Showing results by narrator "Stephen Hoye" in All Categories

When planes crash, bridges collapse, and automobile gas tanks explode, we are quick to blame poor design. But Henry Petroski says we must look beyond design for causes and corrections. Known for his masterly explanations of engineering successes and failures, Petroski here takes his analysis a step further, to consider the larger context in which accidents occur. In To Forgive Design he surveys some of the most infamous failures of our time.

The Devil's Advocates shows us the crimes and trials that have captivated the public, cases that illuminate the underlying principles of the American criminal-justice system.

The sinking of the submarine S-51 was one of the greatest tragedies in American naval history. Due to a miscommunication and subsequent collision between the sub and a passing steamship on a September night, the S-51, including 33 of its crew of 36, sank to the ocean depths. The tragedy of the S-51 captivated the nation, and was a fixture in the pages of American newspapers. The story took on a whole new dimension when the navy decided to take over the salvage of the 1,000-ton behemoth from a civilian company.

Mark Kurlansky's new book takes us back to the food of a younger America. Before the national highway system brought the country closer together, before chain restaurants brought uniformity, and before the Frigidaire meant that frozen food could be stored for longer, the nation's food was seasonal, regional, and traditional. It helped to form the distinct character, attitudes, and customs of those who ate it.

When the admiral of the Ottoman fleet defects to the Egyptians, Investigator Yashim attempts to uncover the man's motives. But Fevzi Pasha is no stranger to Yashim: it was Pasha, in fact, who taught the investigator his craft years ago. He is the only man whom Yashim has ever truly feared: ruthless, cruel, and unswervingly loyal to the sultan. What dark secret has led his former mentor to betray the Ottoman Empire?

The water coming out of your tap is four billion years old and might have been slurped by a Tyrannosaurus Rex. We will always have exactly as much water on Earth as we have ever had. Water cannot be destroyed, and it can always be made clean enough for drinking again. In fact, water can be made so clean that it actually becomes toxic. As Charles Fishman brings vibrantly to life in this delightful narrative excursion, water runs our world in a host of awe-inspiring ways, which is both the promise and the peril of our unexplored connections to it.

After nearly a decade in the minors, Dirk Hayhurst defied the odds to climb onto the pitcher's mound for the Toronto Blue Jays. Newly married, with a big league paycheck and a brand new house, Hayhurst was ready for a great season in the Bigs. Then fate delivered a crushing hit. Hayhurst blew out his pitching shoulder in an insane off-season workout program. After surgery, rehab, and more rehab, his major-league dreams seemed more distant than ever.

Brady Coyne never meant to become the private lawyer to New England's upper crust, but after more than a decade working for Florence Gresham and her friends, he has developed a reputation for discretion that the rich cannot resist. He is fond of Mrs. Gresham - unflappable, uncouth, and never tardy with a check - and he has seen her through her husband's suicide and her first son's death in Vietnam. But he has never seen her crack until the day her second son, George, leaps into the sea at jagged Charity's Point.

The people in the car don’t recognize Mary as anything special. They see the skinny ten-year-old as just another young girl on the streets of Brussels, not as the daughter of a US ambassador. The black car stops and Mary, used to having a chauffeur, climbs aboard. Before she knows what’s happening, she is on her way to a mansion in Antwerp with a specially designed, child-sized cell. She has been abducted. Now, a team of FBI agents, along with Europe’s foremost psychological profiler, are on the hunt for the girl’s captors.

Mr. Rogers is the ideal guide for a few neighbors looking to survey a large, wooded piece of property. But the surveying trip goes horribly wrong when Rogers suffers a debilitating heart attack and the group is left wandering lost through the woods, with Rogers a shadow of his former self. Almost immediately, tensions that have existed among the friends since childhood begin to flare up. The forest grows darker. Leadership claims are staked and rescinded. Fears start to overwhelm rational decision-making. Then Rogers starts spouting instructions in what sounds like a mystic cipher.

A wide-ranging and provocative look - teeming with little-known facts and engaging stories - at a subject of the direst interest. Poisons permeate our world. They are in the environment, the workplace, the home. They are in food, our favorite whiskey, medicine, well water. They have been used to cure disease as well as incapacitate and kill. They smooth wrinkles, block pain, stimulate, and enhance athletic ability. In this entertaining and fact-filled audiobook, science writer Peter Macinnis considers poisons in all their aspects. He recounts stories of the celebrated poisoners in history and literature....

An important look at how America has won its wars in the past and how it can continue winning in the future. Is there a recipe for military success? In No Substitute for Victory, author David Rigby grapples with this issue and determines that, in the case of the United States, there are a number of different strategies that have brought victory in battle to American forces over the years.

My favorite line in my favorite song about Dallas goes like this: Dallas is a rich man with a death wish in his eyes / A steel and concrete soul in a warm heart and love disguise... The narrator of Jimmie Dale Gilmore's perfect tune Dallas" is coming to town as a broke dreamer with the bright lights of the big city on his mind. He's just seen the Dallas cityscape through the window of his seat on a DC-9 at night. Is he just beginning his quest?

In a postapocalyptic America, Timothy Carpenter is a teacher in a farming community. When he discovers the farm foreman and other men are stealing food, he reports them to the authorities - an action that could cost him his life.

Eddie Franks had it all: A good family, business success and the respect it brings...and a childhood rivalry he'd never overcome - not even marrying Nicky Scargo's sister had helped. Now Eddie knows he's in trouble: the backers Nicky has brought into Eddie's hotel chain are unquestionably mob, the FBI has accused him of laundering money...and Scargo's been murdered. Eddie Franks has a choice: go to jail or risk his life by testifying.

Years after a war that destroyed America, Sam Monson, the governor of the state of Deseret, negotiates a peace treaty with a woman out of his past - on behalf of the son he left behind.

This story is included in Orson Scott Card's collection The Folk of the Fringe.

David Sears grew up in the shadow of his brilliant younger sister, Diana, convinced by their father that she would accomplish great things. Instead, she married and had a son, Jason, who, like David and Diana's father, is schizophrenic. Her husband, Mark, a geneticist, never made peace with Jason's condition.

Based on a true story, this debut Civil War novel follows a Southern plantation woman's journey of transforming her home into a hospital for the war. This debut novel is based on the true story of Carrie McGavock. During the Civil War's Battle of Franklin, a five-hour bloodbath with 9,200 casualties, McGavock's home was turned into a field hospital where four generals died. For 40 years she tended the private cemetery on her property where more than 1,000 were laid to rest.

Master storyteller Ben Bova continues his multi-volume "Grand Tour" saga chronicling humanity's exploration of near space with Titan, a fast-paced thriller focused on the first manned mission to the Solar System's most intriguing world. Skillfully blending high drama, passionate characters, and daring speculation with the latest discoveries from the current Cassini/Huygens probe of Saturn's moon, Bova has crafted a heart-stopping tale of epic adventure on mankind's next frontier.

At long last, the conclusion to Glen Cook's Dread Empire saga has arrived! King Bragi Ragnarson is a prisoner, shamed, nameless, and held captive by Lord Shih-kaa and the Empress Mist at the heart of the Dread Empire. Far away in Kavelin, Bragia's queen and what remains of his army seek to find and free their king, hampered by the loss or desertion of their best and brightest warriors. Kavelina's spymaster, Michael Trebilcock, is missing in action, as is loyal soldier Aral Dantice.