Showing results by narrator "Stephen McLaughlin" in All Categories

What makes an American legend? Find out in these fascinating stories of three of our national treasures, including Johnny Appleseed, whose apple trees bore the fruit that fed a nation of pioneers; Sacagawea, the Native American woman who bravely guided Lewis and Clark on their westward journey; and John Muir, a valiant protector of the West's natural wonders and founder of the Sierra Club.

Alan Bernhardt is just starting rehearsal when his pager goes off. No one in the small San Francisco theater minds - they know that to make it on the stage, you have to be prepared to do all sorts of odd jobs off of it. But this director’s job is odder than most. He works for Herbert Dancer, head of a boutique private investigation service. A corporate secretary has vanished with a sheaf of valuable documents, and it will take an off-Broadway sensibility to bring her home.

During the 19th century, brothers Jakob and Wilhelm Grimm traveled across Germany to write down the folk tales that had been told at kitchen tables, hearths, and bedsides for centuries. In doing so, they preserved a rich heritage of storytelling that connects us to the past. These favorite Grimm fairy tales showcase the evils of greed and jealousy and the redeeming power of love.

For most of us, the story of the assassination of President John F. Kennedy depicts Lee Harvey Oswald as a convenient cliche or a conspiracy puppet, Lone Gunman or Framed Patsy. Lost among the competing theories of villainy and cover-up is the real Lee Harvey Oswald, a troubled young man from a fractured family, a lonely child born without a future. In this original and dramatic work, Steven Beschloss draws on a rich but relatively unmined public record, key interviews with Marguerite and other family members, and Lee's own writing.

Now that communication can be as quick as thought, why hasn’t our ability to organize politically - to establish gains and beyond that, to maintain them - kept pace? The web has given us both capacity and speed: but progressive change seems to be something perpetually in the air, rarely manifesting, even more rarely staying with us.

China’s meteoric rise to economic powerhouse might be charted with dams. Every river in the country has been tapped to power exploding cities and factories - every river but one. Running through one of the richest natural areas in the world, the Nujiang’s raging waters were on the verge of being dammed when a 2004 government moratorium halted construction. Might the Chinese dragon bow to the "Angry River"? Would Beijing put local people and their land ahead of power and profit? Could this remote region actually become a model for sustainable growth? Ed Grumbine traveled to the far corners of China’s Yunnan province to find out.

Noah and the ark makes it on everyone’s list of top-10 favorite Bible stories - right up there with Jonah and the whale, and David and Goliath. No biblical account has raised as many questions and has generated as much controversy as Noah and the ark. The story in the Bible is just the beginning! Was the massive ark seaworthy? Did the Flood cover the whole Earth? Has the ark been found on Mount Ararat? Where can you see the ark today? These questions and more are answered in Noah: The Real Story.

This absorbing history by a brilliant scholar and writer deepens our understanding of how censorship works. With his uncanny ability to spark life in the past, Robert Darnton re-creates three historical worlds in which censorship shaped literary expression in distinctive ways. In 18th-century France, censors, authors, and booksellers collaborated in making literature by navigating the intricate culture of royal privilege.

Our world is about to change. In Digital Destiny: How the New Age of Data Will Change the Way We Live, Work, and Communicate, Shawn DuBravac, chief economist and senior director of research at the Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), argues that the groundswell of digital ownership unfolding in our lives signals the beginning of a new era for humanity.

Alan Bernhardt is a theater director in San Francisco who pays his rent with the odd bit of private detective work. Searching for the man who strangled Connie, his biggest obstacle isn't Dennis but John - the dead woman's seven-year-old son. He may have witnessed something crucial on the night of the murder, but this sensitive child is too frightened to speak. Coaxing words out of John will be the toughest assignment of Alan's directing career, but not half as hard as keeping the boy alive.

Dominic Vennezio is found on the floor of his beachside love nest, murdered on a Sunday night. It looks like an ordinary mob hit, part of a routine power struggle with the East Coast Outfit, but Vennezio's widow has other suspicions.

Donald Honig crossed the country to meet and interview former big-league ball players. They shared their memories with him and the result is a book packed with nostalgia, statistics, action, revelations - an extraordinary oral history of baseball in the halcyon days beween the two world wars. Babe Ruth, Lefty Grove, Ted Williams, Bob Feller, Dizzy Dean, Jackie Robinson, Lou Gehrig, and many others are brought to life through the recollections of Wes Ferrell, Charlie Gehringer, Elbie Fletcher, Bucky Waters, Billy Herman, and more.

To survive a bleak winter, Hazard the coyote must find food for his pack, even if it puts him in grave danger. Finally on his own, a young raccoon named Lotor needs to find a new home before a predator finds him. Osa the brown bear builds the perfect winter den - with less-than-perfect results. These stories about fictional animal friends are rich with detail about real animal behaviors, so children learn as they enjoy the fun.

Edgar Mason is losing Agamemnon Frost despite everything they've been through - the passion, the torture, the heat. Frost's fiance, Theodora, is back, and Mason can feel his lover gravitating toward her. Every day he sees them together, it tears at his heart. Frost feels raw himself. His brother and sister-in-law are missing, and his guilt about failing to save Theodora from Pandarus eats at him. His feelings for Mason, whom he has put through hell twice already, just twist the screws tighter.

With what Graham Greene once called her "devilish cunning," Vera Caspary offers one of her most suspenseful thrillers in this tale of love, jealousy, guilt, and hate. When Fletcher marries Elaine, his second wife nineteen years his junior, he can't imagine a more passionate union. Then an illness destroys his confidence, and all he can picture is her next affair. He keeps a secret diary of his fantasized suspicions, making his impending suicide look like murder.

Indian peoples made some 400 treaties with the United States between the American Revolution and 1871, when Congress prohibited them. They signed nine treaties with the Confederacy, as well as countless others over the centuries with Spain, France, Britain, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, Canada, and even Russia, not to mention individual colonies and states. In retrospect, the treaties seem like well-ordered steps on the path of dispossession and empire. The reality was far more complicated.

At the close of the Civil War, weary veteran Malcolm Hopeton returns to his home in Western New York State to find his wife and hired man missing and his farm in disrepair. A double murder ensues, the repercussions of which ripple through a community with spiritual roots in the Second Great Awakening. Hopeton has gone from the horrors of war to those far worse, and arrayed around him are a host of other people struggling to make sense of his crime.

To honor a dying don's last wish, a mob lieutenant searches for hidden diamonds. After seven years ruling his empire from prison, Don Carlo remains as powerful as ever, but his heart is beginning to fail. On the verge of death, he begs his right-hand man, Bacardo, to look after his family. Not his wife and children, the don explains, but Louise and Angela - his daughter and granddaughter from a beloved mistress who died long ago.

Hitler’s Secret Jewish Psychic will cure you of two misconceptions: the first being that history is relentlessly boring and the second that significant historical events are caused by significant and great causes. Here you'll unearth a multitude of facts you never knew were true. You'll learn some unbelievable things about some of the most prominent figures in history.

It may be America's game, but no one seems to know how or when baseball really started. Theories abound, myths proliferate, but reliable information has been in short supply - until now, when Baseball before We Knew It brings fresh new evidence of baseball's origins into play. David Block looks into the early history of the game and of the 150-year-old debate about its beginnings.