Showing results by author "Joseph O’Connor" in All Categories

September 1943: German forces occupy Rome. SS officer Paul Hauptmann rules with terror. The war's outcome is far from certain. An Irish priest, Hugh O'Flaherty, dedicates himself to helping those escaping from the Nazis. His home is Vatican City, the world's smallest state, a neutral, independent country within Rome where the occupiers hold no sway. Here Hugh brings together an unlikely band of friends to hide the vulnerable under the noses of the enemy. But Hauptmann's net begins closing in on the Escape Line and the need for a terrifyingly audacious mission grows critical.

Winter 1847, the Star of the Sea sets sail from Ireland for New York. Among the refugees are a maidservant, bankrupt Lord Merridith, an aspiring novelist, and a maker of revolutionary ballads. Each is connected more deeply than they know.

This practical audiobook will help you to know when to trust and when not to trust, how to develop your intuition to stay safe when there is real danger, how to deal with worry and change in light of an uncertain future and, most importantly, to be in the here and now, living your life to the fullest.

Inside the beleaguered city of Rome in 1944, the Contessa Giovanna Landini is a member of the band of Escape Line activists known as ‘The Choir’. Their mission is to smuggle refugees to safety and help Allied soldiers, all under the nose of Gestapo boss Paul Hauptmann. During a ferocious morning air raid a mysterious parachutist lands in Rome and disappears into the backstreets. Is he an ally or an imposter? His fate will come to put the whole Escape Line at risk.

Dublin 1907, a city of whispered rumours. An actress still in her teens begins an affair with a damaged older man, the leading playwright at the theatre where she works. Rebellious, irreverent, beautiful, flirtatious, Molly Allgood is a girl of the inner city tenements, dreaming of stardom in America. Witty and watchful, she has dozens of admirers. But in the backstage of her life, there is a secret.

Three extraordinary people begin their life together. Henry Irving, the Chief, is the volcanic leading man and impresario; Ellen Terry is the most lauded and desired actress of her generation; and ever following along behind them in the shadows is the unremarkable theatre manager, Bram Stoker. Bram is wrestling with dark demons in a new city, in a new marriage, and with his own literary aspirations. As he walks the London streets at night, streets haunted by the Ripper and the gossip which swirls around his friend Oscar Wilde, he finds new inspiration.

In the bitter winter of 1847, from an Ireland torn by injustice and natural disaster, the Star of the Sea sets sail for New York. On board are hundreds of fleeing refugees, some brimming with optimism, many more desperate. Among them are a maidservant with a devastating secret, bankrupt Lord Merridith and his wife and children, an aspiring novelist, and a maker of revolutionary ballads, all braving the Atlantic in search of a new home.

Leadership is not something people are necessarily born with - it can be learned. The most effective way to learn leadership is through the techniques of Neuro-linguistic Programming (NLP). NLP is a set of skills for psychologically influencing people (using body language, verbal techniques and a host of other practical methods).

Inishowen is a story of love found late, of hidden connections and a journey that changes three lives forever. There's Inspector Martin Aitken, whose life is a mess. Divorced, his career's in chaos. There are terrible things growing inside his house, and the last thing he needs is a collapsed woman in the street on Christmas Eve. There's Ellen Donelly, a woman on a mission, coming to Ireland to find her mother, and escape her husband. Milton Amery is her husband, an unfaithful New York plastic surgeon.

At college in 1980s, Robbie Goulding, an Irish-born teenager, meets Fran Mulvey, a Vietnamese refugee. Together they form a band. Joined by cellist Sarah-Thérèse Sherlock and her brother Seán on drums, they set out to chase fame. Spanning 25 years, we fast-forward through an evocative soundtrack of struggle and laughter. Infused with blues, New Wave and punk, the tale stretches from the Glastonbury Festival to Long Island, culminating in July 2012, a night that changes everything.

It is 1865: the American Civil War is ending. Eliza Duane Mulvey sets out from Lafayette, Louisiana, the town her mother Mary Duane called home. Alone, she walks across a devastated country in search of a youngster she has not seen in four years. One of the hundred thousand children drawn into the war, his fate has been mysterious and will prove extraordinary.

It is 1865. The American Civil War is ending. Eighteen years after the famine ship Star of the Sea docked at New York, the daughter of two of her passengers sets out from Baton Rouge, Louisiana, on a walk across a devastated America. Eliza Duane Mooney is searching for a youngster she has not seen in four years, one of the 100,000 children drawn into the war. His fate has been mysterious and will prove extraordinary.

All alone, with only his electric guitar and his overactive ego for company, Eddie Virago, proud owner of the last Mohican haircut in Dublin, leaves his home town to find fame in the wild world of the London rock scene. Things don't quite go as planned, however, and he finds himself living in a ramshackle hotel with a neurotic girl he met on the ferry over while a bewildering array of acid-house ravers, saloon-bar revolutionaries, music biz wideboys and media primadonnas all seem oh-so-anxious to help Eddie on his way....

It's Dublin, June 1995, the hottest summer since records began. But Billy Sweeney, a middle-aged salesman with a failed marriage, a faltering career and a tumbledown house, has more than weather on his mind. His youngest daughter lies in a coma in hospital following a mysterious attack on the petrol station where she worked. Devastated by the unfolding consequences of that hot, violent night, frustrated by officialdom and failed by the system, Billy finally tires of seeking legal justice. He decides to take the law into his own hands..

After writing the first book about why Lean and Six Sigma practitioners should volunteer their skills to help nonprofits, I wanted to give more tangible and real-life examples of how these tools and techniques can be applied. I've reached out to friends and colleagues who are already volunteering their time, and asked them to write a chapter for this first volume, called Lessons Learned from the Gemba.