Showing results by narrator "Paul Metcalfe" in All Categories

This audiobook focuses on how artificial intelligence can actually help education in the long run. Instead of censoring ChatGPT and DALLE-2, we should instead incorporate such in our high school and college courses.

This is a bedtime, fun time, "anytime" story about 26 friends, numbers, adjectives, colors, alphabets, and activities. Each of us is that one shiny, red apple, and all we need to do is to inspire the person next to us.

That’s what I’ve been telling myself, but if I’m honest, I’m afraid I miscalculated my ability to withstand pain. After stumbling across a secret so dangerous my enemies would break universal laws to keep it, I formed a plan that would ensure the safety and freedom of my loved ones. But now I’m staring evil in the face, and I don’t think I’ll make it to the next sun's rise. When my savior arrived in the form of a hunky daydream, I thought I must have died. Maybe we aren't exactly fated mate material. But now I’m suffering a different kind of pain.

In "The Prussian Officer", there is an anti-militarism theme, unpopular as the nation drew near to war, and an examination of latent homosexuality as the officer in the story struggles with his feelings for his orderly. The young soldier is driven beyond his breaking point, but finds a kind of redemption in his final return to natural surroundings and, symbolically, he finds equality in death with his tormentor as they are put side by side in the mortuary.

The Woman Who Rode Away is a dark, troubling story set in the wilderness of South America. What makes this story compelling is that the woman is at the end of her personal tether and the Indians are at the end of their cultural one. They seek one another out for terrible but perhaps predictable uses. Each of them looks to the other for "salvation" in a way that expresses the desperation and futility of their situation.

The Man Who Loved Islands is a haunting story of a man who tries to control his life by making his world ever smaller by moving to increasingly smaller islands. Each one proves to be beyond his ability to control either other people or his sexual desire, and finally the last island conquers him. The story can even be seen as a metaphor of man's inexorable march to death, when we are all finally alone.

In this story, Lawrence returns to the scenes of his young manhood with farming scenes and the life he experienced when courting Jessie Chambers at Haggs Farm in Nottinghamshire. Two brothers find love in two different women, both out of the ordinary for farm lads - one a German nanny, the other the wife of a tramp who begs food from the farmers. Both men are redeemed from their rivalry for each other and their suppressed sexuality by the first experiences of love on the same night.

It’s mid-September 1942. A German U-boat, U-156, sinks a converted British ocean liner, HMT Laconia, with just two torpedoes. The captain of the sub is horrified to discover that the troop transport he has just sunk was carrying 1,800 Italian POWs, along with British and Polish passengers and crew. Why the sub captain chooses to launch an operation to rescue his surviving Italian allies is perfectly understandable. But why he also chooses to rescue the British and Polish survivors is truly a mystery.

Masinissa: Ally of Rome resumes the story of the Numidian Prince at a moment when he is beginning to question his alliance with the Carthaginian Empire during the Second Punic War. He has been fighting as a cavalry commander on the Iberian Peninsula for several years, but the fortunes of war and his own clandestine meeting with the Roman consul Scipio Africanus, ostensibly his sworn enemy, has led him to reconsider his loyalties.

Esra Weaver, exo-geologist, is hired for the Kerberos-90 Mining expedition, but when she awakens in her Emergency Egress Pod on a tropical, uninhabited planet, she realizes her life has taken a drastic turn for the worse.

Esra Weaver, exo-geologist, is hired for the Kerberos-90 Mining expedition, but when she awakens in her Emergency Egress Pod on a tropical, uninhabited planet, she realizes her life has taken a drastic turn for the disastrous. "Predator Planet" tries to kill her at every turn. When danger and death converge on her, her hunter becomes her savior, and when her feelings for him evolve, she realizes she must battle not only Predator Planet but also her past to make room in her heart for an unexpected but passionate future.

The Princess of Edinburgh has been kidnapped, and peace talks in Northern Ireland are in danger of falling apart. Princess Jennifer's fate attracts the attention of several international organizations, including the IRA, MI6, and the CIA. While Jennifer finds herself the mistreated prize in an age-old war, no one can expect what happens when the Irish assassin, only known as the Golden Terror, takes an interest in her. With the future of a nation hanging in the balance, the two cross paths and enter a deadly race against time, and some of the most dangerous men in the world.

These are ancient practices that are known to give invaluable insights in how to boost our focus, improve our wellbeing and find inner peace. This book is a comprehensive guide which emphasizes that all you truly need is your breath and an open mind, making these transformative practices accessible to all. Experienced or novice, you will find all the information needed to initiate even the smallest changes, which, however modest, could prove to be invaluable further down the line.

This is the hilarious follow-up to Going Around the Bend on the QE2 where Nick now runs away to America to escape his proctologist. He is welcomed by the American people and delighted to find that they love his accent. As always, the outspoken Nick runs into many situations, some of which would seem to be unbelievable, but they are true: He meets a number of Hollywood stars and has a flaming row with one of them, is interrogated by the FBI, lives with a top model, has a fight with a mobster, and sadly witnesses the Americans' reaction to 9/11!

"In Love" handles a serious subject in a light, almost comic way. A couple are engaged but have no sexual feelings for each other. The tensions, as they try to do what is expected of them, explode until a compromise is reached. But will the marriage last?

Lawrence uses the story of a storm and the deaths it causes to revive the feelings for (if not an actual belief in) the old gods, in this case Mercury whose shrine is ignored by the tourists but who takes his revenge.

"None of That" concerns itself with the nature of desire. The man in the story is no more than an animal with base instincts but is attractive to women. The woman looks for something deeper with imagination, but in the end is brought down by the more instinctive man. Lawrence again seems to be saying that a woman cannot exist beyond the control of a man, however crude, and can only bring unhappiness on herself if she tries to live on her own terms.

Two Blue Birds tells the tale of the classic triangle of the man, the wife and the secretary, who struggle to work out what their relationships are with each other. Neither of the women seem to want the man sexually but the secretary offers devotion while the parasitic wife has more insight into the man and his work. All the relationships seem unhealthy, all three seem to want something different but are incapable of expressing what they desire.

"The Man Who Was Through With the World" picks up the same themes as in Lawrence's short story "The Man Who Loved Islands". He asks if we can ever withdraw from the world, no matter how much it disgusts us. The ironic part of this fragment is that the hermit vainly seeks to think holy thoughts while all around him is the natural world which could provide his life with meaning. The fragment is unfinished, leaving the listener to wonder if the hero would return to the world, if the world would come to him, or if nature would take its course and let him die in his hut.

"The Undying Man" is a slightly unfinished piece, drawing its inspiration from Shelley's Frankenstein about the creation of life and the fear of death. It is interesting to speculate where Lawrence would have gone with the story, but the sound of broken glass is the most likely ending.