Showing results by narrator "Paul Hecht" in All Categories

Volume One of Stalin begins and ends in January 1928 as Stalin boards a train bound for Siberia, about to embark upon the greatest gamble of his political life. He is now the ruler of the largest country in the world, but a poor and backward one, far behind the great capitalist countries in industrial and military power, encircled on all sides. In Siberia, Stalin conceives of the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted.

Pulitzer Prize finalist Stephen Kotkin continues his definitive biography of Stalin, from collectivization and the Great Terror through to the coming of the conflict with Hitler's Germany that is the signal event of modern world history.

The Cave and the Light reveals how two Greek philosophers became the twin fountainheads of Western culture, and how their rivalry gave Western civilization its unique dynamism down to the present.

Joachim Neugroschel’s brilliant new translation lets you enjoy the work of Nobel-Laureate Thomas Mann as never before. By using creative, contemporary language, Neugroschel reinterprets Mann for modern English-speaking audiences. The author’s superb literary craftsmanship, his psychological insight, and the deeply erotic content of his work shine forth in this definitive English-language version of some of his most celebrated short works. This collection features the world masterpiece

Death in Venice....

The best-selling author of 20 novels, Philip Kerr has won a devoted following - and there are none more ardent than those who devour his Bernie Gunther series. In 1934, Bernie found himself in Berlin, where he was caught up in intrigue surrounding Hitler, America, and the upcoming Olympiad. Two decades later, Bernie surfaces in Havana. But an old associate has appeared there as well - and might spell trouble of a decidedly deadly nature.

Philip Kerr crafts a thrilling chapter from his critically acclaimed Bernie Gunther series. In Field Gray, Bernie finds himself imprisoned in 1954—and told he can either work for French intelligence or he can hang. Accepting his new job, Bernie begins interviewing POWs returning from Germany. And things get interesting when he meets a French war criminal and member of the French SS who has been posing as a German Wehrmacht officer.

For more than 40 years, communism held eight European nations in its iron fist. Yet by the end of 1989, all of these nations had thrown off communism, declared independence, and embarked on the road to democracy.

Thirty five concerts. Seventeen thousand motorcycle miles. Three months. One lifetime. In May 2015 the veteran Canadian rock trio Rush embarked on their 40th anniversary tour, R40. For the band and their fans, R40 was a celebration and, perhaps, a farewell. But for Neil Peart, each tour is more than just a string of concerts; it's an opportunity to explore backroads near and far on his BMW motorcycle. So if this was to be the last tour and the last great adventure, he decided it would have to be the best one, onstage and off.

In Demolition Angel, he delves into the life-on-the-edge world of the Los Angeles bomb squad. Three years ago, Carol Starkey was one of L.A.'s best bomb squad technicians. Then, a freak accident while disarming a bomb left her scarred inside and out. Now a Detective-2 with the LAPD’s Criminal Conspiracy Section, she is struggling to rebuild her shattered world. When an explosion claims the life of a technician who was a colleague and friend, Carol is assigned to head up the investigation.

Along with a remarkable group of compatriots, including Alice Liddell Hargreaves (the Victorian girl who was the inspiration for Alice in Wonderland), an English-speaking Neanderthal, a WWII Holocaust survivor, and a wise extraterrestrial, Burton sets sail on the magnificent river. His mission: to confront humankind's mysterious benefactors, and learn the true purpose—innocent or evil—of the Riverworld....

On a brutal winter's day in 1650 in Stockholm, Frenchman Rene Descartes, the most influential and controversial thinker of his time, was buried after a cold and lonely deathfar from home. Sixteen years later, the pious French Ambassador Hugues de Terlon secretly unearthed Descartes' bones and transported them to France. Why would this devoutly Catholic official care so much about the remains of a philosopher who washounded from country after country on charges of atheism?

The Barbarossa family’s roots are far more ancient and ethereal, but they are bound to the Gearys by a shared history of murder, insanity, and adultery. When Rachel Geary and Galilee, the seductive prince of the Barbarossa clan, fall in love, they unleash powerful enmities that could destroy both dynasties. Shorter and more conventional than some of Barker’s other work, this novel is especially rich with complex, passionate, three-dimensional characters, lush settings, and elegant language.

Donald Kagan—Yale’s Sterling Professor of Classics and History—delivers a compelling new look at revisionismin Thucydides’ classic History of the Peloponnesian War. To determine how accurate and dispassionate the Athenian general really was, Kagan exposes his epic to an enlightening and thorough analysis. Using contemporary and modern sources, Kagan reveals the exiled aristocrat’sbiases, prejudices, and his clear intention to spin events in his own way.

From the internationally best-selling author of The History of Love comes this stunning novel. Great House follows the multiple owners of one writing desk and how the desk shapes their lives. A young novelist inherited the desk from a poet taken by Pinochet’s police. Then the desk is stolen from her by the poet’s supposed daughter. In its drawers, another man discovers a long-kept secret about his wife....

From New York Times best-selling author Alexander McCall Smith, creator of the phenomenally popular No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency novels and winner of the inaugural Saga Award for Wit, comes the first wonderfully entertaining novel starring Professor Doctor Moritz-Maria von Igelfeld, distinguished philologist, and frequently inept human.

Prolific novelist Stross pauses to collect short stories that have not (yet) been stitched up into his longer work. Stories that move the US - USSR conflict onto a massive disk in another galaxy (Locus Award-winner "Missile Gap"), offer a spam-filter solution to the Fermi paradox ("MAXOS"), and suggest clever bargains with the devil in a newly frozen Scotland ("Snowball's Chance") demonstrate Stross's ability to crisscross genres, blending SF, fantasy, horror, and espionage.

At 36, Quoyle, a third-rate newspaperman, is wrenched violently out of his workaday life when his two-timing wife gets her just desserts. He retreats with his two daughters to his ancestral home on the starkly beautiful Newfoundland coast, where a rich cast of local characters all play a part in Quoyle's struggle to reclaim his life. As three generations of his family cobble up new lives, Quoyle confronts his private demons - and the unpredictable forces of nature and society - and begins to see the possibility of love without pain or misery.

Honore de Balzac's classic book of revenge and passion in which the title character Bette plots the destruction of various men including her cousin-in-law, Baron Hector Hulot. Bette enlists the help of Valérie, an unhappily married young woman, to seduce Hulot, destroy his life, and take his family's fortune.

Maine, 2012. An old man is dying with the weight of a plundered necklace on his conscience. As an US Army Captain in 1946 Salburg, guarding the 'Hungarian Gold Train' full of looted Jewish treasure, he fell in love with camp survivor and helped her escape to Israel. Now, as his granddaughter sets out to repatriate the necklace, secrets buried in the past are uncovered, stories of love and deceit linked to that beautiful, peacock-shaped pendant and to a priceless, long-lost painting.

In the decades since his execution by the Nazis in 1945, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German pastor, theologian, and anti-Hitler conspirator, has become one of the most widely read and inspiring Christian thinkers of our time. Now, drawing on extensive new research, Strange Glory offers a definitive account, by turns majestic and intimate, of this modern icon.