Buy from our bookstore and 25% of the cover price will be given to a school of your choice to buy more books. *15% of eBooks.
Audiobooks Narrated by David Colacci
Browse audiobooks narrated by David Colacci, listen to samples and when you're ready head over to Audiobooks.com where you can get 3 FREE audiobooks on us
"Revenge is a dish best served cold
When an old college friend leading a religious tour in Assisi asks interpreter Rick Montoya to fill in for their guide who's gone missing, Rick is happy to oblige. He's looking forward to seeing his old friend, and the food and wine of Umbria sound like the perfect reward for a tense translation job he's just completed for the police in Palermo involving witness testimony against the mafia.
But when the shady tour guide is found dead the next morning under suspicious circumstances, Rick's relaxing gig turns into an unofficial job assisting the local police inspector with her interviews of the tour group members. Could one of the pious pilgrims be a cold-blooded killer? Or has one of the victim's many shady dealings finally caught up with him?
For fans of Martin Walker and Donna Leon, Best Served Cold takes listeners on a delicious excursion through the Umbrian hills as Rick leads his tour—and the police investigation—to a killer conclusion."
"'An armchair travelers delight' —Publishers Weekly
One dead art collector and a gallery of suspects. This romantic weekend just turned deadly . . .
Translator Rick Montoya is looking forward to a quiet weekend away with his girlfriend, Betta, an art fraud investigator for the Italian Culture Ministry. Their destination: the beautiful village of Urbino, home to Renaissance masters Rafael and the lesser-known Piero della Francesca. While Betta does have official business to attend to—namely, collecting a priceless Piero drawing from a wealthy Spanish collector on the ministry's behalf—she asks Rick to join her 'in case she needs an interpreter,' but with other, less-official intentions in mind.
When the Spaniard is found murdered and the drawing stolen, Betta must shift back into art cop mode, and Rick's official services are required after all. As they set out to discover the identity of the killer and the whereabouts of the stolen sketch, they are drawn from Urbino's cobbled streets to eastern Tuscany and back as the list of suspects grows longer—and more dangerous. Will this lovers' getaway literally be to die for?"
"Rick Montoya, eager to experience more of his Italian mother's culture, heads to Rome to start his own translation business. He's armed with curiosity and an appetite for local food and wine.
Rick's maternal uncle is a Roman cop with one eye to his nephew's welfare and another to how Rick might be useful, perhaps widen his career choices. So Commissario Piero Fontana pulls Rick into an investigation: the murder of Count Umberto Zimbardi.
The wealthy count enjoyed indulging a circle of convivial friends and a hobby collecting oral histories by interviewing residents in the city's centro storico. After heading home from such an afternoon, he was found dead on a bridge over the Tiber.
As a newcomer and an investigator, Rick makes rookie mistakes. He's learning the ropes as an amateur sleuth and that living in Rome is different from visiting. Plus he's distracted by a woman pressing him into service as an Italy tour guide and the arrival of a college friend on a mission to sell Argentine wine to the Vatican. But there's a dangerous countdown at play, and Rick needs to solve the case before the unthinkable happens."
"Explore the good, the bad, and the ugly of the United States history
Looking for the essentials of more than 200 years of United States history? Starting at the early civilizations, U. S. History For Dummies covers the growing pains of a new nation. Brush up on the major wars, from fighting against each other to fighting the world. And discover the major people and events that shaped the country. Stay in the know, with coverage of timely topics like climate change, Covid, and the January 6th Capitol riot. Then, when you're ready, challenge yourself with free online chapter quizzes. With history covering the start of the U. S. to the 2024 election, learn how this nation came to be what it is today.
● Hear engaging accounts of the major events in the history of the United States
● Learn about important historical figures who shaped the nation
● Discover the background of the big issues that Americans face
● Explore important wars and iconic cultural moments
● FREE one-year access to chapter quizzes online!"
"On June 14, 1863, US Major General John Adams Dix received the following directive from General-in-Chief Henry Halleck: 'All your available force should be concentrated to threaten Richmond, by seizing and destroying their railroad bridges over the South and North Anna Rivers, and do them all the damage possible.' With General Robert E. Lee and the Army of Northern Virginia marching toward Gettysburg and only a limited Confederate force guarding Richmond, Halleck sensed a rare opportunity for the Union cause.
In response, Dix, who had lived a life of considerable public service but possessed limited military experience, gathered his men and began a slow advance. During the ensuing operation, 20,000 US troops would threaten the Confederate capital and seek to cut the railroads supplying Lee's army in Pennsylvania. To some, Dix's campaign presented a tremendous chance for US forces to strike hard at Richmond while Lee was off in Pennsylvania. To others, it was an unnecessary lark that tied up units deployed more effectively in protecting Washington and confronting Lee's men on Northern soil. Newsome offers an in-depth look into this little-known Federal advance against Richmond during the Gettysburg Campaign. The first full-length examination of Dix's venture, this volume delves into military operations at the time and addresses related concurrent issues."
"A NEW SEMESTER BEGINS
A beguiling, sinister collection of twelve more dark academia short stories from masters of the genre, including Olivie Blake, Genevieve Cogman, MK Lobb, and more!
Twelve original dark academia stories from bestselling thriller writers—imagine darkened libraries, exclusive elite schools, looming Gothic towers, charismatic professors, illicit affairs, the tang of autumn in the air . . . and the rivalries and obsessions that lead to murder.
Featuring stories from: Olivie Blake, Genevieve Cogman, Ariel Djanikian, Elspeth Wilson, MK Lobb, Jamison Shea, Kate Alice Marshall, Erica Waters, De Elizabeth, Taylor Grothe, Kit Mayquist, and Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé."
"A revelatory portrait of Robert S. McNamara, informed by newly discovered diaries, letters, and interviews with those closest to him.
Robert S. McNamara was widely considered to be one of the most brilliant men of his generation. While he could be cold and arrogant, he was an invaluable friend to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson as US secretary of defense and had a deeply moving relationship with Jackie Kennedy. McNamara was the leading advocate for American escalation in Vietnam during the summer of 1965, strongly urging Johnson to send hundreds of thousands of American ground troops just weeks before he concluded that the war was unwinnable. For the next two and a half years, despite his doubts, he failed to urge Johnson to cut his losses and withdraw.
In McNamara at War, Philip and William Taubman examine McNamara’s life of intense personal contradictions. They trace his career from a young faculty member at Harvard Business School and his World War II service to his leadership of the Ford Motor Company and the World Bank. McNamara at War is a portrait of a man at war with himself―riven by melancholy, guilt, zealous loyalty, and a profound inability to admit his flawed thinking about Vietnam before it was too late."
"Joseph Smith Jr. (1805–1844) was one of the most successful and controversial religious leaders of nineteenth-century America, publishing the Book of Mormon and starting what would become the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He built temples, founded a city-state in Illinois, ran for president, and married more than thirty women. This self-made prophet thrilled his followers with his grand vision of peace and unity, but his increasingly grandiose plans tested and sometimes shattered their faith.
In this vivid biography, John G. Turner presents Smith as a consummate religious entrepreneur and innovator, a man both flawed and compelling. And he relentlessly advanced doctrines that tapped into anxieties about the nature and meaning of salvation, the validity of miracles, the timing of Christ's second coming, and the persistence of human relationships for eternity. His teachings prompted people to gather into communities, evoking fierce opposition from those who saw those communities as theocratic threats to republicanism.
With insights from newly accessible diaries, church records, and transcripts of sermons, Turner illuminates Smith's stunning trajectory, from his beginnings as an uneducated, impoverished farmhand to his ultimate fall at the hands of a murderous mob."
"Since the Reagan era, conservatives in the United States have championed cutting taxes, especially for wealthy individuals and corporations, as the best way to achieve economic prosperity. In his new book, Pay Up!, John L. Campbell shows that while these claims are highly influential, they are also wrong. Using historical and cross-national evidence, the book challenges and refutes every justification conservatives have made for tax cuts—that American taxes are too high; they hurt the economy; they facilitate government waste; they constitute an unfair downward redistribution of income; and they threaten individual freedom—and conversely shows that countries can actually benefit from higher taxes, especially when tax increases fall most heavily on those most able to pay them. Through clear prose and a well-reasoned argument, Campbell's book provides an accessible, engaging, and much-needed perspective on the role of taxes in American society."
"The revolutions that raged across Europe and the Americas over seven decades, from 1760 to 1825, created the modern world. Revolutionaries shattered empires, toppled social hierarchies, and birthed a world of republics. But old injustices lingered on and the powerful engines of revolutionary change created new and insidious forms of inequality.
In The Age of Revolutions, historian Nathan Perl-Rosenthal offers the first narrative history of this entire era. Through a kaleidoscope of lives both familiar and unknown—from John Adams, Toussaint Louverture, and Napoleon to an ambitious French naturalist and a seditious Peruvian nun—he retells the revolutionary epic as a generational story. The first revolutionary generation, fired by radical ideas, struggled to slip the hierarchical bonds of the old order. Their failures molded a second generation, more adept at mass organizing but with an illiberal tint. The sweeping political transformations they accomplished after 1800 etched social and racial inequalities into the foundations of modern democracy.
A breathtaking history spanning three continents, The Age of Revolutions uncovers how the period's grand political transformations emerged across oceans and, slowly and unevenly, over generations."
"In the 1930s, international exchange students in the United States celebrated their Christmas breaks in Florida, enthusiastically engaged in college-aged antics, rowdy parties, and the defiance of authorities. In between such mayhem, they admired the beauty of America; quietly discussed their impressions of their host country; and agonized over their future, which would now be reshaped by their study-abroad experiences. These were not typical international college students, however. These students were Nazis.
In Nazis in the New World, Aaron Gillette presents vivid narratives and personal accounts to reveal the unknown history of Nazi German exchange students sent to America in the 1930s. After receiving the Gestapo's stamp of approval, they were instructed to use their charm and charisma to promote the Third Reich. Some also served Hitler as covert operatives against the United States.
Gillette argues that Nazism was an abject failure in the United States, that antisemitism was on the decline, that German espionage in America was a disaster for the Reich, and that FDR and J. Edgar Hoover brilliantly manipulated Nazi blunders to propel America into the war against Hitler and empower the FBI. Meanwhile, numerous German exchange students in the United States were transformed from Nazis into fiercely patriotic Americans."
"New Hampshire's hard and rugged exterior protects one of America's richest native brook trout fisheries. These abundant waters are as varied as the landscape, from Mount Washington to peaceful meadows. The anticipation of the largest mayfly hatch contrasts with the quiet, deep waters of holding pools, and anglers are rewarded when they learn how to read the rivers and streams. Remote areas such as the Perry Ponds may require an entire day, while more accessible waters such as Mink Brook still provide excitement. With more than fifty years of experience, Steve Angers reveals some of his favorite spots and details what it takes to be successful when fishing in the Granite State."
