Showing results by narrator "A Smith" in All Categories

In Living on Earth, Godfrey-Smith takes us on a grand tour of the history of life on earth. He visits Rwandan gorillas and Australian bowerbirds, returns to coral reefs and octopus dens, considers the impact of language and writing, and weighs the responsibilities our unique powers bring with them, as they relate to factory farming, habitat preservation, climate change, and the use of animals in experiments.

"Happily Ever After" wasn't supposed to come with a do-over option. But when my husband of twenty years packs up and heads for greener pastures and my son leaves for college, that's exactly what my life becomes. Do-over. This time, though, I plan to do things differently. Age is just a number, after all, and at forty I'm ready to carve my own path. Eager for a fresh start, I make a somewhat unorthodox decision and move to a tiny town in the Sierra foothills. I'll be taking care of a centuries old house that called to me when I was a kid.

Gwen Proctor escaped her serial-killer husband and saved her family. What she can’t seem to outrun is his notoriety. Or the sick internet vigilantes still seeking to avenge his crimes. For Gwen, hiding isn’t an option. Not when her only mission is to create a normal life for her kids. But now, a threatened woman has reached out. Marlene Crockett, from the remote town of Wolfhunter, is panicked for herself and her daughter. When Gwen arrives in the small, isolated rural community, Marlene is already dead - her own daughter blamed for the murder.

When the Colonial Marines set out after their deadliest prey, the Xenomorphs, it’s what Corporal Hicks calls a bug hunt—kill or be killed. Here are fifteen all-new stories of such “close encounters,” written by many of today’s most extraordinary authors. Set during the events of all four Alien films, sending the Marines to alien worlds, to derelict space settlements, and into the nests of the universe’s most dangerous monsters, these adventures are guaranteed to send the blood racing—one way or another.

A group of mountain climbers, caught in the dark, fight to survive their descent; in the British countryside, hundreds of magpies ascend into the sky, higher and higher, until they seem to vanish into the heavens; a professor and his student track a zombie horde in order to research zombie behavior; an all-girl riding school has sinister secrets; a town rails in vain against a curse inflicted upon it by its founders; and much more.

Beginnings is modern month-by-month reference guide for parents of 0-5-year-olds. It will answer all the questions that parents have about their baby, toddler and preschooler's physical and psychological development.

The 'Dirty Dozen' were a ruthless federation of criminals who ran the armed robbery game in London for over a decade. When charismatic leader 'Gentleman' Jim Doyle was jailed, the innovative but violent Bradish twins, Sean and Vincent, stepped up to take the throne. Hardened by a life in London's most lawless corners, they recruited a tight-knit crew to forge a reputation as the brutal kings of their underworld trade. Banks, security vans, post offices, travel agents - anywhere was fair game and nowhere was safe.

An arrest for cocaine possession in the Hamptons on the last day of a sweltering summer leaves Smith, a young Black Queer graduate, in a state of turmoil. Pulled into the court system and mandated treatment, he finds himself in an absurd but dangerous situation: his class protects him but his race does not. It is just weeks after the death of his beloved roommate Elle, a glamorous member of the Black elite, and he is still reeling from the tabloid spectacle - as well as the lingering question of how well he really knew his closest friend and what happened to her the night she died.

Widely held as one of the worst serial killers America has ever seen, John Wayne Gacy led a seemingly normal life - but behind his apparently friendly persona and his charity work as a clown to entertain sick kids, he held a dark secret. Now, this harrowing book reveals the disturbing true story behind Gacy’s killing spree, revealing in stark detail the horrific acts that made him one of America’s worst serial killers.

At Midnight's local pawnshop, weapons are flying off the shelves—only to be used in sudden and dramatic suicides right at the main crossroads in town. Who better to figure out why blood is being spilled than the vampire Lemuel, who, while translating mysterious texts, discovers what makes Midnight the town it is? There's a reason why witches and werewolves, killers and psychics, have been drawn to this place. And now they must come together to stop the bloodshed in the heart of Midnight.

Even under the most normal circumstances, high school can be a painful and confusing time. Unfortunately, Lilianna’s circumstances are anything but normal. Only a few people know what caused her sudden change from model student to the withdrawn pessimist she has become, but her situation isn’t about to get any better. When people begin coming down with a quick-spreading illness that doctors are unable to treat, Lil’s worst fears are realized.

For three years, Detective Jude Fontaine was kept from the outside world. Held in an underground cell, her only contact was with her sadistic captor, and reading his face was her entire existence. Learning his every line, every movement, and every flicker of thought is what kept her alive. After her experience with isolation and torture, she is left with a fierce desire for justice - and a heightened ability to interpret the body language of both the living and the dead.

Following a run of New Year’s concerts at San Francisco’s legendary Fillmore, Patti Smith finds herself tramping the coast of Santa Cruz, about to embark on a year of solitary wandering. Unfettered by logic or time, she draws us into her private wonderland, with no design yet heeding signs, including a talking sign that looms above her, prodding and sparring like the Cheshire Cat.

Adrift in the divide between galaxies and surrounded by the vast emptiness of the intergalactic void, the Tantalus Cluster is the only home humanity has ever known. Desperate and facing starvation, humanity’s only hope is a strange nebula that has suddenly appeared beyond the edge of the cluster. Its shifting clouds may hide a source of salvation for the people of Tantalus, but time is running out.

Using the #JustBeKind trend of the 2020s as a starting point, (Un)kind explores how traditional beliefs about women's 'kind' nature have been repackaged for an age that remains dependent - socially, politically, economically - on female self-sacrifice while finding the concept outdated and essentialist. Looking at the various guises under which kindness culture is sold to women and girls - from play to self-help, social justice activism to empowerment - Victoria Smith argues that the pressure on women and girls has not decreased, but instead been incorporated into the 'work' of feminism.

Room 101 is the anti-Desert Island Discs. Instead of picking the tracks, books and luxuries they love, guests are invited to banish their least favourite things to Orwell's eponymous chamber of horrors. Twenty-seven episodes of the show were broadcast on Radio 5 between 1992 and 1994, and it went on to run for 18 hit series on BBC TV before relaunching on Radio 4 in 2023. This specially curated collection contains 16 of the very best editions of the original radio series.

Elise King is a successful and ambitious detective—or she was, before medical leave left her unsure if she'd ever return to work. She now spends most days watching the growing tensions in her small seaside town of Ebbing: the weekenders in their fancy clothes, renovating old bungalows into luxury homes, and the locals resentful of the changes. Elise can only guess what really happens behind closed doors. But Dee Eastwood, her cleaner, often knows. She's an invisible presence in many of the houses in town, but she sees and hears everything.

Horst, the most affable vampire one is ever likely to meet, is resurrected by an occult conspiracy that wants him as a general in a monstrous army. Their plan is to create a country of horrors, a supernatural homeland. As Horst sees the lengths to which they are prepared to go and the evil they cultivate, he realizes that he cannot fight them alone. What he really needs on his side is a sarcastic, amoral, heavily armed necromancer.

As the world around them starts to crumble, Kael is consumed by the darkness of his PTSD, and Karina struggles to overcome her anxiety, which is at an all-time high. Then someone from their past returns to invade their lives and wreak havoc on the fragile peace they’ve created. If they’re going to have the future they dream of, they’ll have to commit to fighting this battle together.

Some say that this work, found in a safe-box in the port area of Kowloon, was dictated because Bronze Age Pervert refuses to learn what he calls "the low and plebeian art of writing". It isn't known how this work was transcribed. The contents are pure dynamite. He explains that you live in ant farm. That you are observed by the lords of lies, ritually probed. Ancient man had something you have lost: confidence in his instincts and strength, knowledge in his blood. BAP shows how the Bronze Age mind-set can set you free from this iron prison and help you embark on the path of power.