Showing results by narrator "Michael Butler Murray" in All Categories

The scene is the children's ward of a great hospital, and the story of a profoundly moving account of a young doctor's involvement in the life of Mary Berquam, an enchanting 11 year old girl affected with leukemia. He learns how to be a better, more compassionate doctor from this child.

In a conversational Q&A format, a leading dog expert answers the most commonly asked questions about how dogs think and act. Do dogs dream? Can they recognize themselves in the mirror or understand what they’re seeing on television? Are they more intelligent than cats? People have a great curiosity - and many misunderstandings - about how dogs think, act, and perceive the world. They also wonder about the social and emotional lives of dogs. Stanley Coren brings decades of scientific research on dogs to bear in his unprecedented foray into the inner lives of our canine companions, dispelling many common myths in the process.

Under the current administration, not only are the civil rights of foreigners in jeopardy, but those of U.S. citizens. A public defender for 29 years, Steven Wax interweaves the stories of two men that he represented: Brandon Mayfield, an American-born lawyer and family man, arrested as a suspected terrorist after a fingerprint was incorrectly traced back to him by the FBI; and Adel Hamad, a Sudanese hospital administrator taken from his apartment to a Pakistani prison and then flown in chains to the United States military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

In Full Upright and Locked Position, former FAA chief counsel and senior aviation policy official Mark Gerchick unravels the unseen forces and little-known facts that have reshaped our air travel experience since September 11, 2001. With wry humor and unique insight, Gerchick takes us past the jargon, technicalities, and all-is-well platitudes to expose the new normal of air travel: from the packed planes and myriad hassles of everyday flying to the alchemy of air fares, the airlines' endless nickel-and-diming, and the elusive hope of escape from steerage.

New York City in the 1970s is a dark, dangerous, and threatening place. One of the bright spots in this decaying metropolis is Paul Konig. As the city’s chief medical examiner, he has developed an impressive reputation for his skills in forensic pathology - skills that will be put to the ultimate test when a dangerous psychopath kidnaps Konig’s daughter. Herbert Lieberman takes his readers on a gruesome journey through the ten most difficult days in the life of a man at the very end of his rope.

Explaining the world around us, and the life within it, is one of the most uniquely human drives, and the most celebrated activity of science. Good explanations are what provide accurate causal accounts of the things we wonder at, but explanation's earthly origins haven't grounded it: we have used it to account for the grandest and most wondrous mysteries in the natural world. Explanations give us a sense of understanding, but an explanation that feels right doesn't mean it is true.

Theirs is a fight to right the wrongs inflicted on them by "the white settlers." They know they are too small to take on the entire country, but they don't need to. Over a few tension-filled days as the battles rages over abundant energy resources, the frantic prime minister can only watch as the insurrection paralyzes the country. But when energy-dependent Americans discover the southward flow of Canadian hydroelectricity, oil, and natural gas is halted, they do not remain passive.

On Monday, August 30, 1920, the S-Five, the newest member of the U.S. Navy's fleet of submarines, departs Boston on her first cruise. Two days later, as part of a routine test of the submarine's ability to crash dive, her crew's failure to close a faulty valve sends 75 tons of seawater blasting in. Before the valve can be jury-rigged shut, the S-Five sits precariously on the ocean floor under 180 feet of water. They have little air, no water, and only the dimmest of light by which to plan their escape.

In the early 17th century, a crippled, graying, almost toothless veteran of Spain's wars against the Ottoman Empire published a novel. It was the story of a poor nobleman, his brain addled from studying too many novels of chivalry, who deludes himself that he is a knight errant and sets off on hilarious adventures. That story, Don Quixote, went on to sell more copies than any other book beside the Bible, making its author, Miguel de Cervantes, the single most-read author in human history.

American democracy has become coin operated. Special interest groups increasingly control every level of government. The necessity of raising huge sums of campaign cash has completely changed the character of politics and policymaking, determining what elected representatives stand for and how they spend their time.

This book seeks to provide a guided examination of what unites and divides the Jewish, Christian, and Islamic communities. With over 25 years of experience teaching in the subject area, Dr. Fritz Wenisch begins to unravel this complex and often contentious topic by first discussing the legal injunctions applying to religious studies courses at secular U.S. universities. He investigates the type of monotheism each religion shares before providing an in-depth overview of each religion, one by one.

In May 1866, just a year after the Civil War ended, Memphis erupted in a three-day spasm of racial violence that saw whites rampage through the city's black neighborhoods. By the time the fires consuming black churches and schools were put out, forty-six freed people had been murdered. This is a portrait of a Southern city that opens an entirely new view onto the Civil War and its aftermath. A momentous national event, the riot is also remarkable for being "one of the best-documented episodes of the American nineteenth century."

The first fifty years of America's most popular spectator sport have been strangely neglected by historians claiming to tell the "complete story" of pro football. Well, here are the early stories that "complete story" has left out. What about the awful secret carried around by Sid Luckman, the Bears' Hall of Fame quarterback whose father was a mobster and a murderer? Or Steve Hamas, who briefly played in the NFL then turned to boxing and beat Max Schmeling, conqueror of Joe Louis?

Regretting his affair with a Republican journalist, Ralph becomes caught in the middle of a political controversy when his former lover's tell-all book is published, and then Bill is murdered, leaving Ralph the prime suspect in the crime.

Physical infrastructure in the United States is crumbling. The American Society of Civil Engineers has, in its latest report, given American roads and bridges a grade of D and C+, respectively, and has described roughly 65,000 bridges in the United States as 'structurally deficient'. This crisis - and one need look no further than the I-35W bridge collapse in Minnesota to see that it is indeed a crisis - shows little sign of abating short of a massive change in attitude amongst politicians and the American public.

Early in his career, Dan Beaver discovered that people were never taught how to develop an intimate relationship. We are taught how to read, how to write, drive, play sports, and use a computer. But nowhere in our society are we taught how to develop or maintain an intimate relationship. Most of us learned from TV shows. Some generations were taught by Ozzie and Harriet Nelson or Ward and June Cleaver. Other generations learned from their favorite soap operas, or maybe The Waltons, Cliff and Clair Huxtable, Roseanne, Friends, or 7th Heaven.

Essential for armchair umpires and scorekeepers, this guide challenges aficionados on every significant part of the Official Baseball Rules. Few sports lovers are as obsessed with rules and statistics as baseball fans. In So You Think You Know Baseball?, lifelong baseball enthusiast Peter E. Meltzer catalogues every noteworthy baseball rule from the Major League rulebook and illustrates its application with actual plays, from the historical to the contemporary. You can listen to the book from start to finish or consult it while watching a game to understand the mechanics of a play or how it should be scored.

Tom Daschle and Trent Lott are two of the most prominent senators of recent time. Both served in their respective parties' leadership positions from the 1990s into the current century, and they have almost 60 years of service between them. Their congressional tenure saw the Reagan tax cuts, a deadlocked Senate, the Clinton impeachment, 9/11 and the Iraq War. Despite the tumultuous times, and despite their very real ideological differences, they have always maintained a positive working relationship.

Through extensive interviews with the closest friends, lovers, and relatives of Onassis and the Kennedys, longtime journalist Evans has uncovered the shocking culmination of the Kennedy-Onassis-Kennedy love triangle: Aristotle Onassis was at the heart of the plot to kill Bobby Kennedy. Meticulously tracing Onassis's connections in the world of terrorism, Nemesis presents compelling evidence that he financed the assassination - including a startling confession that has gone unreported for nearly three decades.

 Multi-Family Millions offers expert advice for investors who want to make the transition from single-family homes to more profitable multi-family units. Successful real estate investor David Lindahl shows you how to find troubled properties that are ripe for quick profits, how to fix or flip those properties, and how to resell at maximum value. With a proven step-by-step system for managing each stage of the process, this book shows you how to get started in moneymaking multi-family units - even while you work your day job.