Diversions at UMFK: Audiobooks: Language and Literature (PN-PR)

There are many words to describe Michael J. Fox: Actor. Husband. Father.Activist. But listeners of Always Looking Up will soon add another to the list: Optimist. Michael writes about the hard-won perspective that helped him see challenges as opportunities. Instead of building walls around himself, he developed a personal policy of engagement and discovery: an emotional, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual outlook that has served him throughout his struggle with Parkinson's disease. Michael's exit from a very demanding, very public arena offered him the time—and the inspiration—to open up new doors leading to unexpected places. One door even led him to the center of his own family, the greatest destination of all. Always Looking Up is a memoir of Michael's past decade, told through the critical themes of his life: work, politics, faith, and family. The book is a journey of self-discovery and reinvention, and a testament to the consolations that protect him from the ravages of Parkinson's. With the humor and wit that captivated fans in his first book, Lucky Man, Michael describes how he became a happier, more satisfied person by recognizing the gifts of everyday life.

Disclaimer -- In the beginning blues -- Greatest story ever accepted as fact -- Research material -- Garden of Eden -- Begettin' -- Noah's ark -- Tower of Babel -- Abraham -- Story time -- Jews in space -- Joseph -- Top ten rejected commandments -- Joshua -- The book of Job -- Professional wrestling -- Psalms and Proverbs -- Book of Ruth -- Song of Solomon -- Elijah/Elisha -- Parables -- Wise men -- Birth of Jesus -- Jesus, the teenage years -- Dueling Jesuses -- John the Baptist -- Salomé -- Letter from Jesus -- Jesus preaches sermons -- Jesus teaches through parables -- The miracles of Jesus -- The last supper -- The world's oldest crucifixion joke -- Jesus is resurrected -- Jesus ascends into heaven -- Letters -- That's Armageddon!

Jon Stewart, host of the Emmy and Peabody Award-winning "The Daily Show", and his coterie of patriots deliver a hilarious look at American government . . . Termed a "political king-maker" by Newsweek, and "the Dan Rather of infotainment" by Vanity Fair, Jon Stewart, along with the writers of "The Daily Show", combines his riotous wit and razor-sharp insight in this hilarious book.American-style democracy is the world's most beloved form of government, which explains why so many other nations are eager for us to impose it on them. But what is American democracy?In America (The Book), Jon Stewart and "The Daily Show" writing staff offer their insights into our unique system of government, dissecting its institutions, explaining its history and processes, and exploring the reasons why concepts like "One man, one vote,""Government by the people," and "Every vote counts" have become such popular urban myths.

As one of America's preeminent comedic voices, George Carlin saw it all throughout his extraordinary fifty-year career and made fun of most of it. Last Words is the story of the man behind some of the most seminal comedy of the last half century, blending his signature acer-bic humor with never-before-told stories from his own life. In 1993 George Carlin asked his friend and bestselling author Tony Hendra to help him write his autobiography. For almost fifteen years, in scores of conversations, many of them recorded, the two discussed Carlin's life, times, and evolution as a major artist. When Carlin died at age seventy-one in June 2008 with the book still unpublished, Hendra set out to assemble it as his friend would have wanted. Last Words is the result, the rollicking, wrenching story of Carlin's life from birth -- literally -- to his final years, as well as a parting gift of laughter to the world of comedy he helped create. George Carlin's journey to stardom began in the rough-and-tumble neighborhood of New York's Upper West Side in the 1940s, where class and culture wars planted the seeds for some of his best known material, including the notorious "Seven Words You Can Never Say On Television." His early conflicts, his long struggle with substance abuse, his turbulent relationships with his family, and his triumphs over catastrophic setbacks all fueled the unique comedic worldview he brought to the stage. From the heights of stardom to the low points few knew about, Last Words is told with the same razor-sharp honesty that made Carlin one of the best loved comedians in American history.

Bill Maher first came to national attention as the host of the hit Comedy Central and ABC-TV program, "Politically Incorrect," where he offered a combustible mixture of irreverence and acerbic humor that helped him to garner a loyal following, as well as a reputation for being a hilarious provocateur. Now, his popular new HBO television show, "Real Time with Bill Maher," has put him more front and center than ever. In particular, one of the show's segments, entitled "New Rules," has struck a chord with viewers. It's within his rules, that Maher takes serious aim, bringing all of his incisiveness, wit, and his signature exasperation to bear on topics ranging from cell phones ("I don't need my cell phone to take pictures or access the Internet. I just need it to make a phone call. From everywhere! Not just the places it likes!") to fast food ("New Rule: No more McDonald's in hospitals. I'm not kidding!") to the conservative agenda ("Stop claiming it's an agenda. It's not an agenda. It's a random collection of laws that your corporate donors paid you to pass.") Maher brings these brilliantly conceived riffs together on audio for the first time, along with some singularly Maher-ian "editorials"-editorials nothing like the standard fare found on the pages of the local newspaper.

"World War Z: The Complete Edition (Movie Tie-in Edition): An Oral History of the Zombie War" is a new version of Max Brooks episodic zombie novel. The abridged versions of the original stories are now joined with new, unabridged recordings of the episodes that were not included in the original (abridged) version of the audiobook. These additional episodes feature a star-studded cast of narrators to coincide with the upcoming release of the film. New narrators include Academy Award-winning director Martin Scorsese, "Spiderman" star Alfred Molina, "The Walking Dead" creator Frank Darabont, rapper Common, Firefly star Nathan Fillion, "Shaun of the Dead"s Simon Pegg, and members of the casts of "Star Trek, Battlestar Galactica, Heroes" and more Max Brooks will be reprising his role as The Interviewer. The original abridged edition, released in 2006, won an Audie Award for Best Multi-Voiced Performance. Original cast members include Alan Alda, Mark Hamill, Carl & Rob Reiner, and John Turturro. In this new classic of apocalyptic fiction that feels all too real, the Zombie War came unthinkably close to eradicating humanity. The documentary-style oral history records the testimony of men, women, and sometimes children who came face-to-face with the living, or at least the undead, hell of that dreadful time. Featuring five more hours of previously unrecorded content, this full-cast recording is read by F. Murray Abraham, Alan Alda, Rene Auberjonois, Becky Ann Baker, Dennis Boutsikaris, Bruce Boxleitner, Max Brooks, Nicki Clyne, Common, Denise Crosby, Frank Darabont, Dean Edwards, Mark Hamill, Nathan Fillion, Maz Jobrani, Frank Kamai, Michelle Kholos, John McElroy, Ade MCormack, Alfred Molina, Parminder Nagra, Ajay Naidu, Masi Oka, Steve Park, Kal Penn, Simon Pegg, Jurgen Prochnow, Carl Reiner, Rob Reiner, Henry Rollins, Jeri Ryan, Jay O. Sanders, Martin Scorsese, Paul Sorvino, David Ogden Stiers, Brian Tee, John Turturro, Eamonn Walker, Ric Young, and Waleed Zuaiter. (c)2006 Max Brooks (P)2012 Random House

Young Samuel Johnson and his dachshund Boswell are trying to show initiative by trick-or-treating a full three days before Halloween. Which is how they come to witness strange goings-on at 666 Crowley Avenue. The Abernathys don’t mean any harm by their flirtation with the underworld. But when they unknowingly call forth Satan himself, they create a gap in the universe. A gap which holds a pair of enormous gates—the gates to Hell. And there are some pretty terrifying beings just itching to get out… Can one small boy defeat evil? Can he harness the power of science, faith and love to save the world as we know it? Bursting with imagination and impossible to put down, The Gates is about the pull between good and evil, physics and fantasy. It is about a quirky and eccentric boy who is impossible not to love, and the unlikely cast of characters who give him the strength to stand up to a demonic power. Like Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, The Gates manages to recreate for grownups that magical and scary world of childhood that we’ve all left behind but so love to visit.

A sweeping saga about four generations of a family who live and love on an enchanting island off the coast of Italy combining the romance of "Beautiful Ruins "with the magical tapestry of works by Isabel Allende. Castellamare is an island far enough away from the mainland to be forgotten, but not far enough to escape from the world s troubles. At the center of the island s life is a cafe draped with bougainvillea called the House at the Edge of Night, where the community gathers to gossip and talk. Amedeo Esposito, a foundling from Florence, finds his destiny on the island with his beautiful wife, Pina, whose fierce intelligence, grace, and unwavering love guide her every move. An indiscretion tests their marriage, and their children three sons and an inquisitive daughter grow up and struggle with both humanity s cruelty and its capacity for love and mercy. Spanning nearly a century, through secrets and mysteries, trials and sacrifice, this beautiful and haunting novel follows the lives of the Esposito family and the other islanders who live and love on Castellamare: a cruel count and his bewitching wife, a priest who loves scandal, a prisoner of war turned poet, an outcast girl who becomes a pillar of strength, a wounded English soldier who emerges from the sea. The people of Castellamare are transformed by two world wars and a great recession, by the threat of fascism and their deep bonds of passion and friendship, and by bitter rivalries and the power of forgiveness. Catherine Banner has written an enthralling, character-rich novel, epic in scope but intimate in feeling. At times, the island itself seems alive, a mythical place where the earth heaves with stories and this magical novel takes you there. Praise for "The House at the Edge of Night" A perfect summer read, made for those balmy evenings on your porch with a glass of wine. . . . The story brims with heart, dreamy folk tales and beautifully written passages about the people who call the island home. . . . Just don t be surprised if you keep turning the pages long into the night, spellbound by its magic. "The Denver Post" A gorgeous, sweeping story set over four generations . . . The novel calls to mind "Captain Corelli s Mandolin" and "Beautiful Ruins." It is not just the protagonists and their struggles that make Banner s narrative incredible, but also the smaller, secondary characters that add color and detail, and the intricately described island of Castellamare itself. "Interview" Banner s four-generation saga is set on an island near Sicily, where myths of saints get served up with limoncello as the Esposito family s bar. As the captivating characters are challenged by war, financial crisis and heartbreak, their bonds hold them together. The island is fictional, but consider this dreamy summer read your passport. "People" Catherine Banner s latest is a masterful piece of storytelling, infused with the miraculous (both in stories and in everyday life) while maintaining the difficult balance between the explainable versus the inexplicable. Through the life of a single man a man not noteworthy in the eyes of the world and his family, Banner touches on such broad themes as community and the way global events play out in individual lives and larger society. And just as the broader themes affect the more personal ones, Banner s style echoes the book s content: "The House at the Edge of Night" is captivating and beautifully rendered. Sara Gruen, author of "At the Water s Edge" "From the Hardcover edition.""

The first thing you should know about me is that my name is not Carter Blake. That name no more belongs to me than the hotel room I was occupying when the call came in.When Caleb Wardell, the infamous "Chicago Sniper," escapes from death row two weeks before his execution, the FBI calls on the services of Carter Blake, a man with certain specialized talents whose skills lie in finding those who don't want to be found--a man to whom Wardell is no stranger.Along with Elaine Banner, an ambitious special agent juggling life as a single mother with her increasingly high-flying career, Blake must track Wardell down as he cuts a swathe across America, apparently killing at random.But Blake and Banner soon find themselves sidelined from the case. And as they try desperately to second-guess a man who kills purely for the thrill of it, they uncover a hornet's nest of lies and corruption. Now Blake must break the rules and go head-to-head with the FBI if he is to stop Wardell and expose a deadly conspiracy that will rock the country.Slick, fast-paced, and assured, The Killing Season is the first novel in the gripping new Carter Blake series.

"I am Eva Delectorskaya," Sally Gilmartin announces, and so on a warm summer afternoon in 1976 her daughter, Ruth, learns that everything she ever knew about her mother was a carefully constructed lie. Sally Gilmartin is a respectable English widow living in picturesque Cotswold villa≥ Eva Delectorskaya was a rigorously trained World War II spy, a woman who carried fake passports and retreated to secret safe houses, a woman taught to lie and deceive, and above all, to never trust anyone. Three decades later the secrets of Sally's past still haunt her. Someone is trying to kill her and at last she has decided to trust Ruth with her story. Ruth, meanwhile, is struggling to make sense of her own life as a young single mother with an unfinished graduate degree and escalating dependence on alcohol. She is drawn deeper and deeper into the astonishing events of her mother's past--the mysterious death of Eva's beloved brother, her work in New York City manipulating the press in order to shift public sentiment toward American involvement in the war, her dangerous romantic entanglement. Now Sally wants to find the man who recruited her for the secret service, and she needs Ruth's help.Restlessis a brilliant espionage audiobook and a vivid portrait of the life of a female spy. Full of tension and drama, and based on a remarkable chapter of Anglo-American history, this is listening at its finest.

NAMED ONE OF THE TEN BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY" CHICAGO TRIBUNE "AND ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY "The New York Times Book Review "NPR "Los Angeles Times The Boston Globe The Seattle Times The Independent" In such acclaimed novels as "Let the Great World Spin" and "Trans Atlantic, "National Book Award winning author Colum McCann has transfixed readers with his precision, tenderness, and authority. Now, in his first collection of short fiction in more than a decade, McCann charts the territory of chance, and the profound and intimate consequences of even our smallest moments. " As it was, it was like being set down in the best of poems, carried into a cold landscape, blindfolded, turned around, unblindfolded, forced, then, to invent new ways of seeing. " In the exuberant title novella, a retired judge reflects on his life's work, unaware as he goes about his daily routines that this particular morning will be his last. In Sh'khol, a mother spending Christmas alone with her son confronts the unthinkable when he disappears while swimming off the coast near their home in Ireland. In Treaty, an elderly nun catches a snippet of a news report in which it is revealed that the man who once kidnapped and brutalized her is alive, masquerading as an agent of peace. And in What Time Is It Now, Where You Are? a writer constructs a story about a Marine in Afghanistan calling home on New Year's Eve. Deeply personal, subtly subversive, at times harrowing, and indeed funny, yet also full of comfort, "Thirteen Ways of Looking" is a striking achievement. With unsurpassed empathy for his characters and their inner lives, Colum McCann forges from their stories a profound tribute to our search for meaning and grace. The collection is a rumination on the power of storytelling in a world where language and memory can sometimes falter, but in the end do not fail us, and a contemplation of the healing power of literature. Praise for "Thirteen Ways of Looking" Extraordinary . . . incandescent. "Chicago Tribune" The irreducible mystery of human experience ties this small collection together, and in each of these stories McCann explores that theme in some strikingly effective ways. . . . The first story] is as fascinating as it is poignant. . . . The second] captures the mundane and mysterious aspects of shaping characters from the gray clay of words, placing them in realistic settings and breathing life into their lungs. . . . That he makes the story so emotionally compelling is a sign of his genius. . . . The most remarkable piece] is "Sh'khol." . . . Caught in the rushing currents of this drama, you know you re reading a little masterpiece. "The Washington Post" McCann is a writer of power and subtlety and beauty. . . . The powerful title story loiters in the mind long after you've read it. Sarah Lyall, "The New York Times" McCann] unspools complex and unforgettable stories in this, his first collection in more than a decade. "The Boston Globe" McCann is a passionate writer whose impulse is always toward a generous understanding of his diverse characters. "The Wall Street Journal" Powerful, profound, and deeply empathetic, McCann's beautifully wrought writing in "Thirteen Ways of Looking" glides off the page. "Buzz Feed" McCann weaves the magic that made "Let the Great World Spin" so acclaimed. "The Huffington Post""

New York: Late at night, the rain pouring down, a well-dressed woman in her sixties stands in a doorway, a gun in her purse, waiting for a Senator to come home.Washington, D.C.: The phone rings on the desk of Blake Johnson, head of the White House department known as The Basement. The President wants him now.London: The Prime Minister sits thinking of Sean Dillon, the one-time terrorist, now his most effective, if not exactly trusted, operative. It'll have to be Dillon, he thinks. There's no one else.Someone is killing off the members of a splinter group known as the Sons of Erin, normally not a cause for much concern, but the consequences are much greater than anyone realizes. For in these actions lie the seeds of disaster: the fall of two governments, the derailing of the Irish peace process. Dillon and Johnson must stop this unknown assassin, the heads of state agree, quickly, quietly, before all hell breaks loose...But they may already be too late. For in the Manhattan night, the silver-haired woman smiles, adjusts her rain hat more snugly on her head, and steps out into the street. Four down, she thinks.Three to go.