Showing results by narrator "David Stifel" in All Categories

An average American middle class community is faced with a sudden and complete breakdown of the US economy, government, and society after a massive, nation-wide Islamic terrorist attack. Like the vast majority of Americans, none of the residents of Sea Breezes have a convenient bunker in the woods or a compound of survivalist friends to escape to. They have to find some way to organize themselves in order to survive with what they have on hand and what they can obtain by using their own wits and determination.

This sobering pamphlet was written in 1788 by an ex-slave ship captain turned clergyman. Famous for writing the hymn "Amazing Grace", John Newton wrote passionately about his memories of the slave trade. His pamphlet helped sway the English Parliament to outlaw this hideous trade. This is a crucial piece of primary historical evidence about the history of a vile blot on Europe's and America's history.

The severed hand, whether real or a ghostly thing, always tries to avenge the one who created it or find its way back to the rest of the corpse. Narrated by David Stifel.

"These are the times that try men's souls." With these words, Thomas Paine began a series of 13 extraordinary pamphlets reporting on the American Revolution. Part newsfeed, part op-ed, these pieces were widely circulated in the States and in Britain during the war. They reported on the progress of the war, argued for the reasons for the war, made recommendations on the conduct of the war, and taught citizens of a new country just what their obligations and duties were in support of their new country. A sobering series of lessons on beginning American civics 101.

Zombies were bad enough, but now we're being invaded from all sides. Up to our necks in blood, body parts, and unanswerable questions….As soon as the realization hit me, I lost my cool. I curled into the fetal position in a pile of blood, offal, and body parts, and froze there. What in the Hell was I becoming that killing was entertaining and satisfying? I don't know how long I was on my side in the remains of my opponents, but the mess was coagulating and getting cold…to say nothing of the smell of sliced-open bowels.

Herschel Cobb's moving account of his relationship with his legendary grandfather reveals a side of Ty Cobb that few people ever saw, that of loving nurturer. A baseball icon and arguably the best player who ever lived, Ty Cobb's infamously cold, competitive nature allowed him to excel on the ball field but undermined his relationship with his children. Devastated by the untimely death of two of his sons, Cobb relished the opportunity to reconnect the broken family ties when young Herschel and his siblings visited him during the summers.

For years, the Jackson family has vacationed at Rowena Wandigaux Lee's old Victorian house on Gull Island, a place of superstition and legend off the southern coast of the U.S. One particular summer, young Beau follows his cousin Sumter into a hidden shack in the woods - and christens this new clubhouse "Neverland." The rundown shack in the woods is the key to an age-old mystery, a place forbidden to all. But Neverland becomes the place where children begin to worship a creature of shadows, which Sumter calls "Lucy."

John holds the American dream: A man he loves, a beautiful little girl, a suburban home and a well-paying job...

And then a sudden layoff brings about unexpected financial and emotional strain. As he struggles to find new work, a growing sense of despair triggers a relapse into alcoholism and causes him to face his demons of addiction, discrimination, and regret as he tries desperately to recover before it's too late....

In 1910, Mary Acworth Evershed (1867-1949) sat on a hill in southern India staring at the moon as she grappled with apparent mistakes in Dante's Divine Comedy. Was Dante's astronomy unintelligible? Or was he, for a man of his time and place, as insightful as one could be about the sky? As the 20th century began, women who wished to become professional astronomers faced difficult cultural barriers, but Evershed joined the British Astronomical Association and, from an Indian observatory, became an experienced observer of sunspots, solar eclipses, and variable stars.

"Lee Is Trapped, and Must Be Taken": Eleven Fateful Days After Gettysburg: July 4 to July 14, 1863 focuses on the immediate aftermath of the battle of Gettysburg and addresses how Maj. Gen. George G. Meade organized and motivated his Army of the Potomac in response to President Abraham Lincoln's mandate to bring about the "literal or substantial destruction" of Gen. Robert E. Lee's retreating Army of Northern Virginia.

The northwestern third of the Commonwealth of Virginia finally broke away in 1863 to form the Union's 35th state. In Seceding from Secession: The Civil War, Politics, and the Creation of West Virginia, authors Eric J. Wittenberg, Edmund A. Sargus, and Penny L. Barrick chronicle those events in an unprecedented study of the social, legal, military, and political factors that converged to bring about the birth of the West Virginia. 

According to legend, the Pyncheon family has been cursed by their 17th century ancestor, Colonel Pyncheon, who stole the land from Matthew Maule. Maule was later put to death after being accused of witchcraft and the deed for the land could not be found. Now living in the New England mansion fraught with haunted miseries of the past, Hepzibah Pyncheon opens a small shop to pull herself from the poverty-striken curse she has lived under while her brother, Clifford, was serving a decades-long prison sentence for murder.

When teacher turned deckhand Steve Ondelle is framed for the killing of a San Francisco supervisor, he tumbles into a world of billion-dollar deals and bizarre sexual adventures, a world where hard evidence depicts him as a misfit who turns to murder. To expose these freshly-minted lies, Steve must first make peace with a lifetime of painful truths. He travels from the piers of Sausalito to the penthouses of San Francisco, with unlikely allies like Leonard the Human Statue, Eli of the Coral Reef, The Prophet of Market Street. And Liam the Fog Seller.

I am not going to complain to you about my life. We’ve got zombies. They are not the brainless, rotting creatures we’d been led to expect. Unfortunately for us, they’re just as smart as they were before they died, very fast, much stronger than you or me, and possess no internal editor at all. Claws. Did I mention claws? I kill them for a living, but it’s as much a vocation as a freelance career choice. It helps me, helps my neighborhood, and the people I consider to be my family of choice. What’s more?

It is 1992 in Warsaw, Poland, and the communist era has just ended. A series of grisly murders suddenly becomes an international case when it's feared that the victims may have been couriers smuggling nuclear material out of the defunct Soviet Union. The FBI sends an agent to help with the investigation. When he learns that a Russian physicist who designed a portable atomic bomb has disappeared, the race is on to find him - and the bomb - before it ends up in the wrong hands.

Enala is surrounded, trapped on the blood-soaked sands of Malevolent Cove. Desperate and alone, she watches the sky, and the Gold Dragons soaring above. Yet it is not the beasts she fears – but the men and woman encircling her. They promise their protection, but they are only words, and she has already lost everything to betrayal. Swamped by grief, she teeters on the edge of madness.

Alana has been captured. She expected an agonizing death to follow, but instead, she now finds herself a guest of the Tsar. Locked away amidst untold wealth and luxury, it isn’t long before she learns the reason she was spared – her entire life has been a lie. Her true identity lurks within, chained by magic, but with promises of untold power. It terrifies her, and yet…she must know the truth.

Wounded and alone, Alana has escaped the clutches of the Tsar. She’s determined to forget his world of conquest and dark magic, but fate has other plans. Alana finds herself face-to-face with her grandmother – the one person she loathes even more than the Tsar himself. With his forces closing in, the two must choose whether to tear each other apart, or work together to defy their common enemy.

Eric stumbles through the wilderness, searching, hunting – desperate for sign of his sister. But the girl is gone, stolen away by the power of the Soul Blade. With each passing hour its hold on her tightens, her spirit fading before the onslaught of its magic. If he cannot save her soon, it will claim her soul. And he will have to kill her. Meanwhile, Gabriel is trapped, imprisoned in the black cells beneath Ardath.

Enslaved in the mines of Lonia, Pela has forgotten the last time she saw the sun. For days uncounted she has toiled, scorned by her captors, forgotten. Her jailers think her cowed, but the blood of a warrior flows in her veins. When a new overseer arrives, Pela sees an opportunity. The man is young and untrained – he could easily be deceived.