Showing results by narrator "Christa Lewis" in All Categories

Paris, 1940. The City of Light has fallen under German Occupation. Among patriotic Parisians, the pursuit of art, culture, and jazz have become bold acts of defiance. So has forbidden romance for talented and spirited Jewish teenager Annette Zelman and dashing young Catholic poet Jean Jausion. Despite their devout families' vehement opposition, the young couple finds acceptance at the famed Cafe de Flore, whose habitues include Simone de Beauvoir, Jean-Paul Sartre, Pablo Picasso, Django Reinhardt, and other luminaries of the Latin Quarter's creative world.

This Very Short Introduction explores the philosophical ideas and political theories belonging to one of the most important thinkers of the twentieth century. As a survivor of the Holocaust, Arendt's life informed her work exploring the meaning and construction of power, evil, totalitarianism, and direct democracy. Dana Villa explains how Arendt gained world-wide fame with the publication of The Origins of Totalitarianism, and went on to have a distinguished career as a political theorist and public intellectual.

Young, brash, and impulsive, Rune backs up a brag by ascending Skull Hill to play fiddle for the malevolent spirit that resides there, striking a bargain with the ghost to surrender her soul if he tires of her playing before sunrise.

The Orca Job was supposed to set them all up for life, but it did not go according to plan. They lost their money, they lost their ship, and some of them lost their lives—the survivors scattering in a storm of recriminations. Ten years later, no one is who they were...and some are not what they seem. But Strange's son, Cayce, wants to put the gang back together to rescue his father, currently held captive. As if uniting the club isn't enough of a challenge, they also need major resources, and the only way they know how to acquire them is by falling into old habits.

A magical murderer is loose in Alanda. The victims are always women, always lower-class, and the weapon is always a three-sided stiletto, most often found among Church regalia. But the killers are never churchmen, and they always commit suicide immediately after the bloody deed. Tal Rufen is just a simple constable. But he really cares about his job, and when one of these murder/suicides happens on his beat, he becomes obsessed. His superiors don't care. But every instinct Tal Rufen has cries out that he has seen only one small piece of a bigger and much nastier puzzle.

When Loren meets Jack, she’s sure he’s the man she’s been waiting for - a perfect husband and father for her young daughter. Shortly after their wedding, their plans to start a life together are put on hold when the couple receives word that Jack’s father has died. In an effort to appease her new husband, Loren invites her mother-in-law, Coralee, to stay with them while she grieves. When strange things begin to occur just after her arrival, Loren questions how much she knows about the woman she invited into her home.

Three young Jewish sisters from Leipzig, Germany huddle together in the cold darkness of night waiting for their smugglers to rescue them and bring them to freedom in Belgium. Their mother, in a state of shock following Kristallnacht, is left behind, sedated in a psychiatric hospital. November 1938 begins the four year ordeal of the seven member Kroch family who endure unfathomable conditions in their fight for survival: imprisonment in French internment camps, hiding in a tiny tool shed, and adapting to the deplorable conditions of a Nazi prison.

The first-ever comprehensive history of Beringia, the Arctic land and waters stretching from Russia to Canada, Floating Coast breaks away from familiar narratives to provide a fresh and fascinating perspective on an overlooked landscape. The unforgiving territory along the Bering Strait had long been home to humans - the Inupiat and Yupik in Alaska, and the Yupik and Chukchi in Russia - before Americans and Europeans arrived with revolutionary ideas for progress. 

Some women capture our attention like no others. Faith Bacon and Sally Rand were beautiful blondes from humble backgrounds who shot to fame behind a pair of oversize ostrich fans, but with very different outcomes. It was the golden age of American entertainment, and Bacon and Rand fought their way through the competitive showgirl scene of New York with grit and perseverance. They played peek-a-boo with their lives, allowing their audiences to see only slivers of themselves. Little is known about who they really were, until now.

Germany, 1946: Emmy Clarke is a librarian not a soldier. But that doesn’t stop the Library of Congress from sending her overseas to Germany to help the Monuments Men retrieve and catalog precious literature that was plundered by the Nazis. The Offenbach Archival Depot and its work may get less attention than returning art to its rightful owners, but for Emmy, who sees the personalized messages on the inside of the books and the notes in margins of pages, it feels just as important.

Charlotte Kraus would follow Angelika Haas anywhere. Which is how she finds herself in an underground club one Friday night the summer before World War II, dancing to contraband American jazz and swing music, suddenly feeling that anything might be possible. Unable to resist the allure of sharing this secret with Geli, Charlie returns to the club again and again, despite the dangers of breaking the Nazi Party’s rules. Soon, terrified by the tightening vise of Hitler’s power, Charlie and the other Swingjugend are drawn to larger and larger acts of rebellion.

Freemasonry is one of the oldest and most widespread voluntary organizations in the world. Over the course of three centuries, men (and women) have organized themselves socially and voluntarily under its name. This Very Short Introduction introduces the inner activities of freemasonry, and the rituals, symbols, and practices. Looking at the development of the organizational structure of masonry from the local to the global level, Andreas Önnerfors considers perceptions of freemasonry from the outside world and navigates through the prevalent fictions and conspiracy theories.

Kate McGuire’s life was sweet in Manhattan before she lost her restaurant job and fiancé both. But sometimes that’s just the way the cookie crumbles, and soon she finds herself starting from scratch in the island town of Coral Cay, Florida. It has everything she’s looking for: sunny beaches, friendly locals, and a Help Wanted sign in the bakery shop window. Once she convinces the shop’s crusty owner Sam Hepplewhite to hire her, Kate can’t tie on her apron fast enough. Little does she know that trouble, like warm dough, is on the rise.

Everyone says hotshot goalie Luke Jackson is God's gift to girls, but the only girl he wants is his best friend, Malina Hall. He's always known how brilliant she is, but now that he's "accidentally" kissed her, he can't stop thinking about her...or wanting to kiss her again.

Maria von Wedemeyer knows the realities of war. Her beloved father and brother have both been killed on the battlefield. The last thing this spirited young woman needs is to fall for a man under constant surveillance by the Gestapo. How can she give another piece of her heart to a man so likely to share the same final fate? Yet when Dietrich Bonhoeffer, an old family friend, comes to comfort the von Wedemeyers after their losses, she discovers that love isn't always logical.

Pastry chef Kate McGuire is loving life on the laid-back island of Coral Cay, Florida. As junior partner in a bakery renowned for luscious desserts - especially her cookies - life is pretty sweet. So when an old friend arrives and announces a spur-of-the-moment beach wedding, that's just the icing on the wedding cake. But the groom vanishes right as a television crew descends on the town to film a hot-new realty show.

The internationally acclaimed actress Patricia Neal (1926-2010) was a star on stage, film, and television for more than 60 years. She is perhaps best known for her portrayal of Alma Brown in Hud, which earned her the 1963 Academy Award for Best Actress.

Rune: She ran away from an abusive home to become the greatest violinist her world had ever known—and when the Ghost of Skull Hill tried to stop her, she played him to sleep! Robin: No mean musician herself, she must make her own visit to Skull Hill—to recruit the dreadful ghost to their cause. Nightingale: Alone she could accomplish nothing. So she joined forces with T'fyrr, a strange nonhuman with the face of a raptor and the voice of an angelic choir. This unlikely set of heroes had the daunting task of saving the King.

The ideal of a new Germany swept up Sophie Scholl in a maelstrom of patriotic fervor - that is, until she realized the truth behind Hitler's machinations for the fatherland. Now she and other students in Munich, the cradle of the Nazi government, have banded together to form a group to fight for the truth: the White Rose. Risking everything to print and distribute leaflets calling for Germans to rise up against the evil permeating their country, the White Rose treads a knife's edge of discovery by the Gestapo.

For hundreds of years, the City of Light has set the stage for larger-than-life characters-from medieval lovers Heloïse and Abelard to the defiant King Henri IV to the brilliant scientist Madame Curie, beloved chanteuse Edith Piaf, and the writer Colette. In this book, Susan Cahill recounts the lives of 22 famous Parisians and then takes you through the seductive streets of Paris to the quartiers where they lived and worked: the scenes of their greatest triumphs and tragedies, their favorite cafes, bars, and restaurants, and the places where they found inspiration and love.