Showing results by narrator "Noah" in All Categories

Scratch beneath the surface of a coffee bean, a red pepper flake, a poppy seed, a mold spore, a foxglove leaf, a magic-mushroom cap, a marijuana bud, or an apple seed, and we find a bevy of strange chemicals. We use these to greet our days (caffeine), titillate our tongues (capsaicin), recover from surgery (opioids), cure infections (penicillin), mend our hearts (digoxin), bend our minds (psilocybin), calm our nerves (CBD), and even kill our enemies (cyanide). But why do plants and fungi produce such chemicals? And how did we come to use and abuse some of them?

In the New Republic, every woman must marry five men. It’s the law. Welcome to the apocalypse. Includes Theirs to Protect, Theirs to Pleasure, and Theirs to Wed.

The drought - or the Tap-Out, as everyone calls it - has been going on for a while now. Everyone’s lives have become an endless list of don’ts: don’t water the lawn, don’t fill up your pool, don’t take long showers. Until the taps run dry. Suddenly, Alyssa’s quiet suburban street spirals into a warzone of desperation; neighbors and families turned against each other on the hunt for water. And when her parents don’t return and her life - and the life of her brother - is threatened, Alyssa has to make impossible choices if she’s going to survive.

My sister Juliet has always gotten everything she wants. It's fine though. I never wanted the spotlight. And now that she's America's most popular starlet? She can have it. But when Gran - the feisty woman who raised us - has a huge party to celebrate her 90th birthday, Juliet brings the Hollywood madness straight to Maryland. In the form of my ultimate movie-star crush, Ryan McDonnell. I can barely form a sentence around the guy. And I definitely can't get over the fact that he's Juliet's new boyfriend. Because I almost believe him when he tells me we have a chance together.

Matthew Harrison has only one task in life: to marry money. After failing miserably in London, his family takes matters into their own hands by arranging his marriage to the wealthy Lucy Bateman. But when he meets Lucy for the first time, his resolve to save his family from ruin crumbles. Lucy looks to be nothing more than a child, and he cannot fathom going through with the union. Without a thought for the consequences of his actions, he runs away.

When my best friend asked me to serve as her Man of Honor, of course I said yes. A trip to Vegas for the week before her wedding and then on to the Florida Keys for the nuptials was an added bonus. The icing on the cake was her brother, Colt. I didn't expect anything to happen. He's almost 10 years older, aloof, mysterious, and devastatingly handsome. All the time I spent fantasizing about his powerful muscles, piercing eyes, hungry mouth, and grasping hands leave me tongue-tied and stammering every time I see him.

The critically acclaimed debut novel from Stephen Chbosky, Perks follows observant "wallflower" Charlie as he charts a course through the strange world between adolescence and adulthood. First dates, family drama, and new friends. Sex, drugs, and The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Devastating loss, young love, and life on the fringes. Caught between trying to live his life and trying to run from it, Charlie must learn to navigate those wild and poignant roller-coaster days known as growing up.

What does it mean to be a Jew? At a time of worldwide crisis, venerable answers to this question have become unsettled. In To Be a Jew Today, the legal scholar and columnist Noah Feldman draws on a lifelong engagement with his religion to offer a wide-ranging interpretation of Judaism in its current varieties. How do Jews today understand their relationship to God, to Israel, and to each other—and live their lives accordingly?

An arranged marriage was never what Callum Darrington, future Duke of Edinbane, imagined for himself. But with the wellbeing of his uncle’s family hanging in the balance, Callum strikes a bargain with his father and reluctantly agrees to tie himself to a stranger. The reality of the lovely Lady Katherine is more than he could have hoped for, and their wedding heralds a bright new future for the couple — until Callum discovers his father deliberately deceived him. Callum lashes out, setting in motion heartbreak not even he could have foreseen.

As with many self-destructive kids, Noah Levine's search for meaning led him first to punk rock, drugs, drinking, and dissatisfaction. But the search didn't end there. Having clearly seen the uselessness of drugs and violence, Noah looked for positive ways to channel his rebellion against what he saw as the lies of society. Fueled by his anger at so much injustice and suffering, Levine now uses that energy and the practice of Buddhism to awaken his natural wisdom and compassion.

Skeeve is just settling into his duties as court magician of Possiltum and his training as sorcerer’s apprentice to Aahz, his scaly green demon mentor, when Aahz is suddenly called back to his home dimension on family business. Skeeve figures he can handle things on his own for a while, but then King Roderick convinces Skeeve to use his powers of illusion to take the king’s place while Roderick takes a little “vacation”. That’s when Hemlock, the ruthless, ambitious queen of a powerful neighboring nation, turns up to fulfill her part in an arranged marriage with Roderick.

When trying to save a woman from slavers, Sam screwed up. Royally. Now Linda wants nothing to do with him. Or with BDSM. She won't even admit she's a masochist. As a dominant and sadist, he can give her what she needs, and when an opportunity arises he slips into her life, intending to make amends. She's everything he knew she would be...except for her bullheaded determination to be "normal".

After a decade of captivity, Darcy MacCormac escapes the corrupt, clandestine organization called the Scythe, leaving family and friends behind. She must find a way to rescue them. Discovered by other shifters, the brand-new cougar gets two mentors. Blademage Gawain is an easygoing blacksmith with a steel-hard core. His brother, Owen, is a deadly warrior. Grumpy. Rude. And he doesn’t like her.

Lord Benning is no ordinary nobleman. The heir to an earldom, he feels more at home working on the farm at his country estate than socializing in the ballrooms of London. So when a mysterious, veiled woman mistakes him for a farmhand, he takes the assumption in stride. And though he is not offended, he is intrigued.

Z’s day begins with sadness. A phone call from a dying friend leaves psychologist Zachary Grayson determined to fulfill the old survivalist’s request - a send-off that will comfort his grieving sons. And then, it turns deadly. The death threat is only the beginning because the letter isn’t a hoax. Z walks out of his office into a barrage of bullets. He can take being shot at, but when the second shot splinters the empty child seat in his car, he’s shaken to the core. The horror of what would have happened if his little girl had been there spurs him to action.

Her life destroyed by a stalker, Uzuri Cheval starts anew in Tampa and joins the exclusive Shadowlands club. Unconvinced of her claims that she can overcome her fear of big men without help, Master Z gives her a time limit. And she is improving - until she hears the stalker is out of prison. Now her time limit is up, and the Masters will intervene, which is okay - as long as whoever helps her is short. Okay, sweet and gentle would be good, too. But two Doms? Dangerously experienced and dauntingly powerful cousins? No way.

Incremental improvement is no longer sufficient in helping organizations navigate the complexity, uncertainty, and volatility of today's world. In Change, authors John P. Kotter, Vanessa Akhtar, and Gaurav Gupta explore how to create non-linear, dramatic change in your organization. You'll discover the emerging science of change that teaches us about how to build organizations - from businesses to governments - that change and adapt rapidly.

Relationships are a thing of the past for Eva Montgomery. Her current motto? You can’t spell “manipulative” without man. But Eva has needs, and a one-night-stand at her best friend’s wedding is the perfect way to kick off her new approach to singledom. Then a job opportunity puts her in the same city with the guy she can’t forget....

With his men scattered to all corners of the globe after a disastrous secret op in Russia, Lieutenant Commander Scott Taylor is trying to find out who was responsible for leaking the information that killed half his platoon. Were it not for Natalie Andersson, the woman he'd been secretly dating in the Pentagon who'd warned him of the danger, he knows they'd all be dead. Scott is devastated when he hears the woman he loved and hoped to marry has been killed for helping him - until he learns Natalie was the spy who betrayed them. But then he finds a very-much-alive Natalie....

A remarkable analysis linking the assassination of JFK and 9/11, and how both events were used to influence war policy. Peter Dale Scott examines the many ways in which war policy has been driven by “accidents” and other events in the field, in some cases despite moves toward peace that were directed by presidents. This book explores the “deep politics” that exerts a profound but too-little-understood effect on national policy outside the control of traditional democratic processes.