Showing results by narrator "Ron Butler" in All Categories

Cole's Red-Hot Pursuit: Cole Westmoreland always gets what he wants! What the former Texas Ranger wanted was sultry Patrina Forman. But Patrina was set against falling for a man with a no-strings attitude, and there was no way she’d fall into bed with a lawman! Spencer's Forbidden Passion: "You have 48 hours to be my wife." Millionaire dealmaker Spencer Westmoreland would bail out Chardonnay Russell's failing Napa Valley vineyard. And in return she'd bear his children.

The Chandaria family - emigrants from the Indian enclave of Nairobi - have flourished in America. Premchand, the father, is a doctor who has worked doggedly to grow his practice and give his family security; his wife, Urmila, runs a business importing artisanal Kenyan crafts; and their son, Sunil, has been accepted to a PhD program in philosophy at Harvard. But the parents have kept a very important secret from Sunil: his cousin, Bimal, is actually his older brother. When this hidden history is revealed by an unforeseen accident, and the entire family is forced to return to Nairobi.

The biblical account of Gideon. The ancient story of the Trojan horse. Deceptive techniques have been used in war through the ages. But while the principles have changed very little, the technology behind fooling the enemy has evolved dramatically. Paul B. Janeczko’s fascinating chronology focuses on the American Civil War, World Wars I and II, and the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and the Gulf Wars to reveal evolving attitudes toward the use and effectiveness of deceptive operations.

Ndiya Grayson returns to her childhood home of Chicago as a young professional, but even her high-end job in a law office can't protect her from half-repressed memories of childhood trauma. One evening, vulnerable and emotionally disarrayed, she goes out and meets her equal and opposite: Shame Luther, a no-nonsense construction worker by day and a self-taught piano player by night. The love story that ensues propels them on an unforgettable journey from Chicago's South Side to the coast of Kenya as they navigate the turbulence of long-buried pasts and an uncertain future.

V. S. Naipaul's legendary command of broad comedy and acute social observation is on abundant display in these classic works of fiction - two novels and a collection of stories - that capture the rhythms of life in the Caribbean and England with impressive subtlety and humor.

On an unnamed Caribbean Island, political tensions provoked by race and poverty are high. Jimmy Ahmed, a young mixed-race man, has been hailed as a revolutionary leader of the people. Roche, imprisoned for activities against South Africa's apartheid regime, and Jane, a feckless English rich girl wanting to feel a part of something bigger, get sucked into the turmoil and world of Ahmed. But does anyone achieve anything by causing unrest? Do any of them really want freedom in a new society or just the old society with themselves at the helm of power?

Based on WSJ. Magazine's "Columnist" page, which debuted in 2013, On Point collects the very best of the publications interviews, from Dwayne Wade on Discipline and Simone Biles on Impulse to Yoko Ono on Patience and Sarah Jessica Parker on Transformation. The result is a book that informs, delights, and inspires.

School principal Jonathan Madaris falls hard the moment new teacher Marilyn Bannister walks into his office. The gray-eyed beauty takes his breath away and makes him regret his school's non-fraternization policy. Still, he immediately knows Marilyn is special. And he's not letting anything stop him from getting the woman he wants.

This inspiring, nonpartisan guide, authored by longtime staff members of Republican and Democratic house leadership teams provides all the hard-won secrets and strategies you need to build a career in local politics or Congress, make a difference, and ascend from an internship to leadership. With practical tips on how to not only land a job but also create the foundation for a lasting and impactful career in public service, this guide will empower anyone who feels the urge to improve this country with meaningful work.

Blondy Baruti's boyhood in the Democratic Republic of the Congo was shaped by a desperate ordeal to survive. After marauding soldiers invaded his village, he, his mom, and his sister fled to the jungle to escape the atrocities and violence. Their odyssey ended some 16 months later when they finally reached safety - but Blondy's journey had only just begun. In an amazing true story that seems more like fiction, we see Blondy overcome incredible odds in pursuit of daring dreams that take him from his fight for survival in the Congolese jungle to a dazzling turn on an A-list red carpet.

After the fatal shooting of Laquan McDonald by a white police officer, Chicagoans demanded change. Can a new state’s attorney, the first black woman to hold the position, bring real reform to a broken system? With a brick on her desk from the Cabrini-Green housing project where she spent her childhood, Kim Foxx must adapt her hard-won ideals to the realities of criminal justice in Chicago. In this intimate narrative by award-winning author Steve Bogira, Foxx reveals: “My mother taught me how to be a hustler. Hustle in the sense of work hard, grind - find a way out of no way.”

When a middle-class kid from the suburbs was caught using Facebook to distribute firearms bought legally at Indiana gun shows to notorious gangsters across the border - was he a kingpin or a scapegoat? David Lewisbey received perhaps the harshest sentence ever in a gun-trafficking trial. A college student from the suburban outskirts of Chicago, he allegedly embodied the enterprising swagger of his favorite rap lyrics, moving weapons for stacks of cash. John H. Richardson tours Chicago’s gun-soaked South Side with Lewisbey’s clientele and meets with the “Big Man” himself to unpack the truth.

When Michael Gustafson and his wife Hilary opened Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan, they put out a typewriter for anyone to use. They had no idea what to expect. Would people ask metaphysical questions? Write mean things? Pour their souls onto the page? Yes, no, and did they ever. Every day, people of all ages sit down at the public typewriter. Children perch atop grandparents' knees, both sets of hands hovering above the metal keys: I LOVE YOU. Others walk in alone on Friday nights and confess their hopes: I will find someone someday.

It's 1969 when 15-year-old Huey Fairchild begins high school at Claremont Prep, one of New York City's most prestigious boys' schools. His mother had uprooted her family from their small hometown of Akersburg, Georgia, a few years earlier, leaving behind Huey's white father and the racial unrest that ran deeper than the Chattahoochee River. But for our sharp-tongued protagonist, forgetting the past is easier said than done. At Claremont, where the only other nonwhite person is the janitor, Huey quickly realizes that racism can lurk beneath even the nicest school uniform. After a momentary slip of his temper, Huey finds himself facing legal charges.

Alice is fifteen, with hair as red as fire and skin as pale as bone. Something inside Alice is broken: she remembers words, but struggles to speak them. Still, Alice knows that words are for sharing, so she pins them to posters in tucked-away places: railway waiting rooms, fish-and-chips shops, quiet corners. Manny is sixteen, with a scar from shoulder to elbow.

Come sit on the veranda and pour yourself a glass of sweet tea, fortified with a slug of bourbon. Put your feet up and enjoy these stories set in Atlanta, a city sewn from the ashes, where everything that grows is both fertilized and corrupted by the past.

From the moment his eyes meet hers across the crime-scene tape, ex-con turned bodyguard Quasar Patterson knows he has to see the mysterious Dr. Randi Fuller again. She's a renowned psychic investigator who can foresee danger for others, but not for herself. That makes Quasar doubly determined to watch over her - the closer, the better - as she's drawn into a dangerous gang rivalry.

When the final gavel clapped in a rural Southern courtroom in the summer of 1988, Willie J. Grimes, a gentle spirit with no record of violence, was shocked and devastated to be convicted of first-degree rape and sentenced to life imprisonment. Here is the story of this everyman and his extraordinary quarter-century-long journey to freedom, told in breathtaking and sympathetic detail, from the botched evidence and suspect testimony that led to his incarceration to the tireless efforts to prove his innocence and the identity of the true perpetrator.

At a Caribbean resort built atop a former slave plantation, Myrna works as a maid by day; by night she trespasses on the resort's overgrown inland property, secretly excavating the plantation ruins that her island community refuses to acknowledge. Rapt by the crumbling walls of the once slave owner's estate, she explores the unspoken history of the plantation - a site where her ancestors once worked the land, but which the resort now uses as a lookout point for tourists.

Why is the athlete so important to us? Few public figures can dominate the public imagination with such power and authority. Drawing from art, literature, politics, and history, Something like the Gods explores the powerful grip the athlete has always held on the Western imagination. Amidon examines the archetype of the competitor as it evolved from antiquity to the present day, from athlete-warriors such as Achilles and Ulysses to global media icons like Ali, Jordan, and Tiger Woods.