Showing results by narrator "Johnny Heller" in All Categories

Will the best artist win? The art teacher asks the students of Room 3B to draw posters of things they love, and one of them will get to display his or her artwork on South School's brand-new TV show. Harry doesn't care about the contest. Mary, on the other hand, is convinced that her poster is the best, and she can't wait for her television debut. But if Mary's poster doesn't get selected, then she's going to make horrible trouble for Room 3B - especially Harry!

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has become a national Republican Party figure, famous for his blunt public statements, his willingness to confront powerful special interests, and his determination to change the ingrown, corrupt, backroom political culture of New Jersey. In just two years as governor, Christie has moved aggressively to reduce the state's ballooning deficit, rein in lucrative entitlements for teacher, police, fire, and public employee unions, cut out-of-control government spending, and create jobs by reducing counterproductive business regulations.

Among the piles of obsolete farm and household implements, haystacks, dust, and debris abandoned in her historic barn, Katie Aldridge discovered a box containing the Civil War letters of Charles Freeman Biddlecom. Painstakingly transcribing and lightly editing more than 100 letters written by the soldier to his wife during his service, Ms. Aldridge resurrected the voice of the Civil War combat soldier. The tone and character of "Charlie's" detailed accounts of the war compelled Ms. Aldridge to find out more.

By beginning a conversation that encourages self-examination and compassion, Combined Destinies invites listeners to look at how white Americans have been hurt by the very ideology that their ancestors created. Editors Ann Todd Jealous and Caroline T. Haskell, both experienced psychotherapists skilled at facilitating dialogue about racial issues, are cognizant of the challenges that even the thought of such conversations often presents. Their book is based on the premise that for positive and lasting change to occur, hearts as well as minds must be opened.

Defense attorney John J. Malone may be a habitué of Windy City dive bars, but he's never lost his balance - until now. Not only is he shaken by the contract killing of his latest client, but one of his best friends, socialite Helene Justus, is turning into a complete stranger.

Sitting around poppin' pork cracklins and watching the tube, Grampa and Wiley witness to the awesomest TV commercial they've ever seen: Colonel Dracula's Monster Truck Spectacular is in town! Then the local weatherman breaks in with a dire warning: an F5 tornado could blow through at any minute! So what does a responsible guardian like Grampa do? When Gramma isn't looking, he and Wiley sneak out of the house bound for the monster-truck extravaganza, of course!

David, as he's currently known, was a member of an elite corps of spies trained during the coldest days of the Cold War. But those days are long gone, and for almost a decade he has been out of the rat race and working as a sculptor. Then a phone call in the middle of the night awakens him: the only other survivor from that elite corps has gone rogue - and they need David to stop him.

From professional athletes like Tiger Woods and Michael Jordan to philosophers like Confucius, inspirational business books love to suggest that listeners can succeed in business and in life by adopting the traits of their famous subjects. In Z.E.O. by Scott Kenemore, frustrated employees will finally find inspiration in a source they can already relate to: zombies!

Deep within the forbidding land encircled by the Washington Beltway lives the tribe known as Homo politicus. Their ways are strange, even repulsive, to civilized human beings; their arcane rites often impenetrable; their language coded and obscure. Violating their complex taboos can lead to sudden, harsh, and irrevocable punishment. Normal Americans have long feared Homo politicus, with good reason.

James Madison is remembered primarily as a systematic political theorist, but this bookish and unassuming man was also a practical politician who strove for balance in an age of revolution. In this biography, Jeff Broadwater focuses on Madison’s role in the battle for religious freedom in Virginia, his contributions to the adoption of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, his place in the evolution of the party system, his relationship with Dolley Madison, his performance as a wartime commander-in-chief, and his views on slavery.

Three award-winning advertising executives prove that in business, Sacred Cows deserve to die. Don't get us wrong. While the authors have nothing against cows in general (they love steak) they do have a problem with Sacred Cows: Blindly doing things because...well...that's the way they've always been done. Formulas may be comforting, but they rarely work in the real world.

The school year is ending, and Song Lee has invited Harry and some other classmates to an amusement park for a party. Everyone is looking forward to the rides: canoeing down the waterfall on Kasploosh Mountain, enjoying the '60s music and cars on Main Street, and floating through the Haunted House. But when Sydney starts talking about the newest ride, the Drop of Doom, Harry turn pale. It is an elevator that falls 13 floors! Harry usually loves horrible things. Why isn’t he excited about the Drop of Doom?

Chris West’s deadly prowess with his weapon of choice had earned him the name Red Axe in the Stone Age world of Pellucidar at the Earth’s core. Sentenced to die along with the woman he loved by the merciless Mahars, West had fought his way free of the lethal laboratories and ghastly arenas of their underground city. Now he must carve a path for his small band of fugitives through a primordial landscape teeming with monstrous beasts and brutish men bent on their destruction.

The zombie apocalypse is over. The humans have won. Life is back to normal. And Rip is bored as hell. It's not much of a life sitting in a call center in the poor town of Spanish Shanty, Florida, answering emails like a drone and listening to customer complaints. Rip was ruler of a tiny kingdom in the Lazy River waterpark, killing zombies by day and making passionate love at night. He misses the danger, the camaraderie, and the blistering love he once knew. He longs to feel Santana - his trusty machete - in his hand and Davia - the fiercest woman alive - in his arms once again.

When London journalist Mark Roberts is found battered to death, the police quickly arrest petty thief Nick Connor. Criminal defense lawyer Dan Grant along with investigator Jayne Brett are called to represent him - but with bloody footprints and a stolen wallet linking him to the scene, this is one case they're unlikely to win. But then help comes from an unlikely source: the murder victim's mother says that Connor is innocent, begging Dan and Jayne to find the real perpetrator.

One freezing December night, the body of young, vulnerable Lizzie Barnsley is found on the side of an isolated canal. When blood from her stiletto heel matches that on a wound on the head of Peter Box, police swiftly declare him the prime suspect in her murder. Criminal lawyer Dan Grant is called in to provide Peter Box’s legal defense, along with investigator Jayne Brett. They need answers from Box - but he’s not talking.

Joe Queenan's acerbic riffs on movies, sports, books, politics, and many of the least forgivable phenomena of pop culture have made him one of the most popular humorists and commentators of our time. In Closing Time, Queenan turns his sights on a more serious and personal topic: his childhood in a Philadelphia housing project in the early 1960s.

Award-winning author Sarah Weeks is critically acclaimed for her numerous best-selling books for children of all ages. In Jumping the Scratch, she tells the tale of Jamie Reardon, who has always been told that bad things happen in threes. So when his father leaves, his cat dies, and his Aunt Sapphy is in an accident that makes it impossible for her to create new memories, he figures life has to get better soon. Enter Audrey Krouch, who smells like onions, wears huge glasses without lenses, and claims to have ESP. As peculiar as she is, it is Audrey who helps Jamie turn his life around.

The Truth About Death, the title novella of this virtuosic collection, is a masterpiece of sardonic humor that confronts Death head-on and emerges bloody but unbowed. Simon, an undertaker, embalms his own father and faces his own death. Louisa, Simon's mother, makes peace with her husband over his dead body in a cooler in the basement of the funeral home. Simon contemplates the mystery of death over a plate of spaghetti cacio e pepe in Rome with an Italian undertaker.

Denise Hilton, a young single mother, is driving through Edenton, North Carolina, when her car skids off the road during a storm. With her is her four-year-old son, Kyle, a boy with severe learning disabilities for whom she has sacrificed everything. When volunteer fireman Taylor McAden finds her she is unconscious and bleeding, but when she wakes an even more chilling truth becomes clear: Kyle is gone.