Showing results by narrator "Edoardo Ballerini" in All Categories

February 1939. Europe teeters on the brink of war. In a Hell’s Kitchen bar, Charles Mossman is reeling from the loss of his job and the demise of his marriage. His estranged wife and their six-year-old daughter, Emma, now live in a quiet brownstone in a German-speaking New York City neighborhood where support for Hitler is common. Charles, just out of prison, struggles to put his life back together, while across the hall from his family, a kindly Swiss couple have taken a liking to Emma. But Charles begins to suspect that they might not be who they say they are.

Brooks Haxton has been writing for years about the connections between human beings and the creatures we find fascinating. Mister Toebones, his new collection, draws its title from a nickname Haxton gives to a daddy longlegs he sees at his father's grave. In another poem, the poet and his mother, in search of a swimming hole, find a copperhead rearing to strike, about to birth its live young. Elsewhere, waist-deep in the Mississippi River, under the Atlantic Ocean, on the cracked ice of a frozen pond, even in outer space, the poet explores forces that seem past endurance.

Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Jon Meacham offers a collection of inspiring words about how to be a good citizen, from Thomas Jefferson and others, and reminds us why our country’s founding principles are still so important today.

This friendly, fun biography series focuses on the traits that made our heroes great - the traits that kids can aspire to in order to live heroically themselves. Each book tells the story of an icon in a lively, conversational way that works well for the youngest nonfiction listeners and that always includes the hero's childhood influences. This book features Leonardo da Vinci, the Renaissance artist and inventor.

Hippy McTripperson travels the world looking for answers to life's big questions in this whimsical prequel to Here Come the Nothing Heads. Lost in the desert then lost at sea, Hippy eventually loses it all in a strange land down by the river. That's when the Nothing Heads begin to arrive in Happy Hollow, each seeking something completely different and each finding the one thing for which they never even thought to look.

September 1942. Davide is an uneducated but sensitive pigskeeper, a dreamer who imagines a life beyond his small town in Southern Italy—away from the animals he cares for, from the other children who mock him for the limp he has born since birth, and the brutal hand of his Mussolini-loving father. Teresa, his friend and the only person with the courage to defend him from the schoolroom bullies, also yearns to escape. She hopes to go to Rome before she is trapped in a marriage of convenience arranged by her parents.

Amy O’Sullivan finds an invitation to a masquerade dinner party in her refrigerator, balanced atop a bottle of pinot grigio. If she accepts the invitation, Amy will be picked up by a limousine. She and four competing strangers must wear masks to the party. The winner will receive a choice of either 50,000 dollars cash or a free murder of anyone the winner designates.

When Michael "Blue" Whitley -- a former party boy turned up-and-coming Brooklyn chef -- returns with three friends to the remote Canadian commune of his birth, he discovers that his entire life has been a carefully orchestrated lie. He is in fact someone else altogether, a replacement for a local child who disappeared twenty-five years earlier. He is something not quite human.

Henry James’s classic tale of an American girl abroad, doomed for her wild and unconventional ways.

What does the US government do with spies and special operators when they pass their expiration date? They retire them to a small town deep in the Piney Woods of East Texas, where they’re certain to cause no trouble.

The Great Gatsby takes us to New York in the 1920s, where jazz can be heard everywhere, underground alcohol trade flourishes, and the mafia rules the city. It is a time of great crisis and equally great profits. A time when it was easiest to become somebody in a short period after previously being nobody. Such a person was Jay Gatsby, dreaming of great wealth and power. To fulfill these dreams, he gets involved in the gears of the criminal underworld and high finance.

Thomas Mann’s classic tale of obsession and beauty is one of literature’s most famous works.

In a Philippines of desperate beauty and rank corruption, two seemingly unrelated events occur: the discovery of an ancient lost tribe living in a remote mountainous area and the arrival of a celebrity-studded, American film crew, there to make an epic Vietnam War movie. But the lost tribe may be a clever hoax and the Hollywood movie seems doomed as the cast and crew continue to self-destruct in a cloud of drugs and ego.

Dostoevsky’s classic story of an isolated, unnamed man raging against the confines of his world.

An epic poem for children of all ages, Here Come the Nothing Heads tells the tale of Sneezy McSneezerson, Grouchy McGroucherson, and Fluffy McFlufferson, who live in the fanciest pumpkin high atop Pumpkin Ridge, but they are banished by town elders because they can't get along with each other or anyone else. They must travel to Happy Hollow, home of the mysterious tribe of Nothing Heads, and learn how to live in peace. The trials and tribulations of their adventure force them to look at life in a brand new way that was as old as time itself.

When you’re building something that’s never been done before, there’s no roadmap. You’re responsible for meeting the needs of your team, clients, and partners…and of course, your investors and board members. You’re juggling growth targets, internal misalignment, and raising capital—often all at once. And the whole time, you’re deeply aware of the pressure from all sides. Your drive to push forward—to build, solve, and create—is unstoppable, but it can often feel like everything is on your shoulders, and you’re hiking up a steep mountain buried in a fog.

Far from the untouchable images of heaven-gazing saints, the apostle Paul ruthlessly focused on his earthly duty to build God’s Church. Before his dramatic conversion he had violently tried to stamp out a heretical sect of Jews–the first Christians. But Paul’s encounter with Christ turned his boundless energy to building the young and fragile Church into an established and enduring body.

On the surface, Cosimo Garibaldi is young, handsome, charming, and somewhat naïve, considering he's a member of a royal family. Given his looks and his pedigree, he is rarely at a loss for admirers. Then he meets Megan Walker, an American humanities professor vacationing in Paris who seems both unaware of his status and immune to his charms. Cosimo finds her aloofness refreshing as well as challenging, so he does his best to win her over.

When an unsuspecting scientist and explorer discovers “The Red One,” a totem worshipped by headhunting natives, his fate is sealed.