Showing results by author "Stark" in All Categories

Being appointed CEO is seen by many as the pinnacle of success in business, but it is actually the first step in a journey of evolving stages requiring ongoing personal reinvention. In an unprecedented study of the individual performance of every twenty-first-century CEO of the S&P 500, combined with over 100 in-depth interviews of CEOs and board directors, Claudius A. Hildebrand and Robert J. Stark discovered the CEO Life Cycle, a series of five stages: launch, calibration, reinvention, complacency trap, and legacy.

Abandoned by first her father and then her mother, as a girl Tessa is left to live with her abusive stepfather and stepbrother. She survives by finding reserves of strength in herself, and by the transformative love of another teenage girl, Mel, who sees through Tessa’s tough exterior to the loving woman inside. When she suddenly loses Mel, too, Tessa stumbles into a kind of refuge with Henry and his mama, becoming a mother and finding herself in a familial existence that somehow carries her into adulthood—until the day she runs into Mel, who has just returned to Perris after years away.

Arden Weathers is a girl on a mission, and that mission most certainly doesn't involve Brody Blastoviak, the hometown hottie who made her college prospects go boom six years ago. Tool-toting billionaire Brody Blastoviak knows better than to stick his you-know-what into crazy. So why is he losing his cookies over Arden Weathers, the uptight chemistry partner who "accidentally" torched his truck back in high school? Now, older and wiser, these former classmates are supposedly on the same team - working to restore a crumbling beach house that both of them want to claim as their own.

Modernity developed only in the West - in Europe and North America. Nowhere else did science and democracy arise; nowhere else was slavery outlawed. Only Westerners invented chimneys, musical scores, telescopes, eyeglasses, pianos, electric lights, aspirin, and soap. The question is, why? Unfortunately, that question has become so politically incorrect that most scholars avoid it. But acclaimed author Rodney Stark provides the answers in this sweeping new look at Western civilization.

In The Victory of Reason, Rodney Stark advances a revolutionary, controversial, and long overdue idea: that Christianity and its related institutions are, in fact, directly responsible for the most significant intellectual, political, scientific, and economic breakthroughs of the past millennium. In Stark's view, what has propelled the West is not the tension between secular and non-secular society, nor the pitting of science and the humanities against religious belief. Christian theology, Stark asserts, is the very font of reason.

In 2035, an AI-driven disinformation campaign turned us on ourselves. We became the enemy's first strike weapons, and as we set fire to our own country, the People's Liberation Army seized half of the Pacific. From the first combat jump on Mars to the climate change-ravaged jungles of Southeast Asia, Ex Supra blends the bleeding edge of technology and the bloody reality of combat. In Ex Supra, the super soldiers are only as strong as their own wills, reality is malleable, and hope only arrives with hellfire.

After the bloodbath of Butcher’s Moon, the action-filled blowout Parker adventure, Donald Westlake said, “Richard Stark proved to me that he had a life of his own by simply disappearing. He was gone.” But nothing bad is truly gone forever, and Parker’s as bad as they come. According to Westlake, one day in 1997, “suddenly, he came back from the dead” - and the resulting novel, Comeback, showed that neither Stark nor Parker had lost a single step. Knocking over a highly lucrative religious revival show, Parker reminds us that not all criminals don ski masks.

I thought I had found a place to belong. But the werewolf king was lying to me–the one thing I begged him never to do. Turns out, I’m his mate. When I stalked out of his house–and out of his life–I figured I’d never see him again.

Mina Lipinski. She's a girl with a problem, and the only person who can solve it is Chase Blastoviak, the most obnoxious guy she's ever met - slick, cocky, and way too jaded for his own good. Chase Blastoviak. He's given up crazy chicks for a reason, which means that Mina Lipinski, the girl begging Blast Tools to sponsor a hometown farmers' festival, is definitely off-limits - especially now that he's avoiding troublesome temptations. Too bad for both of them, each has something the other needs.

After a traumatic car crash, Grofield gets caught. Lying injured in the hospital, Grofield is visited by G-men who offer him an alternative to jail, and he finds himself forced into a deadly situation involving international criminals and a political conspiracy.

Lucifer Morningstar took everything from me. My memories. My freedom. My powers. Now it’s my turn to take everything from him. I’ll make alliances with former enemies. I’ll hunt those who betrayed me. And I’ll make my grandfather regret ever learning of my existence. As Samael prepares for war, I’m learning there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect those I love. And this is our chance to free the underworld from Lucifer’s evil.

I'm the binge-drinking health reporter. During the week, I write about Australia's booze-soaked culture. At the weekends, I write myself off. Born and raised in Scotland, the home of whisky, Jill Stark had booze in the blood. Alcohol had dominated her social life ever since she had her first sip of lager, at 13. She thought nothing could curb her love of big nights. Then came the hangover that changed everything. In the shadow of her 35th year, Jill made a decision: she would give up alcohol.

It was an impossible crime: knock off an entire North Dakota town called Copper Canyon - clean out the plant payroll, both banks, and all the stores in one night. Parker called it "science fiction," but with the right men (a score of them), he could figure it out to the last detail. It could work. If the men behaved like pros, cool and smart; if they didn't get impatient, start chasing skirts, or decide to take the opportunity to settle secret old scores…they just might pull it off.

Stark narrates a series of outdoor adventure stories in which thrill can cross the line into mortal peril. Each death or brush with death is at once a suspense story, a cautionary tale, and a medical thriller. He describes what goes through the mind of a cross-country skier as his body temperature plummets - apathy at 91 degrees, stupor at 90 - and explores the physiology of a snowboarder trying not to panic as he consumes the tiny pocket of air trapped around his face under thousands of pounds of snow.

Haley Stark is a 16-year-old high school student who suffered a life-threatening spinal cord stroke in May of 2014. Written as a diary to log her experiences, Tying the Ribbon is the honest, personal, and unapologetic story from her perspective. Inspired by the support of her community and the love she received along the road to her recovery, she decided to compile her writings and publish them. The book contains a purposeful mix of positivity and raw, painful emotion.

When it comes to heists, Parker believes in some cardinal rules. On this job, he breaks two of them: never bring a dame along - especially not one you like - and never, ever, work with amateurs. Nevertheless, with the help of a creep named Billy, and the lure of a classy widow, he agrees to set up a heist of a coin convention. But Billy’s a rookie with no idea how to pull off a score, and the lady soon becomes a major distraction. The Rare Coin Score marks the first appearance of Claire, who will steal Parker’s heister’s heart - while together they steal two million dollars’ worth of coins.

Baron is clever - perhaps too clever. He sits on the heavily protected island of Cockaigne, a mini-Las Vegas forty miles out in the Gulf of Mexico, raking in as much as $250,000 some nights, laughing at the Outfit, who can’t collect their cut. Now the Outfit can no longer stand the loss of face - not to mention the loss of revenue. That’s why they’ve sent for Parker, who knows that the line between success and failure on this score would be exactly the length of the barrel of a .38.

The good guys in a new African nation were missing a treasury full of diamonds. The nation's corrupt leader had stashed the rocks somewhere in New York City. Now the good guys needed a specialist to get their diamonds back. So they came to the best in the business: Parker. Only the three mysterious tough guys came to Parker, too. They figured three hands filled with .38s could convince him to pass up this international gem game. But leaning on Parker was like pressuring a box of TNT with a short fuse.

Mason Blastoviak. This self-made billionaire doesn't bang the help. He doesn't get involved. And he never, ever falls in love. Cami O'Neal. This recent teaching grad doesn't do strangers. She doesn't neglect her charge. And she never, ever throws herself at billionaires, especially her hard-bodied, hard-as-nails, and very hard-to-figure-out billionaire boss - the guy whose kid sister is under her care. It all sounds good in theory. But what happens when these two decidedly different personalities are living under the same roof?

The hunter becomes prey, as a heist goes sour and Parker finds himself trapped in a shuttered amusement park, besieged by a bevy of local mobsters. There are no exits from Fun Island. Outnumbered and outgunned, Parker can’t afford a single miscalculation. He’s low on bullets - but, as anyone who’s crossed his path knows, that definitely doesn’t mean he’s defenseless.