Showing results by narrator "Derek Perkins" in All Categories

How do gods and spirits come to feel vividly real to people - as if they were standing right next to them? But it isn't easy to maintain a sense that there are invisible spirits who care about you. In How God Becomes Real, acclaimed anthropologist and scholar of religion T. M. Luhrmann argues that people must work incredibly hard to make gods real and that this effort helps to explain the enduring power of faith.

In today's Western world, plenty of shiny false gods still hold power - idols of prosperity, nationalism, and self-interest. Old Testament scholar Christopher J. H. Wright combines a biblical study of idolatry with practical discipleship. He calls listeners to consider connections between Old Testament patterns and today's culture, especially recurring temptations to trust in political power.

Though she wiles away hours immersed in the pages of romance novels, shy and anxious Felicity Goode has vowed never to become a bride. How can she share a life - not to mention a bed - with a man if she can’t bring herself to share a simple conversation without trembling and stuttering? Once news of her obscene inheritance circulates through the ton, she is barraged not only by a slew of suitors, but also several distressing threats against her life. What she needs is a bodyguard.

The story of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan is well known: the expansionist Communists overwhelmed a poor country as a means of reaching a warm-water port on the Persian Gulf. It is a great story—but it never happened. In this brilliant, myth-busting account, Rodric Braithwaite, the former British ambassador to Moscow, challenges much of what we know about the Soviets in Afghanistan. He provides an inside look at this little-understood episode, using first-hand accounts and piercing analysis to show the war as it was fought and experienced by the Russians.

Philip Larkin (1922-1985) is one of the most beloved poets in English. Yet after his death a largely negative image of the man himself took hold; he has been portrayed as a racist, a misogynist and a narcissist. Now Larkin scholar James Booth, for seventeen years a colleague of the poet's at the University of Hull, offers a very different portrait. Drawn from years of research and a wide variety of Larkin's friends and correspondents, this is the most comprehensive portrait of the poet yet published.

The history-making development of the Chinese economy has entered a new phase: China is moving aggressively from a strategy of imitation to one of innovation. Driven both by domestic needs and by global ambition, China is establishing itself at the forefront of technological innovation. Western businesses need to prepare for a tidal wave of innovation from China that is about to hit Western markets, and Chinese businesses need to understand the critical importance of innovation in their future.

Expert Sherlockians Laurie King and Leslie Klinger put forth the question: What happens when great writers/creators who are not known as Sherlock Holmes devotees admit to being inspired by Conan Doyle stories? While some are highly regarded mystery writers, others are best known for their work in the fields of fantasy or science fiction. All of these talented authors, however, share a great admiration for Arthur Conan Doyle and his greatest creations, Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.

After gaining entrance to Blackstone Keep and recovering the legendary Thinblade, Alexander must seek out the Sovereign Stone, and quickly. Contained within the ancient teardrop ruby is the secret of Wizard's Dust, the source of magic and the one thing that will ultimately decide the final battle of the Reishi War. Prince Phane will stop at nothing to lay claim to the Stone and with it the world.

In his acclaimed columns in the London Times and Prospect, A. C. Grayling often responds to provocative questions posed by editors and readers. These questions serve as the basis for the essays in Thinking of Answers, among them searching examinations of the following: Are human beings especially prone to self-deception? If beauty existed only in the eye of the beholder, would that make it an unimportant quality? Are human rights political? And more.

Some secrets are best left forgotten. Some names never spoken. In the depths of Shagharath, a creature of great and terrible power awaits. For countless millennia it has languished in its prison. Now the time has come at last for it to unleash vengeance and ruin upon the earth. As Gewey prepares for his final battle, his courage and strength will be tested as never before. Now he will see that the world is not always as it may appear. And he will discover that common ground can be sometimes found...even with a deadly foe.

The intentional killing of a woman's dog unleashes a torrent of rage. In her desire for revenge, the woman curses the dog's killer: All that the murderer loves most, he will lose. This haunting tale brilliantly demonstrates Elizabeth Gaskell's understanding of the tensions between Catholics and Protestants and the harsh realities of class society.

In the title story of Walk Between the Raindrops, a woman sits down next to a man at a bar and claims she has ESP. In “Thirteen Days,” passengers on a cruise line are quarantined, to horrifying and hilarious effect. And “Hyena” begins simply: “That was the day the hyena came for him, and never mind that there were no hyenas in the South of France, and especially not in Pont-Saint-Esprit—it was there and it came for him.”

Seventeen years ago, a long and bloody rebellion wracked the six united regions of the Kingdom. Now the new King wields the vast and unvanquished army of Midlan with his right hand, and with his left has granted a small group of thugs, the nobles he calls his Sovereign Five, unbridled rule over the other regions. As if this weren't bad enough, the King has also outlawed the practice of whispering - which is a problem for Kael.

Though the Celtic civilization has long disappeared, lingering traces of their spirituality haunt Ireland and the surrounding land. Translated from their original languages - Gaulish, Latin, Irish, and Welsh - the passages and stories in Celtic Spirituality are true artifacts of the Celts' vibrant and varied religion from both the pre-Christian and early Christian period. From a ritual of magical inspiration to stories of the ancient gods and adventures of long-forgotten heroes, Freeman has unearthed a stunning collection of Celtic work.

Darkness reaches forth its taloned hands, and the shadows dance and caper in anticipation of the long night to come. A night that, should it have its way, will destroy the light and those who serve it and will leave nothing but the cold, empty darkness in which the nightlings roam and feast.

That Miss Beatrice Wansdyke had died is not particularly surprising. A chemistry mistress at the Girls’ Grammar School in Berebury, she was a longtime sufferer of diabetes who managed to live her modest life to a ripe old age. But one thing is odd - Beatrice Wansdyke died a very wealthy woman. What was an old schoolteacher doing with a small fortune? Meanwhile, Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan, Calleshire’s finest investigator, learns he is about to become a father. But with ominous players hell-bent on pursuing Miss Wansdyke’s money, will he live see his child’s first birthday?

This newly launched report argues that development policies based on new insights into how people actually think and make decisions will help governments and civil society more readily tackle such challenges as increasing productivity, breaking the cycle of poverty from one generation to the next, and acting on climate change.

In Catherine Aird’s Stiff News, a letter received by an old woman’s son after her death alerts Detective Inspector C. D. Sloan that one woman’s death by natural causes in a local nursing home may actually be murder. But that is just the beginning of the odd goings-on in this nursing home catering to former members of a WWII regiment.

The assassination of heroes was once a warning... for an invasion that nearly destroyed the world. Nations were slaughtered, cities were erased from existence, and defending armies were crushed into oblivion. In weeks, all life stood on the verge of extinction. But the end did not come. Instead the black horde vanished, leaving terrified survivors... and rumors. As the centuries passed the holocaust faded into legend, and finally myth. Across the southern sea a gifted young man is completing his training.

Colonel Caversham, once prominent in the British colonial service, has died and left his large collection of artifacts to the local Calleshire museum. Included in those artifacts is a 3,000-year-old Egyptain mummy and case, now the responsibility of one Mr. Fixby-Smith, curator of the Greatorex Museum. When the lid of the mummy case is raised, however, what greets the coroner, curator, and inspector C. D. Sloan is not what they expect.