red and Old Red Amlingmeyer’s dream has come true: The Sherlock Holmes-worshiping cowboy brothers are finally in business as professional detectives. But their fledgling A.A. Western Detective Agency faces a few challenges. Their partner, Col. Crowe, is almost as cantankerous and secretive as Old Red himself. The colonel’s daughter, Diana, insists on tagging along for the Amlingmeyers’ first assignment, which lands them smack dab in the middle of a range war - with Big Red and Old Red expected to shoot it out with rustlers rather than rustle up clues and solve a mystery.

Instability and fear seize the nation. Local and national political figures are systematically assassinated. A growing secessionist movement stirs up anti-government fervor. The combination creates nationwide unrest and lack of confidence in leadership. With the clock ticking toward a monumental constitutional crisis, President Morgan Taylor assigns Secret Service Agent Scott Roarke to investigate the assassinations. Meanwhile, Roarke’s fiancée, an assistant to the US Supreme Court Chief Justice, is tasked with researching the separatists.