Showing results by narrator "Anthony Heald" in All Categories

Meticulous, funny, eccentric - Mary has always been mindful of the complex role she plays as a professor of history. Her lectures are carefully written out beforehand; her departmental loyalties ambiguous. She is so careful, in fact, that she began to see herself as flat, dull, and lifeless. The closing of Brandon College, the institution she'd spent more than fifteen years at, changes everything. Forced to find another position, Mary finds herself at an experimental college in rainy Oregon.

This fine biography of H. L. Mencken tells of how he rose to his unique position as comic genius and pre-eminent critic of American culture. It is the story of a man whose massive power of invective inspired and infuriated his contemporaries and whose popularity and unpopularity mounted with the frenzied pace of the 1920s.

When Gold's daughter is viciously attacked by a neighbor'sdog and barely escapes with her life, Gold's world is torn open. Haunted by the incident and unable to convince local authorities to take action, he agrees to a friend's offer of retaliation. When he feels compelled to return the favor,one bad turn leads to another - and this time, Gold finds the repercussions much worse than he ever could have anticipated.

In this short story by the masterful Tobias Wolff, a teenage boy learns the joys - and struggles - of adult life.

Eager for independence and adult-like freedom, a teenage boy takes a summer job baling hay on a rural farm. Savoring the farm wife’s attention and the extra change in his pocket, the boy feels like a grown man. The fellow hands give him a sense of camaraderie - Clemson, a fastidious boy who attends the same high school; Eduardo, a talkative Mexican seasonal worker; and Miguel, a quiet man and Eduardo’s brother.

With his marriage on the rocks, a father takes his son skiing for the weekend. After insisting on staying just a bit longer - despite a growing blizzard - the boy's father finds they're snowed in at the resort, the road blockaded by state troopers. To what lengths will he go to keep his marriage intact?

A classic tale of brotherly love and rivalry from short story master Tobias Wolff. Pete has always been successful. Happily married with two daughters, he lives a comfortable life in Santa Cruz. Pete is a practical, hardworking man and he enjoys life's monetary pleasures. His younger brother, Donald, is a gaunt, troubled man. Unmarried and without children, Donald earns what little money he has by occasionally painting houses. He's a religious man, unlike Pete, and has spent several years as a member of various Christian groups.

As Leia must deal with a new threat to the fragile alliance that binds the New Republic, Lando becomes a prisoner aboard a runaway spacecraft of unknown origin. The ship is following an unstoppable path to its homeworld, destroyed by Imperial forces. Luke continues his quest to learn more about his mother among the Fallanassi, where his every belief about the use of the Force is about to be challenged.

"Firelight" tells the story of a mother and her son who are spending the afternoon viewing apartments on a chilly day in Seattle, Washington. The two have no intention of renting one - they can only afford to live in a meager boarding house. Nevertheless, they spend every Saturday wandering through apartments and department stores, dreaming of a different life.

Faced with an alarming image of Han as a battered hostage of the Yevetha, Chewbacca takes on an urgent mission. Meanwhile, Leia calls upon the Senate to take a stand and eliminate the Yevetha threat. As a former Imperial governor takes his battle to the runaway Qella spaceship, Luke's continuing search for his mother brings him dangerously close to Nil Spaar's deadly forces. And as the Yevetha close in on the forces of the New Republic, Luke takes a desperate gamble with an invisible weapon.

Maureen is an English teacher, and she’s had a long day. All she wants is a relaxing night out with friends, a few beers, and maybe the chance to forget the troubles of her past: The gambling ex-husband and the daughter who’d thrown her life away sleeping with married men. But her night—and maybe her life—is thrown off track when she leaves the bar and a man approaches her in the parking lot as she unlocks her car.

Miller is unlucky. That's why he's in a foxhole with the rest of Bravo Company. That's why his dad is gone and his mother remarried. That's why his teeth are falling out. Then, when the first sergeant tells Miller his mother has passed away, Miller thinks he's finally gotten lucky. Surely it's another Miller's mother, and now he can get away from the battalion for a couple days thanks to the Army's error. But Miller knows the future rarely has happiness in store.

April's father, a psychology professor, has had a breakdown and has landed in the Alta Vista State Hospital. Her stepmother, Claire, is just waiting for him to get out so she can leave on a trip to Italy - a trip April is worried Claire won't come back from. She needs Claire, at least until she finishes high school. She needs her not just as a companion but as a worldly woman who can tell April about men and their desires…men far different from her boyfriend, Stuart.

Somewhere in the galaxy, millions suddenly perish in a blinding instant of pain, anguish, and despair, a disruption of the Force so shocking, it is felt by Luke at his Jedi academy on Yavin 4 and by Leia at home on Coruscant. It is a deed that rivals the terrifying power of the Death Star, the long-destroyed weapon of the defeated Empire.

Inspired by a near-mythic event on the wild Florida frontier at the turn of the 20th century, Shadow Country re-imagines the legend of the inspired Everglades sugar planter and notorious outlaw E. J. Watson, who drives himself relentlessly toward his own violent end at the hands of neighbors who mostly admired him, in a killing that obsessed his favorite son.

John F. Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States, and the youngest man elected to the office. He was assassinated at the age of 46 in 1963. Arthur Ashe was an African American professional tennis player who won more than forty singles titles. He died in 1993 at the age of 49 of AIDS-related pneumonia. But imagine if the lives of JFK and Ashe had not been cut short? In this pair of speculative biographies, two writers suppose what might have been if JFK had lived long enough to serve out his presidency and what Arthur Ashe may have done to enhance his already notable legacy.

Burke, a San Francisco lawyer, is defending a woman who has been disabled by a botched surgery. His client has a personal connection to Burke, and the trial happens to be taking place in his Ohio hometown, a place ravaged by fallen industries and greedy corporations. While taking a deposition from a particularly difficult witness, Burke calls for a break and takes a walk around the neighborhood where he grew up. A chance encounter with a beautiful woman sets in motion a series of events that Burke could never have foreseen - and is unlikely to forget.

Homer's Iliad can justly be called the world's greatest war epic. The terrible and long-drawn-out siege of Troy remains one of the classic campaigns, the heroism and treachery of its combatants unmatched in song and story. Driven by fierce passions and loyalties, men and gods battle to a devastating conclusion.

Two noted journalists take us into the "futures" of John F. Kennedy and Arthur Ashe had they not died so young... These vividly imaginative "biographies" are thoughtful, honest, heartfelt... and entirely within the realm of possibility.

When Joe Reed was a teenager, he fell so deeply in love with Mary Claude Moore that his parents threatened to send him away. Decades later, he's living a normal life with his wife and their two children; yet in the thirty years since he's last seen Mary Claude, he hasn't stopped thinking of her. With recent news of her in hand, Joe begins to understand the reasons for which he has never stopped loving her - and just how pivotal that time in his life had been.

While on a crowded bus near the Vatican, a man named Mallon - visiting Italy on business - feels someone reaching into his pockets, searching for his wallet. He elbows the pickpocket, seriously injuring the man. Driven by his guilty conscience, Mallon finds himself peering in on the life of an unfamiliar culture and learning more about the world than he ever could have imagined.