Phoenix Audio

A Chinese immigrant who is convinced she is dying threatens to celebrate the Chinese New Year by unburdening herself of everybody's hidden truths, thus prompting a series of comic misunderstandings.

How did the whale get his throat? Why was the lazy camel lumbered with a hump? And how did the elephant's insatiable curiosity earn him a trunk? Kipling first invented these delightful stories about the beginning of the world and the first animals in it for his own daughter, Josephine, who tragically died when she was six. Devastated by her loss, Kipling compiled the stories they had shared together into a treasury, which was first published in 1902....

Who is Ruth McBride Jordan? A self-declared "light-skinned" woman evasive about her ethnicity, yet steadfast in her love for her twelve children. James McBride, journalist, musician and son, explores his mother's past, as well as his own upbringing and heritage, in a poignant and powerful memoir. This volume is the autobiography of the author, first published in 1995; it is also a tribute to his mother. The chapters alternate between the author's...

The affluent owner of a historic steam locomotive and private railcar disappears with millions of dollars belonging to Moose county investors. Journalist-detective Jim Quill probes the embezzlement with the aid of his Siamese sleuths, Koko and Yum Yum. The case is complicated by a train wreck and a murder in a railroad tavern. By the author of The Cat Who Could Read Backwards, the book which launched the 17-volume series in 1966.

When Dave Barry is on the loose, no one is safe!
What Dave Barry did for the men’s movement in his Complete Guide to Guys and for foreign relations when he did Japan he now does for . . . everything in America. The rapacious observer of Tupperware ladies and leisure concept salesmen sounds off on:
Football—Football is more than just a game. It is a potential opportunity to see a live person lying on the ground with...

One night in 1995, author Douglas Adams kidnapped an audience and held them hostage for 70 minutes at London's Almeida Theatre. The audience members were subjected to Adams's dramatic solo performances of excerpts and scenes from his wildly funny, wildly popular books The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, and Life, the Universe and Everything. LEARN how to fly! HEAR about Arthur and the Irrational Sofa! GROAN...

A compilation of atheist and agnostic writings by Salman Rushdie, Ian McEwan, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Lucretius, Benedict de Spinoza, Charles Darwin, Karl Marx, Mark Twain, George Eliot, Bertrand Russell, Emma Goldman, H.L. Mencken, Albert Einstein, Daniel Dennet, Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, and others.

Stand-up comic and comedy writer Carol Leifer faced a critical dilemma and had only two options: either continue sharing her greatest childhood memory (seeing the Beatles at Shea Stadium in 1966) or lie about her age. But the choice soon became clear: "I see now that when you deny your age, you deny yourself, and when you lie about your age, you become your inauthentic twin. But most important, when you lie about your age, they win. (And of course...

Dave Barry's greatest hits contains the best of Pulitzer Prize-winning author Dave Barry. In Dave Barry's complete guide to guys includes Barry's quiz to find out whether you are a guy, the valuable contributions that guys have made to the world, tips to help women understand what a guy is really thinking, and the role of guys in history, their biological nature, social development, and special medical concerns.