Showing results by narrator "P.J Ochlan" in All Categories

Just after World War II, a young orphan living in Naples comes under the protection of Don Gaetano, the superintendent of an apartment building. He is a generous man and is very attached to the boy, telling him about the war and the liberation of the city by the Neapolitans. He teaches him to play cards, shows him how to do odd jobs for the tenants, and even initiates him into the world of sex by sending him one evening to a widow who lives in the building. But Don Gaetano possesses another gift as well: he knows how to read people’s thoughts.

As Omen and Tormy discover the supernatural secret of the fae's ancient castle in Wyldwood Fate, this short parallel tale takes young Nikki Deldano to the precipice of a new adventure. Searching for his lost love, captured by the children of the forest, Nikki gets a crash course in Sundragons, faerie diplomacy, and the resonant power of the bardic gift. Will a courageous heart be enough to turn the tide of war?

The novel follows the adolescent Arturo through his days on the isolated Neapolitan island of Procida, where - his mother long deceased, his father often absent, and a dog as his sole companion - he roams the countryside and the beaches or reads in his family's lonely, dilapidated mansion. This quiet, meandering existence is upended when his father brings home a beautiful 16-year-old bride, Nunziatella.

See You At San Diego is the comprehensive chronicle of Comic-Con International and modern geekdom itself as told through countless stories by nearly fifty of the most integral members of the Comic-Con and fandom scene. This full-fledged oral history—bursting with intimate reflections, hilarious observations, and at times, heartbreaking stories—is about how the geek at last inherited the earth and the story of the transformation of mainstream American pop culture into comic book culture over the past century.

Benny isn’t your average boy from Newfoundland. He lives in a retirement home that his mother runs, he has an eighty-six-year-old best friend named Mr. Tom, he knows more about fixing boats than video games, and he has Mosaic Down syndrome. When Benny transitions to a mainstream classroom for the first time, the other students tease him for his differences… except for Salma. She’s new, too, and not your typical Newfoundland girl: she’s tech savvy, speaks Arabic, plays basketball, and isn’t afraid to eat lunch with Benny.

Mathematics student G is trying to resurrect his studies, which is proving difficult as he finds himself drawn into investigating a series of mysterious crimes. When Kristen, a researcher hired by the Lewis Carroll Brotherhood, makes a startling new discovery concerning pages torn from Carroll’s diary, she hesitates to reveal to her employers a hitherto unknown chapter in his life. Oxford would be rocked to its core if the truth about Lewis Carroll’s relationship with Alice Liddell—the real Alice—were brought to light.

What can the massive protests that have roiled Hong Kong and the harsh repressive moves made against activists tell us about where this special metropolis is heading? And about how a resurgent China under strongman rule is challenging and reshaping the international order? Jeffrey Wasserstrom...

Welcome to Flood City, the last inhabitable place left above the waters that cover Earth. It's also the last battleground between the Chemical Barons, who once ruled the planet and now circle overhead in spaceships, desperate to return, and the Star Guard, who have controlled the city for decades. Born and raised in Flood City, Max doesn't care about being part of either group. All he wants is to play his music with the city band, keep his sister from joining the Star Guard, and be noticed by his crush, the awesome drummer Djinna.

After Séverin's seeming betrayal, the crew is fractured. Armed with only a handful of hints, Enrique, Laila, Hypnos, and Zofia must find their way through the snarled, haunted waterways of Venice, Italy, to locate Séverin. Meanwhile, Séverin must balance the deranged whims of the Patriarch of the Fallen House and discover the location of a temple beneath a plague island where the Divine Lyre can be played and all that he desires will come to pass.

The DNA Restart, by world-renowned neurogeneticist and New York Times best-selling author Dr. Sharon Moalem, walks you through revolutionary steps to a diet and lifestyle perfect for your individual genetic makeup. The DNA Restart plan utilizes decades of in-depth scientific research into genetics, epigenetics, nutrition, and longevity to explain the pivotal role genes play in the journey to ideal weight and health status.

Magnus "Steps" Craig is part of the elite three-man Special Tracking Unit of the FBI. Called in on special cases where his skills are especially indispensable, Steps is renowned for his incredible ability to find and follow trails over any surface better than anyone else. But there's a secret to his success. Steps has a kind of synesthesia, an ability that allows him to see whatever a person has touched in a unique color - what Steps calls "shine".

Southern Afghanistan, 2005. NATO forces are battling the Taliban across Kandahar Province. In a terrifying twist, the rebels unearth a tactical nuclear bomb lost in the final days of the Soviet occupation. The years buried in the sand have damaged it, so the Taliban seeks the help of al Qaeda to secure replacement parts through its contacts in Saudi Arabia, the Opium Cartel, and the Russian Mafia. Doing so, however, inadvertently alerts the Americans, the Russians, and the Israelis.

From the introduction by James Thompson: Finland, the myths and truths. Internationally, it has a reputation as perhaps the best place in the world to live. A great economy. A low crime rate. Good and nearly cost-free health care. The needy are provided for by the state and live in reasonable comfort. Finns: peaceful and quiet people, living in the perfect example of a social democracy functioning as it should. A tourist, or even a person who has lived here for a length of time, might well view Finland as such.

Josie Barton is in mortal danger. Ensnared by Nepenthe’s mind-control enchantment and forced to turn on everyone she loves, William Barton was the last person in the world she expected might come to her rescue. But her older brother seems to be hiding a lot more than just the truth about his grim fate all those years ago, and his plans for her now may be far more sinister than Josie dares to imagine.

With His gentle hand He wounded my neck And caused all my senses to be suspended. Part poetic masterpiece, part mystic treatise, The Dark Night of the Soul by 16th century Carmelite monk, St. John of the Cross, addresses the feeling of being forgotten by the Presence of the Almighty that every Christian desirous of walking more closely with God must pass through in order to learn to walk by faith and not by sight.

Social scientists have adopted the practices of more traditional scientists in the past few decades - using randomized trials to design policies aimed at improving educational levels, lowering crime rates, elevating employment rates, and improving living standards among the poor. Andrew Leigh and P.J. Ochlan bring the lives of these radical researchers to life as their experiments to overturn conventional wisdom lead to breakthroughs like finding the cure for scurvy and discovering what policies really improve literacy rates.

In The Boy Who Played with Fusion, science journalist Tom Clynes narrates Taylor Wilson's extraordinary journey - from his Arkansas home, where his parents fully supported his intellectual passions; to a unique Reno, Nevada, public high school just for academic superstars; to the present, when now 19-year-old Wilson is winning international science competitions with devices designed to prevent terrorists from shipping radioactive material into the country.

Hollywood vs. The Author is a collection of non-fiction anecdotes by authors who’ve had the pleasure of experiencing the development room firsthand - some who have successfully managed to straddle the two worlds, seeing their works morph into the kinds of feature films and TV shows that make them proud, and others who stepped blindsided into that room after selling their first or second novels. All the stories in this collection illustrate the great divide between the world of literature and the big or small screen.

Dr. Waycross knows bleeding and blistering, the best scientific medicine of 1822. He arrives in the Georgia mountains to bring his modern methods to the superstitious masses. The local healers, the Winter sisters, claim to treat yellow fever, consumption, and the hell-roarin' trots just as well as he can. Some folks call the sisters herb women; some call them witches. Waycross calls them quacks. But when the threat of rabies - incurable and fatal - comes to town, Dr. Waycross and the Winter sisters must combine their science and superstition in a desperate search for a remedy.

The lush and beautiful forest planet of Bellerophon is home to a cacophony of noises, but its resident psychics are known as the Silent. Previously they could travel to the Dream, a telepathic plane of existence where they could twist the laws of reality. But that time is over... One madman's lust for power tore the Dream asunder. Now only a handful of the Silent can enter it. Kendi Weaver is one of them.