Head On (Narrated by Wil Wheaton)
Summary
"As much as Scalzi has the scientific creativity of a Michael Crichton, he also has the procedural chops of a Stephen J. Cannell to craft a whodunit with buddy-cop charm and suspects aplenty - most of them in someone else's body." (USA Today) John Scalzi returns with Head On, the stand-alone follow-up to the New York Times best-selling and critically acclaimed Lock In. Chilling near-future SF with the thrills of a gritty cop procedural, Head On brings Scalzi's trademark snappy dialogue and technological speculation to the future world of sports. Hilketa is a frenetic and violent pastime where players attack each other with swords and hammers. The main goal of the game: obtain your opponent's head and carry it through the goalposts. With flesh and bone bodies, a sport like this would be impossible. But all the players are "threeps", robot-like bodies controlled by people with Haden's Syndrome, so anything goes. No one gets hurt, but the brutality is real, and the crowds love it. Until a star athlete drops dead on the playing field. Is it an accident or murder? FBI agents and Haden-related crime investigators Chris Shane and Leslie Vann are called in to uncover the truth - and in doing so travel to the darker side of the fast-growing sport of Hilketa, where fortunes are made or lost and where players and owners do whatever it takes to win, on and off the field.
©2018 John Scalzi (P)2018 Audible, Inc.
From a Buick 8
Summary
The state police of Troop D in rural Pennsylvania have kept a secret in Shed B out back of the barracks ever since 1979, when Troopers Ennis Rafferty and Curtis Wilcox answered a call from a gas station just down the road and came back with an abandoned Buick Roadmaster. Curt Wilcox knew old cars, and he knew immediately that this one was...wrong, just wrong. A few hours later, when Rafferty vanished, Wilcox and his fellow troopers knew the car was worse than dangerous. Curt's avid curiosity took the lead, and they investigated as best they could, as much as they dared. Over the years, the troop absorbed the mystery as part of the background to their work, the Buick 8 sitting out there like a still-life painting that breathes - inhaling a little bit of this world, exhaling a little bit of whatever world it came from. In the fall of 2001, a few months after Curt Wilcox is killed in a gruesome auto accident, his 18-year-old boy, Ned, starts coming by the barracks. Sandy Dearborn, Sergeant Commanding, knows it's the boy's way of holding onto his father, and Ned is allowed to become part of the Troop D family. One day he looks in the window of Shed B and discovers the family secret. Like his father, Ned wants answers... From a Buick 8 is an audiobook about our fascination with deadly things, about our insistence on answers when there are none, about terror and courage in the face of the unknowable.
©2002 Stephen King, All Rights Reserved (P)2002 Simon & Schuster Inc., All Rights Reserved
Rodzina
Summary
In 1881, 12-year-old Rodzina Clara Jadwiga Anastazya Brodski wishes she didn't have to board the orphan train in Chicago. But she has no home, no family, and no choice. Rodzina doesn't believe the orphans are on their way out West to be adopted by good families. She's sure they will become slaves to strangers. Anyway, who would ever adopt a large, tough, stubborn girl of Polish origin? As the train heads west, all Rodzina has is a small suitcase and her family memories from the past. Will Rodzina ever step off the train to find the family that deep in her heart she's searching for?
©2003 Karen Cushman (P)2009 Listening Library
The Prophet of Yonwood
Summary
It's 50 years before the settlement of the city of Ember, and the world is in crisis. War looms on the horizon as 11-year-old Nickie and her aunt travel to the small town of Yonwood, North Carolina. There, one of the town's respected citizens has had a terrible vision of fire and destruction. Her garbled words are taken as prophetic instruction on how to avoid the coming disaster. If only they can be interpreted correctly. As the people of Yonwood scramble to make sense of the woman's mysterious utterances, Nickie explores the oddities she finds around town - her great-grandfather's peculiar journals and papers, a reclusive neighbor who studies the heavens, a strange boy who is fascinated with snakes - all while keeping an eye out for ways to help the world. Is this vision her chance? Or is it already too late to avoid a devastating war? In this prequel to the acclaimed The City of Ember and The People of Sparks, Jeanne DuPrau investigates how, in a world that seems out of control, hope and comfort can be found in the strangest of places.
©2006 Jeanne DuPrau (P)2006 Random House, Inc. Listening Library, an imprint of the Random House Audio Publishing Group
Everything's Eventual
Summary
The first collection of stories Stephen King has published since Nightmares & Dreamscapes nine years ago, Everything's Eventual includes one O. Henry Prize winner, two other award winners, four stories published by The New Yorker, and "Riding the Bullet," King's original e-book, which attracted over half a million online readers and became the most famous short story of the decade. "Riding the Bullet" is the story of Alan Parker, who's hitchhiking to see his dying mother but takes the wrong ride, farther than he ever intended. In "Lunch at the Gotham Café", a sparring couple's contentious lunch turns very, very bloody when the maître d' gets out of sorts. "1408" is about a successful writer whose specialty is "Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Graveyards" or "Ten Nights in Ten Haunted Houses", and though Room 1408 at the Dolphin Hotel doesn't kill him, he won't be writing about ghosts anymore. And in "That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is In French", terror is déjà vu at 16,000 feet. Whether writing about encounters with the dead, the near dead, or about the mundane dreads of life, from quitting smoking to yard sales, Stephen King is at the top of his form in the 14 dark tales assembled in Everything's Eventual. Intense, eerie, and instantly compelling, they announce the stunningly fertile imagination of perhaps the greatest storyteller of our time. The complete list of narrators includes Becky Ann Baker, John Collum, Boyd Gaines, Peter Gerety, Josh Hamilton, Arliss Howard, Judith Ivey, Stephen King, Justin Long, Oliver Platt, and Jay O. Sanders.
©2002 Stephen King (P)2014 Simon & Schuster
The New York Stories
Summary
Collected for the first time, the New York stories of John O'Hara, "among the greatest short story writers in English, or in any other language" (Brendan Gill, Here at The New Yorker) Collected for the first time, here are the New York stories of one of the 20th century's definitive chroniclers of the city - the speakeasies and highballs, social climbers and cinema stars, mistresses and powerbrokers, unsparingly observed by a popular American master of realism. Spanning his four-decade career, these more than 30 refreshingly frank, sparely written stories are among John O'Hara's finest work, exploring the materialist aspirations and sexual exploits of flawed, prodigally human characters and showcasing the snappy dialogue, telling details, and ironic narrative twists that made him the most-published short story writer in the history of the New Yorker.
©1932 John O'Hara (P)2014 Penguin Audio
It Ain't Over...Till It's Over
Summary
From the number-one New York Times best-selling author of The Right Words at the Right Time comes a one-of-a-kind collection of inspiring stories about ordinary women who have reinvented themselves in extraordinary ways. "You can be anything you want to be." "Reach for the moon." "It's never too late to make a change." We've heard it all. But anyone who has ever tried to make a big life change knows that it can be a bit more complicated - and scary - than that. How do you get up the nerve (and confidence) to actually take the leap? No one knows better than the women profiled in this powerful audiobook by actress, activist, and best-selling author Marlo Thomas. Using the same kinds of personal stories that made Thomas's landmark collection The Right Words at the Right Time a blockbuster success, It Ain't Overâ¦Till It's Over introduces us to more than 50 amazing women who are proving that it's never too late to live out a dream - to get a PhD, travel the world, launch a business, indulge a creative impulse, make a family recipe famous, or fill a void in life with a challenging new experience. Meet a homemaker who fulfilled a childhood ambition by going to med school at age 43; a widow with three young kids who turned a jewelry-making hobby into a successful business on Etsy; a woman who lived out a childhood dream by taking a cross-country trip (on horseback, no less!); and a sister and mother who channeled their immense grief from losing a brother and son in 9/11 into creating a global foundation to care for the emotionally wounded. Brimming with anecdotes that will inspire smiles, tears, and - most of all - hope, It Ain't Over speaks to women of all ages with an empowering message: The best is yet to come.
©2014 Marlo Thomas (P)2014 Simon & Schuster
I Learn from Children
Summary
"A lucid presentation of what progressive education can accomplish.â (The New York Times) How should schools prepare students for the Information Age? The successful worker of the future - a creative, independent thinker who works well in teams - would seem to be too self-contradictory to be the deliberate product of a school.  A century ago, the American educator Caroline Pratt created an innovative school that she hoped would produce such independent thinkers, but she asked herself a different question: "Was it unreasonable to try to fit the school to the child, rather than...the child to the school?â A strong-willed small-town schoolteacher who ran a one-room schoolhouse by the time she was 17, Pratt came to viscerally reject the teaching methods of her day, which often featured a long-winded teacher at the front of the room and rows of miserable children, on benches nailed to the floor, stretching to the back.  In this classic 1948 memoir, now in its fourth edition, Pratt recounts, in a wry authorial voice much closer to Will Rogers than John Dewey, how she founded what is now the dynamic City and Country School in New York City; invented the maple "unit blocksâ that have become a staple in classrooms and childrenâs homes around the globe; and came to play an important role in reimagining preschool and primary-school education in ways that resound in the tumultuously creative age before us.   The 2014 edition features a new introduction by Ian Frazier, as well as a new chapter, "C&C at 100", by former principal Kate Turley, and an afterword by Susan F. Semel.  Read by Becky Ann Baker, Ian Frazier, and Kate Turley.  Featured music: "School Song" by Larry Goldings.  City and Country School wishes to thank Kiran Paranjpe, for initiating this production and for assisting in its development.
©2014 City and Country School, Ian Frazier, Kate Turley, and Susan F. Semel (P)2018 City and Country School and Ian Frazier
113 Minutes
Summary
I know who killed my son. Molly Rourke's son has been murdered...And she knows who's responsible. Now she's taking the law into her own hands. Never underestimate a mother's love. BookShots LIGHTNING-FAST STORIES BY JAMES PATTERSON Novels you can devour in a few hours Impossible to stop listening All original content from James Patterson
©2016 James Patterson (P)2016 Hachette Audio
Among the Missing
Summary
In this haunting, bracing new collection, Dan Chaon shares stories of men, women, and children who live far outside the American Dream, while wondering which decision, which path, or which accident brought them to this place. Chaon mines the psychological landscape of his characters to dazzling effect. Each story radiates with sharp humor, mystery, wonder, and startling compassion. Among the Missing lingers in the mind through its subtle grace and power of language.Â
©2001 Dan Chaon (P)2001 Random House, Inc.
The Killing Game
Summary
A merciless killer on the hunt...an innocent child in his sights...a woman driven to the edge to stop him... The killer knows Eve Duncan all too well. He knows the pain she feels for her murdered daughter, Bonnie, whose body has never been found. He knows that as one of the nation's top forensic sculptors she'll insist on identifying the nine skeletons unearthed on a bluff near Georgia's Talladega Falls. He knows she won't be able to resist the temptation of believing that one of those skeletons might be her daughter's. But that is only the beginning of the killer's sadistic game. He wants Eve one on one, and he'll use his ace in the hole to make sure she complies. And he won't stop playing until he claims the prize he wants most: Eve's life.Â
©1999 Iris Johansen (P)1999 Random House, Inc., Bantam Doubleday Dell Audio Publishing, A Division of Random House, Inc.
The Man in the Black Suit
Summary
"The face of the man in the black suit grows ever clearer, ever closer, and I remember every word he said. I don't want to think of him, but I can't help it, and sometimes at night my old heart beats so hard and so fast I think it will tear itself right clear of my chest." A haunting recollection of a mysterious boyhood event, The Man in the Black Suit, read by John Cullum, leads off this masterful collection from Stephen King. Other dark tales include: All That You Love Will Be Carried Away, read by Peter Gerety, in which a man checks into a Lincoln, Nebraska Motel 6 to find the meaning in his life; That Feeling, You Can Only Say What It Is in French, read by Becky Ann Baker, presents the ultimate case of deja vu; and The Death of Jack Hamilton, read by Arliss Howard, a blistering tale of Depression-era outlaws on the run. Whether writing about encounters with the dead or the near-dead, or about the mundane dreads of life, Stephen King's The Man in the Black Suit is a gripping, intense listen.
©2002 Stephen King, All Rights Reserved (P)2002 Simon & Schuster Inc., All Rights Reserved, AUDIOWORKS Is an Imprint of Simon & Schuster Audio Division, Simon & Schuster Inc.
Indelible
Summary
The internationally bestselling author, "squarely in the ranks of Patricia Cornwell and Kathy Reichs" ( Publishers Weekly), shows off her superb talent with this brilliantly conceived, skillfully executed tale of suspense. In Karin Slaughter's exciting new thriller, an officer is shot point-blank in the Grant County police station, and Police Chief Jeffrey Tolliver is wounded, setting off a terrifying hostage situation with medical examiner Sara Linton at the center. Working outside the station, Lena Adams, newly reinstated to the force, and Frank Wallace, Jeffrey's second in command, must try to piece together who the shooter is and how to rescue their friends before Jeffrey dies. For the sins of the past have caught up with Sara and Jeffrey with a vengeance.... Deftly interweaving present and past, Slaughter (dubbed "the new face of crime" by Book Magazine) offers another brilliant knife-edge tale of suspense that cements her place among the most outstanding practitioners of crime fiction today.
©2004 Karin Slaughter (P)2004 HarperCollins Publishers, Inc.
The 13-Minute Murder
Summary
What do a psychiatrist, a mother, and an expert hit man have in common? Their time is running out in these three fast-paced thrillers from the world's number one best-selling writer James Patterson. Dead Man Running: Psychiatrist Randall Beck specializes in PTSD cases - and his time is limited. Especially when he uncovers a plot to kill a presidential candidate. 113 Minutes: Molly Rourke's son has been murdered - and she knows who's responsible. Now, she's taking the law into her own hands. Never underestimate a mother's love. 13-Minute Murder: He can kill anybody in just minutes - from the first approach to the clean escape. His skills have served him well, and he has a grand plan: to get out alive and spend his earnings with his beloved wife, Maria. An anonymous client offers Ryan a rich payout to assassinate a target in Harvard Yard. It's exactly the last big job he needs to complete his plan. The precision strike starts perfectly and then somehow explodes into a horrifying spectacle. Ryan has to run, and Maria goes missing. Now, the world's fastest hit man sets out for one last score: revenge. And every minute counts.
©2018 James Patterson (P)2019 Hachette Audio