Showing results by narrator "Charles Constant" in All Categories

 With a reputation as the hot-air balloon capital of the world and the home of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta®, the southwestern desert city of Albuquerque frequently showcases the magic and adventure of ballooning. This legacy links back to the 1880s and a man by the name of Park Van Tassel.

How to Love the Universe is a new kind of science writing by an author truly enamored of the world around him. In 10 short chapters of lyrical prose - each one an ode to a breathtaking realm of discovery - Stefan Klein uses everyday objects and events as a springboard to meditate on the beauty of the underlying science.

There’s hardly anyone in the world more down-to-earth than Jesus. That sounds far-fetched because, well, Jesus is God. But read the Gospels and you find Jesus telling stories that ring true from beginning to end, stories you can immediately identify with, stories that make you go “hmmm”.

Men are commonly expected to act "masculine" (e.g., self-sufficient, stoic, strong, dependable, brave, tough, and hard-working) while avoiding stereotypically "feminine" traits (e.g., emotional expressivity, empathy, and nurturance). Few, however, realize that these qualities - when taken to the extreme - can cause emotional constriction, substance abuse, depression, aggression, and violence in many men. 

At Space Academy, cadet Tom Corbett and his pals Roger and Astro are at the top of their class. So whenever there’s an important—and possibly dangerous—mission to be handed out, the crew of the Polaris “sticks out like a hot rocket.” But this time the “Best Unit” in the Academy may be in over their heads. They’ve been placed under the command of Major “Blast-Off” Connel, a legendary spaceman who seems determined to cut the boys down to size. After their ship is refitted for hyperdrive, the crew of the Polaris heads into deep space for Alpha Centauri.

Authors Jack Ryan and John Tamny make a powerful case that the purchase of a home slows wealth attainment—rendering owners immobile in ways that further restrain their wealth chances—and that the act of homeownership deprives owners of the time and ability to do what they do best, which further dampens individual economic achievement.

Dot-com millionaire Jay McManus is discovering that owning a pro football team isn't as easy as his other hobby of wine-making. An anonymous blogger is out to destroy his reputation, and now his team, the Baltimore Blaze, is named in a highly contentious workplace violation lawsuit brought on by the team's cheerleaders. If Jay's not careful, he could lose big—and not just financially.

In this authorized sequel to Edgar Rice Burroughs’ classic science fiction novel Beyond the Farthest Star, American OSS officer Thomas Randolph is mysteriously teleported to the distant planet of Poloda, which lies far beyond the globular cluster NGC 7006—450,000 light years away from Earth. Landing in the midst of a hundred-year war that mirrors the Allied Powers’ struggle against Adolph Hitler’s Third Reich, Randolph—now Tomas Ran—finds himself behind enemy lines.

The year is 1967 and the Vietnam War is raging. Lieutenant Ben Kinkaid of the US military police is patrolling the chaotic streets of Saigon after curfew when he crosses paths with US Army clerk Tommy Banks and his girlfriend, Grace Waverly. Grace says she’s a peace tourist, but she’s also a member of RAW—an anti-war group bent on stopping the war by any means necessary.

Heiress Charlotte Davis has pulled some impulsive stunts in her twenty-seven years. Ranking right up at the top? "Buying" at auction the quarterback of her brother's precious football team, the Baltimore Blaze. In her defense, the event was for charity. Besides, she owed the guy one. He'd rescued her from a situation even more dire years before—right before he broke her heart.

Macey Kelly has sworn off men: Unless they're going to zip in and out of her apartment quicker than they can give her an orgasm, she's not interested. The last thing Jack Carr needs at the start of the season is for a dark-haired, sexy as sin beauty to be consuming his thoughts. Football is his life, which leaves no time for girls. Avoiding each other is the perfect solution. But when your best friends are in a serious living -together kind of relationship, that isn't always an option.

A small-town librarian witnesses a murder at his local deli, and what had been routine sleep paralysis begins to transform into something far more disturbing. The trauma of holding a dying girl in his arms drives him out of his own body. The town he knows so well is suddenly revealed to him from a whole new perspective. Secrets are everywhere and demons fester behind closed doors. Worst of all, he discovers a serial killer who has been preying on the area for over a century, one capable of traveling with him through his dreams.

In the spring of 1994, psychoanalyst-in-training Steven Poser arrived for his clinical internship at one of the last remaining nineteenth-century mental hospitals in New England. Intending to observe and offer compassionate care to the most chronically ill patients, he ended up staying for two years, forming close therapeutic relationships with three female patients suffering from schizophrenia, "Agnes," "Mrs. Lutzky," and "Lucia." Drawing from his clinical diary, Poser presents his encounters with the women in their own words, each speaking in a poetry of her own invention.

The world is desperate for cobalt. It drives the proliferation of digital and clean technologies. But this "demon metal" has a horrific present and a troubled history. The modern search for cobalt has brought investors back to a small town in Northern Canada, a place called Cobalt. Like the demon metal, this town has a dark and turbulent history.

Billionaire wolf Derek Spencer may have a rocky history with she-wolves, but there's no one better to take as his date to the latest gala than the wolf he's had his eye on ever since she applied to be his bodyguard—the remarkable Kate Hanover. Kate checks all the boxes for his perfect mate: she's smart, sexy, and business savvy, not to mention one of the best bodyguards around. But ever since Derek gave his bodyguard position to another wolf, Kate has been avoiding him.

For more than 70 years, Gifford's Ice Cream and Candy Company was associated with nothing but pleasure for native Washingtonians and visitors to the nation's capital. But behind the iconic business's happy facade lay elaborate schemes, a crushing bankruptcy, two million dollars of missing cash, and a tragic suicide. As the last Gifford heir unfolds his story with remarkable immediacy and candor, he reveals the byzantine betrayals and intrigue rooted in the company from its modest beginnings - dark influences that would ultimately destroy the legendary Gifford business.

On term break from Space Academy, Tom Corbett and Roger Manning accompany their pal Astro to his native planet Venus for a well-deserved rest. There the cadets plan to hunt the biggest game in the star system, but their vacation is soon interrupted when the intrepid crew of the Polaris stumble across a secret plot to overthrow the Solar Alliance. Lost in the Venusian Jungle, unable to contact the Solar Guard, separated from their ship and each other, the hunters have now become the hunted.

An epiphany is a powerful insight, a revelation that can strike at any moment, in any place, and to anyone. An epiphany enlightens us, provides a deep understanding of reality, and can profoundly impact our lives. Often arising from simple yet impactful experiences, these moments can catch us off guard with a sudden clarity we may have otherwise overlooked. What if these extraordinary moments result from everyday insights that sharpen our ability to see God’s revelations in a new light?

The film Casablanca opens with the words, "With the coming of the Second World War, many eyes in imprisoned Europe turned hopefully, or desperately, toward the freedom of the Americas." Leslie Epstein's Hill of Beans is the story of how one nation, one industry, and in particular one man responded to that desperate hope. 

After surviving the heat, the torture, and making it out of the sandbox one mission at a time, I have spent years on the ride, going mile after mile to escape the past. I thought I had left hell behind. Only, it is hard to run from the demons inside you. It all changed when I found the Hellions brotherhood. My nightmares were chased away by the daylight of my new purpose in the club.