Showing results by narrator "Stephen A. Johnson" in All Categories

Well over a century after Wagner's death, the man and his music are as controversial as ever. Praised for his profound insights into the workings of the human heart, he has also been condemned as a dangerous libertine, a proto-fascist and an arrogant bore. His vast four-part operatic Ring cycle has been elevated as one of the greatest achievements of western culture and dismissed as an unparalleled example of creative megalomania.

Wagner’s Ring cycle is the most ambitious work in the history of music: four operas that combine to tell a single epic story. Based in legend, it has become a legend in its own right: a supreme challenge for conductors, singers, opera producers, and indeed for audiences. But for all its grandeur and complexity, The Ring is far more accessible than many music lovers think.

Hot on the heels of her 2018 This Is Horror Award–winning short story collection Spectral Evidence, critically horror author Gemma Files compiles fifteen more of her most startling recent nightmares—a creepily seductive downward spiral of dark poetry and existential dread, entirely suitable to the slow apocalypse going on all around us. So take your mind off your troubles and send it somewhere the rules still operate, if only to punish those who violate them.

Julius Hutch has planned to spend his retirement years 'pottering' and worrying about his bills, but wakes one morning to discover a foreign merchant bank has put four million pounds into his account—and won't take it back. So Julius, a humble man, sets out to spend the money helping other people, and wooing Pauline, the local bank teller. Up against an enormous banking corporation and an unsavoury property developer, Julius soon discovers that rather than being crushed by these financial giants as he would have been in the past, he is rendered rather more delightfully impervious.

For almost thirty years, Shirley Jackson Award–winning horror author Gemma Files has consistently served up tale after tale celebrating monstrosity in all its forms: the imperfect, the broken, the beautifully alien, and the sadly familiar. Her characters make their own choices and take their own chances, slipping from darkness into deeper darkness yet never losing their humanity—not even when they’re anything but.

This collection of short stories displays Ed Gorman's talents as a masterful storyteller across a range of genres.

A mysterious and beautiful girl who teaches arrogant young men about true love, a lonely traveling salesman who learns that his passenger is Death, children who can absorb the psychic pain of their parents, a desperately pursued serial killer who hides his face under gauze in a hospital room, and a woman who loves the alien infant nobody else wants - these stories and 10 others make up this collection by award-winning author Ed Gorman. Here are stories that led him to be called "one of the best" by Dean Koontz and "one of the most original writers in crime fiction today" by Kirkus Reviews. Here, you'll find the extraordinary range of storytelling skill and powerful emotions that won Gorman the prized International Fiction Award.

Included in Different Kinds of Dead, and Other Tales are "Different Kinds of Dead", "Deathman", "A Girl Like You", "Loverboy", "Muse", "Riff", "The Brasher Girl", "Survival", "Masque", "Second Most Popular", and others.

This collection reveals the extraordinary range of storytelling skill and powerful emotions that won Gorman the prized International Fiction Award. His protagonists, gritty and gruff, are strangely likable, and his writing, according to Mystery News, is "powerful, disturbing, [and] often poetic".

Traditional hierarchical structures are falling - is your organization ready? Emergent provides a handbook for navigating - and thriving in - the new cultural paradigm. More than a simple DIY for change, this book empowers organizations to diagnose change risk, address current shortcomings, and adapt to the increasing current away from hierarchies to autonomous and interdependent networks.

This collection features a selection of classic short stories and poems by legendary Western authors Stephen Crane, Bret Harte, and Jack London.

She’s booked every weekend, and her name is quickly becoming well known in the area. So it comes as a shock when her booking agent slowly stops calling her. That is, until she runs into the musician who’s been stealing her gigs. She can’t deny he has a voice to die for and the body of a god, but neither helps the fact that his personality is pure poison. Their exchanges never fail to boil her blood, but it’s a game she starts to look forward to, and she’s determined not to back down first.

The hiring market is more difficult than ever to navigate, especially for small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). It feels impossible to stay competitive when large companies can offer 24/7 services with ease. But this is not the end of the road for SMBs. In fact, it’s an opportunity. You are no longer limited by your geography in terms of the talent you can hire—the world is your talent pool. It is only a matter of leveraging that talent effectively to allow your business to start operating at a higher level.

Following the example of Jeremiah, our people often have a burning fire shut up in their bones because the church asks them to serve in areas outside of their ministry passions. The gifts and talents of the church ache to be released and set free to minister within the local church. Release the Burning Fire provides a template for changing the culture of the local congregation to allow people to serve with joy. They are liberated to use the gifts given to them to accomplish the work of the church.

This audiobook is a one-on-one meeting with a very successful manager and corporate vice president. Take his advice, and you can become a very successful manager too.

Wynne wants to save the little girl, Pear - she's possessed. The problem is, she's been forbidden from talking to Pear, and is sent away to the summerhouse, which has its own forgotten monsters.... Can she save her favorite five-year-old, and get herself out of the house? Listen to this intense story to find out.

The clowns are stealing children. Lorelei, Miles, and Gregory are lost at a carnival. They'll be forced to play the Devil's Games before they can leave. If they can leave....Let Mixi run a frozen finger up your spine, with this frightening novel.

A horrified Mr Enfield recalls his encounter with Jekyll. Utterson becomes paranoid and decides to send Hastie and Mr Enfield to Hyde’s for answers.

The villainous Mr. Hyde plans to tear down the pillars of society, but first he must devise a way to get rid of his consciousness.

Utterson has sent Mr. Enfield to find out what Hyde was doing at the lab, Meanwhile Mr. Poole and Mr. Guest find that they have been robbed and receive a strange thank-you letter addressed to a man named Mr. Jekyll.

The meteor storm wasn’t such a big deal until a comet landed in the middle of the road. Now Darien’s car is wrecked, his sister is bleeding out, and the only medical aid is at the reclusive Serran Academy. Jet sees Darien for what he is: A lost teen who doesn't deserve to know about the aether gifts. And his sister's rare future-seeing ability is exactly what the enemy is after. As fractured governments and shadow organizations vie for control of a dying world, the Serran Academy students - and their angelic secrets - are targeted for harvesting.

In this anthology of creative nonfiction, 28 writers set out to discover what they know, and don't know, about the person they call Mother. Celebrated writers Samia Serageldin and Lee Smith have curated a diverse and insightful collection that challenges stereotypes about mothers and expands our notions of motherhood in the South. The mothers in these essays were shaped, for good and bad, by the economic and political crosswinds of their time.

If you aspire to live life by design and not by default, it's crucial for you to attract and retain incredible people. As a leader, the success of your organization and your own financial prosperity, depends upon your team members.