Tag: Talking

Posted on by — 3 Comments

Talking to the Dead: A Novel

A mesmerizing and thrilling novel – perfect for fans of Tana French and Stieg Larsson – that introduces a modern, unforgettable rookie cop whose past is as fascinating and as deadly as the crimes she investigates.

She knows what it’s like….

At first, the murder scene appears sad, but not unusual: a young woman undone by drugs and prostitution, her six-year-old daughter dead alongside her. But then detectives find a strange piece of evidence in the squalid house: the platinum credit card of a very wealthy – and long dead – steel tycoon. What is a heroin-addicted hooker doing with the credit card of a well-known and powerful man who died months ago? This is the question that the most junior member of the investigative team, Detective Constable Fiona Griffiths, is assigned to answer.

But D.C. Griffiths is no ordinary cop. She’s earned a reputation at police headquarters in Cardiff, Wales, for being odd, for not picking up on social cues, for being a little overintense. And there’s that gap in her past, the two-year hiatus that everyone assumes was a breakdown. But Fiona is a crack investigator, quick and intuitive. She is immediately drawn to the crime scene, and to the tragic face of the six-year-old girl, who she is certain has something to tell her…something that will break the case wide open.

Ignoring orders and protocol, Fiona begins to explore far beyond the rich man’s credit card and into the secrets of her seaside city. And when she uncovers another dead prostitute, Fiona knows that she’s only begun to scratch the surface of a dark world of crime and murder. But the deeper she digs, the more danger she risks – not just from criminals and killers but from her own past…and the abyss that threatens to pull her back at any time.

Posted on by — 3 Comments

Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls, and Everything in Between

In this collection of personal essays, the beloved star of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood reveals stories about life, love, and working as a woman in Hollywood along with behind-the-scenes dispatches from the set of the new Gilmore Girls, where she plays the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore once again.

In Talking as Fast as I Can, Lauren Graham hits ‘pause’ for a moment and looks back on her life, sharing laugh-out-loud stories about growing up, starting out as an actress, and, years later, sitting in her trailer on the Parenthood set and asking herself, ‘Did you, um, make it?’ She opens up about the challenges of being single in Hollywood (‘Strangers were worried about me; that’s how long I was single!’), the time she was asked to audition her butt for a role, and her experience being a judge on Project Runway (‘It’s like I had a fashion-induced blackout’).

In ‘What It Was Like, Part One’, Graham sits down for an epic Gilmore Girls marathon and reflects on being cast as the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore. The essay ‘What It Was Like, Part Two’ reveals how it felt to pick up the role again nine years later and what doing so has meant to her.

Some more things you will learn about Lauren: she once tried to go vegan just to bond with Ellen DeGeneres; she’s aware that meeting guys at awards shows has its pitfalls (‘If you’re meeting someone for the first time after three hours of hair, makeup, and styling, you’ve already set the bar too high’); and she’s a card-carrying REI shopper (‘My bungee cords now earn points!’).

Including photos and excerpts from the diary Graham kept during the filming of the recent Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, this book is like a cosy night in, catching up with your best friend, laughing and swapping stories, and – of course – talking as fast as you can.

Posted on by — 3 Comments

The Whole Town’s Talking: A Novel

The bestselling author of Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe is at her superb best in this fun-loving, moving novel about what it means to be truly alive.

Elmwood Springs, Missouri, is a small town like any other, but something strange is happening at the cemetery. Still Meadows, as it’s called, is anything but still. Original, profound, The Whole Town’s Talking, a novel in the tradition of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and Flagg’s own Can’t Wait to Get to Heaven, tells the story of Lordor Nordstrom, his Swedish mail-order bride, Katrina, and their neighbors and descendants as they live, love, die, and carry on in mysterious and surprising ways.

Lordor Nordstrom created, in his wisdom, not only a lively town and a prosperous legacy for himself but also a beautiful final resting place for his family, friends, and neighbors yet to come. “Resting place” turns out to be a bit of a misnomer, however. Odd things begin to happen, and it starts the whole town talking.

With her wild imagination, great storytelling, and deep understanding of folly and the human heart, the beloved Fannie Flagg tells an unforgettable story of life, afterlife, and the remarkable goings-on of ordinary people. In The Whole Town’s Talking, she reminds us that community is vital, life is a gift, and love never dies.

From the Hardcover edition.

Posted on by — 3 Comments

Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between)

In her first work of nonfiction, the beloved star of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood recounts her experiences on Gilmore Girls – the first and second times – and shares stories about life, love, and working in Hollywood. This collection of essays is written in the intimate, hilarious, and down-to-earth voice that made her novel, Someday, Someday, Maybe, a New York Times best seller.

“This book contains some stories from my life: the awkward growing up years, the confusing dating years, the fulfilling working years, and what it was like to be asked to play one of my favorite characters again. You probably think I’m talking about my incredible achievement as Dolly in Hello, Dolly! as a Langley High School junior, a performance my dad called ‘you’re so much taller than the other kids.’ But no! I’m talking about Lorelai Gilmore, who, back in 2008, I wasn’t sure I’d ever see again. Also included: tales of living on a houseboat, meeting guys at awards shows, and that time I was asked to be a butt model. A hint: all three made me seasick.” (Lauren Graham)

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Talking as Fast as I Can: From Gilmore Girls to Gilmore Girls (and Everything in Between)

In this collection of personal essays, the beloved star of Gilmore Girls and Parenthood reveals stories about life, love, and working as a woman in Hollywood—along with behind-the-scenes dispatches from the set of the new Gilmore Girls, where she plays the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore once again.
 
In Talking as Fast as I Can, Lauren Graham hits pause for a moment and looks back on her life, sharing laugh-out-loud stories about growing up, starting out as an actress, and, years later, sitting in her trailer on the Parenthood set and asking herself, “Did you, um, make it?” She opens up about the challenges of being single in Hollywood (“Strangers were worried about me; that’s how long I was single!”), the time she was asked to audition her butt for a role, and her experience being a judge on Project Runway (“It’s like I had a fashion-induced blackout”).
           
In “What It Was Like, Part One,” Graham sits down for an epic Gilmore Girls marathon and reflects on being cast as the fast-talking Lorelai Gilmore. The essay “What It Was Like, Part Two” reveals how it felt to pick up the role again nine years later, and what doing so has meant to her.
           
Some more things you will learn about Lauren: She once tried to go vegan just to bond with Ellen DeGeneres, she’s aware that meeting guys at awards shows has its pitfalls (“If you’re meeting someone for the first time after three hours of hair, makeup, and styling, you’ve already set the bar too high”), and she’s a card-carrying REI shopper (“My bungee cords now earn points!”).
           
Including photos and excerpts from the diary Graham kept during the filming of the recent Gilmore Girls: A Year in the Life, this book is like a cozy night in, catching up with your best friend, laughing and swapping stories, and—of course—talking as fast as you can.

From the Hardcover edition.

Posted on by — 2 Comments

You Are a Badass Talking Button: Five Nuggets of In-Your-Face Inspiration

In her refreshingly blunt New York Times bestseller You Are a Badass, Jen Sincero served up hilariously inspiring stories, sage advice, and the occasional swear word, all with the goal of helping readers reverse self-sabotaging behaviors and create a life they love. You will love this badass kit, which includes an 88-page mini abridgement of Sincero’s irreverent guide and a Badass Button for your desk, kitchen, or bedroom that spouts inspiring messages in Sincero’s own voice. It’s the perfect anytime reminder that “You are a badass!”

Posted on by — Leave a comment

Daddy, Stop Talking! CD: And Other Things My Kids Want But Won’t Be Getting

The comedian, actor, television host, podcast king, and New York Times bestselling author of President Me, Not Taco Bell Material, and In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks now lays down the law on the plight of the modern parent.

Parents, do you often think that if your kids had to grow up the way you did—without iPads, 70-inch flatscreen TVs, American Girl dolls, and wifi in the climate controlled minivan—that they might actually be better off? Do you feel underappreciated or ignored? Do you worry you’re raising a bunch of spoiled softies who will never know how to do anything themselves—because you do everything for them? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you need Daddy, Stop Talking.

Adam rips parenthood a new one, telling it straight about what adults must do if they don’t want to have to support their kids forever. Using his own crappy childhood as a cautionary tale, and touting the pitfalls of the kind of helicopter parenting so pervasive today, Daddy, Stop Talking is the only parenting book you should ever read. Here, too, is sage advice to Adam’s own kids—and to future parents—on what matters most: dating; drinking and drugs; buying your first house and car; puberty; and what kind of assholes his kids (and yours) should avoid becoming. Even if his own son and daughter pretty much ignore everything he says, you shouldn’t. And you’re welcome. Again.

Posted on by — 3 Comments

Talking to Terrorists: Understanding the Psycho-Social Motivations of Militant Jihadi Terrorists, Mass Hostage Takers, Suicide Bombers & Mart

This is an account of traveling through the West Bank and Gaza, into the prisons of Iraq, down the alleyways of the Casablanca slums, to Chechnya, into the radicalized neighborhoods of Belgium, the UK, France and the Netherlands, of sitting with the hostages of Beslan and Nord Ost, and of talking to terrorists. Dr. Speckhard gives us the inside story of what puts vulnerable individuals on the terrorist trajectory and what might take them back off of it. With more than four hundred interviews with terrorists and their friends, family members and hostages, Dr. Speckhard is one of the few experts to have such a breadth of experience. She visited, and even stayed overnight, in the intimate spaces of terrorists’ homes, interviewed them in their stark prison cells, or met them in the streets of their cities and villages. Dr. Speckhard gives us a rare glimpse of terrorists within their own contexts. From the mouths of terrorists, their family members, comrades-and even their hostages, we learn of the manipulation of human weakness that can lead to violent acts. Through careful research of culture and religion and a genuine desire to understand the factors that motivate individuals to embrace terrorism, Dr. Speckhard deftly defines the lethal cocktail that leads to the creation of a terrorist. An internationally recognized expert on the psychological aspects of terrorism and an expert in the area of posttraumatic stress disorder, Dr. Speckhard’s research also produces a knowledge of how to disengage, deradicalize, rehabilitate, and reverse the trajectory of a terrorist. Dr. Speckhard’s studies spanning over a decade provide us with a deeper understanding of one of the most dangerous and violent phenomena of our times.

Posted on by — 2 Comments

Talking to Nightlights: Channeling Energy and Awakening for Spiritual Insight

When a nightlight speaks and only you can understand it, do you listen or pretend that your imagination is merely playing tricks? In this revitalizing spiritual guide, follow a woman’s inspirational journey and learn the power that can be harnessed by losing fear and suspending disbelief.

After witnessing her nightlight “talking” to her through a series of blinks, Wendy Garrett chose to defy logic and pay attention to the message. Her decision led her on a startling journey of self-discovery—a metamorphosis from an external and distant relationship with the source of life and the divine to a fully integrated awareness of the ever-present nature of all that is sacred and holy.

Divided into two sections, Talking to Nightlights explores Garrett’s coming to terms with being a channel for the force she calls “Energy” and reveals its hidden messages. But even more importantly, this revolutionary guide presents a new, expanded worldview on a more mystical level. By allowing ourselves to step back from what we perceive as reality and open our minds to the possibility of the unknown, our outlook upon the manifest world will be forever changed.