"1922. Vivien is twenty-four and a spinster. She wears fashionably droopy clothes, but she is plain and--almost worse--intelligent. At nearly six feet tall, she is known unkindly by her family as "the giantess." Fortunately, Vivien is rich, so she can travel to London and bribe a charismatic gentleman publisher to marry her. What he does not know is that Vivien is pregnant with another man's child and will die in childbirth in just a few months......

East Sussex, 1914. It is the end of England's brief Edwardian summer, and everyone agrees that the weather has never been so beautiful. Hugh Grange, down from his medical studies, is visiting his Aunt Agatha, who lives with her husband in the small, idyllic coastal town of Rye. Agatha's husband works in the Foreign Office, and she is certain he will ensure that the recent saber rattling over the Balkans won't come to anything. And Agatha has more...

In today’s Texas, with its growing urban populations and big-city lifestyles, it is worth remembering that in 1850 only 10 percent of Texans lived in towns with as many as 100 people. The rest—of many ethnic and racial groups—lived off the land, which was blessedly suited to a profitable variety of crops and livestock and also provided an abundance of wildlife free for the taking.  In Texas Roots, C. Allan Jones reminds us that the economic...

It's being called "the forgotten war." With access for journalists limited and dangerous, Yemen—home to the world's worst humanitarian crisis—goes largely ignored. Special correspondent Marcia Biggs was able to enter the country to learn how its people are struggling, with support from the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

An Egyptian crocodile who catches the fancy of the esteemed Emperor Napoleon becomes an instant celebrity in a fancy fountain in Paris. But when someone in the kitchen starts singing the praises of crocodile pie, the resourceful and very hungry reptile escapes by sewer. Narrated by Tim Curry. AudioFile: "Tim Curry's narration is exemplary - a glorious example of the perfect melding of all parts of an audio recording. The musical background is...

-- Tonight on the  (#18),  -- Chicago Parent -- AudioFile