Showing results by narrator "Ax Norman" in All Categories

Sequestered in the blackness of the dreaded Tower of High Sorcery in Palanthas, surrounded by nameless creatures of evil, Raistlin Majere weaves a plan to conquer the darkness - to bring it under his control. Crysania, a beautiful and devoted cleric of Paladine, tries to use her faith to lead Raistlin from the darkness. She is blind to his shadowed designs, and he draws her slowly into his neatly woven trap. Made aware of Raistlin’s plan, a distraught Caramon travels back in time to the doomed city of Istar in the days before the Cataclysm.

Chris Von der Ahe knew next to nothing about baseball when he risked his life’s savings to found the St. Louis Browns, the franchise that would become the St. Louis Cardinals. Yet the German-born beer garden proprietor would become one of the most important - and funniest - figures in the game’s history.

On the night of April 17, 1945, Allied planes dropped 111 bombs on the Burghers' Brewery in Pilsen, Czechoslovakia, destroying much of the birthplace of pilsner, the world's most popular beer style and the best-selling alcoholic beverage of all time. Still, workers at the brewery would rally so they could have beer to toast their American, Canadian, and British liberators the following month. It was another twist in pilsner's remarkable story.

The Icewall: Cold, forbidding, remote, it stands like a dim white cloud on the very edge of sight. There Kerrick, an elf from the golden woods of Silvanesti, has been sent, an exile in disgrace. There too, a band of barbarian villagers make their stand against the remnants of an ogre empire that is determined to once again rule the frozen wastes. In the first book of this thrilling trilogy, Douglas Niles takes his listeners to a land that most in Krynn have heard of only in legen - the legend of the Icewall.

We can’t avoid the persistent questions about the meaning of life—and the nature of reality. But science is the only means of answering them. So declares philosopher Alex Rosenberg in this bracing, surprisingly sanguine take on a world without god. The science that makes us nonbelievers, he demonstrates, tells us the nature of reality, the purpose of everything, the difference between right and wrong, how the mind works, even the direction of human history.

One hundred years have passed since the fiery Cataclysm that changed the face of Krynn forever. For one hundred years, the people of Krynn have struggled to survive. But for some, those one hundred years have passed in the blink of an eye. Catapulted forward in time by Raistlin’s powerful magic, Caramon and Crysania find themselves aiding the mage’s unholy quest to master the Queen of Darkness. To his dismay, Raistlin discovers along the way that the annals of Time are not so easily bent to his will. Neither are the longings of his heart.

Get out of the firefighting business and into the business of developing the people who develop your profits. Successful salespeople rightfully become sales managers because of superior sales records. Yet too often these sales stars get stuck doing their old sales job while also trying to juggle their manager role, and too often companies neglect to train their sales managers how to excel as managers. That's the "sales management trap", and it's exactly what The Accidental Sales Manager addresses and solves.

Based on his extensive experience as coach and mentor to many thousands of Christian leaders across a broad spectrum of ministry settings, Reggie McNeal helps spiritual leaders understand that they will self-select into or out of greatness. In this important book, McNeal shows how great spiritual leaders are committed consciously and intentionally to seven spiritual disciplines, habits of heart and mind that shape both their character and competence.

How did salesforce.com grow from a start-up in a rented apartment into the world's fastest growing software company in less than a decade? Marc Benioff, the visionary founder, chairman, and CEO of salesforce.com, tells how he and his team created and used new business, technology, and philanthropic models tailored to this time of extraordinary change.

The tree is decorated, the cookies are baked, and the packages are wrapped, but the biggest celebration this Christmas is Gaby Summerhill's wedding. Since her husband died three years ago, Gaby's four children have drifted apart, each consumed by the turbulence of their own lives. They haven't celebrated Christmas together since their father's death, but when Gaby announces that she's getting married - and that the groom will remain a secret until the wedding day - she may finally be able to bring them home for the holidays. But the wedding isn't Gaby's only surprise....

What would it take?That was the question that Geoffrey Canada found himself asking. What would it take to change the lives of poor children, not one by one, through heroic interventions and occasional miracles, but in big numbers, and in a way that could be replicated nationwide? The question led him to create the Harlem Children's Zone, a 97-block laboratory in central Harlem where he is testing new and sometimes controversial ideas about poverty in America.

The promise of green jobs and a clean energy future has roused the masses. But as Robert Bryce makes clear in this provocative book, that vision needs a major re-vision. We cannotand will notquit using carbon-based fuels at any time in the near future for a simple reason: they provide the horsepower that we crave. The hard reality is that oil, coal, and natural gas are here to stay.

Defying the fate that claimed his evil predecessor, Raistlin opens the Portal to the Abyss and passes through. With Crysania at his side, he engages the Queen of Darkness in a battle for the ultimate prize - a seat among the gods. At the same time, Caramon and Tasslehoff are transported to the future. There they come to understand the consequences of Raistlin’s quest - and Caramon at last realizes the painful sacrifice he must make to prevent his brother’s success.

Sangamon Taylor's a New Age Sam Spade who sports a wet suit instead of a trench coat and prefers Jolt from the can to Scotch on the rocks. He knows about chemical sludge the way he knows about evil - all too intimately. And the toxic trail he follows leads to some high and foul places. Before long, Taylor's house is bombed, his every move followed, he's adopted by reservation Indians, moves onto the FBI's most wanted list, makes up with his girlfriend, and plays a starring role in the near-assassination of a presidential candidate.

Becoming a Category of One reveals how extraordinary companies do what they do so well and gives you the tools and ideas to help your business emulate their success. Packed with real case studies and personal reflections from successful business leaders, it helps you apply the best practices of the best companies to set yourself apart from your competitors and turn your business into a market leader.

Towering aloof and secure, the isolated fortress offers humankind a place to survive and flourish in the barren realm of Icereach. Even the elven Messenger Kerrick Fallabrine has made a home there, living among the humans and teaching them a multitude of skills. But the ogre enemies are always near, and they have developed a powerful weapon, a destructive magic encased within a sphere of solid gold. Its existence forces the humans to confront the threat of extinction that lurks outside their walls.

When he purchased four acres of land on Vashon Island, Kurt Timmermeister was only looking for an affordable home near the restaurants he ran in Seattle. But as he slowly settled into his new property, he became awakened to the connection between what he ate and where it came from: a hive of bees provided honey, a young cow could give fresh milk, an apple orchard allowed him to make vinegar.

For most of us, traveling means visiting the most beautiful places on Earth - Paris, the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canyon. It’s rare to book a plane ticket to visit the lifeless moonscape of Canada’s oil sand strip mines, or to seek out the Chinese city of Linfen, legendary as the most polluted in the world. But in Visit Sunny Chernobyl, Andrew Blackwell embraces a different kind of travel, taking a jaunt through the most gruesomely polluted places on Earth.

The dwarven realms of Krynn are slumbering, locked in mountain fastness, removed and aloof from the affairs of the world. But the world has a way of finding someone when it needs them. A wealthy aristocratic dwarf from Kayolin is forced to flee his home. A gully dwarf from Thorbardin is lucky to escape his own city with his life. And a brilliant and impetuous descendant of the once-mighty Hylar wonders what failures have steered her people onto a path of self-destruction.

In 1884, Providence Grays pitcher Charles "Old Hoss" Radbourn won an astounding 59 games - more than anyone in major-league history ever had before, or has since. He then went on to win all three games of baseball's first World Series. Fifty-nine in '84 tells the dramatic story not only of that amazing feat of grit but also of big-league baseball two decades after the Civil War - a brutal, bloody sport played barehanded, the profession of uneducated, hard-drinking men who thought little of cheating outrageously or maiming an opponent to win.