Showing results by narrator "Anthony Heald" in All Categories

Two drugged-out couples contemplate life and morality in "Leviathan", a classic short story by the masterful Tobias Wolff. For Helen's 30th birthday party, her husband decides tothrow her a small party. Armed with booze and three grams of cocaine, the four partyers - Helen, her husband, and another couple - spend the night and the next morning in a drug-induced stupor. As their talk turns to past misdeeds and shameful acts, the couples begin to wonder if it's not the bad decisions in life that bring happiness and meaning.

Ann's friends envy her. None of their husbands even lift a finger to help with the household chores. Ann's husband is different, though. Then a simple hypothetical conversation while they wash and dry the dishes causes Ann to see her husband in a different light - and causes him to rethink the way two people can know each other.

April's father, a psychology professor, has had a breakdown and has landed in the Alta Vista State Hospital. Her stepmother, Claire, is just waiting for him to get out so she can leave on a trip to Italy - a trip April is worried Claire won't come back from. She needs Claire, at least until she finishes high school. She needs her not just as a companion but as a worldly woman who can tell April about men and their desires…men far different from her boyfriend, Stuart.

Jeff Shaara, America’s premier author of military historical fiction, brings us the centerpiece of his epic trilogy of the Second World War. General Dwight Eisenhower once again commands a diverse army that must find its single purpose in the destruction of Hitler’s European fortress. His...

Dr. Booth drives his son, Owen, to Fort Steele Academy, where he hopes his son will thrive in a structured, disciplined environment that mirrors Booth's own upbringing. But after he drops Owen off at his new school, he's filled with a deep sense of doubt - about his decision to send his son away, about his childhood - and finds himself lost in more ways than one.

Salonika, Greece: December 1939. In the dead of night, a clandestine order of monks embarks on a desperate mission: to transport a mysterious vault to a hiding place high in the Italian Alps. The sinister cache, concealed for centuries, could rip apart the Christian world. Now, as the Nazi...

While on a crowded bus near the Vatican, a man named Mallon - visiting Italy on business - feels someone reaching into his pockets, searching for his wallet. He elbows the pickpocket, seriously injuring the man. Driven by his guilty conscience, Mallon finds himself peering in on the life of an unfamiliar culture and learning more about the world than he ever could have imagined.

Burke, a San Francisco lawyer, is defending a woman who has been disabled by a botched surgery. His client has a personal connection to Burke, and the trial happens to be taking place in his Ohio hometown, a place ravaged by fallen industries and greedy corporations. While taking a deposition from a particularly difficult witness, Burke calls for a break and takes a walk around the neighborhood where he grew up. A chance encounter with a beautiful woman sets in motion a series of events that Burke could never have foreseen - and is unlikely to forget.

In this short story by the masterful Tobias Wolff, a teenage boy learns the joys - and struggles - of adult life.

Eager for independence and adult-like freedom, a teenage boy takes a summer job baling hay on a rural farm. Savoring the farm wife’s attention and the extra change in his pocket, the boy feels like a grown man. The fellow hands give him a sense of camaraderie - Clemson, a fastidious boy who attends the same high school; Eduardo, a talkative Mexican seasonal worker; and Miguel, a quiet man and Eduardo’s brother.

Maureen is an English teacher, and she’s had a long day. All she wants is a relaxing night out with friends, a few beers, and maybe the chance to forget the troubles of her past: The gambling ex-husband and the daughter who’d thrown her life away sleeping with married men. But her night—and maybe her life—is thrown off track when she leaves the bar and a man approaches her in the parking lot as she unlocks her car.

A towering epic of adventure, cunning, and the longing for home, The Odyssey follows the journey of Odysseus after the fall of Troy. Cursed to wander for ten years across a treacherous sea, the king of Ithaca confronts monsters and gods alike—outwitting the Cyclops, resisting the Sirens’ song, and braving the wrath of Poseidon—while his wife Penelope fends off suitors determined to claim his throne. Rich with suspense, humor, and lyric beauty, Homer’s poem explores what it means to be human: the bonds of family, the cost of pride, the power of endurance, and the pull of memory and home.

John F. Kennedy was the 35th President of the United States, and the youngest man elected to the office. He was assassinated at the age of 46 in 1963. Arthur Ashe was an African American professional tennis player who won more than forty singles titles. He died in 1993 at the age of 49 of AIDS-related pneumonia. But imagine if the lives of JFK and Ashe had not been cut short? In this pair of speculative biographies, two writers suppose what might have been if JFK had lived long enough to serve out his presidency and what Arthur Ashe may have done to enhance his already notable legacy.

Sergeant Morse is a risk-taker, playing chicken with the potential exposure of his sexuality. Julianne is looking for her brother, Specialist Hart, not knowing he’s shipped out to Iraq. In a surprising moment of tenderness, Sergeant Morse offers to help her, but whether due to fear of exposure or stubbornness, they might both be beyond rescue.

Lying stiffly in their separate beds, a husband and his wife are woken in the middle of the night to the sound of their fighting neighbors. There are three of them - a man, a woman, and a young child. With their blasting stereos, violent interludes, and steamy make-up sessions, the wife has had enough. The husband, however, is preoccupied with other thoughts - sex, movies, and humanity's capacity to adapt and change.

Lady, suffocating in the car on a hot summer's day, slips into a feverish dream. Robert, her husband, watches her slip into unconsciousness as he drives. He's a soldier, a man of principle, well-educated and well-adjusted. But Robert is also a man with an agenda; he has married this young, wild lower-class girl to spite his father, and now he regrets it. How much does Lady know about Robert's intentions, and how far will he go to set things straight?

Mr. Givens’ obituary is nothing remarkable, hardly something to remember at all. He led a quiet life, served in the Army, was married to the same woman for 42 years, and worked at the same job practically his whole life. He wasn’t a baseball player or a movie star, he was the furthest thing from a celebrity. In fact, the only thing noteworthy about his obituary is what happens after it runs in the newspaper, when he shows up in the office of the Metro editor wondering who decided to pronounce him dead.

Mark's parents have never done a thing for him. When he got out of the army and married Krystal, they were against it, just as they are against his moving to Los Angeles. But Mark has a dream, a dream of being an entertainer, of having a show in Las Vegas. So he packs Krystal and their son, Hans, into their car and starts driving from Arizona to California, determined to show his parents how wrong they are to doubt him. But when the car breaks down at a small gas station in the desert, Mark and Krystal are forced to face realities about their future and their marriage.

Gilbert saw Mary Ann first, but the second time he sees her she is dancing with his best friend, Rafe. The three of them begin hanging out all the time, driving around in the car Rafe got as a present for getting into Yale. But when Rafe goes out of town, Gilbert and Mary Ann keep the tradition going, seeing movies and going on drives...in Rafe's car no less.

Hooper, a Vietnam veteran, finds himself at an army base in Washington State. His days are uneventful, filled with mundane duties, empty conversations, and the occasional jaunt with a married woman. A phone call in the middle of the night breaks Hooper's predictable routine. One of the guards at the communications center is threatening to kill himself - and says he'll shoot the other guard if he interferes. Hooper goes to talk to the distressed soldier, a cook nicknamed "Porkchop" who's disappointed by his life as an army man.

García, the wealthy, swaggering son of a foreign dictator, invites two lower-class boys from his boarding school to have dinnerin New York along with his Spanish-speaking stepmother, Linda. When the groupdecides to go to a kitschy, unpretentious Swedish smorgasbord rather than a fine restaurant, García refuses to leave the limousine, still angry with Linda after an argument over money. Linda proves to be more than the young men had anticipated, and she has more influence over them during their brief encounter than they will ever know.