Showing results by narrator "Christopher Ragland" in All Categories

Art and life. Each the mirror of the other. This then is the classic definition of what ‘Realism’ as a writing form really is. Some might call it a fancy term for the mundane day to day pursuits but in the hands of an author it comes alive. We are drawn into characters and landscapes that we can empathize with, we can, metaphorically speaking, help shoulder their burden, be on the long trail with them whatever the landscapes, the hurdles, incidents and other people may place in their literary way.

Short stories have always been a sort of instant access into an author’s brain, their soul and heart. In this series we try to offer up tried and trusted ‘Top Tens’ across many different themes and authors. But any anthology will immediately throw up the questions – Why that story? Why that author? Ambrose Bierce is an author whose words take us one way and then send us another. These miniature masterpieces all have a central truth and plausibility that seems to vanish in an ending that can be anything from wry, to shocking to hallucinatory.

Robert William Chambers was born on 26th May 1865 in Brooklyn. His best-known work is ‘The King in Yellow’ (1895), a highly vivid collection of Art Nouveau short stories. These stories are woven together by the theme of a fictitious drama of the same title, which drives those who read it insane. ‘The Repairer of Reputations’ from ‘The King in Yellow’ is a mind-bending and disruptive story that adds just enough reality that the unreal elements seem totally at home in the descent to chaos.

Sherwood Anderson was born on 13th September 1876 in Camden, Ohio. In 1916 his first book, ‘Windy McPherson’s Son’, was released and in 1919, his most famous book, ‘Winesburg, Ohio’, a collection of short stories about life in an Ohio town was released. Anderson continued to write short stories, novels and non-fiction but his only true bestseller came with ‘Dark Laughter’. His influence on writers that followed, from Faulkner to Hemingway, was immense.

Richard Edward Connell Jr was born on the 17th October 1893, in Poughkeepsie, New York. During the First World War Connell served in France with the US Army and was the editor of his camp's newspaper. After the war he turned to writing short stories, and eventually wrote over 300 of them for the periodicals and journals of the day, including regular contributions to The Saturday Evening Post and Collier’s. The attention of his audience kept him popular for decades. He is perhaps best remembered for his macabre short story ‘The Most Dangerous Game’, written in 1924.

Edgar Poe was born in Boston, Massachusetts, on 19th January 1809. Poe is also one of a number of authors credited with inventing the detective genre with his Parisian sleuth C. Auguste Dupin. He's featured in three stories, including the legendary ‘Murders in the Rue Morgue’, and by sheer deduction, logic and a touch of Gallic arrogance revealed what was hidden to the rest of us.

Nathaniel Hawthorne was born on 4th July 1804 in Salem, Massachusetts, a town synonymous with the earlier Salem Witch Trials. It was instrumental in Hawthorne’s later use of American Gothic and dark romanticism in his writing. ‘Rapaccinni’s Daughter’ is a classic piece of literature from his pen. Set in Italy, it is an unsettling story of romance destroyed by science.

The human race has been on the receiving end of many viral and bacterial diseases. And as medicine brings them to heel, eradicates their power, so Nature and Evolution brings others to the fore in a ceaseless march to weaken some, to strengthen others. And, as our race understands their mysteries, so we begin to weaponize them for our own malevolent use as biological weapons. Authors have always been drawn to this global scale and individual human response. In this collection virus and plague are given their head and the responses must see cure or capitulation within.

Edward Everett Hale was born on April 3rd, 1822, in Boston, Massachusetts. He was a prodigy, gifted with extraordinary literary skills. At only 13 he graduated from Boston Latin School and enrolled at Harvard College. There, he settled in with the literary set, won two Bowdoin prizes and was elected Class Poet. He graduated in 1839. His literary career started quite late. It wasn’t until 1859 that he was first published in the Atlantic with his short story "My Double and How He Undid Me." In 1863 the Atlantic published perhaps his best-known work "The Man Without a Country."

As a straight-A student and girlfriend of the school's star rower, Charlotte believes in what the school has to offer. Meanwhile, scholarship student Max is struggling. Until he's asked to join the rowing team offering him popularity - but at what cost? Then there's Quinn, a sixth-generation legacy student, who should be able to lay claim to the school in a way others can't. Who instead must watch the boy who assaulted her continue to play at the top of the school's food chain. Only in the dead of night does Q realize the solution to her suffering: Colin Pearce must die.

At 17, Tyler Bruce is hot—a hot mess. His girlfriend is a knockout, his reputation untouchable, parties are nothing without him. Even his car is unreal. But inside Tyler is in ruins—and he'll stop at nothing to keep that a secret. Then one summer, Eden comes to stay. She's upfront, sharp and far more enticing than a stepsister should be. She also sees straight through Tyler's bad-boy façade...to the vulnerable kid within. The quiet kid who took all the punches. As Eden draws Tyler in, his defences start to crumble around him.

An entertaining, accessible companion, for listeners of self-help books and sceptics alike. The titles include classics on achieving success, confidence and happiness, mindfulness, how to change your life, self-control, overcoming anxiety and self-esteem issues and stress relief. The chronological arrangement of the titles reveals the intriguing story of how early self-improvement titles were succeeded by increasingly personality-based, materialistic titles and shows how breakout classics often influenced other titles for decades to come.

For more than 50 years, NASA's Mission Control has been known for two things: perfect decision-making in extreme situations and producing generations of steely-eyed missile men and women who continue that tradition. A key to that legacy of brilliant performance is a particular brand of leadership, especially at the working level in Mission Control. Take the ultimate insider's look at the leadership values and culture that created the best team on this planet. Paul Sean Hill was responsible for NASA's Mission Operations support for manned space flight from 2007 to 2011.

‘The best fictional treatment of the possibilities and horrors of artificial intelligence that I’ve read’ Guardian In 1997 Laura Bow invented Organon, a rudimentary artificial intelligence. Now she and her creation are at the forefront of the new wave of technology, and Laura must decide...

He has that thing that they'd all pay for but can't buy: onstage and off, the 19-year-old rock drummer Checker Secretti is electric. When he plays with his band, The Derailleurs, the natives of Astoria, Queens, clamour for a piece of him. But charisma comes at a price. A Salieri to Checker's Mozart, the fiercely envious fellow drummer Eaton Striker is eager to sow discord among the Derailleurs, that he might replace the exasperatingly popular goody-goody in the close-knit neighbourhood's affections.

Winner: Barry Award for Best Paperback Original. Finalist: Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original. Mickey Prada's a nice kid. He works hard at a neighbourhood seafood market in Brooklyn, putting fish on ice. He's got a nice girlfriend. He even delayed college a year to help his sick dad. But Mickey's got a problem. A customer at the fish store, Angelo Santoro, keeps asking Mickey to place bets for him, and Angelo keeps losing.

Winner: Anthony Award for Best Paperback Original. From the acclaimed noir novelist Jason Starr comes this savage portrait of a misanthropic man stuck in a New York nightmare. Written in caustic, streamlined prose, Twisted City is a chilling depiction of how quickly one's life can take a turn for the worst. Times are tough for David Miller, a journalist for a second-rate financial magazine who hates his boss, is tired of supporting his girlfriend's partying lifestyle, and recently lost his sister to cancer.

You know Lara King. The top billing of the showbiz pages, you've seen her every morning: over your breakfast, on your commute to work. You know everything about her; you've dissected her life. Her perfect relationship with film star Matthew Raine. Her beautiful six-year-old daughter, Ava. And so when a terrible incident shatters the family's carefully constructed facade, a media frenzy ensues. What happens when the perfect woman begins to unravel? When her whole life is really just a lie? One she will do anything she can to stop you from finding out?

Are you an executive leader who wants to create efficient and effective change - and be well rewarded for your success? This audiobook provides a step-by-step approach to help you drive fast, consistent internal innovation and allow your business to react positively to any changes in the market. It explains clearly how to create an agile, innovative organisation that can learn from its own mistakes and become a company that people will fight to work for.

Carol Evers is a woman with a dark secret. She has died many times...but her many deaths are not final: they are comas, a waking slumber indistinguishable from death, each lasting days. Only two people know of Carol's eerie condition. One is her husband, Dwight, who married Carol for her fortune and - when she lapses into another coma - plots to seize it by proclaiming her dead and burying her...alive. The other is her lost love, the infamous outlaw James Moxie. When word of Carol's dreadful fate reaches him, Moxie rides the Trail again to save his beloved from an early grave.