Showing results by narrator "Fred Stella" in All Categories

This audiobook explains how regular people can infuse significance into the second half of their lives, before achieving financial independence and without abandoning their first-half career. You don't have to be rich to find a life of significance.

Centuries ago, Venice celebrated the Day of All Souls by building a bridge of boats across the canal to the cemetery island of San Michele. As the tourist season winds down, the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini decides it's time to revive the tradition, organizing a fleet so the city can mourn once more as it did in ancient times. Her plans are upended, however, when her latest fascination, a rakish playwright named Bobo, begins receiving anonymous threats.

A mother's job is never done, but in this book she gets the praise she deserves. Children from 8 to 80 share their words of gratitude and appreciation in this new collection of stories for moms. Daughters and sons relate tales of love and learning, celebrating moms, their wisdom, and all that they do. These stories of special memories, loving and hard lessons, unforgettable moments, laughter and tears, and support and encouragement will bring any mom joy, inspiration, and amusement.

Each of the sisters of the Charity of Santa Crispina chooses a different way to die. Some relax into the arms of death, eager for their eternal rewards. Some leave this world violently, screaming in pain as they take their last breaths. The convent is a severe place, its rooms spartan, its food bland. But the time has come for Carnival in Venice, and a tourist will take any room he can find.

Samuel Possle is Venice's oldest expatriate, a reclusive former playboy whose hedonistic youth would make the perfect subject for a book - that is if any writer could make him talk.

Christmas. It should be the most anticipated day of the year. Instead, we dread the shopping, baking, spending, and stress. Best-selling author Ace Collins wants to help you rediscover the joy and peace of the holiday season. Discover how this Christmas can be the happy, joy-filled celebration you’ve always dreamed of!

The stories in Chicken Soup for the Soul will encourage listeners to stay upbeat, because there's always a brighter way to look at life. This collection includes 30 Stories about play, what's important, and belief.

What is the value of a college degree? The four-year college experience is as American as apple pie. So is the belief that higher education offers a ticket to a better life. But with student-loan debt surpassing the $1 trillion mark and unemployment of college graduates at historic highs, people are beginning to question that value. In College (Un)Bound, Jeffrey J. Selingo, editor at large of the Chronicle of Higher Education, argues that America’s higher education system is broken.

Wen Ho Lee, a patriotic American scientist born in Taiwan, had devoted almost his entire life to science and to helping improve U.S. defense capabilities. He loved his job at Los Alamos National Laboratory and spent his leisure time fishing, cooking, gardening, and with his family. Then, suddenly, everything changed and he found himself in the spotlight, accused of espionage by members of Congress and the national media and portrayed as the most dangerous traitor since the Rosenbergs.

Blessed with uncanny deductive skills and a blasé disregard for authority, Matt Bolster was a rising LAPD homicide detective by the age of 35. He was also overworked, near-alcoholic, and miserable. Then, to impress a girl, he agreed to try yoga. Now Bolster has traded his badge for a three-day stubble and the life of an itinerant yoga teacher, dabbling in PI work to make rent. He mostly handles missing-persons cases, credit-card fraud - nothing too messy. But that's before Ajoy Chaterjee, the wealthy mogul behind one of the world's leading yoga-business empires, is found murdered inside his West L.A. flagship studio.

A practical book for youth ministers, pastors, parents, and teachers who want to teach prayer to teenagers. The book includes short, meditative chapters that provide listeners with the appropriate history, theology, pedagogy, and examples for introducing teens to the life of prayer.

A mother's job is never done, but in this book she gets the praise she deserves. Children from 8 to 80 share their words of gratitude and appreciation in this new collection of stories for moms. Daughters and sons relate tales of love and learning, celebrating moms, their wisdom, and all that they do. These stories of special memories, loving and hard lessons, unforgettable moments, laughter and tears, and support and encouragement will bring any mom joy, inspiration, and amusement.

I've long wanted to put together a motivation book - I get emails and comments from readers every day in need of motivation to reach a goal, to stay focused, to exercise, to be productive, to just get up off their butts and do something. But I wanted to add something, add value greater than I already offer on Zen Habits. And so I turned to Eric Hamm of the Motivate Thyself blog, and found the perfect partner for this book. Eric writes about motivation all the time - it's the lifeblood of his blog, and what he lives every day.

There is a curse on Point Vestal. Time moves differently in this sleepy Northwestern coastal town, where the ghosts of the past roam the streets as readily as the living inhabitants. It's still the late 19th century, and underneath the quaint touristy allure of the commingling of the past and present is a lurking darkness.

For two years Urbino Macintyre has been away from his beloved city, wandering the streets of Morocco in search of material for his next book. When he steps off the train and into a gondola in Venice, he knows he has come home. His first stop is to see his beloved friend, the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini, a society butterfly who has two years of gossip stored up for him. But the contessa is not her usual lively self. She is being blackmailed, and only Macintyre can help.

Did you hear? The company is planning to downsize another ten percent? They're going to drop health benefits from the retirement plan! Our department is being moved to another state! We've all heard similar, disconcerting rumors. But when you're offered an early-retirement package and two weeks to decide, what do you do next?

The Contessa da Capo-Zendrini is one of the leading lights of Venice society, but there is one house where she has long been unwelcome. Her late husband's family, the Zenos, have loathed her since the 1930s, when a gathering at her palazzo ended in tragedy. Decades later she hits on a devilish plan to make amends: inviting the Zeno clan over for a house party to make up for the one that ended in bloodshed long ago. But soon after her guests arrive, murder strikes again.

As snow falls on Venice, turning the city into an elaborate gothic confection, Gaby Pindar fears for her life. Crippled by intense agoraphobia, she hasn't left her family home in two decades, instead dedicating herself to tending to the small collection of historical trinkets that make up the family museum. When she begins receiving death threats, she begs for help from her cousin, the Contessa da Capo-Zendrini, whose friend, Urbino Macintyre, is something of an amateur sleuth. But the search takes a gruesome turn when Gaby's sister, Olimpia, turns up dead.

In a remote Venice church, a dead woman named Santa Teodora lies before the altar. She has been there for centuries, ever since the Crusaders carried her mummified body away from the Holy Land, and she is as much a part of this mysterious city as the Grand Canal. Urbino Macintyre, an American expatriate who makes a living writing biographies of legendary Venetians, believes he knows every detail of Teodora's legend, but another chapter is about to be added to her myth.

More than a meditation book, Quiet Mind is a series of reflections that can illuminate every aspect of life. It offers readers guidance on using the moments between activities - which the author calls "stillpoints" - as opportunities to focus on becoming more fully awake to who they are.