Showing results by narrator "Stephen Mendel" in All Categories

An anthology celebrating the witches and sorcerers of epic fantasy - featuring stories by George R. R. Martin, Scott Lynch, Megan Lindholm and many more! Hot on the heels of Gardner Dozois' (Rogues, Old Venus) acclaimed anthology The Book of Swords comes this companion volume devoted to magic. How could it be otherwise? For every Frodo, there is a Gandalf...and a Saruman. For every Dorothy, a Glinda...and a Wicked Witch of the West. What would Harry Potter be without Albus Dumbledore...and Severus Snape?

Eight years a soldier, Peter Ash came home from Iraq and Afghanistan with only one souvenir: what he calls 'white static', a buzzing claustrophobia due to post-traumatic stress that has driven him to spend a year roaming the Pacific coast's mountains and forests, sleeping under the stars. But when a friend from the Marines commits suicide, Ash returns to civilisation to help the man's widow and two young children. While repairing her dilapidated porch, he makes two unwelcome discoveries.

Peter Ash is wearing an armored vest, has a pistol strapped to his leg, a semi-automatic rifle by his side, and a large stash of drugs money behind him. It's hot, the static is buzzing and he's trying not to think about what happened last week. Ash is riding shotgun in a truck leased to Heavy Metal Protection, a security firm that protects cash-rich cannabis entrepreneurs from modern-day highwaymen. Just seven days ago, Heavy Metal lost an entire vehicle, crew and cargo, disappearing without a trace.

Deep in north California's redwood forests, June Cassidy is hiding. She's no idea who's after her, why they want her or how much longer she can survive. But she's not the only fugitive hiding in the woods. After eight years a soldier, Peter Ash came home with only one souvenir: what he calls 'white static', a crippling claustrophobia due to post-traumatic stress that has driven him far from conventional life and deep into the wilderness, living rough, sleeping under the stars.

Two months after D-Day, the Allies found themselves in a stalemate in Normandy, having suffered enormous casualties attempting to push through hedgerow country. Troops were spent, and American tankers, lacking the tactics and leadership to deal with the terrain, were losing their spirit. General George Patton and the other top US commanders needed an officer who knew how to break the impasse and roll over the Germans - they needed one man with the grit and the vision to take the war all the way to the Rhine. Patton and his peers selected Maurice Rose.

Losing ground in his fight against his claustrophobia, ex-soldier Peter Ash has no intention of ever getting on a plane—until a grieving woman asks him to find her grandson. The boy's mother was murdered and his father, the sole suspect, has taken his son and fled to Iceland. When Peter is met at Reykjavik airport by a man from the US Embassy, he realises the powers that be don't want him in Iceland. But he isn't going home until he accomplishes his mission—even if it means incurring the wrath of his own government.

With two governments out to get him, ex-soldier Peter Ash has been keeping a low profile. His quiet existence in Milwaukee is far from the action-packed life he's been used to, but perhaps that's no bad thing. But when he spots a suspicious armed man walking into a busy market, Peter can't stand by and do nothing. He manages to prevent a tragedy, but the gunman escapes and his intended victim vanishes into the crowd. Then a powerful associate from Peter's past appears and makes him an irresistible offer.

Peter Ash came home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan with only one souvenir: crippling claustrophobia due to PTSD. After years of living rough, he's trying hard to get back to a normal life—one where people aren't trying to kill him. And then he meets Helene, a young pregnant woman stranded on a remote Nebraska road. With no other rescuers in sight, Peter offers her a ride. But Helene's angry ex-cop husband is hot on her trail.

When Peter receives a phone call at four a.m., it's the start of a dangerous whirlwind that threatens to drag him and his loved ones into its centre. The caller is Peter's closest friend, Lewis. Lewis has left his criminal past behind him, but when an associate of his goes missing from his home in upstate Wisconsin, dark secrets from their shared history may be about to come to light.

In arguably his most personal and lasting work, America's most daringly original and controversial critic gives us brief, luminous readings of more than 80 texts by canonical authors - texts he has had by heart since childhood.

Across the world, and throughout time, there have been people who have risen to the challenge of leading others. Sometimes their power is undeserved, sometimes it's ill used, but always their actions have impact. But do leaders really make history, or does history make leaders? And how might we harness the answers to find and become better leaders today? For the past decade, Moshik Temkin has been exploring these questions at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government and at universities around the world. In this book, he offers a deep dive into the nature of leadership.

Penguin presents the unabridged, downloadable audiobook edition of Foxcatcher by Mark Schultz, read by Stephen Mendel. On 22 January 1996, Dave Schultz, Olympic gold medalist and wrestling's golden boy, was shot in the back by John E. du Pont at the famed Foxcatcher estate in Pennsylvania. That started a two-day siege at the ranch before the du Pont family heir was finally captured.

Two months after taking down terrorist Aleksandr Zakayev, Eric Steele is back in action. Though he is completing his Alpha assignments with the same deadly efficiency as always, he has lingering questions about his missing father - and his own future in the Program. When Steele gets the alert that a fellow Alpha is in serious trouble, he rushes to Paris - only to arrive too late. Jonathan Raines, Stalker Six, is dead, the victim of a brutal attack. While on leave in the City of Light, Raines had met an attractive art historian who lured him into a trap.

In one swift moment, a fall wiped away his memory. All he knew for certain was that someone wanted him dead - and that he had better learn why. But everywhere he turned there seemed to be more questions - or people too willing to hide the truth behind a smoke screen of lies. He had only the name he had been told was his own, his mysterious skill with a gun, and a link to a half million dollars’ worth of buried gold as evidence of his past life. Was the treasure his? Was he a thief? A killer? He didn’t have the answers, but he needed them soon. Because what he still didn’t know about himself, others did....

On a remote mountaintop in Western China, Doctor Ai Liang is about to risk everything and defy the Chinese Communist Party. She and her team have created a terrifying new coronavirus, even more deadly than COVID-19, called C-62 that is capable of killing a person in 20 minutes. But her conscience tells her she must destroy the deadly bioweapon before it can bring devastation to millions. The doctor’s heroic plans are interrupted when mysterious commandos swarm the lab, kill everyone in sight, and take off with the C-62 virus.

In this valedictory volume, Yale professor Harold Bloom — who for more than half a century was regarded as America's most daringly original and controversial literary critic — gives us his only book devoted entirely to the art of the novel. With his hallmark percipience, remarkable scholarship, and extraordinary devotion to sublimity, Bloom offers meditations on 48 essential works spanning the Western canon.

Peter Ash came home from fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan with claustrophobia due to PTSD. He always needs to move and to have a purpose. When war correspondent Wanda Wyatt is in trouble, Peter jumps at the chance to go to her aid. He arrives in Memphis to find that a truck has been driven into Wanda's house. Someone is clearly determined to drive her from her home by any means necessary. Before he can investigate, Peter finds himself held at gunpoint. Caught between gangsters and whoever is threatening Wanda, he will need his special skills more than ever if he's going to save lives.

Described as both “one of the most important novels ever written” and “the gospel of evil,” 120 Days of Sodom was written by the Marquis de Sade, a notorious eighteenth-century aristocrat who waged a campaign of mayhem and debauchery across France, evaded execution, and inspired the word “sadism,” which came to mean receiving pleasure from pain. Despite all his crimes, Sade considered this work to be his greatest transgression.

The River of Time brings together 12 of David Brin's stories, including "The Crystal Spheres", which won the Hugo Award for Best Science Fiction Short Story in 1985. Here are powerful tales of heroism and humanity, playful excursions into realms of fancy, and profound meditations on time, memory, and our place in the universe. Who guides our fate? And can we ever hope to wrest control for ourselves?

In electric prose T. C. Boyle explores myriad facets of society: greed and excess, parenthood and responsibility, the digital world and the way we understand our mortality. Roaming unrestrainedly through the present and near future, he inhabits his characters’ minds with a ventriloquist’s flair, skewering human motivations and revealing us to ourselves with empathy and wry humour.