Showing results by narrator "Carolyn Cook" in All Categories

Almost every couple faces a "now what?" moment as their last kid moves out of the house. There's a big empty nest looming over this new and uncertain stage in their lives. David and Veronica James chose to look at this next phase of life as a beginning instead of an ending. Rather than staying put and facing the constant reminders of empty bedrooms and backseats, a plan began to develop to sell the nest and hit the highway.

Recently divorced, Merilee Talbot Dunlap moves with her two children to the Atlanta suburb of Sweet Apple, Georgia. It's not her first time starting over, but her efforts at a new beginning aren't helped by an anonymous local blog that dishes about the scandalous events that caused her marriage to fail.

Like the savory, simple dishes she favored, M. F. K. Fisher's writing was often "short, stylish, concentrated in flavor, and varied in form", writes Joan Reardon in her introduction to this eclectic, lively collection. Magazine writing launched and helped to sustain Fisher's long, illustrious career and in these 57 pieces, we experience again the inimitable voice of the woman widely known to have elevated food writing to a literary art.

Gathering journals, letters, translations, and selections from her many books, The Measure of Her Powers showcases Fisher's versatility, providing new listeners and loyal fans alike with a sampler from her wide-ranging body of work. M. F. K. Fisher is a perennial literary favorite. Her evolution from an uncertain young woman to a feisty elder with opinions about everything continues to fascinate listeners who understand the complexities of life's hungers.

Yoga is thought of by many as a fitness hobby—a gentler alternative to SoulCycle and CrossFit—but its underlying philosophy offers much more than a good workout. Yoga can relieve stress, focus the mind, and provide a path to reinvention, resilience, and a meaningful life. In Beyond the Mat, physician, executive, and yoga instructor Julie Rosenberg reveals how the essential lessons of the four-thousand-year-old Yoga Sutras contain a relevant framework in which to thrive both personally and professionally.

On April 15, 1912, Lydia Beaumont is on her way to a new life with a boundless hope in love and faith. Her new friendship with Caroline Chadwick is bonded even more as they plan Lydia's wedding on board the "grandest ship ever built." Then both women suffer tragic losses when the "unsinkable" Titanic goes down. Can each survive the scars the disaster left on their lives? Decades later, Alan Morris feels like a failure until he discovers he is the descendant of an acclaimed, successful, heroic novelist who went down with the Titanic.

Unformed Landscape begins in a small village on a fjord in the Finnmark, on the northeastern coast of Norway, where the borders between Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia lie covered in snow and darkness, where the real borders are between day and night, summer and winter, and between people. Here, a sensitive young woman like Kathrine finds few outlets for her desires. Half Norwegian, half Sami (an indigenous people), Kathrine works for the customs office inspecting the fishing boats arriving regularly in the harbor.

A crossroads for the people of Europe and the Mediterranean, Marseille is a city that does not discriminate. It embodies the down-and-dirty, tough-guy side of France, but what it lacks in sophistication, it makes up for in spirit. Still, in its shadows lurks a not-so-distant darkness....

Kaat is ready to marry her girlfriend Stone. They live together in Paris, are both pursuing their careers, and have even talked about having a baby. Then a motorcycle accident disrupts Kaat's plans, and she is confronted by flaws in their seemingly perfect life and a secret that could destroy everything.

Our current system of higher education dates to the period from 1865 to 1925, when the nation's new universities created grades and departments, majors and minors, in an attempt to prepare young people for a world transformed by the telegraph and the Model T. As Cathy Davidson argues in The New Education, this approach to education is wholly unsuited to the era of the gig economy.

Barbara Gordon is a self-reliant, divorced mom, brilliant at managing her life with lists and spreadsheets. Lately, though, the demands of a teenage daughter, a manipulative sister, and a mother with worsening Alzheimer’s are more than she can handle. Then Barbara meets Jack, an appealing older man married to a late-stage dementia patient who no longer knows him. Jack and Barbara hold the power to make each other happy...but only if Barbara can break her long cycle of romantic abstinence.

Maria lives alone in a cramped house, but she is perfectly content with her quiet life. At 39 years old, she has a successful career as a social worker, maintains friendly but distant relationships with coworkers, and enjoys her favorite Mozart in her spare time. But with the arrival of a bright-eyed new employee and a tragic anniversary, Maria's peaceful world seems on the verge of crumbling.

Rosie is not like other girls - in fact, she's not like other people. Each day she swells like a balloon, shrinking back to human size only after the sun has set. A funny and sentimental story, She Waxes While We Wane will give listeners new perspective on what it means to be different.

It's summer, Ian's mother is dying of cancer, and he must contend all on his own with the onslaught of puberty, the Southern heat, and his confusing desire for his friend, Harbin. His discovery of an adolescent shark sets in motion a deep violence that brings Ian's quickly evolving world into sharp focus.

In their third critically acclaimed collection of original fairy tales for adults, World Fantasy Award-winning editors Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling present 21 new stories by some of the top names in literature today. Dark, disturbing and delightful, each story was written expressly for this superb collection of distinctly grown-up fantasy - a brilliant companion volume to Datlow and Windling's acclaimed anthologies, Snow White, Blood Red, and Black Thorn, White Rose.

Twin gynecologists are found dead in their trash-littered Upper East Side Manhattan apartment. Who killed them? And why? Based on a true story that Linda Wolfe was the first journalist to write about, her novel explores the mystery behind the deaths of these wealthy and prominent doctors, and the dark and perverse secret that ruled their lives - one that they tried desperately to hide until the final moments of their deaths.

With contributions from celebrity and "ordinary" parents alike, each story speaks to the range of emotions and experiences of all types of parents - single parents, foster parents, parents of adopted children, or part of a two-parent family with biological children. By sharing the personal experiences of others, this book will offer inspiration and advice to parents going through a difficult time, provide reassurance to those who worry that they’re not living up to the Supermom or Superdad ideal....

In Magnolias, Sweet Tea, and Exhaust, Carole Townsend goes to ground with NASCAR, following the races at Southern tracks from one to the next, learning about the sport and the culture of NASCAR as she goes. Townsend meets and interviews top drivers as well as some of NASCAR’s rising stars, legends, team owners, pit crews, and fans.

From Paris in 1939, a young Mireille follows her artist husband, Abel, when he returns to Germany to care for his mother. Once Hitler begins his invasions across Europe the displaced couple must find a way to survive the war in a country they both consider foreign. Abel finally takes work, but it requires extensive travel through the war zones, and so Mireille is left essentially alone. With France lost to her, and horribly misfit in wartime Germany, suspected by her neighbors of spying for the Allies, Mireille has to define a life for herself, a life that is as quiet as possible in a dangerous world.

In the aftermath of a devastating loss, Cal and Jenny Horigan's marriage is unraveling. Both are plagued by guilt, unable to seek comfort from one another. Burdened by remorse, they begin to lose sight of the love that once anchored them-together with their sense of right and wrong.As the Horigans try different ways to deal with their pain, a new acquaintance seems to offer the support they desperately need-though at times they are unsure whether his guidance is leading them back to each other or further apart...