Showing results by narrator "Rosemary Benson" in All Categories

Why We Read Fiction offers a lucid overview of the most exciting area of research in contemporary cognitive psychology known as “Theory of Mind” and discusses its implications for literary studies. It covers a broad range of fictional narratives, from Richardson's Clarissa, Dostoyevsky's Crime and Punishment, and Austen's Pride and Prejudice to Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, Nabokov's Lolita, and Hammett's The Maltese Falcon.

In the wake of the American and French Revolutions, thousands of men and women took to the roads and waterways on both sides of the Atlantic—refugees in search of their inalienable rights. Although larger nations fortified their borders and circumscribed citizenship, two port cities, German Hamburg and Danish Altona, opened their doors, as did the federated Swiss cantons and the newly independent Belgian monarchy. The refugees thrived and the societies that harbored them prospered.

Seychelle's life takes a turn when her tug intercepts a swamped fishing boat in the Gulf Stream. Inside the boat is a little girl in a bloodied white dress. When Seychelle returns to shore with the traumatized Haitian girl, she is faced with the border patrol, the police, and an unraveling love affair. Determined to protect the child, and somehow keep her from being sent back to Haiti, Seychelle becomes obsessed with the forces that nearly killed the girl.

You need to listen to this audiobook if you want to understand the backdrop of history that created the fertile soil for today’s homegrown terrorist group-Boko Haram-to literally spring up overnight and within half a dozen years bring the most populous country in Africa to the greatest crisis in its history. The story is told through the eyes of fortune seeking engineer Paul Jeffries-out to make millions on a state of the art telecommunications project in Nigeria-who must confront his own demons by agreeing to search for the American ambassador’s daughter, Maureen Cahill, who has fled the relative safety of the embassy in Lagos to the besieged and shrinking rebel enclave of Biafra to help refugees in the mid 1960’s civil war. The journey will take them both to the darkest and most dangerous mangrove infested corner of one of Africa’s bloodiest civil wars. The trek will test their commitment to aiding the country, their dreams for nation building, and their growing love for each other.

The romance novel has the strange distinction of being the most popular but least respected of literary genres. While it remains consistently dominant in bookstores and on best-seller lists, it is also widely dismissed by the critical community. Scholars have alleged that romance novels help create subservient readers, who are largely women, by confining heroines to stories that ignore issues other than love and marriage.

In this incredibly practical and easy-to-understand book, counselor and psychologist Christa Hardin combines her expertise in psychological assessment and marriage and family counseling to explore all forty-five possible Enneagram pairings in relationships. She calls it the Enneagram Glow—the unique, mutual influence of two types in intimate relationship across the seasons and shifts that every couple experiences.

Someone has left puppies on the doorsteps of Pineapple Port's residents, but the adorable balls of fur seem to be connected to the murder of a nearby millionaire with too many heirs of his own. Meanwhile, Mariska's been framed for baking a killer cake, and Charlotte must clear her name.

Flora Miller Biddle was born a blue-blood. The granddaughter of the Whitney museum founder, Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney, her childhood played out in a sort of Wharton landscape as she was shielded from the woes of the world. But money itself is not the source of happiness. In this wonderfully evocative memoir, Flora Miller Biddle examines, critiques, and pays homage to the people and places of her childhood that shaped her life.

In Whatever Works, Thalma Lobel explores groundbreaking psychological research on job performance, satisfaction, and creativity. Did you know that just doodling in a certain way can increase your creativity? That looking at something green for forty seconds will improve your attention? That crossing your legs similarly to an interviewer could get you the job? That the mere presence of a smartphone on your desk can lessen your performance, even if it's turned off? These are the invisible factors that nudge our behavior on a daily basis.

In Delta Epiphany: Robert F. Kennedy in Mississippi, Ellen B. Meacham tells the story of Kennedy's visit to the Mississippi Delta, while also examining the forces of history, economics, and politics that shaped the lives of the children he met in Mississippi in 1967 and the decades that followed.

Before Key West was the party capital of the Florida Keys, it was built by wrecking skippers who, in feats of derring-do, raced to shipping disasters to save valuable cargo from the ocean depths. But when a friend is killed, Seychelle begins to suspect a chilling scenario: that modern-day wreckers are causing yachts to crash onto the reefs - and killing off whoever gets in the way. Seychelle's dear friend, Nestor Frias, was piloting a billionaire’s luxury power yacht on its maiden voyage when it ran up on a reef. A few days later, Frias was dead.

As Japanese forces attack the Philippines in the aftermath of Pearl Harbor, US army nurse Louise Harrison waits to be evacuated from Manila. But with the enemy closing in, Louise is forced to flee with a handful of wounded soldiers to a field hospital deep in the mountains. Isolated in an unfamiliar country amid desperate conditions, Louise strikes up a friendship with Sammy Mori, an injured Japanese soldier with a secret.

Book three of Christine Kling's Seychelle Sullivan series is loosely based on the real South Florida murder of Greek immigrant tycoon Gus Boolis, once the owner of South Florida's Sun Cruz Casino gambling boats. In Seychelle's new caper, she may just be in over her head when murder and corruption come bobbing to the surface.

When the dean of Lovegood Junior College for Girls decides to pair Feron Hood with Merry Jellicoe as roommates in 1958, she has no way of knowing the far-reaching consequences of the match. Feron, who has narrowly escaped from a dark past, instantly takes to Merry and her composed personality. Surrounded by the traditions and four-story Doric columns of Lovegood, the girls - and their friendship - begin to thrive.

What would you do if you discovered a five million dollar superyacht unmanned and adrift, a trail of blood across the deck and a bikini-clad blonde with a knife in her back? That’s exactly what Florida salvage captain Seychelle Sullivan finds when she responds to a strange woman’s Mayday call. Worse, the missing skipper is Neal Garrett, her ex. But when she ties the salvaged yacht to the Coast Guard dock, the Fort Lauderdale detective zeroes in on her as a suspect and raises questions. Questions she can’t answer.

Hear the call to overcome today's culture of hate and bring healing and hope into our life together. While right-wing conservatives dare to call themselves Christians as they tear down equality and justice, commit horrific acts of violence, and fan the flames of fascism in America, Carter Heyward issues a call to action for Christians to truly hear God's message of peace and love.

Gunlore, for better or worse, is a powerful and pervasive method of self-expression. In examining the folklore around these controversial and politically charged tools, weapons, and symbols, we can begin to understand the aspects of American culture that will remain prominent for the foreseeable future.

When the birds first called, Susan Fox Rogers was in a slack season of her life. The woods and rivers that enthralled her younger self had lost some of their luster. It was the song of a thrush that reawakened Rogers, sparking a long-held desire to know the birds that accompanied her as she rock climbed and paddled, to know the world around her with greater depth. Energized by her curiosity, she followed the birds as they drew her deeper into her authentic self, and ultimately into love.

Through its shocking incongruities and transgressive forms, the grotesque offers an intriguing lens for exploring the scandal of the gospel and the challenges of Christian preaching. Drawing on diverse sources - from Swedish crime fiction and contemporary poetry to James Cone, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Pussy Riot - this book will examine the theological, homiletical, and social implications of a grotesque gospel for contemporary preachers.

Lamentations is a novel about the first group of families crossing west to Oregon in 1842, from the perspective of the dozen women on the trip. Although none of these women left a written record of her journey, the company clerk's daily notations provided documentation of historical events.