Showing results by narrator "Linda Jones" in All Categories

There are a host of neuroscientific explanations for why laughter makes us feel so great. Laughter triggers "feel good" chemicals in the brain which activate opiate receptors throughout your body and mind. Creating a workplace culture in which laughter is not only allowed but expected is an important step in building the trust, openness, authenticity, storytelling, and teamwork (TOAST) that are essential to any healthy collaborative environment.

A brilliant young philosophy student bent on seducing her famous philosopher-mentor finds herself outmaneuvered; diabolically clever high school girls wreak a particularly apt sort of vengeance on sexual predators in their community; a woman stalked by a would-be killer may be confiding in the wrong former lover; a young woman is morbidly obsessed by her unfamiliar new role as “mother.” In the collection’s longest story, a much-praised cutting-edge writer cruelly experiments with “drafts” of his own suicide.

What if every terrible thing imagined came true? Every fleeting, nightmarish thought a reality? For grief-stricken Karina, her newfound ability to turn her worst daydreams into palpable truths has sent her into a downward spiral of depression and guilt. Coupled with the appearance of an enigmatic shadow figure and visions of her dead family, she grapples to maintain her sanity while desperately attempting to harness her abilities and reunite with her loved ones.

On July 16, 1945, just weeks before the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that brought about the surrender of Japan and the end of WWII, the US unleashed the world's first atomic bomb at the Trinity testing site located in the remote Tularosa Valley in New Mexico. In The First Atomic Bomb Janet Farrell Brodie explores the history of the Trinity test and those whose contributions have rarely been discussed—the men and women who constructed, served, and witnessed the first test—as well as the downwinders who suffered the consequences of radiation.

States of Health identifies the practical relevance of federalism to people facing ethical decisions about health and health care, and it considers the theoretical justifications for permissible differences among states. It asks whether authority over important aspects of health is misaligned in the United States today, with some matters problematically left to the states while others are taken over by the federal government.

Racial Emotion at Work is an invitation to understand our own emotions and associated behaviors around race—and much more. With this surprising and timely book, Tristin K. Green takes us beyond diversity trainings and other individualized solutions to discrimination and inequality in employment, calling for sweeping changes in how the law and work organizations treat and shape racial emotions.

Tragedy strikes America’s darling three-year-old Thoroughbred, Hyperion, when he’s injured in a Kentucky Derby qualifying race. Doctors Mark Thurman and Claire Hodgson are asked to treat his broken limb using their revolutionary fracture-healing methods, but when former experimental subjects begin developing a life-threatening form of cancer, the rescue plan is halted. Then, a serendipitous discovery suggests a new drug made from a rare plant source might be a cure. A flicker of hope is kindled for Hyperion and the stricken patients.

Unraveled is a tale of chaos and near-death experiences that shares personal and private moments and the intense challenges and grueling work it takes to get sober and remain sober. It’s a unique story of a mother and son’s journey that ends with on-your-knees epiphanies that leave both parent and child asking for help. This tandem narrative is a compelling testimony of bravery and honesty that, with edgy and surprising humor, charts a family’s slow climb out of the abyss of pain into the full power of faith, redemption, and healing.

Maggie Caine and her family leave New York to visit the Caine family home, an old farmhouse in Ohio, which her husband has just inherited from a distant aunt. The house, 10 miles away from the nearest neighbor, was once owned by a Civil War general reputed to have been a Satanist. But when strange and terrible things begin to happen, it soon becomes clear that satanic worship is still alive and well in the community, and so might be the general, who Maggie suspects is taking possession of her teenage son.

Hilarious and colorful episodes in the lives of families, many depicted from a kid's-eye-view, are the theme for this compilation. Being part of a family is often trying, and stranger than any fiction, but never dull and always worth it in the end. Join these very different families as they face the shrinking of parents, the pre-emptive guilt of First Confession, the secret worlds of children, and more!

Inclusion, Inc.: How to Design Intersectional Equity into the Workplace moves beyond having tough conversations to deliver an innovative and proven approach to organizational diversity. Eschewing the "mindset-first" approach taken by many diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs, author and GEN founder Sara Sanford focuses on countering the systemic barriers that abet inequity by adjusting "cultural levers" to facilitate organization-wide change. The book offers sustainable and cost-effective solutions that yield real, measurable returns.

A transplant to the upstate New York hamlet of Sylvan, all Laney wants is a peaceful life for herself and her son. But things rarely remain calm in her life - and when her neighborhood summer block party explodes in shocking violence and ends with the disappearance of two women - including her friend - she’ll need all her skills as a PI to solve a mystery that reaches far beyond her small town.

Addiction is the perpetual epidemic, where swarms of human moths flutter to the flames of hell. Because that warm blanket of a heroin high, that joyful intoxication of a pint of vodka, that electric energy from a line of cocaine, over time leaves you with a cold loneliness and a bitter heart. Relationships destroyed, bodies deteriorate, loved ones lost, yet the craving continues for that which is killing us—living, as the title suggests, like an Orphan of Bliss.

The year is 1980. On a former French Plantation east of Chanthaburi, a very exclusive gathering brings together five extraordinary women. Stories were their business, and Gilda was at the top of the heap. There wasn’t a war she hadn’t reported, a scandal she hadn’t uncovered or a bestseller list she hadn’t topped. The Whisky & Ink Ladies Drinking Society numbered only five at any one time, no boys allowed. Its meetings took place every two years. And Claude, daughter of the late Ava Wood, wants in. If things go right, she’ll be initiated into WILDS at the end of the visit.

A series of cataclysmic events are felt around the globe, and throughout the United States the last vestiges of society band together in rag-tag groups to face off against the ghastly horrors of their shattered world. Opposing them is the enigmatic Adam Sigil - a man seemingly able to inflict others with his own darkest fears - and his equally mysterious companion Jelnik. As the world slips into darkness, the survivors of the onslaught struggle with the new normal of their now-dystopian lives amid ongoing skirmishes with mankind’s nightmares.

Femina: A Collection of Dark Fiction explores the horror of womanhood. Or, more accurately, the horror of gender norms and societal expectations placed on women. This collection features work that delves into themes of identity, motherhood, sexuality, and isolation. A mix of Kristen Roupenian’s Cat Person and Other Stories and Carmen Maria Machado’s Her Body and Other Parties: Stories, this collection is a blend of psychological, supernatural, and body horror. Femina looks at the horror of being a woman in a man’s world.

Twenty-five years ago, during a celebratory weekend at historic Whitetail Lodge, Sarah McCaskill had a vision. When a young man was killed, her guilt over having ignored the warning devastated her. Her friendships fell apart as she worked to build a new life in a new city. But she never stopped loving Whitetail Lodge on the shores of Bitterroot Lake. Now that she's a young widow, her mother urges her to return to the lodge for healing. But when she arrives, she's greeted by an old friend - and by news of a murder that's clearly tied to that tragic day she'll never forget.

America's hottest dance reality TV show is taking the show on the road with a three-month tour, followed by a yearlong run at a Vegas hotel. All they need is a new choreographer. Someone experienced, who will shake things up. Someone like dancer Kat Moore…who just happens to be the ex-wife of the show's director, Jason Alright!

Jason will do anything to ensure Kat takes this job. Even if it means playing dirty. He let Kat walk away once before, and this time he's determined to keep her as close as possible - preferably naked in his bed!

Winter in Anchor Point is quiet. Most businesses are closed in the off season, so when Jay organizes a Saint Patrick's Day party at the Shipwreck Cafe, the locals jump at the chance to attend. The party is going great when it is brought to Jay's attention that his brother, Robbie, has disappeared. The celebration is shut down a short while later when Phil Cook, the local jeweler, drops dead on the floor in front of the bar.

Sakima, New York, a sleepy, idyllic city nestled in the Hudson Valley, a place where everyone knows each other, families look after the highly prized community garden, and the crime rate is so low that Dr. Laura Powell, the police department’s medical examiner, spends most of her time tending to her own private medical practice. That changes drastically the day a local high school student is found dead, an apparent suicide. Called in to perform the autopsy, Laura uncovers a strange growth inside the body that leads to a horrifying discovery.