Showing results by narrator "Scott Aiello" in All Categories

Speed: the most demonized - and misunderstood - drug in the land. Deprived of the ingrained romantic mysticism of the opiate or the cosmopolitan chic of cocaine or the mundane tolerance of marijuana, there is no sympathy for this devil. Yet speed - crystal meth, amphetamines, Dexedrine, Benzedrine, Adderall; crank, spizz, chickenscratch, oblivious marching powder, the go-fast - is the most American of drugs: twice the productivity at half the cost, and equal opportunity for all.

Central Park is perhaps the most well-trod and familiar green space in the country. It is both a refuge from the city and Manhattan's very heart; a respite from the urban grind and a hive of activity all its own. Eight hundred forty-three carefully planned acres allow some 37 million visitors each year to come and get lost in a sense of nature. Unsurprisingly, the park also inspires a wealth of great writing, and here Andrew Blauner collects some of the finest fiction and nonfiction - 20 pieces in all.

A mysterious new contagion is decimating the population. It starts in the lungs, like the flu, then moves to the bones, where it weakens and breaks them, eventually killing the host. The disease's origin, methods of propagation and means of contraction are all unknown. There is no vaccine, and none is expected, as the virus is protean and elusive. If it remains unchecked and mutates into a more virulent form, it will become an extinction level event.

What Luck, This Life begins in the aftermath of the space shuttle's break-up, as the people of Piney Woods watch their pastures swarm with searchers and reporters bluster at their doors. A shop owner defends herself against a sexual predator who is pushed to new boldness after he is disinvited to his family reunion. A closeted father facing a divorce that will leave his gifted boy adrift retrieves an astronaut's remains. An engineer who dreams of orbiting Earth joins a search for debris and instead uncovers an old neighbor's buried longing.

To glimpse America’s future, one needs to look no further than its college campuses. Of those institutions, none holds more clout than Yale University, the hallowed “cradle of presidents”. In Sex and God at Yale, recent graduate Nathan Harden undresses perversity among the Ivy and ideology gone wild as the upper echelon of academia is mired in nothing less than a full-fledged moral crisis.

Noah is a kidnapper, hired to buy a baby from a human trafficking ring and smuggle her across the Canadian border for a cool half a million dollars. Eve is a teenage runaway, who takes the infant—and the sack full of cash—away from him. Hester is an outcast, living alone in a backwoods cottage, harboring secrets of her own. When their paths cross, it’s anyone’s guess who’ll come out on top.