Showing results by narrator "John Pruden" in All Categories

The Relation of My Imprisonment is a work of fiction utilizing a form invented in the seventeenth century by imprisoned Puritan divines. Designed to be exemplary, works of this type were aimed at brethren outside the prison walls and functioned primarily as figurative dramatization of the test of fait all true believers must endure.

How do The Matrix, Avatar, and Tron reveal the future of existence? Can our brains recognize where "reality" ends and "virtual" begins? What would it mean to live eternally in a digital universe? Where will technology lead us in five, 50, and 500 years? Two innovative scientists explore the mystery and reality of the virtual and examine the profound potential of emerging digital technologies. Welcome to the future....

The human species is relatively new to the planet in geologic terms. With origins reaching back only a few million years, the rise of humans from primate ancestors is a remarkable evolutionary success story. Early Humans traces the beginnings of the human species, its success and adaptability, and the development of such innovations as human language and culture.

At age 35, Morris Bliss is clamped in the jaws of New York City inertia. Enter Stefani, an 18-year-old girl in a Catholic school uniform, and Morris's once static life quickly unravels when Stefani's father calls on Morris to work for him. Morris's life becomes further entangled when his best friend, N.J., is recruited by an international cartel that controls global economics and local sex markets, and Morris is called in to save N.J.'s bacon.

Francesca di Paoli, an immigrant fallen on hard times, reaches what she hopes is a safe haven in Jackson Hole in June 1925 - only to narrowly miss dying in the historic Gros Ventre landslide. Hired as a cook at the Snake River Dude Ranch, she and the rest of the valley inhabitants watch a new lake form along a dammed river. Poised above homes and ranches, will the 300 foot wall of debris hold back the waters?

The Stock Market Crash of 1929 is an informative introduction to one of the most turbulent events in our history. On October 29, 1929, more than 16 million stock shares were sold at the New York Stock Exchange, and by the end of November, investors had lost more than $100 billion in assets. With the crash, the prosperity of the Roaring Twenties came to a close, and a dark era of financial dispair dawned in the United States.

The year is 1803. Swashbuckling, ribald, and irreverent hero Ethan Gage has outsmarted wily enemies and survived dangerous challenges across the globe, from the wilds of the American frontier to the pyramids of Egypt. Now the rakish hero finds himself in the Caribbean with his wife, Astiza, on a desperate hunt to secure the lost treasure of Montezuma - a legendary hoard rumored to have been hidden from Cortés's plundering Spanish conquistadors. Hot on his heels are British agents who want the gold to finance a black slave revolt....

The Muslim Brotherhood, or Ikhwan, has engaged in terrorism, assassinations, and anti-Western, anti-Semitic rhetoric and violence for almost a century - yet few Americans realize how powerful they really are. While we focus on al Qaeda, Hamas, and Hezbollah, it's actually the Muslim Brotherhood, the world's oldest, most influential, and most anti-American Islamist group, that has become the preeminent voice and power in the Muslim world.

Mark DeYmaz presents seven common obstacles to building a healthy multi-ethnic church, taking the reader beyond merely understanding the need for diversity, to the practical challenges and ramifications of day-to-day leadership within a diverse congregation of faith.

Though the Constitution guarantees the free exercise of religion, it does not specify what qualifies as a religion. From its founding in the 1830s, Mormonism, a homegrown American faith, has drawn thousands of converts but far more critics. In A Peculiar People, J. Spencer Fluhman offers a comprehensive history of anti-Mormon thought and the associated passionate debates about religious authenticity in 19th-century America.

Busy putting in stitches and bandaging lumberjacks' injuries, young Dr. Thomas Parks has no idea that his worst enemy is lurking in the sleepy village of Port McKinney in the spring of 1892. When one of the working girls at the Clarissa Hotel is brought to the Clinic desperately ill, Thomas's newly arrived associate wastes no time in making the diagnosis: Asian Cholera has somehow found this back water near Puget Sound. The cholera strikes viciously and kills in days, sometimes even hours....

Among the thousands of summer warriors battling to save America’s crown jewel, is single mother Clare Chance. Her best friend (and fellow Texas firefighter), dies in a roof collapse. She flees to Montana to try and put the memory behind her. She’s not alone in fighting personal demons as well as the fiery dragon that threatens the park. Chris Deering, a Vietnam veteran helicopter pilot and Ranger Steve Haywood (who lost his wife and baby in a plane crash), rally around Clare when tragedy strikes her yet again.

Franklin D. Roosevelt famously called December 7, 1941, "a date which will live in infamy." History would prove him correct; the events of that day - when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor - ended the Great Depression, changed the course of FDR's presidency, and swept America into World War II. In Pearl Harbor, acclaimed historian Steven M. Gillon provides a vivid, minute-by-minute account of Roosevelt's skillful leadership in the wake of the most devastating military assault in American history. FDR proved both decisive and deceptive, inspiring the nation....

Clay Rose, the deputy of Tucson noticed unfamiliar horses in front of the bank. It dawned on him, something was wrong. Suddenly his boss, Sheriff Biggs was stepping fast across the street just as Frankie Giles gang burst from the bank, shooting in all directions. They gunned the sheriff down along with the Marie Ramos, the lady Clay Rose intended to marry. He had been holding her behind him trying to shield her, but in his process to shoot back, a bullet took her....

The young Dr. Thomas Parks expects to practice trauma medicine with a distinguished doctor in Port McKinney, Washington. What he does not expect is to be nearly killed within an hour of arriving. The accident changes his life, and with long hours of painful convalescence, Thomas makes a sobering discovery: the physician who has invited Thomas to join his practice is not what he seems.

A strong, silent stranger rides into the lawless lands of the western frontier, battles horse thieves, deals with unyielding scoundrels, and wins the heart of a schoolmarm. Owen Wister's 1902 classic---the first great novel of the American West---is rich in moral drama and vernacular wit. His hero---like knights of old---lives by an enduring code of chivalry and is governed by quiet courage and a deep sense of honor.

Modern beer has little in common with the drink that carried that name through the Middle Ages and Renaissance. Looking at a time when beer was often a nutritional necessity, was sometimes used as medicine, could be flavored with everything from the bark of fir trees to thyme and fresh eggs, and was consumed by men, women, and children alike, Beer in the Middle Ages and Renaissance presents an extraordinarily detailed history of the business, art, and governance of brewing.

The world’s largest volcano does not reside beneath Hawaii’s mountains, or in Washington state, but Yellowstone National Park. Past eruptions have darkened our continent and covered it with a blanket of ash that smothered both plant and animal life. Now the supervolcano, with its earthquakes and geysers, is monitored on a daily basis for signs of the beast reawakening.

In 2008, Democrats won a sweeping victory, seizing the White House and the majority in both houses of Congress. We knew this meant liberals would be in charge of the federal government—but what many Americans didn’t anticipate was that they would use this supposed “mandate” as an excuse to try and run every single part of our lives.

Hawk Haynes ruled from his heart, but stayed alive by using his instincts. Hawk was on his way to start a new life in Texas when he runs into burned out wagons. He finds families slaughtered, the men killed, the women raped, and killed. Hawk Haynes had just introduced himself to Southwest Texas. Hawk had been deeded land just northwest of Rawlins for his services in taking care of Ted Rawlins and his wife until their death.